Becoming Sweetie, The Computer-Generated Girl Who Took On Child Predators
fastcocreate.com
fastcocreate.com
In other words, the vast majority of the criminal activity people were being arrested for were crimes that the ATF had manufactured in the first place. The real burglars and drug dealers knew enough to stay away.
I can't help but worry there might be a similar situation going on here. I'd be curious to know how many of the 1,000 individuals caught in this operation have any prior history of abusing children, and I'd be curious to know if the folks running this operation were using this child persona to actively solicit people. It's not just that I worry about police entrapment (which I do); it's also that I worry that these operations might ironically make life easier for the child pornography and trafficking industries because the investigators are trapping themselves in their own honeypot.
I'm having trouble figuring out what kind of spot I could find myself in that would let me be enticed into paying money to have children sexually abused.
I'm all for discussing this and thinking about it, but actually chatting with the person on the other end demonstrates intent.
That would certainly change things—where did you get that data from?
Under debate is whether it is still illegal when the victim of your action does not actually exist as a person.
The UN is not a government.
If they thought they were selling illegal drugs but they were just selling sugar they would be convicted. (In England if you sell sugar as illegal drugs you will be convicted of a drugs offence even if you know you are selling pure sugar).
If I plan to kill my boss, saw him into pieces with a chainsaw, and put the pieces in triple-mylar garbage bags, when I go to the store to buy garbage bags I've crossed the legal threshold.
In many states, if the prosecutor can prove to the jury 1) I planned to kill my boss, saw him into pieces with a chainsaw, and put the pieces into garbage bags, and 2) bought garbage bags, I'm toast and will go away for several years. NB there is nothing wrong with just buying the garbage bags.
Incidentally, this is why you should always get a lawyer before talking to the cops.
It's certainly a crime to plan to murder someone. These guys have gone beyond thinking about it; they have actually planned and tried to execute on the idea. What about that is different than conspiracy to murder?
Now,if these people are being accused of anything more than intent I think it is going too far.
Of course it's not a crime to think about something. But that's not what happened here. The alleged perps propositioned a child for sexual acts. That it happened not to have been an actual, breathing child in the specific instance involving Sweetie is incidental; I'll bet you real money it was every other time...
EDIT: Or do you somehow actually think that for all 1000 people found via this "honeypot", it was the first time they ever thought, "I know what I'll do today! I'll pay a naked 8-year-old to touch herself over the internet!" and that they were just "lucky" enough to get a fake kid their first time out?
If you ask me, however, Bob's propositioning Sweetie creates sufficient Probable Cause to obtain a warrant to search his computer for evidence of other, similar, interactions, with actual children. Then he can be prosecuted for the cases where there was a victim.
That he interacts with a virtual child in an inappropriate way is strongly suggestive that has engaged in that behavior at other times, with other, real children. The issues that cause people to act on their pedophilia tend not to result in isolated incidents, and this has been repeatedly demonstrated by years and years of study of hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals.
If the police find no evidence that he's done this before — whether because he actually hasn't (vanishingly unlikely), or because he's too good at hiding his aberrance — then we may or may not be able to prosecute him, depending on the jurisdiction.
But, for my money, Sweetie isn't per se about prosecution. It's about helping surface individuals that warrant further scrutiny, subject to due process, and then quite possibly prosecution.
Now, if they knew it was just a computer-generated image, I think you might have a point; they'd still be perverts, but maybe (IANAL) not criminals.
In the specific instance involving "Sweetie", sure.
Please don't tell me you think that Bob, aged 51, had never before in his life propositioned a child — a child who is in all likelihood an actual slave — to perform sex acts over the internet, until he happened innocently to be hanging out in #dirtylittlegirls, and propositioned Sweetie.
I am personally troubled by this approach for the simple reason it's very binary approach (no pun intended) to a very complex issue.
The articles language alone (predators) a formulation which will ensure that no matter what these guys did it will be understood in the worst possible way and inform public opinion.
I fact I believe that FastCoCreate is guilty of a form of sensationalism something we last saw during the Spanish inquisition.
And yes if someone did something like this to my kids I would want to worst possible sentence to those people, which is why it's good that we have a system where I am not going to be the judge.
