Will Knott

Michael O’Brien, former councillor and Mayor of Wexford(correction May 27) Clonmel attended the RTÉ programme Questions and Answers on 25 May 2009 and, after Minister Noel Dempsey, the sponsoring minister of the Ryan Commission report in to Child Abuse allegations spoke, Mr O’Brien spoke to the minister and to the panel.

I’ve done the transcript of the video clip below mainly because audio indexing does not work that well for video clips. And video clips have a habit of disappearing off the web.
The other reason is that this clip seems to be the turning point for a lot of discussions. And possibly some action.

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—Start of transcript

Mr. Chairman, I’m surprised at the minister there now.

First of all Mr Minister (directed at  Minister Noel Dempsey) you made a bags of it in the beginning by changing the judges. You made a complete bags of it at that time, because I went to the La Foy commission and ye had seven barristers there, questioning me and telling that I was telling lies, when I told them that I got raped of a Saturday, got a merciful beating after it, and then stuffed…

… he came along the following morning and put holy communion in my mouth.

You don’t know what happened there. You haven’t the foggiest, you’re talking through your hat there. And you’re talking to a Fianna Fáil man, a former councilor and former mayor you’re talking to, that worked tooth and nail or you, for the party that you’re talking about now. Ye didn’t do it right, ye got it wrong.

Admit it.

And apologize for doing that. Because you don’t know what I feel inside me. You don’t know the hurt I am.

You said it was non-adversarial.

My God.

Seven barristers.

Throwing questions at us.

Non-stop.

I tri.. attempted to commit suicide, there’s the woman who saved me from committing suicide,  on me way down from Dublin, after spending five days at the commission. Five days I spent at the commission. They brought a man over from Rome, ninety odd years of age, to tell me I was telling lies.

That I wasn’t beaten for an hour, non-stop by two of them.

By two of them.

Non-stop from head to toe without a shred of cloth on my body.

My God minister.

And could I speak to you (comment directed to Leo Varadkar, Fianna Gael), and ask your leader, would you stop making a political football of this.

You hurt this when you do that.

You tear the shreds from inside our body.

For God’s sake, try and give us some peace.

Try to give us some peace and not to continue hurting us.

That woman will tell you how many times I jump out of the bed at night with the sweat pumping out of me. Because I see these fellas at the end of the bed with their fingers doing that (gestures) to me. And pulling me in to the room, to rape me, to bugger me and bate the shite out of me. That’s the way it is.

And you know what?

You know what, sometimes I listen to the leader of Fianna Fáil. I even listened to the apology. T’was mealy mouthed, but at least t’was an apology.

At least t’was an apology.

The Rosminians said in the report, they said they were easy on us. The first day I went to them. The first day to Rosminians in my home which is Ferryhouse in Clonmel, ’cause its the only home I know. He said “you’re in it for the money”.

We didn’t want money.

We didn’t want money. We wanted the pr…  someone to stand up and say “yes, these fellas were buggered, these people were ra…”

Little girls. My daughter, oh sorry, my sister. A month old when she was put in to an institution. Eight of us from the one family, dragged by the ISPCC cruelty man. Put in to two cars, brought to the court in Clonmel. Left standing there without food or anything, and the fella in the long black frock and the white collar came along and he put us in to a van.

Not a van, a scut truck, I don’t know what you call it now. And landed us below with two hundred other boys. Two night later I was raped.

How can anyone…

You’re talking about constitution. These people would gladly say “yes” to a constitution to freeze the funds of the religous orders.

This state, this country of ours, would say “yes” to that constitition if you have to change it.

Don’t say you can’t change it.

You’re the governement of this state. You run this state. So for God’s sake stop mealy mouthing. ‘Cause I’m sick of it.

I’m sick of it.

You’re turning me away from voting Fianna Fáil which I have done from the first day that I could vote. Because. And you know me. You know me Mister Minister. You’ve met me on a number of ocassions. So you know what I’m like.

— End of transcript

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• The shameful 800 (willknott.ie)
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The words “Counselling services available” (closely followed by counseling services swamped, contact telephone numbers below) barely cover the horror of the “endemic” abuse suffered by children in Irish Catholic institutions over 60 years. The report details 800 abusers (both men and women) who were given approval by Irish society in their abuse. This is not the complete figure. A separate report about abuse in the Dublin region only is also due.

The full report, all five volumes of it, took nine years nine years to compile and while covering a period of six decades and finding thousands of boys and girls that were terrorized by priests and nuns, it dosen’t show the full picture. Public opinion at the time refused to believe the victims. The victims were vilified while the abusers took their lauded place in society. The victims left, be it through suicide, or through emigration.

