Bernard Vincent Ward is an American former radio personality whose career ran from 1985 to 2007. Formerly a radio talk show host with KGO 810 AM in San Francisco, California, Ward, once billed by KGO as "The Lion of the Left" and "unabashedly liberal," was the host of the daily news talk program, The Bernie Ward Show, and the three-hour program, GodTalk, on Sunday mornings.
Pornography has existed since the origins of the United States, and has become more readily accessible in the 21st century. Advanced by technological development, it has gone from a hard-to-find "back alley" item, beginning in 1969 with Blue Movie by Andy Warhol, the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984) and home video, to being more available in the country and later, starting in the 1990s, readily accessible to nearly anyone with a computer or other device connected to the Internet. The U.S. has no current plans to block explicit content from children and adolescents, as many other countries have planned or proceeded to do.
Operation Avalanche was a major United States investigation of child pornography on the Internet launched in 1999 after the arrest and conviction of Thomas and Janice Reedy, who operated an Internet pornography business called Landslide Productions in Fort Worth, Texas. It was made public in early August 2001, at the end of Operation Avalanche, that 100 arrests were made out of 144 suspects. It was followed by Operation Ore in the United Kingdom, Operation Snowball in Canada, Operation Pecunia in Germany, Operation Amethyst in Ireland, and Operation Genesis in Switzerland.
Kevin Alfred Strom is an American white nationalist and neo-Nazi from Virginia who founded the National Vanguard. In 2008, Strom pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.
Robert Charles Gamere is an American former sportscaster. He primarily worked in the Boston area and hosted a local candlepin bowling show during the 1970s named Candlepins for Cash.
United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285 (2008), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that a federal statute prohibiting the "pandering" of child pornography did not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, even if a person charged under the code did in fact not possess child pornography with which to trade.
Robert "DiB" DiBernardo was an American caporegime in the Gambino crime family, who was reputed to control much of the commercial pornography in the US. During the 1984 US presidential election, publicity about DiBernardo having rented business premises from the husband of Geraldine Ferraro embroiled her in damaging media innuendo about organized crime.
Keith Farnham was a Democratic former member of the Illinois House of Representatives who resigned from office and pleaded guilty of distributing child pornography in 2014.
In the United States, child pornography is illegal under federal law and in all states and is punishable by up to life imprisonment and fines of up to $250,000. U.S. laws regarding child pornography are virtually always enforced and amongst the sternest in the world. The Supreme Court of the United States has found child pornography to be outside the protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Federal sentencing guidelines on child pornography differentiate between production, distribution, and purchasing/receiving, and also include variations in severity based on the age of the child involved in the materials, with significant increases in penalties when the offense involves a prepubescent child or a child under the age of 18. U.S. law distinguishes between pornographic images of an actual minor, realistic images that are not of an actual minor, and non-realistic images such as drawings. The latter two categories are legally protected unless found to be obscene, whereas the first does not require a finding of obscenity.
In Canada, child pornography is illegal under Section 163.1 of the Criminal Code and is punishable by up to ten or fourteen years of imprisonment depending on the offence. The Supreme Court of Canada has found child pornography, including the simple possession of child pornography, to not be protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In October 2024, a private member's bill was passed which generally retitles references to "child pornography" as "child sexual abuse material". This law is set to take effect in October 2025. Some current law is unenforceable to the extent of exemptions carved out by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Sharpe.
Operation Delego was a major international child pornography investigation, launched in 2009, which dismantled an international pedophile ring that operated an invitation-only Internet site named Dreamboard which featured incentives for images of the violent sexual abuse of young children under twelve, including infants. Only 72 charges were filed against the approximately 600 members of Dreamboard due to the extensive encryption involved. Members were required to upload new material at least every 50 days to maintain their access and remain in good standing.
Maksym Shynkarenko, a citizen of Kharkiv, Ukraine, was indicted on September 16, 2008 by the grand jury for the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey on one count of conspiracy to transport and ship child pornography; sixteen counts of transportation and shipment of child pornography; one count of conspiracy to advertise child pornography; 12 counts of advertising child pornography; one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise; and one count of money laundering under the relevant 18 U.S.C. Sections: 2251, 2252A, 1956, and 2.
Benjamin Ruvin Levin is a Canadian former civil servant, educational scholar, and convicted sex offender. He was a Canada Research Chair in Education Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. He served for three years in the Ontario Liberal provincial government of Dalton McGuinty, as Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Education, after having held a similar post in Manitoba. He also served as an advisor to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.
Gerald Hannon was a Canadian journalist whose work appeared in major Canadian magazines and newspapers.
Freedom Hosting was a Tor specialist web hosting service that was established in 2008. At its height in August 2013, it was the largest Tor web host.
Project Spade was an international police investigation into child pornography, began in October 2010 in Toronto, Canada. The investigation started when Toronto Police Service officers made on-line contact with a man who was alleged to have been sharing pornographic videos via the Internet and by mail. The investigation eventually covered over 50 countries. 348 people were arrested internationally, and 386 children were said to have been rescued. The primary producers were Igor Rusanov and Andrey Ivanov in Crimea, Ukraine, Markus Roth in Romania, and Paul Kruger in Germany.
Playpen was a darknet child pornography website that operated from August 2014 to March 2015. The website operated through the Tor network which allowed users to use the website anonymously. After running the website for 6 months, the website owner Steven W. Chase was arrested by the FBI. After his arrest, the FBI continued to run the website for another 13 days as part of Operation Pacifier.
Childs Play [sic] was a website on the darknet featuring child sexual abuse material that operated from April 2016 to September 2017, which at its peak was the largest of its class. The site was concealed by being run as a hidden service on the Tor network. After running the site for the first six months, owner Benjamin Faulkner of North Bay, Ontario, Canada, was captured by the United States Department of Homeland Security. For the remaining eleven months the website was owned and operated by the Australian Queensland Police Service's Task Force Argos, as part of Operation Artemis.
Two separate but interlocking child pornography and prostitution rings operating out of fast food restaurants in Newfoundland said by police investigators to have abused "dozens" of girls were broken up in 2006. The investigation, named "Operation Rescue", was carried out jointly by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and the Newfoundland Child, Youth and Family Services Department.
Hurtcore, a portmanteau of the words "hardcore" and "hurt", is a name given to a particularly extreme form of child pornography, usually involving degrading violence, bodily harm, and torture, typically relating to child sexual abuse. Eileen Ormsby, Australian writer and author of The Darkest Web, described hurtcore as "a fetish for people who get aroused by the infliction of pain, or even torture, on another person who is not a willing participant". An additional motivation for the perpetrator, next to their position of power over their victims, can be the reaction of their victims to the physical abuse, like crying or screaming of pain. This reaction can stimulate the arousal of the perpetrator even more.
