Latest news with #whistleblowers
The Sun
a day ago
- Health
- The Sun
How sick porn gangs draw up ‘hit lists' of women to steal nude snaps & target victims using creepy stalker-style tactics
IN shadowy bedrooms across the UK, perverted criminals are drawing up 'hit lists' of unsuspecting women in their local area, so their nude pictures can be stolen to order by twisted online pals. A Sun investigation has found how these ghouls are not only using sinister tactics to steal the intimate photos of targets as young as 16, but are tracking every detail of their day-to-day lives in a disturbing new crime trend that will terrify every parent. 6 Whistleblowers reveal that young men are trading the X-rated snaps "like Pokémon cards' on secret chat rooms, with thousands of potential victims targeted. One group we uncovered is feared to contain details of almost 700 women in Kent and is now being investigated by police, while high-profile sports stars are also believed to be targeted in similarly shocking chat rooms reported across the UK. The Kent chat room alone is believed to have been used by 132 men and boys to request and swap intimate images of women in the area. It was discovered on the popular messaging site Discord – which is used by 34.8 million Brits monthly and markets to young boys and gamers. Users were reportedly posting 'wins' lists and 'want' lists – boasting which women they had images of and requesting others whose photos they wanted to get their hands on. Other men are said to have been offering to fulfill trades by offering to ' catfish ' girls online to get hold of the images. Whistleblowers claim three arrests have been made so far, and that the server has been taken down by Kent Police. When asked to comment on the chat room, Kent Police said: 'On 21 November 2024, Kent Police received a report that an intimate image of a woman had been shared online without her consent. 'Officers are currently investigating, and a 34-year-old man from Sittingbourne was arrested on suspicion of harassment. He has since been released on bail whilst enquiries continue.' The force refused to make any further comment on the server's wider impact. Georgia Harrison opens up about overcoming her revenge porn ordeal and difficult journey Richard Garside, director of The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, said he 'would not be surprised' if similar photo-exchanging sites existed on this scale across a wider part of the UK. An identical investigation took place in 2023 after reports that a Discord server was being used to anonymously trade images of women in Pembrokeshire. The server allegedly contained over 1,200 images of 217 women and girls in the area, with the youngest being just 16 years old. The Sun reached out to Dyfed-Powys Police, who said: 'Three men were arrested on suspicion of disclosing private sexual photographs with intent to cause distress and were released on bail. 'Further enquiries led to a caution being given to one of the men and no further action being taken against the other two. 'Although the investigation is now closed, it can be re-opened if any new evidence comes to light.' Stalker forums Another website has reportedly come under police investigation after it emerged men were using it to share the private information of hundreds of women. Speaking to The Sun, one whistleblower alleged that images of a popular female sports team appeared on the site. He said: 'There was a UK-wide server and it was basically the same as this Kent case. And I wish I was joking – they put up these girls' work times, the way they go home and where they go out." The site has since been taken down. Another website The Sun uncovered allows men to share and request photos of women within location-based servers. Online abuse of this kind, better known as revenge porn, is classified as a criminal offence thanks to the Criminal Justice and Courts Act of 2015. Speaking to The Sun this month, former model Jess Davies revealed her horror at finding naked photos - which had been taken of her when she was asleep - in a group chat on her boyfriend's phone. The women's rights campaigner, 32, warned: "People's sons, brothers and friends are trading these photos like Pokémon cards and the women in the images have no idea that someone they trust is doing this." Revenge porn is defined as 'the sharing of private, sexual materials, either photos or videos, of another person without their consent and with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress." The Government also states that those guilty of the crime could face up to two years behind bars – but evidence points towards a failure from cops to crack down on perpetrators. Speaking to The Sun, head of crime and justice at Policy Exchange and former Detective Chief Inspector David Spencer said: 'Cases where predators operate online are a real challenge for the police who are woefully behind the times when it comes to technology. 'A sea change in the approach of the police and the criminal justice system can't come soon enough.' National crisis 6 6 Netflix 's blockbuster Adolescence recently received critical acclaim for shining a light on the dangers of private messaging sites that are influencing young men like Discord, Telegram and the online game Roblox. The sites, which generally market to kids, have been found to be hubs for misogyny, sadism and sexual abuse – with people sharing shocking content such as guides on 'how to rape a girl'. The four-part limited series follows the family of 13-year-old boy Jamie Miller, who brutally murders a young girl after consuming the harmful content. Stephen Graham, who wrote the show and stars as Jamie's father, said the idea was inspired by the online 'manosphere'. 