Nomen Nescio writes:

Declan McCullagh has been producing a one-sided series about a child pornographer's supposedly unjust indictment, http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49132,00.html. Of course everything the pornographer says is taken as gospel, while the police are filthy liars.

I didn't read every word of the documents on the Wired site, but enough to see that whatever this guy may have been, an actual Mean, Nasty, Scary Father Raper and Child Pornographer he was not. As the Church Lady would say, how *convenient* that the postal inspector has retired rather than stay on to explain his lies, the manufacturing of evidence, and the wanton and careless destruction of exculpatory evidence in this case. ("I'm sorry, Your Honor, I just can't recall...")

In fact they have gone so far as to plant child porn onto the computer in order to gain a conviction, in McCullagh's twisted narrative. Missing from this tidy story is the cost-benefit analysis from the part of the evil policeman. He has supposedly committed a felony that could lead to decades in prison, just to avoid the difficulty of handing the computer back with an apology, which happens all the time in police work.

You have to appear to have done some work occasionally, even if you're a postal inspector. And then you can't very well admit that you've just wasted N months and countless tax dollars investigating a poor nerdy video gamer, can you? This isn't really difficult to understand except for the naive, and disingenuous apologists for the police state. (Don't bother... we already know which you are.) By the way, when's the last time anyone heard of law enforcement admitting they made a mistake, humbly apologizing and giving someone their property back? I can't ever recall having heard that. The most one ever hears is (usually several years after the fact) something like "mistakes were made; we are re-evaluating our investigative procedures to avoid any such mistakes in the future". No one is ever held responsible. (Did Richard Jewell get an apology? Did Wen Ho Lee? Or Randy Weaver? How about the Branch Davidians?) Now, I'm not claiming that the cops are *always* lying. Only that anyone who automatically *assumes* that they're telling the truth is a lot scarier to me than this so-called child pornographer.

The real issue for cypherpunks is of course whether there is any connection between the child pornographer, Larry Benedict, and the local cypherpunk pedophile who uses the pseudonym Eric Michael Cordian. Is it possible that Cordian and Benedict are one and the same? And that Benedict would use his cypherpunk connections as Cordian to get McCullagh to produce this whitewash? How else did McCullagh get drawn into the seedy world of child pornography trading rings?

Enquiring minds want to know!

This is only the "real issue" for the small percentage of priggish wannabe cops on the list; those who are afraid that someone somewhere may be having fun doing something they consider immoral (but who'd secretly enjoy the titillation of being let in on it). - GH _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx