Comments on: If NCMEC’s Going to Regulate the Internet for Child Porn, It Should At Least Be Subject to FOIA

By: Guest

Guest — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:23:39 +0000

Emmanuel Lazaridis is a narcissitic pig and is himself the abductor of a girl from her custodial mother and the subject of US and French arrest warrants and Interpol Yellow and Blue notices. He has not been acquited of anything and remains in hiding from authorities though he likes to opine and wax poetic online about the great injustices he has faced at the hands of the big bad NCMEC

http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/...

On his site ncmec.eu he says international parental abductions are “private family matters of no interest to the general public.” I’m sure that his one member non-profit, like NAMBLA, is big on the “love” (ie abuse) that parents can show a child. Don’t get taken in by his twisted and circular logic. He is casting aspersions on measures and organizations to prevent child abduction because he himself is a child abductor. His dislike of this organization should be taken as a testament to the strength of it.

By: hamburgler

hamburgler — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:23:39 +0000

By: Emmanuel Lazaridis

Emmanuel Lazaridis — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:36:48 +0000

Thank you, Mr. Szoka, for an excellent and informative article.

Naturally any comments I might make on the subject of the ongoing litigation must be limited.

I will point out that your article does not address my alternative argument in the event that either the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (USA) or the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children is found to be excluded from the scope of the FOIA, specifically, that their records will be discoverable under 28 U.S.C. § 1782(a). This arcane section of the federal code is extremely important here because a finding that these organizations are subject to it will result in greater rights to information for litigants in foreign countries than is available to United States citizens generally!

The Supreme Court's 2004 ruling in Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices caused substantial angst in corporate boardrooms across the United States because of its "potential to expose companies to additional discovery in the United States in connection with foreign proceedings". See Will Intel Open the Door to American-Style Discovery Abroad? for a brief introduction to this controversial area of law.

Your article states that I am a Greek national, but does not mention the fact that I am also an American citizen. Despite the potential utility of 28 U.S.C. § 1782(a) to our case, should I not be concerned, as an American citizen, about the fact that my right to information concerning me and my minor child may be more effectively enforced through the institution of private foreign proceedings than through the direct application of public sunshine laws?

It was exactly the lack of transparency and accountability described by you and Mr. Feinberg that led to significant abuses in our case. I have already been tried and acquitted of the charge of kidnapping my child from the United States. I am legally exercising my parental rights. So why should the defendants in our case be so adamantly against providing us with access to their records?

Mr. Szoka, your grandfather probably learned early in his career with the FBI that motive often follows money. As you make clear in your article, I am tangling with a lot of very powerful people with large economic interests that are threatened by the simple fact that, in our case and possibly others, they have been on the wrong side of the law.

Thank you again for your continuing interest and commentary.

By: Emmanuel Lazaridis

Emmanuel Lazaridis — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:36:48 +0000

By: Emmanuel Lazaridis

Emmanuel Lazaridis — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:36:48 +0000

By: andrew_feinberg

andrew_feinberg — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:01:58 +0000

Excellent post, Berin.

I might add that it's extremely important to consider the history of and evolution of NCMEC -- which despite its' noble goals, is at its' core an organization created largely by outrage and powered by the same sort of political dynamic that fuels things like the War on Drugs.

NCMEC was created to facilitate cooperation across state lines between the FBI and state/local law enforcement for the purpose of stopping kidnappings and finding runaways. Remember, it's the National Center for MISSING and Exploited Children. Putting pictures on milk cartons...that sort of thing.

And that mission was certainly worthy of a 501(c)(3) charity -- and still is. But the "Exploited" side of the building is where things go truly wacko.

Think about this: Not only does NCMEC receive an obscene amount of money from the federal government, but the feds have actually outsourced the identification, storage and tracking of evidence in child pornography cases to NCMEC. Read that sentence again.

A 501(c)(3) charity is the sole organization in the United States entrusted with collecting evidence, maintaining chain of custody, and cataloging that evidence for prosecutions in child pornography cases. Not the FBI, not the Secret Service, but NCMEC. And it's a black box.

Let me be clear: Child Pornography is a revolting thing, and adults who abuse children to create and possess it should be thrown into a deep, dark hole. But doesn't it trouble anyone that the evidence and investigatory processes used to try these people is not done with the same kind of transparency used in any other criminal case?

If I took a handgun, walked into a building and shot someone, the gun, bullets, shell casings, and other evidence would be held by police with a chain of custody. This is to ensure that I get convicted, because without those kinds of procedures, I can claim the gun wasn't mine, or my fingerprints were planted, or the bullet in the person I shot doesn't match.

But I can't make those claims, because each piece of evidence against me was logged in, processed, and any time it was examined by either my attorneys or the state, was signed for and returned.

So why do we need to outsource this important function to NCMEC, which doesn't disclose it's sources, methods, or even allow defense access to evidence during trial? It hurts the integrity of the criminal justice system.

I'm worried about backdoor regulation. But I'm even more terrified that the right defense attorney will use NCMEC's lack of transparency to convince a jury that evidence held by NCMEC is unreliable, and set off a wave of acquittals and retrials.

Why is the system we use to investigate and catalog evidence against murderers not good enough for online child exploitation? If the DOJ and FBI can take down mobsters and drug dealers, why can't it go after the "worst of the worst" using the same kinds of methods?