In a court filing, a lawyer for one of the men arrested after the FBI sting charged that “what the government did in this case is comparable to flooding a neighborhood with heroin in the hope of snatching an assortment of low-level drug users.” The defense lawyer, Colin Fieman, asked a federal judge to throw out child pornography charges against his client, former middle school teacher Jay Michaud. A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments on that request Friday.įederal agents first noticed Playpen not long after it went online in August, 2014. The FBI hacks have drawn repeated – though so far unsuccessful – legal challenges, largely centered on the search warrants agents obtained before agents cracked the computer network.īut they have also prompted a backlash of a different kind. “It’s not like they’re blasting it out to the world.” “These are places where people know exactly what they’re getting when they arrive,” said James Marsh, who represents some of the children depicted in some of the most widely-circulated images. Lawyers for child pornography victims expressed surprise that the FBI would agree to such tactics – in part because agents had rejected them in the past – but nonetheless said they approved. Some of the images described in court filings involved children barely old enough for kindergarten.
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At the time, the site had more than 215,000 registered users and included links to more than 23,000 sexually explicit images and videos of children, including more than 9,000 files that users could download directly from the FBI. The Justice Department acknowledged in court filings that the FBI operated the site, known as Playpen, from Feb.
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In each case, the FBI infected the sites with software that punctured that security, allowing agents to identify hundreds of users. The operation - whose details remain largely secret - was at least the third time in recent years that FBI agents took control of a child pornography site but left it online in an attempt to catch users who officials said would otherwise remain hidden behind an encrypted and anonymous computer network. Sara Ziff, an American model and filmmaker, recently initiated the Model Alliance to protect and enforce models by devising a Models’ Bill of Rights.WASHINGTON - For nearly two weeks last year, the FBI operated what it described as one of the Internet’s largest child pornography websites, allowing users to download thousands of illicit images and videos from a government site in the Washington suburbs. Some are unpaid or paid only with clothes, and some find themselves in debt - which makes them vulnerable to predation. However, even here in the United States, it’s astonishing how vulnerable young models are to exploitation. Indeed, some young Russian models find international success - as evidenced on the catwalks of New York Fashion Week. Masha’s fate is currently unknown our recent efforts to contact her have not been successful, but her Facebook page suggests she is still an aspiring model. Arbaugh initially approached us and suggested we make a film, which became a feature-length documentary, “Girl Model.” She wrote to us: “I have been traveling and documenting in Russia and Ukraine the journey of these young girls that become prostitutes and fashion models, or the foggy lines that exist between both.” Our feature documentary, from which this Op-Doc is adapted, traverses these foggy lines. When we filmed Masha in 2009, the scouts said that these girls - often poor in a society of extreme income inequality - are desirable not just for their looks but because they are malleable and easier to guide and direct. The Op-Doc also introduces Ashley Arbaugh, a former American model turned international model scout, who seeks out teenagers with her Russian comrades. Rural Siberia is a thriving location for scouts hoping to recruit teenage girls as young as 12 and export them overseas. Sometimes hundreds of girls audition at these model castings other times a few dozen show up. In this Op-Doc video we present Masha, a 13-year-old aspiring model who attends an open casting call in Siberia, Russia.