Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces Arrest of Revenge Porn Website Operator

[Dr. Strange]

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces Arrest of Revenge Porn Website Operator
Tuesday, December 10, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO -- Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced the arrest of the alleged owner and operator of a revenge porn website who facilitated the posting of more than 10,000 sexually explicit photos and extorted victims for as much as $350 each to remove the illicit content.

“This website published intimate photos of unsuspecting victims and turned their public humiliation and betrayal into a commodity with the potential to devastate lives,” Attorney General Harris said. “Online predators that profit from the extortion of private photos will be investigated and prosecuted for this reprehensible and illegal internet activity.”

Kevin Christopher Bollaert, 27, of San Diego, was arrested today in San Diego by California Department of Justice agents and is being held in San Diego County jail on $50,000 bail. According to documents filed in San Diego County Superior Court, Bollaert has been charged with 31 felony counts of conspiracy, identity theft and extortion and is facing possible jail time and fines.

More at https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-kamala-d-harris-announces-arrest-revenge-porn-website-operator

A big old hat tip to K. Harris!

[zappaman]

1. Great!

And I love the job she is doing in my state!

[SunSeeker]

85. +1

[Warpy]

2. Let's hope she can get it to stick.

I think the little bastard should have been sued into a carboard box under a bridge, but that's just me.

[nomorenomore08]

23. +1

I have no problem with the asshole serving prison time, but they ought to hit him where it really hurts by going after his assets and income.

[Bucky]

33. And they should take pictures of his wee wee

after he's gone swimming.

[nomorenomore08]

36. Now *that's* poetic justice!

[Marie Marie]

56. Shrinkage!

[Blus4u]

79. Probably enough ...

Probably enough victims out there for a decent class action (if that is possible) in this cases.
Wherein that cardboard box thingy of yours becomes a definite possibility.


Peace

[Orrex]

3. Nice!

I was wondering how they might prosecute this sort of thing, but the specified charges make sense to me!

[Schema Thing]

4. Hope they were able to shut down the web site as well.

[Glassunion]

5. What a piece of shit.

If you read the whole release, it is astounding.

Let me take some personal information and very private photos. Then let me post it for the world to see, where we encourage folks to harass you. Then let me start up another website where (for a fee), I will take it down and pretend like we are best friends.

I have no words for the level of person this (I don't want to get banned from DU), is.

[Lee-Lee]

9. They have been doing the same thing with mugshots for years

[dbackjon]

18. Not even close

[Lee-Lee]

22. Same basic concept

Get embarrassing photo, publish online, demand money to remove it.

It is just a mugshot instead of a nude photo. In fact in many cases I could argue the mugshot was more damaging to a persons life. An prospective employer likely won't even look at a porn site, in most companies it would be blocked anyway. They will certainly click on a mugshot site as soon as they see it.

[CSStrowbridge]

27. Mugshots are...

Mugshots are on public record. There's absolutely no similarity between the two.

[Lee-Lee]

29. That they are- but that doesn't change that the sites run in the same fashion

[Kelvin Mace]

35. I think the point being made

is that while the "business model" may be similar (pay to remove an embarrassing photo), the source of the photos make the difference. One is a public record, the other is not, and has a questionable legal status.

[Xithras]

50. Actually, the brilliance of this angle is that the legal status of the photos is irrelevant.

Harris' move makes the questions about the legality of posting nude photos of your exes moot. Harassment is already a crime. This website, which required personal information about the person in the photo, was built to facilitate harassment. While making harassment easier isn't actually a crime in California, collecting personal information for the purpose of facilitating or abetting someone else's crime IS an illegal act. In this case, the ex-boyfriends posting the photos were committing the harassment by posting the photos, but by collecting and publishing identifying information about the women in the photos, the site ran afoul of California's privacy laws.

State law still doesn't prevent someone from posting a nude photo of you on the Internet in most cases, but this reading of the existing laws WILL allow the prosecution of sites that deliberately identify and humiliate photos subjects.

[Kelvin Mace]

81. California, home of Hollywood,

is all about controlling the commercial exploitation of your likeness.

Unless the person posting the photo has a release, signed by the person in the photo, they are not authorized to post the photo, and the web site may be compelled to take it down unless it can prove such a release exists.

