FBI Investigation Into Programmer For Freeing The Public Domain

Tue, Jul 7th 2009 9:31am

Filed Under:
criminal, fact, investigation, surfthechannel.com, uk

Companies:
scopelight

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Why Did UK Anti-Piracy Group FACT Get Computers From A Criminal Investigation... And Keep Them?

from the that-doesn't-seem-right... dept

Last month, we wrote about the lawsuit brought by UK anti-piracy industry group FACT against the company Scopelight and its founders for running a video search engine called Surfthechannel.com. Considering it was simply a video search engine and pointed to content that was both authorized and unauthorized, we wondered how FACT could tell a legit search engine from an illegal one. However, more details on the case are coming to light, and the whole thing seems questionable. Someone, who prefers to remain anonymous, sent along the news that the lawyers for Scopelight have now won the first battle against FACT, and the full decision reveals some rather troubling details about how closely FACT -- a private industry group -- collaborated with the police in the initial investigation, and then FACT's own actions after the police investigation concluded.

It's already troubling enough that a private industry group, involved solely in activities designed to protect a business model, was allowed to work so closely with police in a criminal investigation. FACT alerted the police to potential illegality at Scopelight, which is fine, but from then on FACT was intimately involved in the criminal investigation. When the owners of Scopelight, Anton Benjamin Vickerman and his wife Kelly-Anne Vickerman, had their home raided by the police... FACT came along for the investigation. Not only that, but they had their own private investigator copy information from the Vickerman's computers (exactly what and how much was copied is apparently in dispute). When the Vickerman's were questioned by the police, FACT members took part in the questioning.

It seems troubling enough that private industry reps were allowed to be so closely involved in a criminal investigation where they have clear bias, but it gets worse. The police seized various computers and equipment as part of arresting the Vickerman's, and then allowed FACT employees to inspect the computers and the information found on them -- which, again seems to be granting way too much access to a private group. Then things got even more bizarre: the police gave a bunch of the equipment to FACT to allow FACT to continue to examine the equipment.

A few months after the original raid, investigation and arrest, the police decided that there wasn't enough for criminal charges, and decided not to prosecute the Vickerman's. The police told the Vickerman's their property could be returned, so the Vicerkman's lawyers contacted FACT asking for the equipment back, at which point FACT refused, claiming it was holding onto the equipment because it was considering bringing a civil suit against the Vickermans -- which it eventually did bring.

So beyond the rather stunning close working relationship between the police and a private industry group on a criminal investigation, including handing over evidence to a private party, once the police decided not to prosecute, that private party decided to keep the computer equipment and use it for a civil suit. Thankfully, the court has ruled that this latter decision was improper, and the moment the police decided not to prosecute, the equipment should have been returned. So while this is a victory for Scopelight, it's still a rather stunning revelation of how closely integrated a private industry organization is with criminal investigations, and certainly raises questions as to why such a group should get such access.

Mon, Apr 6th 2009 12:48pm

Filed Under:
investigation, unfair

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School Administrator Accused Of Child Porn Because He Investigated Sexting At School

from the just-sad dept

There have been a lot of stories recently about the rise of "sexting" (kids sending naked photos of themselves via mobile phones) and how its leading to child porn charges. It's quite clear that this is an overreaction to the law. Kids definitely need to be educated about doing such things, but charging them with child pornography is highly questionable. Even more ridiculous is the idea of slapping recipients of such photos with child pornography charges, even if they didn't request the images. This is just one problem (of many) with current child pornography laws. Since possession alone is considered a crime, if you want to make someone guilty of a crime, you just need to send them illegal photos.

That leads to even more ridiculous situations, like the story in Wired about an assistant principal, Ting-Yi Oei, at a high school in Virginia. After rumors were spreading about "sexting" happening at the school, he was asked by the principal to investigate. In the course of the investigation, a male student showed him a photo he had received of the torso of a woman wearing a bra and covering her breasts with her arms. The principal told Oei to preserve a copy of the image. Not being very computer literate, he asked the student with the photo how to get a copy himself. The student sent it to Oei's phone and told him how to email it to his own computer, which Oei did. After investigating the matter, Oei did not believe the student in the photo went to the school, and informed the principal about everything.

