Spyware threatens to lock up another wrongly accused
[ratings]
Sixteen-year-old Matthew Bandy was a normal 16 year old, living in a small suburban town in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. At least that was until a couple of years ago loud knocking spelled the start of a titanic struggle against the charges laid against him. Charges which could lead to 90 years imprisonment.
The knocking was the police. Matthew Bandy was charged with possession of 9 exlicit pictures of a minor and placed under house arrest until his trial. He was fitted with an electronic tag around his ankle, not allowed to go anywhere where there may be children, and not allowed to even attend his local church without getting written consent from his parish priest.
This is what you might expect from any authorities when dealing with such a serious crime. Unfortunately, much like Julie Amero, the UK primary school teacher, Bandy appears to have been the victim of both spyware and hacking. Once again, as with the Julie Amero case, the prosecutions only arguement were that the images were found on his pc, therefore he must be guilty.
It baffles me how ignorant and pigheaded the prosecutor is in this video.
[ratings]
on January 16th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
[…] Update: Amero is not the only person to hit the headlines for spyware leading to a false accusation. […]
on January 17th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Hi, this is Jeanne Bandy, Matt’s mom. I’m a complete amateur at blogging, just learning how to do this, but on behalf of Matt and our whole family, I want to thank all of you who have expressed support for us and outrage about what happened. Matt, as you may know, is restricted from using the computer for anything but school or work by the terms of the probation he got stuck with. I hope all of you will visit our website, www.justice4matt.com, and write to the legislators and other people listed on our “How You Can Help page.” If you want to write to me or Matt, the best way to do that is the Contact Us form at our site, because we’re trying to avoid spam as much as we can. And keep on blogging about us please, I’m told it really helps to put pressure on lawmakers and law enforcers to make change in the system, and it educates people who don’t know how easily the same thing could happen to them. Finally, my apology for having to send out somewhat of a “form message” to bloggers - we’re swamped (thank God) in supportive response and I’m just trying to keep up. I’m having to borrow a friend’s computer and his Internet access because we cut ours off some time ago - but we’re going to go online again soon, with MAXIMUM security (and on a Mac). I’ll try to respond more personally soon. THANK YOU AGAIN!
on January 17th, 2007 at 9:27 am
This is fucking ridiculous
on January 17th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Can you imagine waking up to this. Unbelieveable tbh!!
In fairness, prosecutors/investigators chosen for these kind of cases such be very tech savy. It’s a waste of tax payers money having a fool like this guy chasing after a kid when he clearly hasn’t a clue about computers, the internet or how they work.
on January 17th, 2007 at 10:25 am
While that is certainly the case, the laws themselves NEED to be updated to reflect the way in which technology is used in today’s world. Merely having child pornography on your computer is _NOT_ evidence that you actively pursue such material on the internet.
It’s entirely possible that my own computer is riddled with these types of images in my browser cache, all of which are completely innocent but are also completely unavoidable unless I stop browsing the internet full stop. Or stick to only 1 site on the internet.
Stories like this make me sick :/
on January 18th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
[…] It’s as if the Internet is the creator and cause of all the worlds troubles. Anyway, it’s interesting to see how ignorant the prosecutor on the case is too! Read the story here > […]
on January 24th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I send you again links to publications about my case.
I was forced to confess to the
possession of internet digital pictures of porn in deleted clusters of
my computer hard drive. My browser was hijacked while I was browsing
the web. I was redirected to illegal sites against my will. Some
illegal pictures were found on my hard drive, recovering in
unallocated clusters, without dates of file creation/download.
I do not know how courts can widely press these charges on people to
convict them, while the whole Internet is a mess.
This is my story in inquisition21.com. There is all
information about case written by Irish writer Brian
Rothery. You can see a lot of violations of law by police
http://www.inquisition21.com/article~view~7~page_num~3.html
This is publication in Wired news
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63391,00.html
This is publication in Theregester
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/13/browser_hijacking_risks/
Article in Globe and Mail newspaper
http://ctv.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040617.gttwhijac17/tech/Technology/techBN/ctv-technology
Article in ZDnet
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5344831.html
This is article in Washington Times, May 22, 2004
There is information about my case.
http://www.cato.org/cgi-bin/scripts/printtech.cgi/dailys/05-30-04.html
Article in Crime research center:
http://www.crime-research.org/news/07.22.2004/506/
Article in Dallas, TX Newspaper
http://www.crime-research.org/news/24.12.2004/862/
Child porn law was declared unconstitutional in Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA’
http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=11750
on January 24th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I send you again links to publications about my case.
I was forced to confess to the
possession of internet digital pictures of porn in deleted clusters of
my computer hard drive. My browser was hijacked while I was browsing
the web. I was redirected to illegal sites against my will. Some
illegal pictures were found on my hard drive, recovering in
unallocated clusters, without dates of file creation/download.
I do not know how courts can widely press these charges on people to
convict them, while the whole Internet is a mess.
This is my story in inquisition21.com. There is all
information about case written by Irish writer Brian
Rothery. You can see a lot of violations of law by police
http://www.inquisition21.com/article~view~7~page_num~3.html
This is publication in Wired news
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63391,00.html