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Before you call me an extremist, read the proof...
Our legal system is based on the presumption that only people with enough knowledge to understand their actions, can be held responsible for those actions. This is one of the many manifestations of the well known "Nanny State", and the social contract behind it works a bit like this: the helpless individual says to the state, "I don't have the ability to manage my own affairs and I don't want to be held responsible for my own actions but what I can offer is unfailing support for any government that will promise to protect me from myself." The other half of the contract is the government who says, "We promise not to hold you responsible for what happens but you must always do whatever we tell you without question and you must never attempt to think for yourself or make your own decisions."
We can see the physical form of this state of affairs in the form of warning labels like, "sniffing this glue can kill you", or "do not drive with solar windshield cover in place"... I'm sure everyone has seen many examples of these laughable lawyer-driven warning labels. Now let us move right along to the Internet, everyone wants to use it but no one wants to be blamed for what happens out there. Governments are comforable with the old social contract so they presume they are in full control of every aspect of our lives. Should anyone care to doubt the extent of this control, officialdom shows how they can "get tough" and start making ordinary people into criminals.
The case of Julie Amero was hardly surprising, in a way it had to happen. I can predict similar cases happening where frustrated (and ignorant) law-enforcement lash out at innocent (and ignorant) people who made a mistake that they didn't understand and ended up in a situation that they couldn't control. Judges want to prove that their power may never be questioned so they start convicting innocent people while the guilty laugh in the shadows.
The trial stemmed from an October 2004 incident when Amero was teaching a seventh-grade language class at Kelly Middle School. Graphic images from sites including meetlovers.com and femalesexual.com were displayed on her computer in front of the ten young children in her class.The prosecution alleged that this cycle of graphic images was the result of Amero actively visiting pornographic sites. State Prosecutor David Smith questioned why she didn't simply pull the plug on the PC.
Yanking the power plug is generally not good for a computer because it can cause the hard drive to become scrambled. IT support people keep repeating this and sometime you might find someone who listens. There were suggestions that Julie should have put a jumper or coat over the monitor but with a CRT monitor that is likely to start a fire.
Being wise after the fact is easy... I've done a lot of computer support and I've seen people mess up the most obvious of things, simply because frustration and confusion and a rising sense of panic can distort anyone's sense of perspective.
Julie Amero is probably thinking right now that she should have thrown the entire computer out the window, or put a chair through the screen, but at the time she probably thought that she could fix the situation by just closing the web browser or restarting the machine a few times.
Here's another report of the case:
Amero, because the charges are felonies, faces 40 years in prison at her March 2 sentencing. Her family, present in court for entire trial, declined comment about the verdict.
Obviously, 40 years in prison for showing naked pictures to teenagers is ridiculously heavy-handed, even for someone who was doing it deliberately. The entire concept that the state should inflict such harsh penalties for such minor matters is the sort of moralistic ideological authoritarianism that makes any sensible person's skin crawl. In this case, it is even worse because the teacher in question clearly had no intention of showing these pictures but just did not know how to get rid of them.
For a start, it should rightfully be the business of the parents to decide what is offensive and dangerous and to make complaints based on their own judgement rather than a state-appointed arbiter of morality. Moreover, since this was a single offense, the school should have stepped in and discussed the matter with the parents and come up with a suitable punishment completely outside the criminal justice system. Something appropriate would have been loss of wages or the school refusing to hire her for some number of years on the basis that she is unsuitable for the role. This should never have been a police matter.
It was reported on American Liberty Radio Network that:
Sources reported to ALRNet that Trial Judge, Hillary Strackbein, was seen falling asleep during proceedings and made comments to the jury that she wanted the case over by the end of the week. It was also reported that Judge Strackbein attempted to pressure the defense into an unwanted plea deal, in place of a trial.
They haven't explained who these sources are exactly, but I can imagine that there are a lot of "little people" out there who want to make a difference but are too scared to speak up under their own name. I'm sure that 40 years in prison is less weighty to the people inflicting the punishment than it is to the person on the receiving end. I guess we will see what the actual imposition turns out to be -- probably not the maximum.
So what about the Nanny State and her social contract?
Well, it does indeed seem to me that the contract has been broken. Julie Amero kept up her end of the deal by being helpless, ignorant, confused and obedient but the state now wants to hold her responsible for things she doesn't understand. Think of the precedent here... helpless people being help responsible for their own ignorance...
Where will this lead us to?
Got a promotion coming up, and you want to get rid of that competitor who is actually better at the job than you are? Easy, just chat to the local Russian Mafia outlet and give them some details about your co-worker's computer (IP address, etc) then get mortally offended when pop-ups invade their workstation. No doubt when the police investigate they will find kiddy porn saved on the hard drive and more of the same on the home PC. How dreadful, how convenient!
