Child pornography is a very unpleasant topic. But even more unpleasant is facing criminal charges for possession of child pornography.

Certainly the abuse of children is something that should never be tolerated. But in the effort to end child pornography (which will never be truly be ended so long as there are humans on the planet), both the state and federal governments have established extremely punitive regimes under which child pornography is punished. Possession of more than 600 images can, under the federal sentencing guidelines, yield decades in prison. In addition, a person convicted of child pornography will be registered as a sex offender, which will make life after prison difficult indeed.

The Internet is a great advance in human interaction and development. But it is very insecure. And, increasingly, the average person – the average consumer – has the ability to establish nodes on the internet through the use of cheap wireless routers.

If you own a wireless router and you have not properly secured the router, you have potentially made your own network vulnerable to hackers, people who wish to do you harm, or even people who possess or distribute child pornography and want to use an innocent person’s network and want to establish that network as a way to protect them from their crimes.

The standard wireless router has two forms of encryption – WEP & WPA. You can think of encryption as the key by which someone gets access to the network. Once the person has gained access to an encrypted wireless network, they can make it appear as if they are you – the person who has the account with Time Warner or Embarq or AT&T.

WEP is by far the weaker encryption technique. It was hacked years ago, and tools that allow relatively unskilled hackers to get access to a WEP network are readily available on the internet. It takes virtually no time and virtually no skill to hack a WEP-encrypted network. So if you’re using WEP, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to attack.

Now, most people will never have their networks hacked, just as most people who leave their car doors unlocked will never have their cars stolen.

Here’s a video showing how easy it is to hack WEP in about 8 minutes:

That video is scary. Scary for this guy’s neighbor whose WiFi network has been compromised without the neighbor knowing. If this guy wanted to, at this point, download child pornography (or commit any other internet-related crime), he could do so using the neighbor’s WiFi network.

That means, at the end of the day, if police were monitoring child pornography peer-to-peer networks online, they would be led back to the neighbor’s IP address and the neighbor’s home.

If this kid in the video had a little more skill, he could even use other tools to hack into the neighbor’s computers and load Peer-to-Peer file sharing with which to distribute child pornography. The illicit material would therefore reside on the neighbor’s computers. Who do you think would be facing criminal charges? Probably the innocent neighbor.

Back before I became a Raleigh criminal lawyer, I was a network administrator for a non-profit organization in Arlington, Virginia. In one weekend, our network was brought to its knees because of a successful exploit by a group of Russian hackers. What took them an hour, took me and other experts I hired 48 hours to repair and fix.

Most criminal lawyers do not understand the complexity of networks, nor do they understand the possible defenses if you’ve been accused of possessing child pornography.

Raleigh lawyer Damon Chetson defends people charged with felonies, misdemeanors, traffic and DWI charges in Raleigh, Wake County, Apex, Smithfield, and Wake County, NC. Raleigh criminal lawyer Damon Chetson is available day or night, weekdays or weekends. He can be reached for a free in-person or phone consultation (919) 352-9411.

The confrontation clause of the United States Constitution provides every defendant to question – in court – his accusers. Accusers is a broad term, including not just the victim, but also anyone who may have said something incriminating about the defendant outside of court.

The confrontation clause is a protection for the defendant, allowing the defendant or his attorney to vigorously question the witness. In 2002, in Crawford v. Washington the Supreme Court invoked the Confrontation Clause to prevent an out-of-court statement from being admitted in court because the out-of-court statement had never been confronted by the defendant.

The Supreme Court said that there are two types of statements. Testimonial statements are those statements made in contemplation of prosecution. For instance, when police are interviewing witness following a crime, that would ordinarily be a testimonial statement. Testimonial statements are not admissible on their own without the opportunity of the defendant to confront the witness.

Non-testimonial statements are other statements – statements not made in contemplation of prosecution. These statements are admissible without violating the confrontation clause. The rationale is that because these statements were not made in contemplation of prosecution, they are more reliable because the person making them wasn’t thinking about how they might appear to a jury. In other words, the person making those statements was probably being truthful because he was making the statement.

The Supreme Court has had to, in subsequent decisions, define whether a statement is testimonial or non-testimonial. The State would like most statements to be ruled non-testimonial so that they can admit them against the defendant without having to bring the witness to court.

In Michigan v. Bryant the Supreme Court ruled two weeks ago that statements by a victim (who later died) to 5 different police officers during their investigation of the shooting that led to his death were non-testimonial. In a blistering dissent, Antonin Scalia accused the majority of misreading and misapplying the facts of the case to permit the admission of the testimony when in fact it should’ve been barred.

Wake County lawyer Damon Chetson helps people accused of serious felonies, misdemeanors, drug charges, DWI and traffic offenses in Raleigh, Apex, Wilmington, and Wake County, NC. DWI Raleigh lawyer Damon Chetson is available day or night, weekdays or weekends. He can be reached day or night at (919) 352-9411 for a free in-person or phone consultation.

One of the questions I sometimes get is whether I am a gay friendly Raleigh lawyer. And the answer to that is, “By all means.” I treat all people equally, whether they are gay or straight. If someone needs professional and effective criminal defense help, the last thing they need to worry about is whether the lawyer they hire will be prejudiced against them. In addition, where my client has been involved in a domestic violence situation, special relationship concerns might be raised.

Whatever my clients background and whatever my clients have been accused of doing, I am prepared to work hard to get my client the best possible outcome, whether that outcome is a dismissal of charges, a deferral or diversion program that includes community service in exchange for a dismissal, or, if necessary, a vigorous defense at trial.

Raleigh criminal lawyer Damon Chetson helps individuals charged with crimes – misdemeanors, felonies, and DWI and traffic charges – in Raleigh, Wake County, Apex and other communities in Wake County and the Research Triangle of North Carolina. DWI Raleigh lawyer Damon Chetson is available day or night, weekdays or weekends. Call him at (919) 352-9411 day or night.