Child Pornography
In July of 2008 The Tabor Consulting Group became involved in assisting local law enforcement and the TBI in a criminal investigation involving child pornography. On Thursday, August 19, 2010, this investigation ended with the conviction of the man responsible for the possession of more than 100 images of child pornography, a class B felony.
While I were never asked by law enforcement or the District Attorneys office to abstain from discussing the issue, I choose to make no public statements on the matter so as not to hinder the DA office or hinder the defendant’s case, as he was rightly entitled to be presumed innocent until found guilty. With the concussion of the trial, I feel that I can now share the story of my involvement.
My core business has always been, and will continue to be, outsourced IT management for small and medium sized organizations. However, I try to help all people in need, so when a person not connected with my core business comes to me, I am happy to give them the same level of quality service that I provide to all of my clients.
On July 8th 2008, a system was brought into my office that needed some data to be restored from backup after the owner had preformed a factory “system restore”. Because there is no single way that all computer manufactures handle system restores, it was necessary for us to dig into the system looking for clues at how the “system restore” had backup up data prior to restoring the system to a factory like state.
Within the first few moments I discovered several very large caches of images. Because Windows XP automatically sets directories full of images to Thumbnail or Filmstrip view, I could see at once without evening having to open the files that the images were people engaged in sex acts.
Now, me finding pornography on computer systems is nothing new. But in this case, I could see that the girls in these pictures were clearly not adults. As I said in court, I have a 30 year old wife and a 10 year old daughter; I know the difference, and I don’t confuse one for the other.
I will admit finding these images placed me in an awkward position professionally. IT people are a bit like Doctors, Lawyers, and Clergy, we have access to most of your life’s secrets because we have access to your data. While most people don’t necessarily realize this when they hand their computer over to an IT professional, I have ALWAYS understood that protecting my clients secrets is sacrosanct.
It is not my place to question the “legality” of software or media files on a clients system. Likewise my clients web histories, downloaded files, and other documents contain their private thoughts and feelings. While I may need to have access to such things to perform my work, it would be evil of me to share such knowledge. It is a right of all people to have secrets, a right I protect and foster for my clients in my business.
The abuse of children is something apart from the protection of privacy. I am not someone who feels that we should abandon privacy protections in the name of saving children. In fact, I see a great danger in overusing the justification of “child protection” to erode our civil liberties. I would be extremely opposed to any attempt by government to actively censor the Internet based on the premise that is was to “protect the children”.
Fortunately, the law as it is now offers a good balance. It does not actively censor the Internet, but gives law enforcement the tools to aggressively prosecute those that choose to break the law.
Setting aside the theoretical and political, on July 8th 2008 I was confronted with reality. That reality said that the law and my own moral foundation compels me to act when I feel that a child is in danger. To that end, I contacted my friend Officer Scott Davis with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, and turned the mater over to them.
As a one time law student, I found the trial itself to be fascinating. Of course with the Rule in place, I could not be present in the court room until after my testimony. When I took the stand I found myself is be rather nervous, which is something I am not accustomed to. After a few moments, though, I settled in and felt calmer. Part of what I had to testify to was technical in nature and one of things I have always strived for in my business is to explain technical things in such a way as to be understood by the layperson. In this case I had to explain technical issues to 12 jurors whom I had never met, and if I botched my explanation, I could damage the District Attorney’s case and forever be a pariah in the local law enforcement community. So I was under some stress.
As I went on with my explanations, I noticed that the court stenographer seated in front of me kept nodding her head. I wasn’t sure if the gesture was automatic, or even related to what I was saying. But seeing that small gesture made me feel as if I was making sense, and that gave me a profound sense of comfort.
After my testimony, I was free to watch the rest of the proceedings from the gallery. With the passing of my nervousness, I could view the rest of the trial with a more detached and clinical eye. The TBI computer forensic expert was good, though the defense attorney really hammered her. The defense attorney kept wanting the TBI expert to admit the possibility that virus and/or hackers could have downloaded all the child porn images. She stood her ground quite well.
Part of the TBI’s testimony was the showing of the actual images to the jury. The Judge turned the viewing screens towards the jury box and moved the gallery spectators to one side of the court room so as to shield them from the images. As the DA counted off all 100+ images, many of the jury began to visibly loss their composure. Towards the end, even the DA’s voice started to crack a bit.
This, I think, sealed the verdict in the jury’s mind. From my detached view in the gallery, I could have nitpicked the presentations, and there where a few places that I felt the defense missed opportunities to asked good technical questions (even in my own testimony). But in the end, no amount of technical rebuttal could offset those images in the mind of a jury.
The defendant opted to testify in his own defense. Because I was out of the office on the morning of July 8th 2008, I had never actually seen him in person until I took the stand to testify. What stuck me, and everyone else, was how emotionally detached he seemed. The DA went after him pretty hard, but he never broke. There was some testimony that he suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome. While there was no medical evidence introduced, his demeanor did seem to be consistent with others that I know who suffer from this disorder.
In the end, the jury took only 20 minutes to convect him.
I had never been through anything like this. My technical background has prepared me for many things, however “how to deal with finding images of sexually exploited children” was never on any syllabus. The professionalism shown by the DAs, The Judge, Law Enforcement, and even the Defense Attorney was in itself something incredible to see. It has served to reenforce my respect and admiration for the law, our courts, and the people that run them.
I’m glad that I was able to help and be a small part of these events.
I am working with the TCG Legal Team (yes, we have lawyers) to draft an updated privacy policy that clearly reflects the things I have learned from this event. That document will be released in the coming days. We want to clearly spell out to our clients that we will do everything in our power to protect your privacy, but there are some things which we cannot, nor should not, protect.
