Child porn hysteria targets the innocent and ignores the victims

AMID all the hype of the court cases surrounding Operation Amethyst, there has been a lot talk about the horror of the abuse of children.

But the children have been forgotten in the orgy of invective directed against those people who have supposedly exploited those unfortunate children by purchasing photographs of their abuse.

Operation Amethyst had it roots in the United States in early 1999 when a postal inspector in St Paul, Minnesota, came across a website advertising child pornography.

The inspector used his credit card to subscribe to a linked site, which he tracked to Landslide Productions in Fort Worth, Texas.

He informed the postal inspection service agent in Fort Worth, who contacted the child exploitation unit of the Dallas police department, and they got together with representatives of the FBI, customs, and a computer consultant from Microsoft.

Thomas and Janice Reedy owned Landslide Productions, which was set up in 1997.

They appeared to be a normal, middle-aged couple living in an affluent neighbourhood of Fort Worth.

Dallas detective Steve Nelson undertook the task of purchasing material from websites with names like 'Cyber Lolita' and 'Child Rape'. Using a credit card he subscribed to a dozen of the child porn sites and saved the images.

Some 50 law-enforcement officers raided the Reedys' home on September 8, 1999. Armed with a search warrant, they brought along the computer consultant from Microsoft to provide the technical expertise.

More than 70 images of child pornography were found on Thomas Reedy's computer, but a much more important find was a list of over 350,000 people who paid from $14.95 to $29.95 a month to subscribe to the different websites being run by Landslide Productions.

Many of the subscribers were multiple hits in which the same people subscribed to different sites. The authorities estimated that there were 35,000 different subscribers in the US alone. It was the largest commercial child pornography enterprise ever uncovered.

Landslide Productions grossed up to $1.4 million a month.

The Reedys retained 40% for running the financial side, while the other 60% went to their Indonesian associates, RW Kusuma and Hanny Ingganata, and Boris Greenberg of Russia for running the porn operation from outside the US.

Within minutes of the sites being shut down subscribers began phoning Landslide to ask what had happened. "Please give us your phone number and credit card number; we'll try to find out what's happening," Det Nelson told them.

This was the beginning of what became known as Operation Avalanche.

Investigators formed a taskforce comprising officers from the postal inspection service, the department of justice, the Dallas police department and 30 of the nation's federally-funded Internet Crimes Against Children formed a team to operate the Landslide websites in a sting.

They lured customers by sending emails offering the opportunity to purchase child pornography.

The Reedys were brought to trial in November 2000. Janice Reedy, 32, testified that her husband, Thomas, 37, was working on the start-up company, Landslide, when they first met.

She was trained to keep the company's books.

The couple's lawyers argued they were merely collecting money for other businesses, but after eight hours of deliberation a jury found both of the Reedys guilty on December 1, 2000. He was convicted on 89 counts of child exploitation.

US District Judge Terry Means sentenced Thomas Reedy to 15 years in jail for each of the 89 convictions, for a total of 1,335 years, the longest sentence ever imposed on anyone for handling pornography.

At the same time Janice Reedy was sentenced to 14 years in jail. A federal appeal court has since thrown out 40 of the convictions because Judge Means redundantly applied statutes. Reedy will be resentenced next month.

Assistant US Attorney Terri Moore, who prosecuted the Reedys, seemed to adopt a rather cavalier attitude to the setback. "It's still life," she said. "Divide 1,335 years in half. Big deal, you know? That's still a life sentence. Reedy's not going anywhere."

As of late December 2002, only about 150 Americans had been arrested for possession of paedophile pornography supplied by Landslide Productions. This is a derisive total out of the 35,000 Americans who reportedly purchased child pornography from the company.

Why so few? Was it because of entrapment as a result of the active ways in which the authorities enticed people to purchase the material?

The Americans have been suggesting 36% of those who viewed the pornography have been found to have actively engaged in actual paedophile activities.

But that figure is a gross distortion because it is a percentage of the 150 who were arrested rather than the 35,000 who purchased the material. If the overall total were used, the resulting figure would be a fraction of 1%.

Of course, there must be a real danger that those who view such pictures will try to act out their fantasies. Kieran O'Halloran the Garda sergeant convicted this week of employing a prostitute to procure a prepubescent girl for him for sex is an example.

Most of those people who purchase paedophile pornography may never go beyond their fantasies, but they are a menace to society, because they fund the sexual exploitation of children and are therefore willing accomplices. The children involved were monstrously abused.

According to court testimony, one video, the 'Helen Series', showed scenes of a six-year-old English boy and his eight-year-old sister who were sexually abused by their stepfather.

A North Carolina computer consultant was arrested for producing videos of girls as young as four, but we know little about the hundreds of children who have not been traced.

Anyone arrested in Operation Amethyst who purchased the material after September 9, 1999, was not paying pornographers at all; he was paying the US postal inspection service, which was running the operation (not the FBI, as generally reported).

Did the American authorities look for the children, or are they just content to bask in the reflected glory of the international arrests? In September 2001 the Americans gave the British details of 7,272 people in Britain who subscribed to Landslide websites.

The British launched Operation Ore in which they questioned 1,300 people, and have already arrested around 200 men.

Those questioned included two former Labour Party ministers, some 50 police officers, seven teachers, and a number of others, including the rock star, Pete Townshend.

For decades we cringed rather than confront clerical abusers. Yet now we wallow in our own sordid, self-righteous indignation at the pathetic behaviour of those who got caught up in Operation Amethyst as result of Operation Avalanche.

Children are being exploited in the sexpots and sweatshops of the Far East, but we are so busy denouncing the pathetic behaviour of those who bought paedophile porn from the US postal inspection service that we are ignoring the actual exploitation of children.

Those who have been victimising the totally innocent members of the Allen family with their tabloid terrorism are themselves perverts, because they are perpetrating a perversion of justice. Let's focus a spotlight in the exploited children so that something is done for them.