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PeeJ functions by supporting volunteers who act as [[Baiting|bait]] in chatrooms where children and minors can be found. The administrators of the website say they don't initiate [[online]] contact with the men they pursue, and also refuse to act on tips from Internet users in order to reduce the risk that someone might use the website to take [[revenge]]. PeeJ also says it does not look for targets in adult chatrooms.
PeeJ functions by supporting volunteers who act as [[Baiting|bait]] in chatrooms where children and minors can be found. The administrators of the website say they don't initiate [[online]] contact with the men they pursue, and also refuse to act on tips from Internet users in order to reduce the risk that someone might use the website to take [[revenge]]. PeeJ also says it does not look for targets in adult chatrooms.
[[Image:VonErck.jpg|right|thumb|210px|Xavier Von Erck of Perverted-Justice.com]]
[[Image:VonErck.jpg|right|thumb|210px|Phillip Eide, AKA Xavier Von Erck, of Perverted-Justice.com]]
If a man starts chatting to the volunteer and turns the conversation to sex, the volunteer attempts to persuade the man to divulge personal details, particularly a [[telephone number]], ostensibly needed to verify the man's identity so that a meeting can be arranged.
If a man starts chatting to the volunteer and turns the conversation to sex, the volunteer attempts to persuade the man to divulge personal details, particularly a [[telephone number]], ostensibly needed to verify the man's identity so that a meeting can be arranged.


Revision as of 19:14, 30 May 2005

File:Perverted Justice screenshot-5-18-2005.jpg
Screenshot of the Perverted Justice website [1]

Perverted-Justice.com (also known as PeeJ) is an organization based in Portland, Oregon, dedicated to identifying adults willing to have chat room sexual encounters with minors. PeeJ consists of around 30 adult volunteers who pose as minors with names like "sara_so_bored," and wait for older men to approach them in chat rooms. After obtaining identifying information from these men, who may offer their telephone numbers and other details so that meetings can be arranged, PeeJ places the information, including the men's real names, telephone numbers, home and work addresses, photographs, and records of the sexual conversations, on the PeeJ website. [2]

Set up in 2002 by an Oregon man who uses the pseudonym Xavier Von Erck, the organization says that its online operations have led to the exposure of nearly 650 men, 30 arrests, and 13 convictions, as of May 2005. [3] Von Erck is also credited with locating a 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped, raped, and tortured by a 47-year-old man she met online. [4]

PeeJ has been criticized by the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), among others. Tina Schwartz, NCMEC director of communication, has said: "It's really not the safest, most effective way to combat this problem ... From what I've seen ... they embarrass the people, but I don't know that complete justice is ever served," (Roanoke Times, January 22, 2005)

Von Erck, who said he got the idea for the website while watching men attempt to groom young girls in chat rooms in Oregon, says that PeeJ is a computer watchdog agency that works closely with law-enforcement agencies. "The media likes to use the term 'vigilante' because it gets attention, but we don't consider ourselves vigilantes. We cultivate cooperation with police and work within the law to get justice, not outside of the law." [5]

Methods

PeeJ functions by supporting volunteers who act as bait in chatrooms where children and minors can be found. The administrators of the website say they don't initiate online contact with the men they pursue, and also refuse to act on tips from Internet users in order to reduce the risk that someone might use the website to take revenge. PeeJ also says it does not look for targets in adult chatrooms.

File:VonErck.jpg
Phillip Eide, AKA Xavier Von Erck, of Perverted-Justice.com

If a man starts chatting to the volunteer and turns the conversation to sex, the volunteer attempts to persuade the man to divulge personal details, particularly a telephone number, ostensibly needed to verify the man's identity so that a meeting can be arranged.

