Tough new child porn rules

Those really interested in the false statistics and cases where people are falsely arrested for this crime should check out the site Inquisition21 , and if you google Laundering Statistics you will come accross an excellent academic article that debunks much of what the Police state as ‘truth’ when making public statements about the issue of Child Pornography.

Surely the crime does have to be tackled, however creating a moral panic by overstating the issue and stating false and highly exaggerated statistics is irresponsible.

On top of that, the shear number of people who are falsely accused of this crime should astound the ordinary reader. For example, during Operation Irenic (2007/08) the AFP issued 303 search warrants. Yet, only 100 people were arrested or proceeded against by summons. That means getting it wrong in over 2 cases out of 3! Add to that the fact that only 62% of people are actually convicted, because the images turn out to be of adults rather than children!

It is also a well known fact that most of the child porn sites still in existence are sting sites run by the FBI. They boast of having the largest child pornography collection in the world. The local police are then able to get around entrapment allegations because the information comes to them via Interpol from the FBI!

Most astounding of all, the number of innocent people arrested on around 2003/4 will shock people because police acted on credit card transactions. In the UK, it is estimated that up to 1500 people were wrongly convicted on credit card transactions where they were actually victims of credit card fraud (a much more widespread and hidden problem than people are aware of). There are cases where people falsely accused of this crime committed suicide and it was proven after they killed themselves that they were innocent. The UK case relates to Operation ORE. The Australian Police acted on the same information that the UK Police got (from the FBI via Interpol). Information (pretty strong as the source comes from one current serving police officer and one ex police officer who resigned after he saw the amount of corruption involved) says that police acted on the tips and KNEW of the credit card fraud at the time, but persued convictions because of the politically driven moral panic caused by the police at the time to lobby for funding. There is apparently a similar situation here in Australia.

The case is about to hit the courts in the UK, where the corruption is about to be revealed.

How about applying the current laws properly, we don’t need tougher laws, we just need the police to do their job properly. (Read the case of the poor chap goaled for child sex tourism because the AFP could not do thier job! Courier Mail 04/02/10)