August 03, 2003 12:57am
The Latour Letter - Trojan Horse-Child Porn a Lethal Combination for the Innocent
Source: Adult Industry News
by: Miss Charlie Latour
Child pornographers need to be punished. Julian Green has been punished. He has spent time in jail. He lost custody of his daughter, lost control of his home, has had his friends shun him and has been forever made into a bad guy. The problem is Julian Green is not a child pornographer.
He is the victim of a "Trojan Horse". How do we, as a society, give Julian Green his dignity back? How do we make amends for the unimaginable problems we have created for him? "Oops, we're sorry", doesn't cut it. "It's for the children" is tired and unacceptable. How do we, as a civilized society, prevent what happened to Julian Green?
A Trojan Horse is a computer program placed on another persons computer, which allow real child pornographers, people with malice in their heart or just plain old depraved individuals to store information and pictures. The computer owner may never know the program and pictures are there. These insidious programs can be sent to you as a game, an e-mail or any other electronic communication. The unsuspecting computer owner may, without knowledge, give the bad guys control of their computer.
We are all against child pornography. I have dedicated a significant part of my life and career to fighting this evil lusting. I support Adult Sites Against Child Pornography (ASACP) and the effort by the Free Speech Coalition to bring child pornographers to justice. There is just one hitch, we can not allow the smear of child pornography to ruin the lives of innocent people.
Mr. Green is a citizen of the UK, and he spent over three months in some form of incarceration until he was found innocent. His life, according to an interview, is ruined and I believe him. Think of yourself. How would you be treated if the F.B.I., local police and any other law enforcement agency came to your house with a warrant, seized your computer and charged you with child pornography? How would your family and neighbors treat you? Knowing you are innocent and proving it are two different things. First, you have the stigma associated with child pornography. Second, I don't care what the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights says, if you are charged with child pornography you are guilty until proven innocent. Thirdly, how would you pay for your defense? The cost of such a defense would be staggering. The question is: How do we stop the unfair accusations?
Please, everyone, listen to a very computer challenged person. Get a quality anti-virus software and keep it current. This I can figure out. You can also have a personal firewall constructed for your computer. This you need an expert for, but believe me, the cost of a personal firewall is a lot less than defending against child pornography charges. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is what you personally can do to protect yourself, but we are still faced with the problem of the occasional over-zealous investigator and prosecutor. Not all are over-zealous, but enough to make any civil libertarian cringe with fear, every liberal shriek in horror at the invasion of privacy and every conservative to rail against bloated government agencies.
Just what is the answer? I don't have an answer for you, but I am interested in what you think about this. E-mail me through AINews.com and let's open a discussion on the possible safeguards against what happened to Julian Green.
This is too important an issue to go unanswered. Start from the facts:
1. We are all against child pornography,
2. Law enforcement and prosecutors need to go after real child pornographers to the fullest extent of the law,
3. Innocent people can be ruined by false or unproven accusations of child pornography, and
4. The rights of the accused need to be protected and above all we need to apply the basic concept of our judicial system, that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
I will depend on you, the intelligent readers of AINews, to bring forth a solution. In the mean time prepare for an attack, watch out for Trojan Horses, get a good anti-virus software and keep it current, have your computer hard drive checked and think about having a personal firewall installed.
Here is a good starting point, a person found innocent of such charges should have ALL their legal costs reimbursed by the court system. Good luck and talk with you soon about this issue.
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