I expect that the laws will soon be updated to cover this type of issue more comprehensively.

Of course, some day, we might live in a country were nudity isn't considered shameful.

[Xithras]

82. No, your understanding of the law is incorrect.

Unless the person posting the photo has a release, signed by the person in the photo, they are not authorized to post the photo, and the web site may be compelled to take it down unless it can prove such a release exists.

That is 100% incorrect. Model releases exist to protect the photographer, and not the subject of the photos. They also have no LEGAL status whatsoever, and only exist to serve as defensive evidence in a civil suit. They also provide the subjects of the image with their only opportunity to limit the distribution of that image.

The law is pretty clear on this. When I take a photo, it belongs to me. Under federal law, the copyright for that image belongs to the photographer until and unless it is sold or assigned to someone else. The photographer owns ALL the rights to the image, and the subject owns NONE of them.

The only "legal" limitation comes into play when someone uses your likeness for trade or commerce. Even then, they can ONLY sue you if you are materially profiting from their image without compensation (this is the real reason that most photographers use model releases btw...they universally state that you're waiving your right to future compensation). We're talking about civil suits to acquire compensation, and not criminal sanctions. If the image is simply given away, or if it is used editorially, or if it is otherwise distributed without commercial intent, then the subject has no rights at all, because they have not been deprived of their fair compensation for the use of their likeness. You CAN sue them, but if they didn't make money off of it, you're going to have to prove to a court that your likeness had a cash value that you were deprived of. More importantly in the age of the Internet, the rights of the subject to sue are also limited to the person doing the initial distribution. If the copyright holder gives a likeness of you to a commercial website that distributes it, the website has committed no crime because they were simply republishing an image with permission of the copyright holder. Your right to legal remedy would be limited to suing the copyright holder directly.

The core problem with these kinds of sites comes down to three legal realities. 1) Copyright law says that photos belong to the photographer. 2) The Supreme Court says that images are speech. 3) Federal laws and the Constitution say that speech cannot be impaired unless it is slanderous or libelous (and consensually taken nude photos generally wouldn't qualify).

These three things make it very tough to crack down on "Revenge Porn" sites. If the photo was actually taken by the "ex", then the "ex" actually does have federally protected legal rights. That's what makes Harris' angle with this arrest so ingenious. She isn't actually attacking the photos, but the attachment of the personally identifying information TO those photos. That information runs afoul of privacy laws.

If we could block the posting of personal information to these photo sites, a lot of the problem would go away. Without exaggeration, there are BILLIONS of nude photos on the Internet. What makes "Revenge Porn" sites so bad is NOT the fact that the photo is available, but that they ALSO contain the personally identifying information for the person in them. When someone Google's that person, or when an employer does a background check, or a neighbor vets a sitter, attaching their name causes those images to show up, which immediately harms the person in the photo. Even if we CAN'T ban the posting of the photos, banning the attachment of identifying information would go a long way toward rectifying the problem. Without that information, the photo simply becomes another anonymous nude shot on the web, that could have come from anywhere in the world, and the odds of anyone connecting it to any individual person become infinitesimally small.

[Kelvin Mace]

88. Thank you for the clarification

It seems to me though that the sites are trading on the person's likeness, i.e. profiting on the photograph commercially. So, if I parse this correctly, the victim should pay up, then sue in civil court to get the money back?

In the "old days" the site's owner would have received a visit from the woman's male relations and a horsewhip.

Patronizing? Yes. But viscerally satisfying.

[Xithras]

89. There's no gurantee that would work.

In many cases a person in a photo has no direct legal recourse against the website operator at all.

Simply put, it's perfectly legal for me to profit off of your likeness, so long as I have authorization from the copyright holder to do so. You, as the subject of the photo, can sue the copyright holder for compensation because they authorized your image to be used in a for-profit manner. I, as the publisher, cannot be sued by you, because I have published perfectly legal material with the authorization of its owner (well, you can sue, but you'll almost certainly lose).

If you were the subject of the photo and wanted it pulled offline, I would propose a two-step process

1) Sue your ex for harassment, lost compensation (even if he gave it away, a jury might grant a cash award if the photos provided commercial value...and your EX would have to pay), and ownership of the images.

