An Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation called Project Flicker triggered a Defense Department investigation into child-porn that dates back to 2002. Among the 5,200 people who had ordered and paid for child porn from websites located overseas were some Department of Defense employees. They included military personnel, intelligence officials and defense contractors. These cases were referred to the Department of Defense for additional investigation. This news only publicly surfaced in 2010 because the investigation had been kept secret. Some of the workers were prosecuted and some have been fired. Out of thirty known cases of child porn use, only one individual has been convicted and sentenced to five years in prison plus life on probation. A contractor with access to sensitive information is believed to be hiding in Libya. Many cases were dropped because evidence was not conclusive enough to convict the perpetrators.
Out of the list of 5,200, only 3,500 were cross checked. Out of those who were cross checked, it was revealed that there were 264 Pentagon employees who had purchased child porn. These employees included staffers for the Secretary of Defense, and contractors at the NSA (National Security Agency.) 9 of those on the list had top security clearances- meaning they know the country’s top secrets. Of that 264, only 20% were actually investigated. And only a handful of those investigated were actually prosecuted. Then in July of 2011, another leak occurred. An Assistant US Attorney, working directly under Attorney General Eric Holder was caught with child porn on his work-place computer; and the Justice Department declined to press any charges. Mysteriously, less than a month later, on August 3, 2011, Holder announced a major sting investigation (Operation Delego) had indicted 72 child porn collectors and producers; only, there were more than 600 users on the site.
Far from being a triumph of Justice, the Delego Operation is riff with corruption. The sting took place, after 2 years, when the US Government infiltrated and finally pulled the plug on a global child porn ring operating through a single Internet site. To remain a user on the site, members had to continually create and share images of child rape. The questions I have are: When the child porn ring was first discovered in 2009, why was it not shut down immediately; as the men who were maintaining and contributing to the site were directly involved in ongoing child rapes? During the 2 year period: Who in the US government had access to the site? The timing of the site shut-down: Was the criticisms surrounding Holder's refusal to prosecute a child-porn collector found right in his midst behind the sudden site shut-down and indictments? Was the site actually a government run storehouse for Federal employees to share their child-porn collections? As the scandals continue to emerge from the Obama Administration, the answers to these questions may one day shock the world.