Now, Cuomo is asking ISPs to monitor their networks for child porn. I get really angry here, because most ISPs are already doing this and are already working with local law enforcement. But politicians looking for a career-boosting headline don't bother to look into the facts. They're not working with local law enforcement. Their job, it seems, is to write press releases—and to obtain publicity for Brilliant Digital Entertainment.

In the article ISPs are pressed to become child porn cops (four pages), MSNBC reporters Bill Dedman and Bob Sullivan note:

"A PowerPoint slide show [.pdf] from Brilliant Digital Entertainment describing the technology was passed on to AOL last month by two powerful forces in the fight against child porn: the office of New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who has been calling out ISPs that won't agree to block sites with illegal images, and Ernest E. Allen, the president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit given by Congress a central role in the fight."

My first concern is that the government should not be choosing the technologies and companies that ISPs use. The potential conflict of interest is huge.

My next concern is about Brilliant Digital Entertainment. The article says:

"Brilliant Digital Entertainment has a complicated past. Its subsidiary, Altnet, made news in 2002, when its software shipped with the Kazaa file swapping software, then heir to Napster's throne as the favored way for file swappers to illicitly trade music. Altnet's program was designed to use unused bandwidth and processing power of Kazaa users for such uses as paid advertising and promotions for commercial products. The company claimed that this activity only occurred if the customer allowed it, but some antivirus firms labeled the software as spyware. Later, Altnet was sued by the recording industry for its role in helping spread the popularity of Kazaa."

My final concern is that the industry says that all of this is just words, not action. Giganews, a recent target of Cuomo and the NCMEC, writes:"

"The NYAG certainly did not approach Giganews and ask us to work with them. Instead, the NYAG's Organized Crimes Task Force began an undercover investigation and attacked us as if we were the criminals producing, consuming, promoting, and selling sexual abuse images. In order to provide the online services that make the Internet what it is today, service providers are in a tough position as they face assassination at the hands of overly zealous Attorneys General, such as Andrew Cuomo. We find it offensive that service providers are being labeled as the source of sexual abuse images."

Pretending that ISPs are pornographers helps no one. In the long run, it mis-allocates resources, and does real harm. This Children's Crusade is a publicity stunt driven by poorly disguised lies.