The 800 figure is also wrong. Many others knew, and turned a blind eye. Refused to believe that those given the task to watch their morality could be the depraved ones.

To cap off the offense, the victims and the families were not allowed in to the press conference, which gave very little detail in the prepared speech, and permitted no questions.

It took a long time for the stories to emerge, and while the church is still respected by some, others find its protection if the abusers unforgivable (including those to “admire the bravery of the abusers“). I suspect that its the truth coming out behind these tales which have helped the numbers of regular church goers to dwindle.

Its also a national, and international news story now.

RTÉ News – Sexual abuse was ‘endemic’ in institutions

Irish Times – Audio analysis and summary of abuse report

Irish Times – Children exposed to ‘daily terror’ in institutions – Includes audio of Patsy McGarry outlining the report’s main findings

Irish Times – Anger over exclusion from briefing

Irish Times – Systematic abuse in State institutions laid bare

Channel 4 – UK – As a damning report is published into “endemic” abuse suffered by children in Irish Catholic institutions over 60 years, Carl Dinnen accompanies a former resident as he returns to a” reformatory school”. (Includes video embedded above)

Channel 4 – UK – Jon Snow talks to Colm O’Gorman, the Executive Director of Amnesty International in Ireland, who was a victim of sexual abuse perpetrated by a Catholic priest as a teenager. Includes video embedded here. Some RSS readers may need to click through to see the video.

Twenty Major – So what happens now?

Twenty Major – Institutional Abuse report

Granddad – Suffer little children

A growing list of other takes on the subject from Irish Blogs

BBC News – UK – Irish abused ‘cheated of justice – Victims of child abuse at Catholic institutions in the Irish Republic have expressed anger that a damning report will not bring about prosecutions.
Includes video of Victims spokesman John Kelly giving his reaction to the report

BBC News – UK – In quotes: Irish media have been giving their first reactions to the damning inquiry into child abuse at Catholic institutions in Ireland.

The full Comission Report

Volume three includes the witness statements, and chapter 14, about lay teacher abusing and being defended by the Department of Education,  got extensive reviews on today’s Morning Ireland.

Shocked but sadly not surprised,
Will

The HSE offers a free National Counselling Service for anyone who has suffered childhood abuse on 1800 235 234.

The related Connect service, for out of hours contact, is on1800 235 235 from the Republic of Ireland (freephone)  00800 235 235 55 from Britain and Northern Ireland (free from landlines).
www.connectcounselling.ie

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre operates a 24-hour helpline on 1800 77 88 88.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Critical report due on child abuse in Irish Catholic schools (guardian.co.uk)
• Thousands abused in Catholic schools in Ireland (guardian.co.uk)
• Ireland’s Church Abuse Scandal (madhavgopalkrish.wordpress.com)
• The Church and child-rape (timesonline.typepad.com)
• Wall of silence about 60 years of child abuse still not entirely broken down (sluggerotoole.com)
• Child abuse: the full story at last? (sluggerotoole.com)
• Some wounds never heal (osocio.org)

Update: 1pm May 21 2009
Irish Times Opinion piece  – Mr Justice Ryan’s report does not suggest that this abuse was as bad as most of us suspected. It shows that it was worse. It may indeed have been even worse than the report actually finds – there are indications that “the level of sexual abuse in boys’ institutions was much higher than was revealed by the records or could be discovered by this investigation”.

The Catholic League reaction – The Irish report suffers from conflating minor instances of abuse with serious ones, thus demeaning the latter. When most people hear of the term abuse, they do not think about being slapped, being chilly, being ignored or, for that matter, having someone stare at you in the shower.

Free speech = Net neutrality?

As a principle many people would say that the freedom to disseminate information is a requirement of a democracy. After all an informed populace can make better decisions.

Except of course information about things we don’t want to know about. Pro-Anorexia and Pro-Bulimia forums are a controversial example. Its freedom of speech, its an informed choice, and women (mostly, men tend to have image issues with not being muscular enough) on these sites that promote being (too?) thin get positive reinforcement to get thinner. After all, this information isn’t a criminal action.

What has this got to do with Blackout Ireland?

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Well imagine if various food and health industry bodies got a legal settlement with Eircom to enforce a “three strikes and your out” policy against readers of these forums, without a chance to appeal? (Let’s ignore the fact that much of our lives are now done through the internet and that the German courts thought that it was to harsh a punishment; a death sentence to a virtual world). Would there be an outcry? “We’ve doing this to help you”. Then the lobby groups arrange to get Eircom to block certain pro-ana (after all Eircom have said that they wouldn’t fight the court orders). Then go after other Irish ISPs demanding similar action.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

So of course, these sites go underground; accessible by proxy, or new different ones spring up in its place. So the information is out there. Illegal. Hidden. Cherished by a knowing few. Shared with a wider knowing few.

