FC: Michigan AG hopes to cut funds from alleged kiddie-porn sites

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

This seems a little suspicious. First, if the sites are really in the 
business of manufacturing and selling child pornography, I'd imagine the 
police in the relevant jurisdictions would be delighted to prosecute. 
Second, while there certainly is child porn out there, I'd be a little 
hesitant to accept prosecutors' claims at face value -- they know that 
because of the strict nature of the law, independent verification is not 
just unlikely, but it could be illegal. Third, why is a state official 
using PR Newswire to send out press releases?

Also, I'd recommend an excellent article by the always-interesting Steve 
Silberman of Wired magazine. It's subtitled, "Inside Operation Candyman, 
the FBI's crusade to sweep the Net clean of child abuse" and available here:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.10/kidporn_pr.html

-Declan

---

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=CMPTW_inter.story&STORY=/www/story/09-12-2002/0001798903&EDATE=THU+Sep+12+2002,+03:00+PM 


Michigan Attorney General Granholm Cuts Off Money Stream To 104 Suspect 
Child Pornography Websites

    LANSING, Mich., Sept. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorney General Jennifer M.
Granholm today announced that as a result of a cease and desist order her
office issued on August 26, 2002 to certain Internet billing companies, 104
suspected child pornography websites are no longer able to accept credit card
charges through such companies to peddle their wares.  As a result of this
action, which is the first of its kind in the nation, the access to these
websites is essentially cut off for residents of the United States.
    On August 26, 2002, the Attorney General's High Tech Crime Unit issued
letters to six Internet billing companies including:  "BillCards,"
"CardBilling," "CCbill," "iBill," "Trust-Bill," and EAN Enterprises, d/b/a
"LancelotSecurity," ordering them to stop facilitating and promoting suspected
child porn on 116 websites.  Nearly all of the billers have responded, saying
they will stop providing billing services to the suspect sites.  Even where no
response was received from a particular billing company, a further review by
the Attorney General's High Tech Crime Unit found that the targeted websites
were no longer accepting charges through the billing company.
    Granholm said:  "Websites that cash in on the exploitation of our children
have no place on the web.  I am proud to report that because of the hard work
by our High Tech Crime Unit, we have been able to effectively cut off access
to these child porn websites to residents of the United States."
    As of early September, 104 of the 116 websites containing suspected child
pornography are no longer able to accept charges through the previously
mentioned billing companies.  All of the companies that were sent cease and
desist orders have either indicated a willingness to comply with the order,
have severed their relationship with most of the websites, or have indicated
they have required the websites to provide proof that the models depicted are
of legal age.
    Granholm said:  "While it is unfortunate that it took this type of action
to sever the funding from these appalling websites, their compliance is
definitely a step in the right direction.  But make no mistake about it -- our
High Tech Crime Unit will continue to monitor these companies, and if they
decide to exploit children and place profits ahead of the law, we will
prosecute."
    Granholm noted that because the investigation is ongoing, her office would
vigilantly monitor the billing companies who received the cease and desist
letters, as well as other third-party billing companies, to ensure they are
not facilitating child pornography on the Internet by accepting credit card
charges on behalf of illicit websites.
    Granholm urges that parents call the Internet Crimes Against Children Task
Force at 1-877-5CYBER3 [1-877-529-2373] 24-hours a day to report child
predators or child porn on the Internet.

    (All Attorney General news releases may be found at 
http://www.ag.state.mi.us .




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