2) Once you have ownership of the images, you will have the legal authority to issue takedown notices to any sites that host them. Under the terms of the DMCA, if any sites fail to immediately remove your pictures, you can sue them for damages AND send notices to their service providers that will shut the sites down. I actually knew a photographer who had some of his work stolen (landscape shots, not nudes) and republished on a gallery site without his permission. After asking them to take the images down, and then sending a DMCA takedown notice, he was ignored repeatedly. So he identified the hosting provider that the site was using, sent the takedown notice to THEM, and the entire website was shut down less than 24 hours later. When they eventually brought it back online, his photos were no longer on the site. Even if the website operator doesn't want to remove the photos, the DMCA makes it an offense to knowingly provide services that facilitate copyright infringement. Somebody is providing hosting or internet connectivity to that website, and THEY will shut the site down if it is actively hosting infringing content (and if they don't, you can sue them for damages as well).

Of course, all of this goes out the window in the case of nude selfies. If that's the case, you don't have to sue anyone, because you already own the photo. The copyright belongs to the photographer, and if you take your own nude photo, you automatically own the copyright to that image. If someone posts one of your nude selfies to a "Revenge Porn" site, or if someone else uses it without your permission, you can not only order it taken down, but you can immediately sue them for using it without your permission.

[cstanleytech]

67. Except if the photos in question were taken with the consent of the parties involved

knowing that the one taking said photo will be keeping it then its going to be hard to argue that the act of posting them online regardless of motive is an actual crime in and of itself wont it?

[VanillaRhapsody]

76. Yes but you need signed consent forms to publish images for profit....

no signed consent.....you got problems.

[Kelvin Mace]

80. Still a murky area

Yes, I can take a photo of you with your permission, but said permission, absent a written agreement, doesn't convey the right to commercial exploitation, which arguably this is. Without a model's release, the photos were meant for private consumption. The commercial use by the web site violates that precept, never mind the possibility of whether there use also constitutes blackmail/extortion.

[nomorenomore08]

25. I agree that people accused (not even convicted) of minor crimes shouldn't have their lives ruined.

Honestly I think that topic deserves its own thread. You should start one.

[Drunken Irishman]

74. Salt Lake actually stopped publishing mugshots...

It's still public record, but you have to write to the jail for a specific mugshot. So, no more 'look who got busted SLC!' groups on Facebook.

[randome]

12. 'Stupid' works in a pinch!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Coyotl]

6. About time someone did something about this problem. Now, a national law too!

[xulamaude]

52. And you're the person who was suggesting

that 'people' should offer personal information "on-open" so that when their phone goes stolen or missing that it can have a better chance of being returned to them.

That was on your OP about the woman (whose phone was reported stolen) who 'resigned' her teaching position after at least one nude picture of herself was posted to a revenge porn site.

Even though we were all "born naked", women suffer the consequences of being naked adults, as is clearly the case in context with this OP.

[Coyotl]

64. You mis-characterize.

I proposed that it is useful to have your phone password protected so your personal information and photos are inaccessible when your phone is lost. but that then also requires that your phone have something that allows the finder to return it. D'oh!!

Yes, I'm the one who thinks this woman should not be fired because some asshat stole her phone and abused her privacy. That's what that OP was about.

Yes, I'm an ardent feminist who thinks men should do more about pay equity and myriad other issues which impact us all.

[xulamaude]

66. Okay - my bad then. nt

[Hestia]

69. But there is a way to get the phone to the owner - I took an iphone to an AT&T store and they

looked up the serial number and said they would contact the person who owns it. It was password protected and after a couple of guesses I put in my desk drawer hoping they would call and come get it. (This was in an office building and for some strange reason everyone thought I was the building manager - strange, that one.)

Never did I think of stealing it or anything - I took it to a phone store so they could get it back. What if that is the only number their grandmother has and she is sick or something?

Sorry for the thread drift...

[Whisp]

7. wonderful.

what a low life scum sludge creep.

rot in jail

[Lee-Lee]

8. Hmm. I wonder if the websites that so the mugshots are next

They work the same way- get mugshots via FOIA requests or if the agency posts it online, publish it and make sure it appears in serach results, charge a person to take it down.