Later, due to a variety of other events, the original student who had the photo was suspended. In anger, his mother called the police, telling them about the photo, which resulted in the police investigating Oei... and charging him with "failure to report suspicion of child abuse." Of course, he had reported everything to the principal (what was legally required) and it wasn't clear that there was actually any child abuse. And, finally, the fact that he couldn't identify the student meant that he had no way of actually reporting who was abused.

But, rather than drop the charges, prosecutors kept on going. They added more charges, including possession of child porn (a felony, rather than the misdemeanor) and then later adding charges of "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" for asking the original student to send him the photo (which, remember, the principal had told him to archive).

Oei's name was all over the news, accused of child pornography. He was stripped of his job since he couldn't be seen at the school around students. He had to raise money to fight the charges and is now in tremendous debt. Last week, a court finally tossed out the charges, noting that the photo itself isn't even pornographic (let alone all the other problems with the lawsuit).

Child porn is a very real and very serious issue that needs to be dealt with. But we seem to have put together a set of laws that allow for massive reputation-destroying witch hunts, rather than actually tackling the real issues. This story should horrify anyone who thinks that current child porn laws make sense.

Thu, Jun 5th 2008 10:39pm

Filed Under:
corruption, investigation

Companies:
pirate bay, warner music group

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Warner Music Admits It Hired Police Investigator Before The Pirate Bay Investigation Was Complete

from the that's-not-good dept

Back in April, we wrote about the fact that a police investigator in Sweden who had been in charge of the case against The Pirate Bay had been hired by Warner Brothers. At the time, there was no proof that he had been hired during the investigation. In fact, it appeared otherwise. Based on this, I didn't see why this was such a problem -- though many people in the comments felt I was being naive. And, indeed, it turns out that a further investigation has now turned up the news that, in fact, the guy was hired while the investigation was ongoing. Though he's now left that job, this does call into question the entire investigation against The Pirate Bay.

And while it turned out that I was wrong about what happened, based on the evidence at the time, I still believe that it was wrong to jump to conclusions about what Warner Music did without actual evidence. Jumping to conclusions without evidence is what the industry does. We should be above that. When the actual evidence is there, then we should be clear and call it out -- and indeed, finding out that Warner hired the guy in the middle of the investigation is a huge problem and should throw the entire case into question. But, let's hold ourselves to a higher standard than the entertainment industry, rather than stoop to their level.

Fri, Apr 18th 2008 10:48am

Filed Under:
investigation, pirate bay, sweden

Companies:
pirate bay, warner brothers

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Warner Brothers Hires Lead Police Investigator On The Pirate Bay Lawsuit

from the conflicts-of-interest dept

Stephen Holthaus writes in to point us to a press release from The Pirate Bay about the fact that the chief police inspector who built the case against the Pirate Bay in Sweden has now been hired by Warner Brothers. Unfortunately, it seems like the folks at the Pirate Bay may be overplaying this news, implying that he was employed by Warner Brothers while conducting the investigation. Instead, the details show that he merely switched jobs last month. That's not as scandalous as the Pirate Bay folks make it out to be. While they do have a point in suggesting that some of his investigative work may have been part of the "job interview," it's not unreasonable that Warner Brothers would decide to hire someone who had the experience this investigator had. After all, the RIAA and all of the major record labels have a history of hiring former law enforcement officials (no matter how pointless their "anti-piracy" efforts are). So, while it may call into question the guy's objectivity during the trial, the guys at the Pirate Bay probably should tone down the moral outrage on this one.

Politics

Thu, Mar 13th 2008 4:49pm

Filed Under:
congress, fcc, investigation, kevin martin