Pandora’s Blog

This kind of irks me. It’s legislation like this that, while I agree morally with it, it’s not right and it will jeopardize the ability for the governments to come together and pass rational legislation that will HELP the people.

Here’s a story from Indiana that highlights a bill in the stat legislature that basically takes 4th Amendment rights away from convicted sex offenders. The 4th is your right to be protected from unwarranted search and seizures. This bill basically goes one step further in requiring convicted sex offenders to register their information both on and off line, but it would now allow police to search the computers of sex offenders long after their sentences end. That doesn’t seem right – not without the proper procedure.

Lawsuit challenges sex offender law regarding computers
A state legislator says he is confident that a state law that would allow police to search the computers of sex offenders long after their sentences end will withstand a legal challenge.

Sen. John Waterman, R-Shelburn, said Wednesday that the bill was another way to protect children from sexual predators, in this case those who seek out victims through the Internet.

“There are millions of children who go on those (Internet) chat rooms,” he said. “It’s a huge problem in protecting our youth and we should take any steps needed.”

The Indiana Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a federal lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis challenging the constitutionality of the law.

Waterman’s bill originally had nothing to do with sex offenders. But late in the session, a conference committee inserted several provisions — including the ones dealing with computers — that Waterman said he supported.

Starting July 1, the law will require sex offenders enrolling in the state’s public registry to submit e-mail addresses and user names for instant messaging, chat rooms and social networking sites.

Offenders who provide that information must sign a consent form allowing searches of their computers or other Internet-enabled devices at any time. They must also install software that monitors their Internet activity at their expense.

Those restrictions already are conditions of probation. The ACLU is challenging their use for sex offenders who still must register but have finished serving parole or probation, claiming it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

“These are people who have been restored to all civil rights, and nevertheless the law explicitly requires these free people to give permission to a search of their computers and purchase software and hardware,” Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said Wednesday.

“What this means is that at 2 o’clock in the morning someone can show up and say let me look at the computer,” he said. Falk said the computer might belong to a spouse or someone else living in the residence and include private financial information.

Sex offenders generally must register for 10 years after their release from prison, but some face the restriction for life. Waterman said that the computer provisions would not apply to those who are removed from the sex offender registry.

The state ACLU is seeking class action status and has two plaintiffs. One is a Marion County man using the name “John Doe” who has been convicted of child molesting. The other is a Scott County man who has convictions for child molesting and sexual misconduct with a minor.

Both are required to register for life as sex offenders, the suit says, and have concerns about the privacy of financial and business information on their computers.

It’s not that I think convicted pervs shouldn’t be watched… but to be able to just show up and seize their computer to check it out at any time is a violation o the rights of anyone else using that machine. It’s not cool for someone trying to maybe make amends, get on the right path, and fit back into a normal life to be picked on without any protections afforded them. This is not the middle ages.

Besides, at this point, isn’t it the parents’ job to protect their kids just as much as it is the government’s job to make sure the pervs released back into society behave? If all parents used monitoring software like PC Pandora to be aware of their child’s online actions, there would be no room for kids to get molested by random neighborhood sickos…

I say “random neighborhood sickos” because we all know that most cases of abuse are by family members, relatives or friends of the family.  That is a whole seperate issue all together…

Here’s a nice scary thought… Do you live in Virginia? Well, over the last 2½ years, state officials have received (during undercover investigations) 215,197 Internet child pornography transactions from nearly 20,000 private computers … in the state of VA. And you still think Internet predators and child pornography is just a little thing that is overblown by fearmongerers? … Read this:

Officials Find Child Pornography on 20,000 VA Computers
Fourth-Highest Number Of Offenders in Herndon
By Chris L. Jenkins, Washington Post Staff Writer

Law enforcement officials working undercover were sent child pornography files from nearly 20,000 private computers in the state over a 30-month period, according to a report by an expert on the distribution of Internet child porn.

Those computers accounted for 215,197 Internet child pornography transactions between October 2005 and February, according to a state report developed by Flint Waters, a special agent with the Wyoming attorney general’s Division of Criminal Investigation. He has developed a national online system to track such activity.

Waters is part of a federal program, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which consists of 59 law enforcement agencies nationwide, including two in Virginia. Waters’s report found that Herndon ranked fourth among Virginia localities in the number of computers known to possess child pornography statewide. The town of 23,000 is reported to have 1,058 known computers that sent hard-core child pornography to investigators. The task force helped analyze the data, which found that Alexandria had 657 such computers; Fairfax County, 507; Arlington County, 503; and Woodbridge, 467. The city with the most computers was Virginia Beach, followed by Norfolk and Richmond.

The recorded numbers are just a small percentage of the traffic generated by child pornography distributors, who use peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as Lime Wire to peddle often violent and hard-core movies and images, Waters said. The program tallies only the files that were distributed to undercover officers. The tracking software investigators use, Operation Fairplay, does not tally files shared between private users.

“Right now there’s no way that law enforcement can keep up with all this activity,” Waters said, adding that such activity has increased steadily in the United States.

Operation Fairplay is being used by law enforcement agencies across the United States and in 18 other countries, including England, France and Sweden. The software allows investigators to download child pornography from a suspected computer that shares files with the investigators and then identify the machine’s Internet protocol address. Officials can obtain a physical address from the sender’s Internet service provider, which can lead to a search warrant.