Which then, if you never offer to pay, leaves such a costumed officer frustrated - what if these webcam viewers literally just wanted to chat? (Treat that as a statistical experiment) Where they disconnected? Or entrapped?
Past sting operations in the narcotics space have involved fake drugs---flour in plastic bags. Perpetrators who either bought or attempted to steal the fake drugs were convicted. One can debate the morality of stings in general, but I think the question of intent vs. reality is a settled question regarding legal precedent.
Attempted murder is a crime. Trying and failing to steal a car is a crime. I see no reason why attempted child abuse shouldn't also be a crime.
So should stabbing a mannequin should also be treated as murder, if the person doing the stabbing was 100% convinced that it was a real person? Or an attempt to break into a car made out of cardboard treated as an actual robbery,if the thief was 100% convinced it was a real thing before trying it?
I want all child molesters to rot in prison forever. I really do. But there was no children present here.
It's controversial, but it's definitely accepted in some jurisdictions. Police have, in fact, nabbed car thieves using honeypot "broken down cars" on the sides of freeways.
Personal opinion: someone stabbing a mannequin with the intent to murder a real person should be charged with attempted homicide. IANAL. ;)
There should be nothing wrong with thinking about crime. Openly discussing and planning a crime...well, that depends on a lot of factors, but there's certainly situations where it should be fine, e.g. kids idly fantasizing about blowing away a school bully without any real means or intention to do so.
But when someone honestly and to the best of their ability attempts to commit a serious crime like murder or child abuse, then yes, absolutely they should be prosecuted. If someone attempts to kill me but screws it up, I don't want them walking free to try again and again until they get it right.
Also bear in mind that, at least in the US, "murder" and "attempted murder" are different crimes, and I'm okay with that.
Attempted child abuse should be a crime, but for that, there'd have to be a child.
'Predators', though not yet known under this moniker, became a problem quite soon. So what did they do? They set up automated bots, which had just enough logic to fool a human into thinking it's speaking to it's own kind. If someone engaged them in a conversation, and IIRC, asked for some sensitive information (though I'm not sure of the latter), they generated an alert and a real, human police officer took over the bot.
But either an avatar or other human being - I'm still not sure about the legality of the whole thing; a long time ago I learned something along the lines that law enforcement is not allowed to 'bait' someone into doing something illegal; as the whole situation could be doctored to force somebody to do something they wouldn't have done otherwise. I think it's related to your question; but unfortunately I can't recall what the concept is called, or if I'm completely off-track here anyway.
Though in the end; the person still did something illegal, and I can't think of this line of reasoning to work well in court.
The concept is "entrapment".
If there were a site where legally adult people posed as children using virtual avatars and voice-altering software selling sexual services and the site was advertised as such, then the issue becomes a lot more complex.
My opinion is that as long as a person doesn't show clear intent (and this is a very slippery slope, I realise) to cause harm to a minor, they should not be persecuted for their actions. And if intent is clearly determined, but no harm was actually done, I'd prefer that the individual be not punished (including not having their communications monitored, though this might only be acceptable for first offenders), but asked to attend a form of therapy. On the other hand, if harm was done, the measures to be taken should depend on presence or absence of intent, as is in other cases.
() Entrapment is when the police induce someone to commit a crime they were not otherwise predisposed to commit. That did not happen here. The only reason anyone would have to visit these chat rooms in the first place (other than to see what was going on in there, as the author did) is to buy child webcam sex.
() The individuals caught in this sting thought they were talking to a real child and had every intention to solicit a real child for sex. We are not talking about a thought-crime here.
() They had almost certainly done it before, and will continue to do it until stopped.
There are no difficult questions here. This is a good thing.
EDITED to add: By the way, I don't think artwork -- drawings, paintings, computer animations, whatever -- should ever be illegal per se, no matter what it depicts. I don't think that artwork of any kind should be illegal to produce or to view, for any purpose including sexual stimulation, so long as no actual children or other unwilling victims were involved in its production.
But that's not what we're talking about here. This isn't just about viewing synthesized materials. This is about people offering to pay for what they think is a real child to perform sex acts on camera.