"But I don't know how that got there, I had nothing to do with it.""Yeah, that's what they all say. Tell it to the (sleeping) judge."
Hmmm, this is working well... could be useful to get rid of those annoying political opponents as well. Never know what might turn up :-).
"I was looking forward to a serious debate on the issues but I'm shocked (shocked!) to hear that the opposition candidate was caught financing his campaign with bogus Internet bank transfers... from his home machine. What was he thinking?"Look's like the pressure of running for office was too much for him. I know he was a good man deep down [looks at feet, hand over heart] but he tried to take the easy way and crime never pays [chokes back evil laughter]. Perhaps it's just better this way."
Now that I think of it, senior police aren't exactly going to be safe either are they? Nor will judges for that matter. Never know where that pesky porn might just pop up. Judges and police are probably in the worst position because they do not have the option of keeping right away from computers completely (to do so would conclusively demonstrate that they are unable to handle modern technology and thus unable to do their jobs) yet making use of computers will leave them vulnerable to end up wearing Julie Amero's shoes.
Believe me, no one breaks into a PC better than an out-of-work Eastern-Bloc ex-physicist who has decided to embrace Capitalism and offer his services on the open market. Now we all have the problem that we feel uneasy about buying this guy's services but we also feel concerned that someone else might get in on the deal first.
Social contracts are interesting because there is no one you can complain to if (and when) the contract gets broken. On the other hand there is usually a good reason not to go breaking the contract which is the reason such things exist in the first place.
I'll spend a moment poking around what other people have to say on the matter...
Here's the Technocrat comments:
Mr. Horner a 40 year computer veteran was not allowed to present all of his company's research and examination of the computer hard drive from the school.The reason: The prosecutor did not see the presentation before hand. Therefore, the judge did not allow it to be presented.
Yet, the police officer was recalled to counter Mr. Horner's conclusions. But, the defense was not allowed to recall Mr. Horner to counter the police officer's claims.
I think it's normal for both sides to show their evidence to each other before the actual hearing and the use of "surprise" evidence is discouraged. I'm not an expert on the details of the procedure, no doubt another court will go through it at length... it would be really nice if transcripts of this sort of thing were published on a handy website so everyone could understand what happened but the whole "Open Govenrment" idea is taking time to catch hold (it is happening, the Australasian Legal Information Institute provides a lot of significant cases to the public at no charge, not full transcripts but close enough).
Alex Eckelberry supports the belief of innocence:
Was justice done here? A bad spyware infestation can splatter a machine full of porn popups and its a bit unnerving to think that a teacher could get hard prison time for something that was likely to have been completely innocent.
Help me understand this.
It is easy enough to understand -- courts, police and judges are out of their depth handling technology cases but at all costs must maintain the impression of being in control. They do what comes naturally and hurt someone to help themselves feel powerful. Technological change is accelerating, so the situation is not going to get any better. As more and more powerful people find it too difficult to keep a grip on modern reality they will start to cling to a simpler reality as a comfort, thus strict moral codes, pointless rituals and ceremony and intolerance of difference will become social norms. Note that computers are not a unique technology in this regard. The same problem has happened with drugs -- police and courts and arrests and prison have achieved nothing against the drug trade yet the powers that be continue to insist that only by victimising the weak are they able to demonstrate their strength.
So where does Free Software come into the picture here? Can Linux fix the problems of the world when many of those problems are caused by technology outstripping human understanding? Hmmmm, probably no it can't save us. But it could help avoid the worst of the spyware and popup porn problems and it could also help our society chug along with something close to business as usual and with neither ignorant witch hunts nor random authoritarian terror tactics.
Here's my recommendations:
Yesterday, I was predicting that the similar cases would occur and today I run into this horrible situation, where the victim of authoritarianism is a 16 year old kid whose life will never be the same.
"He was a happy-go-lucky kid," said his mother, Jeannie Bandy. "Very personable, and big-hearted. I sound like a boastful mom, but I guess the biggest thing is that he could always make me laugh.""We went on vacations and had a lot of fun together," Matthew said. "I just enjoyed the life I was living. But after I was accused, everything changed."
A few weeks later, he was a different person...
The stress of the situation got so bad for Matthew that he told his parents the charges hanging over his head made high school impossible."He said 'Mom, I'm hurting,'" said Jeannie. "'I can't sleep. I don't want to disappoint anybody, but I just can't go on anymore.'"
