The dark side of the internet

Credit to Author: Fr. Shay Cullen, SSC| Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:12:38 +0000

FR. SHAY CULLEN, SSC

It was a hot-blooded crime last December 2019, done with a terrorist and jihadist motivation of anger and hatred, that caused the violent deaths of three United States sailors who were shot dead at the Naval Air Station Pensacola. The killer was Mohammed Alshamrani, a 21-year-old member of the Royal Saudi Air Force who was training at the base with his 21 companions. He was killed by security.  Fifteen of the 21 other Saudi trainees on the training course were found to have anti-American and jihadist comments on their laptops, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and, equally shocking, that they had child pornography contents on their laptops too.

This connection of child pornography with extremist ideological views is a new troubling dimension of child sexual abuse for many readers and children’s rights defenders.

Possession and viewing of acts of child rape is an indication of the desire to actually sexually abuse a child.  What kind of screening was done by the US military before allowing these officers to join a training program? Besides the fact that they were not charged under US laws for the possession of child pornography was likely a tainted and morally wrong political decision. Since Saudi Arabia is such an important military partner and buyer of American made weapons with billions of dollars in sales, the law was bypassed.

Child protection and law enforcement officials in the US are surely dumfounded at the Trump decision to allow them to fly back to Saudi Arabia scot-free, considering that the never-to-be-forgotten 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York was carried out by terrorists, most of whom were Saudi extremists.

The proliferation of child pornography around the word leads in many cases to direct contact with children for sexual assault, and many acts are done with violence or the threat of it. Children are terrified and traumatized, and the graphic images of children being abused propel pedophiles to go out and do it in person, most likely in poor countries like the Philippines.  Cybersex is the sexual abuse of children on live internet connection by mostly Western pedophiles in the developed rich countries. They send payment by couriers to the abusing persons to commit the despicable heinous acts.

Most of the evil child porn is hidden on the dark web, this is the encrypted part of the internet where few ordinary people can access and law enforcement can rarely go. But pedophiles and criminals roam freely with passwords and access.  While police are constantly monitoring the internet for child pornography and are very successful, yet much more is undiscovered.

Many pedophiles travel abroad to sexually abuse vulnerable children. Preventing that is the intent of the successful Australian law banning travel abroad to convicted pedophiles. Such a similar law has been pending before the Irish Parliament for almost two years filed by independent member Maureen O’Sullivan.  Its intent is to protect vulnerable children in the Philippines and elsewhere. The Irish parliamentarians, to their eternal shame, have failed to act on it. Now, the Irish government has called new elections and all pending laws will fall and have to be refiled again. It is the game of politics as in the US decision to let the Saudi trainees go free that allows child abuse to proliferate.

The child porn images are spreading around the world through the internet and the internet service providers (ISPs) in every country that does not have filters, and child pornography-blocking technology are aiding and abetting these crimes against children. In the Philippines, where cybersex and child pornography is horrifying, the telecommunications companies are violating the law by not having these filters in place as demanded by Republic Act (RA) 9775, the “Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009.” They have seemingly placed themselves above it and seem to have some government regulatory officials in their pockets. In addition to the anti-child pornography law, they are also allegedly violating with impunity RA 7925, the “Public Telecommunications Policy Act of 1995,” and Executive Order 546 issued in 1979.

This strongest law, RA 9775, was passed in 2009 explicitly ordering the ISP’s to install software to block the transmission of child porn images and cybersex, in which children are forced to do sexual acts live on camera, through the internet to customers in other cities or countries. But they have allegedly ignored it or persuaded law enforcers to look the other way and allow them to pay a “fine.”

It is alleged, too, that some officials of government telecommunication agencies and law enforcement agencies have been allegedly captured or bought off so they will not enforce the law. The critics of these big telephone and internet companies accuse them of making money out of the dirty business of child abuse and child pornography. They have not been charged or found guilty of any crime. This is amazing since the law was passed in 2009, yet cybersex and child porn are the most prolific internet child crimes in the Philippines until the present.

In August 2013, I wrote in this column on this very subject the following: “Agencies in the Philippines such as the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) are mandated under RA 9775 (Section 9) to enforce the law but seems to be looking the other away. The Anti-Child Porn Alliance is struggling against public and government apathy, inaction and indifference.” On Jan. 30, 2014, the NTC issued a memorandum circular ordering the ISPs to comply with the law. The memorandum order tells all ISPs to “install available technology, program or software that will block access or filter all web sites carrying child pornography materials.”  The telephone companies, such as PLDT, Globe, Smart and, soon, Huawei, apparently flout the law and refuse to comply. Child pornography is everywhere, even on the cellphones of children, so it’s clear the elite dynasties and their corporate partners run the country. So, will government protect the rights of children and place them before profits?

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