Home > Newsletter > April 2002

JOHN ASHCROFT FIGHTS CHILD PORN

During the eight long years of the Clinton Administration then Attorney General Janet Reno sate idly by as child porn took over a huge slice of the Internet. During her reign as Attorney General not a single child pornography arrest was made by the FBI which is the enforcement arm of the Department of Justice which she headed.

A new day has dawned! Attorney General John Ashcroft will not stand by as children are used to make and distribute pornographic images! On March 19th of this year Attorney General Ashcroft ordered the FBI to arrest more than 100 people who were involved in the distribution of child pornography. In one day alone eighty-nine people were arrested and the FBI was tracking down another fifty.

All of the arrests targeted individuals using three "discussion" groups located at the Internet site Yahoo. One of the sites was named "Candyman", apparently after a song in a 1971 children's movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. All three of the Internet discussion groups at Yahoo have now been shut down. More than 7,000 people worldwide were using the Candyman site with more than 1,400 users in the United States. Initially only those posting the child pornography were targeted for arrest.

"A new marketplace for child pornography has opened in the dark corners of cyberspace," said Attorney General Ashcroft.. "There will be no free rides on the Internet for those who traffic in child pornography."

The head of the FBI's child crime unit, Mike Heimback, described the images exchanged on the Candyman site as "very explicit" and "hard-core" porn.

Not all of the names of those arrested were released by the FBI; only those who were "significant perpetrators" or who held jobs where they could have significant contact with children. Among those arrested were eight members of the clergy including two priests. Others arrested included a preschool teacher's aid; a child photographer; a school buss driver; and at least one police officer.

The school bus driver, Timothy Macauly of Constable, New York was also charged with sodomizing five boys. The Catholic priests arrested served in St. Louis and Baltimore.