The trail of an international child-porn ring led to a tiny house in the woods outside St. Louis
This excellent article by journalist John H. Tucker appeared in a St. Louis paper, the Riverfront Times, last year. It's well-worth reading and illustrates how Internet technology facilitates the spread of criminal child pornography networks to even the smallest towns and villages.
The newspaper's cover story provided an account of the FBI's recent dismantling of "Lost Boy," an international, members-only online bulletin board operated by about three dozen child pornographers. The federal crackdown represented, at the time (in 2009), the largest disruption of a child ...
SEEKING JUSTICE FOR CHILD PORNOGRAPHY VICTIMS:
Marsh Law Firm Teams up with Freeman Lewis LLP in Novel Federal Lawsuit Under Masha’s Law
Marsh Law Firm PLLC partnered with Freeman Lewis LLC to file a lawsuit today on behalf of a victim of child pornography seeking damages from a defendant who was convicted of transporting child pornography in violation of federal criminal law. The civil lawsuit, “Amy” v. Joshua Osmun Kennedy, was filed in the federal district court for the Western District of Washington.
The civil complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as costs and attorneys’ fees under 18 U.S.C. § 2255 (Masha’s Law) and 18 U.S.C. § 2252A.
To protect the ...
DOJ Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence Presents Final Recommendations
The Attorney General's Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence has released its final recommendations for a national response to address children’s exposure to violence. The report emphasizes prevention and intervention and underscores the importance of trauma-informed care and victim-tailored services.
The task force calls on the federal government, states, tribes, and communities to ensure that all children exposed to violence are identified, screened, and assessed; to create multidisciplinary councils to facilitate systemwide collaboration; to involve men and ...
$9250 for Illegally Downloading a Song – $0 for Child Pornography?
In July, a Nebraska judge awarded a child pornography victim just $2500 in restitution. Despite un-refuted losses of over a million dollars, the district court concluded it would be “gilding the lily” to give the victim the "full restitution" which Congress made mandatory in Joe Biden's Mandatory Restitution for Sexual Exploitation of Children Act.
The victim in this case, United States v. Robert M. Fast, was ten years old when her father directed and produced child pornography videos using a script which he created with his daughter in the staring role. The ...
Human Trafficking Awareness Online Training
The Department of Homeland Security's Blue Campaign is now offering online training about how to spot the signs of and report suspected human trafficking. The training is aimed at the general public, the Federal workforce, first responders, and airline employees and focuses on:
Defining human trafficking
Differentiating between human trafficking and human smuggling
Recognizing populations vulnerable to human trafficking
Recognizing indicators of human trafficking
A glossary and additional resources also are provided. View the ...
ECPAT-USA’s Alternative Report to the United Nations
As of November 2009, 193 countries have ratified or accepted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The only countries that have not signed it are Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States of America.
While we have not signed the Convention, the United States has signed onto the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, which requires countries to prohibit the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
As part of the protocol, the US must report every five years on its progress in preventing and combating ...
EFF Joins the Child Exploitation Bandwagon
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is representing the Internet Archive in a fight against a Washington state law designed to prevent child sex trafficking. EFF, which bills itself as "Defending Your Rights in the Digital World, is a Washington, DC special interest group and long-time supporter of near absolute Internet "freedom."
This article in the august National Law Journal provides a good overview of the case. What the article doesn't tell you is that the new plaintiff in the Washington litigation (which was brought by cyber-pimp Backpage.com and Village Voice ...