Needless to say those websites are a huge problem to anyone who shows up, especially if their name is uncommon enough that it is a first page search result. I know somebody who had all the charges dropped, but gave in and paid the extortion money because she couldn't get a job or rent an apartment when her mugshot was the #3 search result when a prospective employer or landlord Googled her.

[nomorenomore08]

28. The "mugshot" websites should have some degree of regulation, at the least.

Like I said, you should start your own thread about it. I'd rec it.

[RetroLounge]

40. They work the same way

Really? I can get porn via FOIA?

You might want to rethink this and start your own thread.

RL

[mopinko]

70. ++++++++

[iamthebandfanman]

72. thats a lil different...

as those mugshot websites youre speaking of get them off of public servers that are usually hosted/maintained by the jail or local government...

in fact, some governments contract websites to keep track of their databases for them...
take a site that services a lot of jails in my state ...

www.jailtracker.com

they recently got bought out by a larger company they were so successful ..

now, if you were never convicted of a crime.. it should be relatively easy to get your name and mugshot taken off... if you were convicted, its a lil harder.. and in the case of the website above, youd have to get your record expunged... which means you paying money and hiring a lawyer.

while I can see some merit to these types of websites (mugshot ones) , without a doubt they are used to blackmail and blacklist folks.. which is completely unfair ... public shaming wasn't a part of their sentence, id dare to guess

[abelenkpe]

10. Thank you!

Thank you Kamala Harris. This is great news.

[Ninga]

11. Good. Grief. nt

[robertpaulsen]

13. That's my AG! Extortion is NOT free speech!

I hope she gets a conviction.

[freshwest]

20. Good for her! And I hope with 31 felonies, he spends the rest of his life in prison.n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

26. Really, life in prison?

I can understand you find this guy loathsome (so do I), but really?

That seems like the good old American punisher impulse at work. You know, the one that has us as the world's leading jailer.

[Matariki]

14. That is some great news!

[Xithras]

15. Good. I like the angle she used to pull this off too. Innovative use of the law.

It can only be used against a subset of "revenge porn" sites, but it's the most harmful subset so it should do a lot of good.

For those who didn't read the article, here's what she's doing in a nutshell: There's a California law that makes it a crime to obtain a persons private information in order to facilitate a crime, including harassment. While posting a nude photo (even without consent, if you took it) isn't a crime, posting the photo for the purpose of harassment IS a crime, committed by the person posting the photo.

Although the actual crime of harassment was being committed by the people posting the photos, because the website allowed the subjects personal information to be posted along with the photo, the website itself was committing a crime by displaying that personally identifying information knowing that it would be used to annoy or harass another person.

It's a brilliant way to get around the potential 1st Amendment and copyright issues that dog attempts to regulate the images themselves.

[kristopher]

45. +1

[SunSeeker]

86. Exactly. This is not speech. This is cyber rape; it is all about hurting people. nt

[mike_c]

16. can't say I have much sympathy for the guy....

I hope he gets a fair trial. That's about the extent of it.

[nomorenomore08]

30. +1

[liberalmuse]

17. GOOD.

I won't even express my thoughts about this vile person. Or the people who gave him the photos. I think this is a case in point that some parents need to teach their male children how to grow up and become a men. It appears we have a bunch of whiny little boys who loathe women and have no problem destroying lives if they feel they've been slighted. Sadly, we have an entire political party full of these type of shits.

[marble falls]

19. This is good, put him in the cell with Bernie Madoff for just as long. My only hope is this didn't..

develop out of some unconstitutional NSA dragnet.

[Drew Richards]

21. Awesome! Now please contact every victem and tell them to start filing lawsuit against him

Bankrupt the scumbag.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

24. Context, context, context. Kamala Harris is the AG of California, not the USA. nt

[Bucky]

32. so far

Remember this statement, Bernardo. One day it may be wrong.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

63. Of course, Bucky. nt

[thelordofhell]

31. Monty Python should be shakin' in their boots...........

[mdbl]

42. LOL, exactly what came to mind when I read the article

Ya beat me to it!

[Kaleva]

71. Lol!

[Jester Messiah]

34. Another small business owner put out of business. THANKS OBAMA.

Heh, just kiddin' y'all.