What we're dealing with here is a vigilante organization running sting operations where they may or may not be operating in a diligent law abiding manner. As much as I would like to catch pedophiles, I don't think that's the sort of thing we should be encouraging.
> And I have no idea why you believe that the alleged pedophiles had almost certainly done it before
Then you know nothing about child sexual abuse. Perpetrators who are not caught are extremely likely to keep doing it. Even among those who are caught and prosecuted, recidivism is extremely high.
"Vigilante organization"? All they did was collect information and turn it over to the police. A "vigilante" is someone who attempts to enforce the law themselves, by violence. The term does not apply here.
Then you know nothing about child sexual abuse. Perpetrators who are not caught are extremely likely to keep doing it. Even among those who are caught and prosecuted, recidivism is extremely high."
The initial statement was that "because (A) they are attempting it now, (B) they had probably done it before".
That is, a high P(B|A).
You are asserting that a high P(A|B) (which is well established, I believe) implies a high P(B|A). I'm not certain that's true even as a generality, much less as a strong logical implication. Certainly, there could still be a high P(B) in this case, but I don't think it's well demonstrated.
You're right. I don't know much about child sexual abuse. I don't doubt that sexual perpetrators are extremely likely to continue being sexual perpetrators. But I worry that the alleged perpetrators caught in this sting operation might not all be pedophiles, that the completely unsupervised, unregulated sting operators may have been so overzealous in their pursuit of pedophiles that they may not have made absolutely certain that everyone knew they were talking to a '10 year kid'. I read in another article that the age was in the fake user's profile. Is that the only place the age was listed? Are we sure every perpetrator knew the fake user's age?
And what about the quality of graphical rendering of Sweetie? Are we positive that all of the alleged perpetrators thought it was a real person and not a computer generated avatar they were talking to? Maybe some of them realized that it was an avatar. Should it still be a crime then?
As for how much trust you have in the operators behind Sweetie, I just don't get it. Intelligent people do extremely stupid things all the time. Perhaps they initiated the sexual advances because that's what they experienced with the 8 year old boy. Perhaps they initiated the advances because in some countries entrapment isn't a concern. The article stated that the alleged offenders were from 71 different countries. I find it hard to believe the Sweetie operators would be well versed in that many different countries' laws. Or perhaps they carefully worded everything exactly as you believe. I have no idea because the article didn't go into it. I've looked for articles that provide more detail but haven't found any. If you have any links, I'd appreciate it.
What can happen, though, is that they can open investigations on these individuals and get search warrants. If they find evidence of any other crimes, as I think they are likely to, they can prosecute on that basis.
[1] http://freakonomics.com/2011/08/04/porn-and-rape-the-debate-...
Entrapment would be if undercover agents stopped you on the street and hassled you to come inside and proposition a kid for sex and refused to let you leave, or even just kept getting in your face over and over. Or maybe even more subtly, if they kept messaging and pestering you in online chat, suggesting you could see "them" (fake kid) naked for money, even though you expressed reluctance about it. That did not happen here, these were just the super easy people who jumped easily and quickly at the opportunity to pay to have a child perform sex acts on video
Secondly, in every jurisdiction that I know of, this is the crime of Intent to Commit. It doesn't matter that the avatar was virtual, it's no different than an adult cop using picture of a model as bait. You aren't interacting with a virtual chat bot, you're interacting with an adult human being who happens to be using a computer-generated avatar. Again, this is no different than buying fake cocaine from an undercover cop, or attempting to steal a bait car.
Let us not forget that it is statistically improbable that even half of these 1000 people are doing this for the first time. Which means most of them have paid money to someone to force a kid to perform sex acts on camera, and so enjoyed the experience they went and sought it out again.
I think more police departments should have officers on staff and hackers as consultants to engage in consistent and ongoing honeypot operations, not just for these sorts of crimes, but also for things like online fraud, etc.
I don't apologize for criminals; just counseling caution when painting everything with the crime brush.
Fast forward ten years later (which is 2 years ago) and there is that 14 years old Norwegian girl popping up in my MSN list. I never added her, I think we somehow got into each other's buddy list because of those multi-chat layers some tried to implement over MSN.