Matt's dreams had been destroyed and his mother was crushed. And even though there was no proof that Matthew personally downloaded those nine pictures, it would be difficult to prove his innocence. Novak said that the pictures alone were practically all the evidence the police needed.
In Matthew's case he was lucky enough to find a sympathetic judge (can't seem to find the name of that judge, I'll search harder) so he "survived" the encounter. Potentially he could have been in prison for 10 years for just a single offense and he was accused of 9 offenses -- 90 years. That would have been the entire life of a young man thrown out the window for no reason whatsoever. How this will change his future is yet to be seen, maybe he might become a great defender of human rights... you never know.
The judge couldn't believe the prosecution was insisting on sex offender status and invited Matthew to appeal. "20/20" was there when two years of fear and misery finally ended. A message arrived from the judge, ironically on the computer, informing them that Matthew would not be labeled a sex offender. Matt and his parents had won his life back.
As I said earlier, it could happen to anyone and the potential for misuse as a political weapon is enormous -- expect more updates below.
Americans have forgotten what it takes to remain free. Instead, every ideology, every group is determined to use government to advance its agenda. As the government's power grows, the people are eclipsed.
This is so true of Australia as well. We never had a Thomas Jefferson or a James Madison in this country and we never fully shook free of the British Empire but still we are facing the same struggle against an authoritarian system that takes away more and more of our liberties and feeds us lies and misinformation.
A quick google search found a bit of publicity regarding Hillary Strackbein, it obviously isn't easy being a judge... but then, they get well paid so why should their jobs be easy?
Canario was also arrested during a public town meeting in September of 2005 after city officials refused to let voters into the room. Canario refused to leave the stairwell leading to the meeting room. For several weeks, she left the court, judge, and police in disarray while refusing to speak or walk as ordered. I don't know what to do with this, Judge Hillary Strackbein said during Canarios second silent court appearance last year. Canario was eventually released and sentenced to time served.
Dealing with protestors is not much fun, especially on unpopular issues like ordinary folks getting kicked off their land. The distant dream of a family farm and a village marketplace may be totally outdated, even foolhardy, but it burns like a hearthfire passed down from settler ancestors.
The memory of legions of martyrs who have gone to their deaths with their beliefs intact (and not much else) are also still with us, standing as silent and determined as Lauren Canario... all of them victims of a human spirit refusing to admit defeat in the face of a physically stronger force. Persecuted minorities, religious dissidents, political scapegoats, or anyone else with inconvenient ideas.
Surprising that law school doesn't put more focus on the history of persecution and public martyrdom, especially in the USA -- a nation founded on such things.
There's also a long and complex investigation of an incident concerning Judge Hillary Strackbein (before she was a judge she was Supervisory Juvenile Prosecutor), Peter Stevens (investigator working under Strackbein) and Judge Carmen Lopez. It's much too long to quote more than a tiny fraction of it here, but check here for a full transcript. Actually, I started trying to extract a few quotes but there's nothing short and pithy that really explains the situation... in a rough paraphrase, Judge Carmen Lopez was making a special effort to look after the delinquent kids, to the point of offering to buy Christmas presents for them. Hillary Strackbein (as a prosecutor) got the impression that Judge Lopez was taking sides against her, and friction developed from there.
Alternet put together a good article on Julie Amero with some depth of followup. I'll grab a few juicy quotes:
Compared to Horner, the prosecution's expert witness has little formal IT training. Detective Lounsbury has completed two two-week FBI training seminars on computer security and other continuing education programs. He is also a certified user of the computer monitoring software ComputerCOP Pro.Allison Whitney, ComputerCOP's director of communications, explained how her company certifies police officers to use the software:
"They get a full hour of training, and then they're tested," Whitney said. "A lot of these people don't have any kind of training. Their [superior] officers may give them some kind of low-level training. Most of the time we do the training over the phone."
This seems about what I would expect. The sort of guys who are good at wearing big boots and busting delinquent kids at the corner of the mall tend not to be much chop as computer investigators. There is an impression that if you go up through the ranks then you get looked after and get trained for each logical step of pregression. It's a great comfort to see the career path as linear, fitting neatly into a linear world -- conforting but completely wrong. The world is non-linear.
"I take that at face value," Lounsbury told Alternet. "It's evidence. It speaks for itself. The pop-up defense is a Twinkie defense."Lounsbury said that Amero must have navigated to pornographic sites in order to have infected her computer with obscene popups. "You've got to get that ball rolling," he said.
Not being a legal expert (and unfamiliar with technical legal terms), I still don't understand the subtle difference between a Twinkie defense and say, a donut prosecution or perhaps an ice cream mistrial. With help from this handy Wikipedia article I'm able to take a guess that Lounsbury was referring to the precedent of Dan White getting his conviction downgraded from murder to manslaughter thanks to diminished capacity caused by depression.