[mstinamotorcity2]

37. Arrest

may save his life.

[Aldo Leopold]

38. Is this the scumbag who created the site called

isanyoneup, or something like that? I hope so. The post I read here about a poor young woman victimized by that asshole was one of the most disturbing things I've read in a long time.

[LTR]

39. I think it's a different asshole

Just as scummy, but more into humiliating people than running extortion rackets. I'm guessing that's why this guy got busted first.

[libodem]

55. I think this is the site I meant

On my post below. I can't believe there is more than one. Good grief!

[JDPriestly]

41. Thank you, Kamala Harris.

[Tikki]

43. YAY, yay and yay …my State Attorney General rocks….

Tikki

[kristopher]

44. Brava!!!

Throw away the key.

[Hekate]

46. Excellent

[dlwickham]

47. very cool

Kamala has shown herself to be a really great AG so far

[Festivito]

48. They arrested him on a ... CONSPIRACY THEORY ??1!!!1??1?//?/1/!!//???

It's my theory that he deserves a good throttling in a jail cell as well.

I just hope at the moment that it doesn't cause this thread to be moved to the cave.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

51. Conspiracy is a separate crime.

It's generally defined as an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime at some time in the future. Often they can prosecute for the crime itself as well as the conspiracy to commit the crime.

[Festivito]

65. True. Nonetheless, they are citing a conspiracy theory -- those conspiracy theorists are.

He is charged with extortion and identity theft: crimes.

And, someone is promoting a conspiracy theory against him.

[Warren DeMontague]

49. Good.

That guy, and that practice, is beyond despicable.

[Le Taz Hot]

53. Kamala Harris . . .

she needs to replace Jerry Brown or Dianne (never met a war I didn't get rich off of) Feinstein.

[SunSeeker]

87. She probably will. CA AG is the springboard to Governor. nt

[libodem]

54. K&R

I heard an interview, in which he freely admitted to writing degrading descriptions of women's pictures, and how he had the right to do so. When asked if he'd put his mom or sister's naked pictures up, he was incredulous, no way, that's MY mom. Irony challenged as well as morally bankrupt.


Hope he is sorry now.

[Eleanors38]

58. That may be Hunter Moore, another self-cycled gas huffer.

[libodem]

60. Yes

I believe you are correct. I hope they get this one too. I think he had to take the site down, but he should still be rehabilitated in jail, to think about what he did wrong.

I can't believe this despicable crime has multiple copycats. Disgusting.

[Eleanors38]

62. He should have lots of time to think about it.

[Cleita]

57. There's actually a law to address this? Great. I was afraid there wasn't like a lot

of the abuses through the internet because laws aren't in place to prosecute the perps.

[pnwmom]

59. There is in California. Also, extortion is illegal everywhere.

He was charging victims fees to remove their photos from his site.

From the link in the OP:

California Penal Code sections 530.5 and 653m (b) make it illegal to willfully obtain someone’s personal identifying information, including name, age and address, for any unlawful purpose, including with the intent to annoy or harass.

[Eleanors38]

61. Now, why can't I find a pic of this arrestee?

[Kurovski]

68. Good job by Harris.

Bollaert might now begin to get a clue as to what an asshole sack he is.

[iamthebandfanman]

73. unfortunately there are others..

and they've learned from his and that a-hole hunter moores mistakes...

they make sure to be hosted out of country and not directly linked to any citizen of the US...

I doubt china or Indonesia will be demanding these types of sites be taken down.... but I could be wrong

[Recursion]

75. Good

This guy is evil.

[KansDem]

77. "A big old hat tip to K. Harris!"

[nikto]

78. I hear...

Some say he's a Republican.

[redqueen]

83. I am pleasantly surprised.

Not that this happened, that was likely due to legal trends and increasing awareness. I'm thankful that Kamala Harris set up the eCrime Unit that resulted in this arrest.

I'm also thankful none of the many who objected to these kinds of laws to begin with have joined the thread to howl in protest.

[jsr]

84. Pic of POS:

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/state&id=9356296

[Sheldon Cooper]

90. Good. I hope he gets shanked in the chow line.

Filthy piece of shit.