'I read an article about a young boy stabbing a young girl,' the actor explained. 'And then maybe a couple of months later, on the news there was [another] young boy who'd stabbed a young girl, and if I'm really honest with you, they hurt my heart.' He added: 'It's just being mindful of the fact that not only we parent our children, and not only the school educates our children. 'But also there's influences that we have no idea of that are having profound effects on our young culture, profound effects, positive and extremely negative. So it's having a look at that and seeing that we're all accountable.' What is revenge porn? By Kevin Adjei-Darko Sickos who post explicit snaps or videos of exes online without consent are being hunted down and locked up as Britain cracks down on revenge porn. The vile trend, which involves sharing private sexual images to humiliate or control someone, became a crime in 2015. But a fresh law under the Online Safety Act 2023 has made it even tougher — now, prosecutors no longer need to prove the intent was to cause distress. If you share an intimate image without permission, you're breaking the law. Creeps also face jail for creating or spreading deepfake porn - twisted AI-generated nudes - using someone's face without their knowledge. Offenders can get up to two years in prison, slapped with fines, and even end up on the sex offenders register. Love Island's Georgia Harrison made headlines after ex-boyfriend Stephen Bear was jailed for secretly filming them having sex and sharing it on OnlyFans. Her fight has helped drive legal change and support for victims. Help is out there. The Revenge Porn Helpline (0345 6000 459) offers confidential advice and can help get sick content taken down fast. The show has also captured the attention of multiple MPs and officials – with Daventry MP Stuart Andrew saying 'Adolescence has got everyone talking', and that it 'demonstrates the reach of such productions'. It even sparked discussion in PMQs after Sir Keir Starmer revealed to The Commons that he had been watching Adolescence with his own teenage children. Later, he told BBC 5Live that the UK 'may have a problem with boys and young men that we need to address.' The PM also revealed he planned to have a chat with former England football manager Gareth Southgate, who recently gave a BBC lecture saying 'toxic influencers trick young men.' 6 6 Influencer Andrew Tate has been blamed for the rise of toxic masculinity and sexual violence, and was even referenced in the Netflix drama. An Ofcom spokesperson told The Sun: 'The prosecution of individuals who post illegal content online is a matter for law enforcement agencies. 'This month, new duties came into force under the Online Safety Act that mean tech companies must now take steps to protect their UK users from illegal content, including intimate image abuse. 'Ofcom's job is to make sure platforms do that, and we're currently assessing industry compliance with these new laws.'
New York Times
2 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Trump Nominates a Former Far-Right Podcast Host to Head an Ethics Watchdog
President Trump on Thursday nominated Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host now serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, to a new key role: head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent corruption-fighting agency that safeguards federal whistle-blowers and enforces some ethics laws. The office has had a bumpy ride in the second Trump presidency. In February, Mr. Trump fired the office's head, Hampton Dellinger. Mr. Dellinger sued to keep his job, was temporarily reinstated by a court order, began investigating complaints arising from the Trump administration's mass firings of federal workers and was removed again in March after an appeals court ruled in the administration's favor. The Office of Special Counsel dropped its inquiry into the mass firings in April. The office had annoyed Mr. Trump during his first term by pursuing allegations of misconduct, resulting in a finding that 13 senior aides had campaigned for his re-election in violation of the law known as the Hatch Act. Before working for Mr. Trump, Mr. Ingrassia hosted a podcast, 'Right on Point,' with his sister, Olivia Ingrassia. In December 2020, as Mr. Trump was contesting his election loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., the podcast posted on Twitter, 'Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election.' Mr. Ingrassia has represented the 'manosphere' influencer Andrew Tate, who is currently facing criminal charges in Romania and Britain, and pushed a false theory that Nikki Haley was ineligible to run for president. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. In a Truth Social post on Thursday night, Mr. Trump called Mr. Ingrassia 'a highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.' Mr. Ingrassia posted on X that as head of the office, he would 'make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal workplace, and Revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.'