Would there be mistakes and false positives? Of course. Every “not caught in the act” action has the potential for mistaken identity. And with wireless networks, connecting via your neighbour (or war driving to an open location) is going to ensure the wrong people are caught. Or a printer is blamed for having image issues.

But why stop at image issues! There is too much violence on the streets, lets ban all forms of internet violence. No more over the internet first person shooters.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Cyberbullying is too much. Lets block social network sites where such a situation can take place!

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

We can’t have our children accessing information and images about gay life. Block these sites!

Ban.

Block.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.

Its the start of a slope.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

The initial logical, maybe apparently sensible first step leads to a worse situation.

So, back to the point of all of this. IRMA wants Eircom to block certain file sharing sites, starting with the Pirate’s Bay.

Interestingly the international version of IRMA is trying to get the Pirate’s bay shut down. And based on the reports of the trial in Sweden, the prosecution are not doing a good job in persuading the courts that the Pirate’s Bay are any different than Google (in fact, it seems that much of the same information can be found using Google). File sharing isn’t a criminal offence. Depending on the outcome of the trial, using Pirate’s Bay may not even be viewed as a civil offence.

So block Google? It’s an option, but too many companies use their cloud computing services for the Irish economy to survive such a block.

So back to net neutrality. Actually it isn’t exactly entirely related to speech. Its closer to a deep packet inspection; what type of packet is this. Is it a web (or encrypted html) packet? A packet form an email? Or a bit torrent packet?

Which is how some software updates itself, for example Blizzard’s World of Warcraft.

Which is how millions (if not billions) around the globe saw the inauguration of President Obama on CNN’s software.

For something purely illegal, those are very odd companies to be using it. Content companies too.

So join in the week long protest against this. Shout, not whisper about the chilling effects on internet free speech.

Join with the other voices around Ireland speak out on this issue.

Darken your avatar.

Write to your local TD about it.

Write to Minister Ryan about it.

While you still can, speak out.

Will Knott

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Dear Ms. Marianne Mikko Member of the European Parliment,

I’ve been reading reports that you have called for a registration of bloggers.

Given the importance of the Internet in Estonia, I suspect that you would get a lot of, er, assistance in answering an explanation of what you mean.
Or at least a high level of details on what you are actually requesting.

Most blog posts are highly personal by nature, be it personal observation, on the ground reporting of a war in their local neighbourhood, on the antics of their cat (depressing there are a lot of these) or the rote by which a blogger investigated the dealings of a disgraced public official.
They are closer to opinion pieces than investigative reporting.

There are also blogs which by their very nature need to be anonymous. Those detailing illegal activities by officials for instance. A registration of such a blogger is likely to lead to intimidation or death.

Do you wish to clarify your wording.
Say in a blog of your own for instance?

Yours sincerely,
Will Knott

http://WillKnott.ie

“Was given chocolate. That’s a far better freebie than bloomin’ memory sticks!” — Jemima Kiss via Twitter.

Image via Wikipedia

By now everyone has heard the old story about people giving up their passwords for chocolate. Although Bruce Schneier has pointed out that he would gladly give a fake password for chocolate. Which is a little better than loosing a lot of information about your customers. Yes I’m typing about Bank Of Ireland.

This is an interesting problem for the Bank. In 2006 Bank Of Ireland agreed to refund phishing losses suffered by customers of their internet banking service. And later updated their terms of service to include

13 Indemnity

13.2 Without prejudice to the generality of Clause 13.1 above, the Bank shall have no liability whatsoever in respect of any loss suffered by the Customer as a result of their breach of Clause 4 [jm: Security/Authentication] by way of knowingly, negligently or recklessly disclosing the Security Devices or any of them.

– via Justin Mason.

Richard Burrows, Governor of the Bank of Ireland, has declared on a news report that

1. monies lost will be refunded and that
2. the laptops were secured with a password.

However I reply

1. What hoops do victims of this loss have to jump through? After all some of the stolen information was not from BOI customers, but also those who had approached the bank for a life assurance quote. Besides, the usual procedure is to create a new account somewhere or getting credit cards in their identity, not touching the victims bank accounts directly, but ruining their credit rating in the process.
2. This concerns data not the laptops. Its possible that the OS requires a password to be provided, however it is quite easy to remove a hard disk and attach it to a separate machine. Completely by-passing any password requirements of the OS. Either encrypting the customer data on the disk (as happened in the IBTS incident) or making the entire disk an encrypted file. The data was unencrypted.