Using the telephone number, PeeJ volunteers do a reverse-directory check to obtain the man's name, as well as checking on the Web for any other information they can find about him. They then post his name, address, and photograph if he has supplied one, on the PeeJ website, as well as the chat log: a record of the conversation he had with the volunteer. PeeJ subsequently contacts the man's family, friends, neighbors, and employer to alert them to the website posting. [6]

Volunteers also take part in what PeeJ calls "media busts," where men are invited to a house with the promise of a sexual encounter with a minor. When the man arrives, he is greeted by a local television news reporter. Peej teamed up with Dateline NBC in New York in November 2004 to conduct a large sting operation, or "group media bust," in which Dateline rented a house and wired it with hidden cameras, while PeeJ volunteers posed as minors in chat rooms, telling men who approached them that they were home alone. "Within hours there were men literally lining up at our door," Dateline reported. In two-and-a-half days, 18 men showed up at the house after making a date with a PeeJ volunteer. [7]

The organization offers men who have been exposed the right of reply, allowing them either to defend or apologize for their actions, and posting their responses. The organization also occasionally removes information from the website if the target shows, for example, that he is receiving counseling.

All telephone numbers are removed from the main website pages after two months (though still available on PeeJ's forums) to avoid another case like that of the Milwaukee bank teller, reported by the Associated Press, who received a threatening phone call from a man who had obtained her number from the PeeJ website. The woman had never been online or even owned a computer, and was forced to change her number, which had previously been registered to the subject of a PeeJ sting. [8]

Scott Morrow of Corrupted-Justice.com, a website set up to challenge PeeJ, told ABC News there is currently no way to hold PeeJ accountable for mistakes. "When you're running an organization or running a group of people with the potential to do as much damage to people's lives as this does, I think there also has to be some accountability." [9]

Convictions

PeeJ's website lists 13 convictions attributed to its sting operations, which have led to successful prosecutions in Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, Arkansas, Minnesota, Maryland, California, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, and two in Connecticut. [10] Convictions have included disorderly conduct, indecently soliciting a child, and possession and dissemination of child pornography.

The organization has formed relationships with local police agencies around the U.S., and with the military police, who have proceeded with courts-martial on the basis of PeeJ chat logs.

PeeJ established its "Information First" police program in December 2003, in which local police departments make arrangements to have the chat logs handed to them for follow up before being posted on the PeeJ website, in order to safeguard potential prosecutions. Peej has also worked in conjunction with the ChildSeek Network, Counter Pedophilia Investigative Unit, and PoliceWorld.net.

In September 2004, Von Erck helped locate a 14-year-old girl from Camas, Washington, who had been missing from her foster home for almost two weeks. Local detectives were unable to follow leads on the girl's computer, citing lack of knowledge and resources. The girl's mother believed the computer might hold the key to the girl's location and contacted Von Erck, who noticed that the girl had logged in several times to her Yahoo account, only to log out again. Von Erck was able to obtain the IP address of the computer the girl had logged in from; using this, the Internet Service Provider located the address. When police arrived at the house, they found the girl half-naked and lying in the foetal position, with her hair cut and dyed, in a darkened room containing a video camera and restraining devices. She had met her 47-year-old kidnapper, who was raping her when the police knocked on the door, in a chat room. He was subsequently charged with child rape and unlawful imprisonment. [11] [12] [13]

Criticism

Critics of PeeJ include Wiredsafety.org, Chatmag.com, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Corrupted-Justice.com. Some critics contend that the site's methodology is flawed, citing its success rate of 13 convictions out of 650 men exposed on the website. Supporters say that PeeJ's relationship with police agencies is relatively new, and that 13 convictions in ten months is a good track record. Many law-enforcement agencies have also stated that, while they appreciate PeeJ's mission, they do not agree with some of its practices.

In a December 2004 article in the New York Sun, Bradley Russ, the training director for the federal Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, which employs about 200 federal agents nationwide, said PeeJ's tactics sometimes run counter to their standards. For instance, Russ said, by accepting child pornography from pedophiles to bolster a potential legal case, PeeJ volunteers are themselves in possession of unlawful images. He said federal authorities have begun considering whether to seize PeeJ contributors' computers. "It's a noble effort gone too far," Russ told the newspaper. He also said the group can make it more difficult for law enforcement to prosecute cases they present because those cases can be considered tainted by entrapment claims, a proposition PeeJ denies.

The only known instance of legal action against PeeJ was an application for a restraining order, issuing out of a complaint of harassment, against two PeeJ volunteers in Minnesota. The judge found the complaint to be without merit.

References

Further reading

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