The unpopularity of the eventual manslaughter verdict (a lighter sentence which set off the White Night Riots) gave rise to the interpretation that White's lawyers had used depression caused by Twinkies as his primary defense. Contrary to popular belief, however, White's defense in fact argued that this consumption was unusual for him and reflected already existing mental instability; White would later commit suicide.
OK, there's at best a vague connection to Julie Amero here. She never argued depression, nor diminished capacity (under no stretch can we consider inability to clean up a spyware infection as diminished capacity). She merely argued that keeping the computer in proper operational mode was not her responsibility and she was not the cause of the problem (basically an innocent bystander defense).
Frankly, I can't see a problem with the evidence that unusually large consumption of junk food is likely to be a symptom of depression -- seems quite logical. Does depression make you less guilty? That's another issue, of no relevance to Julie Amero.
Just some more links related to this:
The Enquirer came out with this article. Honestly, I did not write the earlier comments on judges being at risk with any knowledge of this case (although the case is years old).
The case was all started when a Canadian hacker Brad Willman broke into the judge's Irvine home computer and discovered sexually explicit images of young boys and a diary that revealed Kline's fantasies involving young boys. A subsequent police search of the Judge's court computer revealed more images and more dodgy Web sites.
Interesting, lets try a simple translation test:
The case was all started when a local burglar Bob Schmoo broke into the judge's home and discovered a stash of cocaine in his desk drawer. A subsequent police search of the judge's car found more drugs.
Here's the relevant timeline entries from this article:
June-October 2003: A federal judge rules that 1,500 photos of naked boys, diary entries and Web sites found on Kline's computers cannot be used in the federal child-pornography case, contending that the Canadian hacker was serving as an agent of authorities and therefore his "search" of Kline's computer was illegal.
October 2004: A federal appeals court reverses the pornography rulings, saying the Canadian hacker was acting on his own when he gained access to Kline's computer.
And because he was "acting on his own" the search is no longer illegal?
Hmmm, I somehow thought that the collection of evidence was a specialised job requiring careful documentation and a trusted chain from the field right through to the courtroom. In my mind, if an untrusted, criminal entity has been at work on the computer then any evidence collected there is instantly suspect, both from the illegal search perspective and (more importantly) from the potential for evidence tampering. Once you have criminals doing evidence gathering with no formal training, no supervision, and no procedures then, the potential for abuse is staggering.
Another article, talks about the 2003 case where the search was ruled illegal:
Marshall agreed, saying, "Once a court finds that the first search was illegal, then all subsequent searches and evidence found from those searches are also illegal."
Outside the courtroom, Kline declined to comment. Meyer said he was pleased by Marshalls decision, which he said recognizes established law that states that law enforcement cannot profit from illegal conduct.
You can't help wondering, how Bradley Willman can get his name spatted all over the place alongside clear evidence and self-admission of virus writing and illegal "Trojan Horse" distribution as well as illegal theft and distribution of private data -- and yet Bradley Willman managed to stay out of jail. Many techies have ended up in serious trouble for much less.
This article has a bit of an explanation as to why Willman stayed clean:
Marshall ruled that the hacker, Bradley Willman, was acting as a government agent when he illegally searched Kline's computers in 2000. The decision followed a similar tentative ruling issued earlier by the judge. Marshall scolded the government for its reliance on the self-appointed cyberpoliceman. "Willman was not prosecuted for his extensive computer 'hacking' or for his possession and transmission of child pornography," Marshall wrote. "Instead, law enforcement praised and encouraged him."
Clearly, it helps a lot to be on the "good side" of the cops. Indeed, Bradley Willman behaved as if he was acutally a cop and even described himself as a "Cybercop".
Here's an old mail archive suggesting that Willman had been in the business of chasing pedophiles for some time (and was known to police):
Three years ago [1999?], authorities confirm, Willman tipped off Royal Canadian Mounted Police to a man in Edmonton, Canada, who was offering his 8-year-old daughter to Willman for sex.The man's arrest and conviction gave Willman more incentive. A high school graduate, Willman said he never had a clear life focus until he became a hacker.
Further, acording to this article, it would seem that Bradley Willman had at least some contact with police prior to breaking into Kline's computer:
In the case, United States v. Kline, [2003] evidence was gathered by Bradley Willman a computer hacker and a person know to police to have large amounts of child pornography on his computer. He was allowed to keep the child pornography in return for information about other child pornographers. Willman acted as a police informant and used computer hacking to find others with child pornography and then the police would investigate these people. Kline whose computer was hacked by Willman it turned out was a United States judge and in his case the United States District Court in California found the search by the hacker to be a violation of the 4th amendment and suppressed the evidence found on Kline's computer. Willman was considered a government agent, when he did the computer hacking search of Kline's computer. But this was over turned on appeal, as the court felt Bradley was not a government agent.
