Should a Computer Repair-Person Report Possible Child Pornography Found on the Bosses Computer?
The sad advice of humorist-turned-ethicist Randy Cohen in his recent New York Times column (The Ethicist, December 3, 2006) stunned those of us in the small but growing army of law enforcement officials who investigate the millions of Internet-trafficked images depicting the horrifying sexual exploitation of children.
Cohen advised an Internet technician, “S.M.N of Vancouver”, not to report suspected images of child pornography found on the bosses computer. Cohen also advised that there is no legal duty to report.
The column was of interest to me for three reasons. As a fledgling student of ethics, my doctoral dissertation focused on ethics training for law enforcement. I am also the Project Director for the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and have supervised hundreds of child pornography investigations. Additionally, I have endured retaliation as an employee who reported official misconduct outside of the chain of command.
ETHICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Cohen's surprising advice to ignore suspected child pornography seems to invoke the lowly self-centered ethical principal of blind egoism where possible misconduct is quickly rationalized and ignored.
The advice to ignore possible child pornography seems to lack consideration for normative ethical principles such as benevolence, paternalism, honesty, lawfulness, justice and human rights. Sadly, as we witnessed in the Enron case and many other prominent business and government scandals, ethics in the workplace is somehow viewed as incompatible with ethics in other arenas. Notable among the differences are the focus on protecting business profits, company reputations and stockholders share prices.
If instead of a computer, the boss gave the employee a kitchen-knife covered with dried red fluid the day after his wife's mysteriously stabbing death, would the dried fluid be rationalized as probably ketchup and ignored? For some, comparing child pornography to murder is a stretch, but think about the murder of a helpless child's innocence at the hands of a sex offender who then memorializes the crime with images that may be trafficked forever on the Internet. Some say that the psychological damage to the child is a form of mental death.
Children's rights, sadly, are not part of the routine decision-making process in business, government or capitalist civilian life. Children cannot vote, they cannot call the police, and they are not stockholders. Children are widely disenfranchised and their human-rights are easily ignored.
UNLAWFUL IMAGES AND OFFENDERS
Child pornography is a serious crime, and the sexual exploitation of children is heinous. When Morton Berger lost his appeal for a 200 year sentence for possessing child pornography in Arizona (see http://kardasz.org/Berger_Decision.pdf), the Arizona Appellate Court Judges echoed what the U.S. Supreme Court has also stated:
The possession of child pornography inflames the desires of child molesters, pedophiles and child pornographers.
The use of children as subjects of pornographic materials is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child.
The victimization of a child continues when that act is memorialized in an image. The materials produced are a permanent record of the children's participation and the harm to the child is exacerbated by their circulation. Unfortunately, the victimization of the children involved does not end when the pornographer's camera is put away.
The possession of child pornography drives that industry and…the production of child pornography will decrease if those who possess the product are punished equally with those who produce it.
Tough penalties will decrease the production of child pornography if it penalizes those who possess and view the product, thereby decreasing demand.
The State has more than a passing interest in forestalling the damage caused by child pornography: preventing harm to children is, without cavil, one of its most important interests.…we cannot fault the State for attempting to stamp out this vice at all levels in the distribution chain.Possessors of child pornography are sometimes rationalized as harmless viewers of images and without the violence potential of contact, "hands-on" offenders. But a study of imprisoned possessors of child pornography by Doctors Hernandez and Bourke of the Butner, North Carolina Federal Correctional Center showed that a significant number of persons convicted of possessing child pornography also had previously undiscovered incidents of contact sex offenses with children. (see http://www.kardasz.org/HernandezPrisonStudy.pdf)
FEDERAL LAW
There is also a federal law that mandates reporting under certain circumstances. If the company that S.M.N. works for also provides wireless Internet access available for public use, the company may fall under the definition of an electronic communication service provider under U.S. Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 119, 2510. The Federal law requires that electronic communication service providers report child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. (Title 42, Chapter 132 Subchapter IV, 13032).
CASE STUDIES
I often receive calls from computer repair people and shocked spouses who encounter troubling images. My detectives or I can usually instruct the caller over the phone regarding what is, and what is not lawful, or, I can arrange to quietly send a detective out to view the images and make a determination as to their lawfulness. In some cases the reporting person quietly removes the computer from the home or workplace and my detectives examine it at another location.
I am reminded of two recent investigations involving IT professionals who bravely reported Internet sexual misconduct. My colleagues in the 45 other Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces throughout the United States have encountered similar cases:
In Arizona, an alert IT professional working for a medical firm noticed unusual Internet activity on a computer and traced it back to a neuropsychologist employed by the firm. The subsequent investigation led to the arrest of Dr. Steven Henderson who is now serving 17 years in prison for sex offenses with a minor.
In another case reported by an IT professional, a Phoenix man who worked at a day-care facility was arrested after it was discovered that he performed live web-cam molestations for the sick enjoyment of his other twisted Internet friends. The man is also now in prison.WHISTLEBLOWING
Protecting those who cannot protect themselves is the obligation of every citizen. It is not enough just to do your blindly do you job. There's no special virtue in that. Democratic freedom isn't just an endowment, it is also a responsibility to the human rights of others.
