Dangerous child porn hysteria

One of the most significant consequences of the current hysteria surrounding child porn is also one of the least discussed: namely, how many innocent lives are ruined by the rush to punish almost anyone who is accused. It is easy to unknowingly download child porn onto your personal computer. Just click on the wrong link in a scam email or on an untrustworthy site you visit and -- voila! -- a virus can invisibly commandeer part of your computer for its own purposes. Sometimes the purpose is to broadcast advertising for Viagra or investment schemes; other times, it is to broadcast pornography far and wide and for free by using other people's bandwidth. Then, when the unwittingly-downloaded child porn is found on your computer, the police can use it as evidence against you. The burden of proving you are innocent is firmly on your shoulders.

The preceding scenario describes lives that are ruined by strangers who are trying to profit and don't give a damn about whom they harm in the process. But lives are also ruined by non-strangers who bear a grudge. The non-strangers include ex-partners, ex-spouses, rivals in business or love, resentful family members, 'wronged' friends, malicious neighbors, the envious... (Of course, the common factor in both types of ruination is the willingness -- nay, the eagerness -- with which law enforcement and the legal system turn, like ravening dogs, on anyone accused of this crime.)

Eddie Thompson was one such innocent life that was being ruined by a malicious non-stranger. In a commentary entitled "Planting Child Porn on Your Boss's PC Will Make Him Totally Regret Being a Huge Jerkface," Gizmodo reports: "Neil Weiner did not like his boss, Eddie Thompson. He also wanted Eddie's job. So he allegedly sent London police a CD filled with 177 pictures of child pornography, claiming they came from Thompson's computer. Investigating, police found 235 more images depicting child pornography on Thompson's computer, and he was arrested in 2006. His life was ruined. He claimed that the images must've been planted by a colleague, because he's "grumpy, bad tempered and irascible."

Weiner, a school handyman, shared a computer with Thompson, a school caretaker. Thompson was arrest in 2006. The UK Press reports: "When the allegations were made public, he and his wife became afraid to leave the house, after he received threats and when he returned from suspension to Swanlea secondary school, in Whitechapel, east London, where he had worked since 1993, he said he was shunned by "almost all" of the staff."

Weiner was arrested in 2007 when the mobile phone used to make the anonymous call to the police was traced to him. he has subsequently been convicted "of perverting the course of justice and two counts of possessing indecent images of children...He was placed on the sex offenders' register and remanded in custody, and warned by Judge David Paget that he faced a "substantial custodial sentence."

A statement Weiner had made at a BBQ the month before Thompson's arrest came out in court: he wanted to plant child porn on Weiner so he could have his supervisor sacked.

In short, Weiner is a profoundly stupid man. What if he had been a tad smarter and used a disposable phone for the anonymous tip to the police? What if he had refrained from venting his intentions at the BBQ? I expect Thompson would be cooling his heels in prison for a very long time; some of the child porn images were apparently Level 4, considered in Britain to be the second worst type. The police and court system may now posture as "aggrieved parties" but they are the active partners of the likes-of-Weiner because they accept and pursue anonymous tips, they presume guilt until innocence can be proven, they broadcast the names of those accused before trial, they encourage an atmosphere of hysteria within society on this issue....

If you are ever "set up" by a malicious non-stranger, I hope very much the culprit is profoundly stupid enough for even the police and the court system to have a clue that something is amiss.

Original report here




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