Finding the children

["L. Bird" <pkeets@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Dan at petetownshendwitchhunt:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/technology/09PORN.html?th

Fighting Child Pornography
By JENNIFER 8. LEE


WASHINGTON, Feb. 8  The combination of digital photography and high-speed 
home Internet access has set off what the authorities say is an explosion of 
homemade child pornography in recent years, with growing numbers of victims.

The authorities in this country have responded by compiling a federal 
catalog of all known child pornography photographs. Germany, Britain, 
Sweden, the Netherlands and Interpol already maintain similar databases, 
each with about a million photos and films depicting thousands of children 
worldwide.

The national database, which began processing photos on Jan. 24, has two 
main goals: to help trace the children in the photos, and to aid in 
prosecution by establishing that the photos are of identified victims who 
were under 18 when the pictures were taken.

The identification is in response to a Supreme Court ruling in April that 
overturned the Child Pornography Prevention Act. The court ruled that child 
pornography had to contain photos of actual children, not simply those that 
"appear to be children."

"The kid is out there and was victimized at one time," said Michael 
Netherland, the director of the child exploitation unit at the United States 
Customs Service, who oversaw Operation Hamlet, a yearlong investigation that 
has spread across four continents and resulted in the arrests of 30 people, 
most of them fathers who sexually abused their daughters. Eighteen of the 
arrests were in the United States.

Child pornography can be compared to the narcotics trade, the authorities 
say, in that the effort to stop it emphasizes clamping down on both the 
demand and the supply. Most law enforcement efforts have been aimed at those 
who collect and trade child pornography, such as the 1,300 people swept up 
in a recent campaign in Britain, but do not produce it. The new American 
database will help the authorities catch those who are actually abusing the 
children, the authorities say.

Most national law enforcement databases track criminals and suspects  not 
victims  so officials say they are taking steps to protect the victims' 
privacy. The database will not contain the victims' identities. Instead, it 
will list the law enforcement officers who can testify that the victims are 
real children.

The federal database is managed by the Customs Cybersmuggling Center and is 
a cooperative effort of government agencies and the National Center for 
Missing and Exploited Children.

Most children depicted in child pornography are prepubescent, with most of 
them appearing to be from 6 to 11 years old. Yet many of the victims are 
toddlers or infants. The photos include nude shots as well as depictions of 
rape, sodomy and sadistic abuse.

The government is using image-comparison software to find matches of 
photographs, enabling the authorities to find new victims as well as 
identify them as real children.

A movement is afoot among European law enforcement officials to call the 
photos "child abuse images" instead of "child pornography." The shift is 
supposed to put more attention on the victims in the photos and to eliminate 
the commercial connotation of the word "pornography."

"A lot of people say, `I was just trading pictures,' " said Lars Underbjerg, 
a child pornography investigator with the Danish National Police. "We say, 
`No you weren't. They were child abuse images.' "

The photos are often organized into series of several hundred, many labeled 
with names, real or fictitious, like Helen or Amy or Kevin. Some, contain 
several children, with general names like the KG series, which labels photos 
of what appear to be kindergartners from an unidentified region in northern 
Europe. Some series of photos are known descriptively, like "pink ball," a 
series that depicts a girl with a ball in her mouth. Some series have file 
names assigned by the digital camera.

Typically, people will download pictures posted on Internet bulletin boards 
for pedophiles. People regularly post requests on these bulletin boards 
seeking to complete a particular series of photographs, with names like 
amy173 or kevin049.





"Never doubt that a small number of thoughtful, committed citizens can 
change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret 
Mead.




_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus