Last month, federal authorities successfully wrapped up an eight-month-long sting operation that resulted in the arrests of 55 people accused of using peer-to-peer computer software to trade and view child pornography.
Led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the sting marked the first time law enforcement agencies have conducted a coordinated investigation specifically targeting peer-to-peer users who share child pornography.
Peer-to-peer—or P2P—programs allow people to swap music, videos, movies, and images over the Internet. Some of the most popular P2P programs include Napster, Lime Wire, BitTorrent, and Kazaa.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central California Division, all of the defendants in the recent case are charged with possession of child pornography. Some of the defendants are also charged with additional offenses, such as production of child pornography and committing crimes while registered sex offenders.
Among the 55 people charged are three Central Coast men, including one from Nipomo. The three are charged with possessing child pornography only, and face a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. Court records show that none of the men has a criminal history in San Luis Obispo County, and none is a registered sex offender.
The incident has raised many questions, both locally and nationally, about the child porn industry and the people involved in it.
In order to shed some light on the traditionally taboo topic, the Sun looked into several key issues surrounding child porn, including technology’s impact on the industry and ways law enforcement and government officials are combating its growth; the causes of child porn addiction; and the treatment available to both the possessors and victims of child porn.
Why child porn?
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s website, missing kids.org, doesn’t really help with attempts to nail down a concrete explanation of the who and the why behind child porn. People who own such porn, the site reports, are diverse in their demographics and reasons for looking.
“The diversity of these possessors is exemplified by many factors, including wide age ranges; incomes ranging from poverty to wealth; levels of education running the gamut from some not finishing high school to others having post college degrees,” explains the website. “Some are well-known, well thought of in their communities, and/or have high-profile jobs. Others seem isolated, seem to be obsessed with the Internet, and/or have long criminal histories.”
What does unite these people is their attraction to child porn, though even their motivations are varied, ranging from a cash-based interest on the part of potential purveyors to people who consider themselves “sexually indiscriminate” in search of new and different stimuli. And, of course, there are those who are sexually attracted to children or young adolescents.
Linda Paoli, a licensed clinical social worker and certified sex addiction therapist based in Sacramento, said that the psychological backgrounds of child porn addicts and/or pedophiles can sometimes mirror the backgrounds of other sex addicts.
The similarity, however, in no way means that all sex addicts are child porn addicts and/or pedophiles. Still, there are some parallels between the differing sexual disorders.
For example, the vast majority of sex addicts—and a large percentage of pedophiles—has experienced some kind of childhood trauma. Also, members from both groups usually have a family history of addiction to some kind of harmful material, such as porn, drugs, or alcohol.
Overall, Paoli said, there are generally two types of people looking at child porn: “There are pedophiles who are addicted to child porn because it is their sex object of choice,” Paoli said. “Then there are the people looking at it because their usual addiction [i.e. adult pornography] is not stimulating them enough. They’re looking at child porn because it’s a bad thing to do and it gives them more satisfaction.”
Looking at or possessing child porn might not automatically make someone a pedophile, but Paoli said that there are plenty of warning signs.
“Most people who are only looking at child porn, or are exclusively addicted to child porn, are probably child molesters,” she said.
According to data gathered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on child pornography possessors arrested between July 1, 2000, and June 30, 2001—approximately 1,700 people—98 percent were male, 91 percent were white, and 86 percent were older than 25. Only three percent were younger than 18.
Most of those arrested were unmarried at the time of their crime, either because they had never married (41 percent) or because they were separated, divorced, or widowed (21 percent). The remaining 38 percent were either married or living with partners.
Most of the arrestees had pornographic images of prepubescent children, and images graphically depicting sexual acts on children. Approximately 20 percent of the people arrested had images depicting sexual violence to children, such as bondage, rape, and torture.
Approximately 40 percent of those estimated arrestees were classified as “dual offenders” who had sexually victimized children and possessed child pornography.
When it comes to pedophiles, Paoli said, there are also usually two types.
“There’s the sociopath who doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with having sex with children. He finds the laws against having sex with children oppressive to himself and the child because he’s convinced that ‘the child wants it,’” she said.
Sociopaths suffer from antisocial personality disorder, a mental condition that manifests itself in a total disregard for—and violation of—the rights of others. Simply put, sociopaths are people who lack consciences.
On the other hand, “there’s the pedophile that feels guilt and shame about what he’s done,” Paoli said. “People like that are usually more open to treatment because they feel wrong about the choice they’ve made.”
But for sociopaths, Paoli said, “usually nothing’s going to work besides locking them up, away from the people they want to hurt.”
Treatment typically consists of getting the person into therapy, either individually or in a group. Also, there are 12-step programs—similar to the system used in Alcoholics Anonymous—available to addicts and pedophiles through organizations like the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, of which Paoli is a member.