The information on the four BOI laptops contained the names, addresses, financial details and some medial records of its life assurance customers. Gosh that is a goldmine of information for identity thieves, phishing operators and even the odd blackmailer (if the medical information reveals things). I’ve written about this before, and I don’t think things have gotten any better.

And it happened some time ago.

Bank of Ireland said the four laptops disappeared between June and October 2007 and contained the names, addresses, bank account details and medical histories of about 10,000 holders of the bank’s life insurance policies. Ireland’s second-largest bank made the admission after the chief regulator, Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes, told Irish broadcasters RTE he had been informed of the lost customers’ data only last Friday.

– via IHT

It’s the silence that is slightly worrying. The Irish Banking Federation hasn’t said anything. True that these were probably €900 laptops. But the information on them do open up the bank for potentially billions of damages; not that, given the statement by the Data Protection Commissioner, such punishment is likely to happen.

Now I’m hearing rumours that the banks are now encrypting customer data, but do you trust a bank with your data that can’t even link correctly to the page with the information about the incident on their own site? Hopefully someone will notice that correct things sooner than they noticed that the missing customer data might be important.

take care of your data,
Will

UPDATE – April 28 2008
Number affected by BoI laptop thefts trebles – “The technical investigation has identified that details relating to 31,500 policies, policy applications and a small number of mortgage customers were contained on the stolen laptops.” So the numbers are worse that previously announced, and the fact that not all of those at risk are customers of the BOI. If the Data Commissioner can’t deliver punishment via a 4×2 then his remit should be altered.

People have a habit of telling me things. Sometimes it’s things I don’t want to know about.

In this particular case a post from 2004 about the Life of Brian being re-released brought forth a comment…

“I just kicked the shit out of a [derogatory term for a minority] after i followed him outside [Cork nightclub] on [day of the week] night”

Sorry about the censoring, but I have my reasons, which will become apparent below.

So what do you do when someone admits to committing a crime on your blog?
I took it down as soon as I saw it.

The next question is, what do you do next…

Well wither this assault is fictional or real. Worst case… its real.
If its real and I don’t report it… am I liable?

Well, since it concerns a minority, there is a chance that an incident such as this would have crossed the desk of the Garda liaison for that minority… so I checked, and there was one.

I’ve dropped the details I have off (approximate time, place and minority concerned) and I’m leaving the investigations in the hands of the authorities.

Lets assume it is a real event, what is traceable?
Blogspot (or Google) have probably recorded the incoming IP address and time of the comment being recorded. This means that the commenter could be traced back to his (I think it’s a safe assumption that an assault described above is more likely to be bragged about by a man than a woman) IP address assigned at the time of the post.

This IP address may belong to a household, public place or a company.
In most cases It should be possible to figure out who posted it…

However it all depends on if the assault took place.

What should I have done, and should I have done something different?

Will

tags : blogs, blogging, crime, assault, hate crime, comments

People have a habit of telling me things. Sometimes it’s things I don’t want to know about.

In this particular case <A href=”http://willknott.ie/?p=196″>a post from 2004 about the Life of Brian being re-released</A> brought forth a comment…

“I just kicked the shit out of a [derogatory term for a minority] after i followed him outside [Cork nightclub] on [day of the week] night”

Sorry about the censoring, but I have my reasons, which will become apparent below.

So what do you do when someone admits to committing a crime on your blog?
I took it down as soon as I saw it.

The next question is, what do you do next…

Well wither this assault is fictional or real. Worst case… its real.
If its real and I don’t report it… am I liable?

Well, since it concerns a minority, there is a chance that an incident such as this would have crossed the desk of the Garda liaison for that minority… so I checked, and there was one.

I’ve dropped the details I have off (approximate time, place and minority concerned) and I’m leaving the investigations in the hands of the authorities.

Lets assume it is a real event, what is traceable?
Blogspot (or Google) have probably recorded the incoming IP address and time of the comment being recorded. This means that the commenter could be traced back to his (I think it’s a safe assumption that an assault described above is more likely to be bragged about by a man than a woman) IP address assigned at the time of the post.

This IP address may belong to a household, public place or a company.
In most cases It should be possible to figure out who posted it…

However it all depends on if the assault took place.

What should I have done, and should I have done something different?

Will

tags : blogs, blogging, crime, assault, hate crime, comments