In my country, Belgium, we got a huge scandal over abducted girls in the 90's. That changed a lot of things for some of my friends who were chief of boyscout and the like: they couldn't handle children the same way as before and every physical contact was suspicious, some told me they didn't take children in their arms anymore when they were crying because they feared people might misinterpret it.
Back to that Norwegian teenager: Had I been a teen I guess I would have chatted a bit more with her (aah those days when some random nicks on the deftones forum would send us postcard of his european trip.. on our REAL PO Box) but all I was concerned about was:
Am I being targeted as an on-line pervert by some agency ? If I keep on answering her "who are you ? how did you get in my list ?"... will that be turned against me later for god knows what ?
But it's the same in the real world: One day I am at the mall and there is that 4 years old crying and asking "mama ?". I asked here "are you lost ?" "yes" "Well, can you see your mom around you ?" "No". So I told her "Well, come with me at the information desk and we'll ask them to tell your mom to meet you there". As she grabbed my hand I saw a woman cashing her groceries 2 meters away and of course she was the mom. That was awkward and it shouldn't have been.
Not that I'd ever defend sex offenders, but by creating an opportunity that is strong enough you could get anyone to commit some kind of crime.
That doesn't have to be a sex offense, it could also be tax evasion, prostitution, gambling, illegal file sharing (music/films), hate speech, speeding with a car or consuming illegal drugs.
Most people have some weakness that could be exploited.
It would have been fascinating to be the fly on the wall at the various meetings to decide the legality of arrests based on this information.
To clarify, this is arguably an effective honeypot right now because it supposedly would not occur to a predator that the child is digital, and so they can be presumed guilty of engaging with a real child... But what about when body-scanning gets cheaper, and a foreign website claims to be offering the services of digital avatars, but is actually sourcing real children. Would this not give predators plausible deniability, and greatly challenge the prospect of prosecution?
This feels cynical of me to say, but I don't see this as an omen of future technological solution to social ills, but rather of uncomfortable future ambiguity
I'm not sure if thought crime or pre-crime are more abhorrent concepts, but here we are.
Yes, there's nothing illegal or "wrong" with thinking. That's why every `conspiracy to X` charge necessarily requires a proof of intent. It isn't illegal to think about killing someone, if it was 99% of the world would be in jail.
Put it this way, should it be illegal for whitehat hackers to test a program, on their home computer, for bugs? There's no intent to do harm but what they;re doing could cause harm if they intended to.
The level of thinking you do should not and does not automatically cause you to have a certain level of intent.
How could "predators" harm anyone if they're talking to a computer model?
Jurors aren't mind readers. We have have a practical way to determine there was intent. Creating a plan to commit a crime shows intent. If you were doing it just because you're an ass-hat then you may pay the price for being an idiot.
No reasonable person is going to document a plan for a crime they have no intention of committing. You're living in a theoretical fantasy land.
What would you suggest that we do with someone caught with plans to bomb a building? Let them go until they actually do it and then arrest them?
The caveat here is that these (alleged) perps all believed they were interacting with a real child. In Common Law countries, at least, criminality exists in the presence of mens rea — the "guilty mind" — and actus reus, an overt action.
Virtuality or not, if you think you're chatting up an actual, breathing, 8-year-old girl, and offer money for her to remove her undergarments, you are a criminal.
Signing the petition http://youtube.com/sweetie
So why make their lives any more miserable?
Those who abuse girls IRL should burn in hell though.
I'd be curious to know what age a randomized blinded panel would rate their avatar at. If this was a psychological test, that would be a requirement for it to be considered valid.
~ from the video
In every US jurisdiction I'm familiar with, at least, if the honeypot declares "I'm 10 years old," that's it. Game over if the predator continues to engage sexually; the honeypot's face-value declaration of age is enough to get the predator on the hook for intent.
FYI, while Sweetie is a next step in that it has an audio-visual component, the standard operating procedure in text-only fora for years has been adult male F.B.I. agents roleplaying as a young male or female child to nab predators. The declaration of age is part of that standard operating procedure to make it easy to prove intent ("the chatter even said he was 10 and the perpetrator still went on with it!").