Truth-telling is sometimes unwelcome. In Ibsen's play, An Enemy of the People, one of the characters says, "A community is like a ship, everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm."
Reporting misconduct is not easy and it takes courage. The late psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) described the highest stage of moral development as that of principled conscience, a belief system that permits a person to risk criticism in favor of protecting the rights of others.
At the Project Safe Childhood Conference in December 2006, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales quoted Martin Luther King Jr. who said, "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Attorney General Gonzales went on to remark, "That is still true today. For us to be silent on this issue is to fall short of our responsibilities as leaders of a battle to protect society’s most innocent and most vulnerable: our children."
If S.M.N. chooses to report and the employer retaliates, the retaliation may be a violation of one of the growing number of laws throughout the United States designed to protect employees who report criminal conduct. (see http://whistleblowerlaws.com/law.htm)
MY ADVICE
My advice to S.M.N. of Vancouver differs from Cohen's: Brave-up and quietly call a knowledgeable law enforcement official. The end results may be discomforting and possibly career-altering but you will sleep better at night, and perhaps a child somewhere will sleep better too.
Dr. Frank Kardasz (Ed.D) is a police sergeant in Arizona and the Project Director for the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. He can be reached at kardasz@kardasz.org
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December 18, 2006
Dr. Kardasz: The following news item concerns a suspect who was identified as the result of information from an IT specialist.
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Man faults 'other self' for porn: Convicted sex offender charged with access material at work
By Pat Reavy, Deseret Morning News, 12-15-06
A convicted sex offender formerly employed at Primary Children's Medical Center has been arrested and charged with downloading child pornography at work.
But the man says he has multiple personalities, and although he disapproves of child porn himself, one of his other personalities wants to look at it.
Kevin Edward Sutherland, 45, was charged with five felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. He was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail Wednesday night. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance today. The investigation into Sutherland began a little over a year ago when the head of computer security for Intermountain Health Care contacted the Attorney General's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, according to court documents.
By that time, Sutherland had been fired by PCMC. He worked at the hospital from April 1995 until Oct. 26, 2005, court documents state. His last position was in the parent resource center assisting the parents of patients. He never worked with the patients themselves, said Primary spokeswoman Bonnie Midget.
During his tenure, he also worked in food services and the business office, she said.
The security department said Sutherland's computer login was being used to access pornographic sites, including "young naked boys in sexual
poses," according to court documents. In September of 2005, Sutherland's computer login was used to access 990 adult and child pornography images, court documents state.
IHC security reported "consistent viewing of adult and child porn images throughout the month and on multiple days. User did unique searches," the document stated.
ICAC agents visited Sutherland's home on Dec. 7, 2005. He wasn't home, but his wife said she had an idea of why the agents were there.
She stated her husband, "is against child pornography and would never do anything to hurt children" and that he would "never access child pornography," according to court documents.
The case took a bizarre twist, however, when Bonnie Sutherland told the agents her husband was being treated by a doctor for a mental illness in which he manifests multiple personalities. "One of the personalities is a teenage boy," she told investigators, according to court documents. As the teenage boy personality, Kevin Sutherland only wanted to look at images of girls his own age, she told agents, according to court documents. Another of his personalities is a young male and "this personality wanted to look at images of child porn," court documents state. "(Bonnie Sutherland) stated that (Kevin) Sutherland has no memory of what the other personalities do when they take over his body," according to court documents. Bonnie Sutherland further told investigators that when her husband was off his medication and the other personalities took over, she had to tell them sternly to "go home" and his normal personality would return," court documents state.
Kevin Sutherland later talked to investigators and said that while he physically accessed porn on his work computer, "mentally it was not (himself,)" he stated in court documents. He said he had the personalities of a 13-, 14- and 16-year-old. The 16-year-old was named "Casey" and was "very sexual and self-destructive," according to court documents.
In 1986, Sutherland was convicted in New Hampshire for indecent exposure and lewdness involving a minor. His probation was later transferred to Utah. He was discharged from his probation in 1991.
All employees have background checks going seven years back from every city and state they have lived during that time, Midget said. The hospital also checks the Utah Sex Offender registry regularly, she said.
Sutherland was never on the registry during the time he was employed at PCMC. But even if he was, the attorney general's office said, because of the way the registry was set up in the early 1990s, the hospital would not have been able to check it. Convicted sex offenders were placed on the registry for only five years at that time. And the registry was only available to law enforcement agencies.
In this case AG spokesman Paul Murphy said the hospital "did everything right" in reporting Sutherland as soon as a problem was detected. The hospital, Midget said, has an "aggressive computer security system" that regularly screens for violations.
Sutherland's last known employment was at Salt Lake Regional Medical Center in 2005. The hospital did not return calls placed Thursday by the Deseret Morning News, checking his employment status.
E-mail: preavy@desnews.com,Deseret News Publishing Company
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