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after, therefore because?



The news stories from this week and a little research into earlier
investigations show a timeline as follows:

1999: large US investigation of internet child porn Operation Avalanche leads
to the raiding and closing down of Landslide Productions, Inc, the portal site
in Texas that processed credit cards for up to 75,000 subscribers.  It
includes links to hundreds of toxic sites, including many based in Russia and
Thailand.

August 2001: US Department of Justice announces the conviction of the operator
of Landslide in a federal court in Texas; he gets something like 1200 years in
prison

Sometime during the above timeframe and Pete's first postings on the subject,
investigators unencrypt the files at Landslide that contain the credit card
details, names, etc. of the subscribers.

Jan. 18, 2002 ADB is first put up on Pete's site.  I haven't seen anyone post
his diary preface to it.  It has always appeared as a .pdf link to a diary
entry.

August 8, 2002 Pete's diary entry points out that U.S. authorities have
forwarded credit card information of UK subscribers to Scotland Yard.
(Operation Ore)  He reposts ADB.

Fall 2002 the undated diary entry [Oct. 18th?] where Pete mentions he has
spoken to someone from Scotland Yard about ease of access to child porn
through Google.  News accounts this week quote his solicitor as saying this
contact took place in October 2002.

So, if as the news stories report, Pete was snared by having his CC details
captured via the earlier US investigation and he only used his CC once, then
it would have to been long before ADB came out.  Does this mean ADB
came"after, therefore because" in the sense of trying to establish an alibi?
I don't know.  He could have entered the site once with his CC way back in '98
or '99 and then ruminated on it in the intervening time....

I'm posting this only because I'm trying to understand it.  Like I said I
support Pete no matter what turns out.  But this already looks to be a long,
tragic story.  The Gary Glitter case took two years from arrest to sentencing.
We pray Pete will never be charged but anything is possible.

Ken in MD