Virginia has started to expand state efforts to track down such offenders. Lawmakers will add $1.5 million to the biannual budget approved last month by the General Assembly and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) for the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The task force’s units, based in Fairfax and Bedford counties, are charged with helping police find Internet predators.

Virginia officials estimate that law enforcement officials are able to follow up on less than 2 percent of known cases, because of a lack of resources. The additional funding will enable departments to train more officers and provide more communities with the tracking software.

“The problem is expanding exponentially,” said Del. Brian J. Moran (D-Alexandria), who pushed for the increase in state funding. He cited federal statistics that have shown that 55 percent of possessors of child pornography had committed contact offenses.

“The more you know about this stuff,” Moran said, “the more you realize that every time you bring a computer into your home, you provide online predators with access to your children.”

How would you know if your child was a victim? You could start by knowing whom they are talking to and being involved in your child’s life. Monitoring software like PC Pandora can let you see everything your child does online and will arm you with the knowledge you need to keep them safe. Knowledge is power!

If you’re the sicko doing this to your own child… I guess you don’t need PC Pandora. You deserve the chair.

I meant to write about this last week, but ran out of time on Friday. For all those that say fears are overblown, I submit the following four stories from Wednesday and Thursday of last week. These are abridged versions of the stories; you can click the links for the full monty:

• Ohio Cops Help Nab Suspected Predator
  DETROIT (AP) - Police from a small Ohio town have helped Wayne County authorities arrest a Detroit man on child pornography charges. Jeffrey Burt Vandeveer has been arraigned Wednesday on eight felony counts, including distribution of child sexually abusive material and dissemination of sexually explicit material to a minor. An undercover New Waterford officer posing as a young girl over the Internet had received sexually explicit chats and an explicit image of minors engaged in sex.

• Accused ‘Web predators’ from Bucks, Chesco jailed
  Two Philadelphia-area men identified as “Web predators” were arrested Tuesday, the state Attorney General’s Office announced yesterday. Francis J. Smith, 62, of Bensalem, and Bobby W. Mundell, 32, of Coatesville, both initiated communication in online chat rooms with what they thought were 14-year-old girls but who were actually undercover agents, a news release said. Both men also sent sexually explicit Webcam videos to the agents. Smith was arraigned on charges that include unlawful contact with a minor and criminal use of a computer; he was remanded to Bucks County Correctional Facility after failing to post $500,000 bail. Mundell, arraigned on similar charges, was taken to Chester County Prison with bail set at $75,000. The release said the arrests were made by the Child Predator Unit, created in 2005 to capture Internet predators before they can harm children. To date, the unit has made 132 arrests, including 64 over the last 12 months, the release said.

• Child predators
  A Harrisburg man is the latest in a growing number of men to be arrested while trying to solicit sex from teenagers online. According to the State Attorney General’s Office, last October, James Stambaugh started an online conversation with a 14-year-old girl. Investigators then say the conversation allegedly turned very sexual, very quickly. When Stambaugh went to teach the teen her [sex] lesson last month, he got one himself. Instead of a teenage girl, he met officers from the Swatara Township Police Department, working with detectives from the Attorney General’s Child Predator Unit - who have netted four arrests in recent weeks, and 132 in a little over three years. The Attorney General’s Press Secretary calls James Stambaugh a “traveler”, someone who will travel to meet up with a child; the type of suspect who can be the most dangerous.

The fourth story isn’t a predator caught, but does back-up the importance of knowing what your child does online:

• Little Elm police investigate whether 14-year-old accessed child porn
  Little Elm police were investigating whether a 14-year-old boy accessed child pornography on his home computer. The undercover Internet investigation, which originated in Illinois, resulted in a search warrant for two computers at the teen’s home, said Little Elm police Det. Oscar Hinojosa. The investigation was continuing and no charges have been filed against the teen, police said. “It might have been an accident,” Det. Hinojosa said. “He could have been looking for regular porn.”

I posted the first three stories to show the skeptics that predators are in fact out there and getting caught all the time – which is both good news and a reminder. The last story is just another reminder to be aware of what your kids are doing. Whether or not the parents were fine with the 14-year-old looking for porn, if he happens to view images of people his own age involved in the acts – that is child pornography!

Knowledge is power. Be a powerful 21st century parent with PC Pandora monitoring software… protect your kids from Internet predators – and themselves!

I’ve known about some of these bills for a while, but here they are in the news. They are going through the House and still need to be considered by the Senate.

[Courtesy of the AP]

The bills would make it easier to monitor and prosecute cyber crimes against juveniles and to educate children about online dangers. According to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., law enforcement has identified nearly 500,000 individuals trafficking in child pornography over the Internet, but because of a lack of resources, only about 2 percent are under investigation.

Rep. Wasserman Schultz is the sponsor of a bill that would approve spending $1 billion over the next eight years to combat online child exploitation. It would also create a Justice Department office to coordinate prosecution efforts, increase money for a program that helps state and local law enforcement, and provide more dollars to hire agents and improve forensic lab capabilities dedicated to child exploitation cases. It passed 415-2.

Other bills would:

Each bill here was proposed by a Democrat but as you can see, accepted universal acceptance. It is sinking in that our nation’s children need to be protected from the scumbags that use the Internet to prey on them.

While the Gov’t is fighting from this side, it is up to parents to fight from the inside (incidentally that is the title of a great Queen song). Parents are responsible for what their child does and whom they talk to online. If they aren’t doing their job in the home, then the battle is already lost. Check out PC Pandora… and check up on your kids.