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Pentagon workers tied to
child porn
Security agencies were left at risk,
investigators say
"Both the Department of Defense and the
Federal Reserve can not account for several
trillion dollars and the IRS and Customs is
a fraud. The Federal Government is corrupt
beyond all measure. It is time for the
States to put the Federal Government into
bankruptcy and to seize all assets of the
Fed and its owners and the owners of the
military industrial complex that have looted
the United States." Will Pitts
WASHINGTON —
Federal investigators have identified several
dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with
high-level security clearances who allegedly
purchased and downloaded child pornography,
including an undisclosed number who used their
government computers to obtain the illegal
material, according to investigative reports.
The
investigations have included employees of
the National Security Agency, the National
Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency — which
deal with some of the most sensitive work in
intelligence and defense — among other
organizations within the Defense Department.
The number
of offenders is a small percentage of the
thousands of people working for sensitive
Pentagon-related agencies. But the fact that
offenders include people with access to
government secrets puts national security
agencies “at risk of blackmail, bribery, and
threats, especially since these individuals
typically have access to military
installations,’’ according to one report by
the Defense Criminal Investigative Service
from late 2009.
Some of
the individuals have been prosecuted and
other cases have been dropped, while more
have languished several years without
resolution, according to the previously
undisclosed documents about the
investigations.
The more
than 50 pages, compiled by the investigative
service, part of the Pentagon’s Inspector
General’s Office, contain summaries of
investigations initiated since 2002,
including some cases that remain open.
The uneven
discipline reflects difficulties in bringing
prosecutions, according to specialists. The
evidentiary standards are high for
prosecution in child pornography cases,
according to child welfare specialists,
including positively identifying victims as
underage or known victims of abuse. In
others, evidence was lost or misplaced and
investigators said they lacked sufficient
resources to complete all of them.
Gary
Comerford, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s
Inspector General, said the agency takes
such cases very seriously but said he could
not comment on individual investigations.
Many of
those apprehended were swept up in a much
broader probe initiated by the Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agency in 2006.
Operation Flicker identified an estimated
5,000 people who had paid money over the
Internet to access websites operated
overseas. But until now, it has not been
disclosed that a sizable number of cases
were referred to the Defense Department for
investigation because they involved military
personnel, intelligence officials, or
defense contractors.
The
investigative documents were provided to the
Globe by a government official after they
were approved for public release.
The exact
numbers of cases involving Defense
Department personnel were not contained in
the reports and officials at DCIS could not
immediately provide statistics. But the
official reports indicate that more than 30
government employees were investigated.
Purchasing
child pornography is a crime; accessing it
on a government computer is also a violation
of laws governing the misuse of government
property.
At least
two of the cases were contractors with top
secret clearances at the National Security
Agency, which eavesdrops on foreign
communications, according to the documents.
When one of the contractors was indicted two
years ago, he fled the country and is
believed to be hiding in Libya, according to
a summary of the investigation from last
year. The other was sentenced in 2008 to
more than five years in prison and lifetime
probation.
A separate
case involves a contractor working at the
National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that
builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites.
The individual admitted in 2008 when he was
being interviewed to renew his security
clearance that he viewed child pornography at
least twice a week on his home computer.
As of
December, the individual had been transferred to
an agency field office in New Mexico and had not
been charged. A National Reconnaissance Office
spokesman, Rick Oborn, said he was aware of a
few cases of agency employees accessing such
images but could not immediately say whether the
particular contractor was still working for the
organization.
Specialists in
child protection expressed alarm at the revelations,
but said it was not that surprising to find even
officials in sensitive government positions engaging
in such activity.
“Some are in
high-ranking positions, in positions of trust,’’
said John Sheehan, executive director of the
exploited child division at the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, which has been
consulted on many of these cases and has reviewed 36
million images of alleged child pornography since
2002 at the request of law enforcement agencies.
“There isn’t a profile or stereotype, which makes it
even more challenging for law enforcement.’’
The Pentagon’s
investigation reports show that personnel found
frequenting the illegal websites worked at a variety
of Pentagon installations.
Thirteen suspects
were identified in California, including individuals
who worked at some of the most sensitive military
installations on the West Coast. One was a
contractor at Edwards Air Force Base, where weapons
testing is conducted, while another worked at the
Naval Air Warfare Center at China Lake.
Their positions
gave the cases priority at the immigration and
customs agency that first uncovered them, according
to the reports, “because the subjects are DoD
employees who possess security clearances.’’
A large amount of
pornography was found on the office computer of a
program manager at the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, including images that appeared to
be of children. DARPA is responsible for developing
some of the military’s most secret weapons and
technologies. Charges were not pursued because there
were no images of known victims of abuse, something
that is routinely needed to bring charges, the case
summary said.
A DARPA spokesman,
Eric Mazzacone, declined to comment.
Other agencies
where personnel were investigated are blacked out in
the documents because their jobs were so highly
sensitive, including a case from 2007 in which a
national security official had 93 documents, 8,400
pictures, and 200 movies “that were evidence of
receipt of child pornography.’’ The individual was
sentenced to five years in prison and five years of
supervised release.
Others have not
led to criminal prosecutions, such as the 2007 case
involving an employee at the Defense Contract
Management Agency in Hartford who had about 40
images believed to constitute child pornography on a
government-issued computer. The individual was not
prosecuted because the ages of the individuals
depicted in the images could not be determined or
positively identified as known child victims,
according to the reports.
Another case
opened in August 2007 involving a Defense Department
contractor was closed “due to a lack of resources,’’
a November 2009 report from Pentagon criminal
investigators said.
The case was
referred back to Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
Several dozen
Pentagon officials and contractors have been accused
of -- and in some cases were convicted of --
purchasing and downloading child pornography on
government computers, the Department of Defense's
inspector general's office disclosed in documents
released Friday.
The investigation
that led prosecutors to these government workers was
actually part of a larger Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency sting called Operation Flicker,
aimed at identifying individuals who paid money over
the Internet to access child pornography overseas,
according to the inspector general's office.
That sweep
collected information on more than 5,000 people in
60 undercover stings involving 18 child porn
websites. Among those were several dozen who worked
for Pentagon intelligence services.
Offenders include
people with highly sensitive security clearances who
have the potential to blackmail the government using
closely held military and intelligence secrets,
according to the documents released. Some of the
people involved have such high-level clearance,
identifying characteristics about them were blacked
out in the report.
Among those
investigated are employees of the National Security
Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency and other offices
at the Defense Department.
"Some are in
high-ranking positions, in positions of trust," John
Sheehan, executive director of the exploited child
division at the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, told The Boston Globe, the first
newspaper to report the IG's conclusions. The center
has been consulted, which has reviewed 36 million
images of alleged child pornography since 2002 at
the request of law enforcement agencies, consulted
the government as part of the investigation.
"There isn't a
profile or stereotype, which makes it even more
challenging for law enforcement," Sheehan said.
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