NASA HQ raided in kiddie porn probe

[Sarutama]

Thought this was interesting:<br><br><br>NASA HQ Raided In Kiddie Porn Probe<br>Feds: "Skin tone filtering system" helped nab space agency executive<br><br>MARCH 31--The Washington headquarters of NASA was raided this week as part of a kiddie porn probe targeting an executive with the space agency, The Smoking Gun has learned. On Wednesday morning, federal investigators seized a laptop computer, a hard drive, CDs, and other material from the office of James R. Robinson, who was present when agents with NASA's inspector general executed a search warrant at his E Street office. According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court, Robinson, 42, used his office computer (and another in his Virginia home) to trade and examine illegal image and videos. An excerpt from the affidavit, sworn by agent Paul Danley, can be found below. Robinson, a program executive with NASA's In-Space Propulsion, Mission and Systems Management Division, was snared last year in an online operation run by postal inspectors. In correspondence with a series of undercover agents, he described his preferences as, "probably priority right now would be boy-on-boy or boy-with-Man, and girl-on-girl. But really, anything is of interest." Robinson, who has not been arrested, wrote that he was "Not a cop," and explained that he amassed his child porn collection via downloads "via Kazaa and usegroups." The affidavit also indicates that Robinson, who traded via a Yahoo! mail account using the alias "Jim Saron," trolled "alt.chxld.mxlexter.com." In December, after being contacted by postal agents, NASA's inspector general opened its own probe of Robinson, which included a review of reports from the space agency's "web activity monitoring application." The NASA system, dubbed Web ContExt, is apparently a state-of-the-art application that used a "skin tone filtering system" to determine that Robinson was viewing child porn from his office computer, most recently in January, according to the affidavit. <br><br>See the affidavit here<br><br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0331061nasa1.html">www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0331061nasa1.html</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p></p><i></i>

[chillin]

This individual case is disturbing, but to me the fact that there's all these sites that don't even make an effort to disguise their criminal intent is much worse. There's definitely a very big problem when places like this exist and their clientele aren't promptly prosecuted. <p></p><i></i>

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

I wonder whether those sites exist to justify 'stings' against political targets.<br><br>I cringe everytime I read that someone was nabbed because of what was on their computer.<br><br>The frame-up and take-down potential are scary. Recall that when former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter was publicly condemning the White House for preparing to go into Iraq he suddenly got convicted in the press for 'propositioning a minor online.'<br><br>NASA could be getting some chilling to keep people in line over budgets or spy satellites or global warming or.....<br><br>Remember this story? The NASA expert who declared Bush was wired for the 2004 debates?<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/11/10_407.html">www.motherjones.com/news/...0_407.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>A leading NASA scientist who normally spends his days analyzing and enhancing photo images sent across the depths of space by the Cassini and other space probes has turned his expertise to images of the president in his three debates.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> His conclusion: "George Bush is obviously wearing something -- probably a receiver of some kind -- under his jacket for each debate."<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Robert M. Nelson, who has worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology for some three decades, provided a dramatic photo of the bulge under the jacket</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> at the first debate to Salon.com which posted it Oct. 29. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Now -- working at home and using his own computers -- he's done the same analysis for MotherJones.com on images of Bush's back taken during the second two debates.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Nelson, a top-ranked senior research scientist at JPL and past chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, says that by enhancing the contrast and the edge definition in digital photographs taken of video broadcasts of the three debates, the object under the jacket can be clearly delineated. <br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>