So now we can see why Willman never got busted... the cops already had evidence against him and used that as leverage to make him work for them. When I say "the cops", it is important to note that there are various police groups involved here.
This article explains how the Canadian Police encouraged Willman's activity as a "cybercop" but the Californian Police were the ones who actually used the evidence in a case.
Bradley Willman of British Columbia recanted earlier statements that he was working as a law enforcement "agent" when he installed a Trojan horse to invade the personal computer of Orange County Superior Court Judge Ronald C. Kline. Willman now says Kline's lawyers pressured him into saying he worked on behalf of police. That statement led a U.S. judge in March to rule that the search of Kline's home and work computers was illegal. And that put key evidence seized after the intrusion in jeopardy of being thrown out.Willman, who's worked with Canadian police on a child molestation case, says he contacted the Internet watchdog group Pedowatch.com after he found more than 1,500 pornographic images and an incriminating personal diary on Kline's machines. That agency contacted Irvine, Calif., police, which launched an investigation that led to six federal charges of possessing child pornography against Kline. He's also accused of molesting a 14-year-old boy more than 20 years ago.
Yet another article mentions Willman's earlier tipoff and suggests that he had been working for several years, sending information to police in both Canada and the USA:
Though never publicly credited, Omni-Potent is the same mystery hacker who led the Mounties to the capture and conviction of an Alberta man who offered his eight-year-old daughter up for sex through the Internet in 1999.The hacker's investigations have exposed suspected child predators across Canada, the United States and Russia. Some of the suspects included foster parents, social workers and justice officials.
He began targeting online child predators three years ago. He started turning in suspects two years ago, ignoring police threats that if he didn't stop he'd be arrested for breaching privacy.
So the chain goes:
The double-shuffle between different police and private groups functions as a laundry for evidence. Like any laundry system, the objective is to put enough layers of indirectness and obfuscation between the badness and the goodness.
Here's notes from yet another news article:
"All such statements that I was working for law enforcement, either directly, or indirectly through an Internet watchdog group, when I accessed computers and retrieved material are not true," Willman said in the statement. "I made those statements during the deposition because I felt pressured by defense counsel and wanted to get off the stand during a lengthy deposition hearing."Prosecutors do not dispute that Willman helped the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with a child molestation case before Kline's case. But the U.S. attorney's office maintains that Willman was a cooperative suspect in that case, not an informant.
I can't find any details of the case where Willman "was a cooperative suspect", it's not clear whether this was early or late in Willman's hacking career. Was this the 8 year old daughter ?
Strangely, the prosecutors can't seem to explain why Willman was not busted for virus writing and distribution, plus unlawful access to data, etc. Never forget the fundamental principle of law: legislate broadly, enforce selectively.
The powers of google give us this comment, which might be slander so I won't quote it. Of course, it is an anonymous opinion that could equally be a troublemaker or a genuinely concerned citizen too frightened to give their real name. The domain "azovfilms.com" is registered through Moniker Privacy Services to prevent the true owner being visible. It is very difficult to answer a question like "Is Brian Way the alter-ego of Bradley Willman" without access to non-public data. I can find that there is a Brian Way who works as a cameraman in the Canadian film industry, -- hardly conclusive.
Hopefully, more evidence will float to the surface on this one...
My reaction to this case is that it is an even more dangerous precedent than the Julie Amero situation. The big problem with cops co-operating with cyber criminals is that we end up with police having "unclean hands". This is a wide open door for corruption and abuse of the judicial process. Of course, having a judge who is a pedophile is also a big problem, but we must find better ways to address this. My professional suggestion would be that work computers should be regularly scanned. This would be searching for both a virus (NOTE: Willman invaded the courthouse computer and this went undetected by any court official -- think how dangerous that could be) and also searching for inappropriate material. Such a scan would not find everything but if people know that regular searches are occuring then they are less likely to abuse the system. Judges should not be immune from such searches.
Private home computers should be strictly off limits from the morality police. If people want to trade pictures or write fiction or whatever then that is the business of no one but the people themselves. There has to be a line that everyone can accept and what is private should remain private -- trying to tell people how they can behave in their own private homes ends up being a campaign to enforce normality. We end up with gays being made illegal, with laws about which sexual positions are acceptable and all sorts of other stupidity. That's the direction we are heading and it ain't a good direction.
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