“Treating porn and child porn addiction can be very difficult for the therapist as well. The therapist has to determine if the patient has acted out on his addiction,” Paoli said. “Reporting [if a patient has harmed someone else] is part of being a good therapist.”
While therapists are expected to care for their patients, they’re also required, by law, to protect the victims of child porn.
Child porn and the Internet
According to multiple investigatory agencies, including the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the spread of child porn was all but quelled in the late 1980s. Law enforcement officers spent decades tracking down offenders and preventing the spread of pornographic materials exploiting children, such as photographs, magazines, and videos.
The astronomical growth of the Internet in the early 1990s, however, quickly changed everything.
“Pre-Internet, all child porn was printed,” said John Shehan, director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s exploited children division. “The United States Postal Office did a wonderful job of rooting it out and virtually eradicating it.”
But with the rise of the Internet and increasingly sophisticated computer technology, he said, suddenly people had unlimited access to all kinds of information and materials, including child porn.
According to missingkids.org, “The development, increasing accessibility, and use of home-computer technology have revolutionized the distribution of [child porn] by increasing the ease, and decreasing the cost, of production and distribution, especially across international borders. Computer technology is transforming the production of these images into a ‘sophisticated global cottage industry.’”
Laura Eimiller, a spokesperson for the FBI, agreed that the Internet has aided in the growth of the industry.
“The FBI started investigating cases [involving the online sexual exploitation of children] 15 years ago. Since that time, the number of cases has grown exponentially from the hundreds to the thousands,” she said.
“The more people who have [personal computers]; the more people there are trading pornographic materials online; the more demand there is for it,” she said.
Plus, not only does the Internet increase access to pornographic materials, it also makes a more dramatic psychological impact on would-be offenders.
“We [in the psychiatric field] talk about the Internet as the crack cocaine of sex addiction and porn addiction because people can become addicted to it so quickly,” Paoli said.
“The Internet itself is very trance inducing,” she added. “There has been speculation that online pornographic images are even more intense because people don’t blink as much when they look at them.”
When it was first developed, peer-to-peer technology was centralized in one main server, in one location. However, today’s more sophisticated P2P technology is decentralized, meaning that individuals can communicate freely without the existence of a network administrator.
“It’s basically two computers talking to each other,” the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Shehan said.
This new technology allows offenders to access child porn while encased in a cloud of anonymity. Or at least that’s what offenders think.
Fighting technology with technology
As the technology used to promote and distribute child porn becomes increasingly sophisticated, law enforcement agencies are adapting the means with which they locate and apprehend offenders.
For example, in decentralized P2P networks, agencies like the FBI and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children use IP addresses (identification numbers given to computers participating in a specific network) to identify computers trading pornographic materials. The agencies frequently receive IP addresses and other tip-offs from Internet Service Providers, which are required by law to report suspicious online habits and material.
But that’s not the only way offenders can be found.
Shehan explained that porn can be traced through IP addresses, screen names, e-mail addresses, social networks, and websites.
“Usually the people trading [pornographic] images are also trying to sell their car online or post comments to their favorite band’s website,” he said.
Another way agencies locate and apprehend offenders is through good, old-fashioned crime solving.
Shehan said that members from his office, along with the FBI and ICE, constantly pore over the images, looking for “background clues and jurisdictional info,” which can be found in the form of a local phonebook, food wrappers, or decorations.
The FBI’s Eimiller agreed, stating that while it would be “counter-effective” to go into detail about the methods used to locate offenders, the Internet is “just one tool used to identify traders of child porn.”
One of the most important tools used to combat pornography, she said, is spreading knowledge through public education and encouraging members of the public to report any kind of suspicious behavior to the appropriate authorities.
For example, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children operates a 24-hour, congressionally mandated CyberTipline where people can report possible cases of child sexual exploitation, including child pornography, online enticement of children for sex acts, molestation of children outside the family,
sex tourism of children, child victims of prostitution, and unsolicited obscene material sent to a child.
These methods of investigation and education bolster the opinion of many law enforcement officials, who choose to view technology—and the false sense of anonymity it provides—as “the Achilles heel” of the child porn industry.
“Predators are using new technology to their advantage, but law enforcement is doing the same thing,” said ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice.
INFO BOX: Reporting child porn
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Federal Bureau of Investigation both have extensive resources for combating child porn.
Members of the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative work exclusively on investigating sexual exploitation of children. For more information about Innocent Images, including online safety tips and access to the national sex offenders registry, visit www.fbi.gov/innocent.htm.
For more information about the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and its programs, visit www.missingkids.com.
Together, the FBI, the center, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement run a CyberTipline. Reports may be made 24 hours a day, seven days a week online at www.cybertipline.com or by calling 1-800-843-5678.
Contact Staff Writer Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 18-25, 2008.