CNN
3 days ago
- General
- CNN
HHS letter tells health care providers to disregard treatment protocols for trans people, adhere to report by unnamed authors
LGBTQ issues Federal agenciesFacebookTweetLink Follow The US Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a letter urging health care providers and medical boards to update treatment protocols for youth with gender dysphoria based on a controversial HHS review of scientific literature that was released earlier this month. The HHS report, released May 1, says it is 'not a clinical practice guideline,' but Kennedy's letter warns providers against relying on science-based professional guidelines and urges them to use the government document to inform their practice instead. The letter also said that HHS is committed to protecting whistleblowers and may soon create new policies and oversight actions to 'hold providers that harm children accountable.' The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - a subagency of HHS - also announced Wednesday that it was launching an oversight initiative into hospitals that performed 'experimental sex trait modification procedures' on children. Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said CMS 'will not turn a blind eye to procedures that lack a solid foundation of evidence and may result in lifelong harm.' Oz added that he was concerned about the 'profits related to these harmful procedures.' Research shows that gender-affirming surgery is rarely performed on transgender or gender-diverse children or teens in the US, and professional medical organizations do not recommend surgery for children as part of gender-affirming care. Kennedy's letter, which HHS shared Wednesday on social media, warns providers to avoid relying on guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health on care for transgender and gender-diverse people. 'These and other guidelines based on the so-called 'gender-affirming' model of care should not be relied upon to harm children any further,' the letter says. Kennedy urges providers to read HHS's review of the scientific literature on care for trans individuals and 'update your treatment protocols and training to ensure that our nation's children are protected from harm.' In the US, care for gender dysphoria – an official diagnosis of a condition in which an individual feels significant distress because of a mismatch between the sex they were assigned at birth and their sense of their gender – is tailored to an individual's needs and is typically offered through a multidisciplinary team of doctors. Not everyone who identifies as transgender or gender-diverse has this diagnosis. Gender-affirming care is guided by several professional association guidelines, based on decades of research that shows that it is safe and that it can have a positive impact on a person's life and mental health. Major medical associations – including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry – have affirmed the practice of gender-affirming care and agree that it's clinically appropriate and can provide lifesaving treatment for children and adults. The 400-page review that Kennedy's letter referenced was initiated by an executive order from President Donald Trump that called gender-affirming care 'chemical and surgical mutilation' and stated that the federal government would not 'fund, sponsor, promote, assist or support' any kind of gender-affirming care for people under the age of 19. When the report was released, HHS refused to identify who wrote it. HHS said parts of it were peer-reviewed, but it would not disclose which parts or identify who reviewed it. The report spelled out that 'it is not a clinical practice guideline, and it does not issue legislative or policy recommendations.' Rather, it included sections on evidence, ethical considerations, psychotherapy and 'clinical realities' focused on treatment of gender dysphoria in young people. The review did not examine the treatment of adults. The report said that the science used to inform the practice of gender-affirming care was weak and that the practice was harmful. It also sharply criticized US medical associations for what it said was suppression of dissent among members on the issue. The Endocrine Society, a professional group whose guidelines are also mentioned in Kennedy's new letter, said in an email Wednesday that its guideline development process 'adheres to the highest standards of trustworthiness and transparence.' 'The widely accepted view of the professional medical community is that medical treatment is appropriate for transgender and gender-diverse teenagers who experience persistent feelings of gender dysphoria. Medical studies show that access to this care improves the well-being of transgender and nonbinary people,' the group said. The American Academy of Pediatrics said when the HHS report was issued that it was 'deeply alarmed' and that the report relied on 'select perspectives and a narrow set of data,' the group's president, Dr. Susan Kressly, said at the time. 'This report misrepresents the current medical consensus and fails to reflect the realities of pediatric care,' Kressly said in a statement. Gender-affirming care in the US typically starts with a conversation between the individual and a clinician. If the patient is a child, the conversation will involve the family or caregiver when possible. Once the clinician understands what the individual needs, they will design a plan with a team of providers. The practice can include mental health care, support groups and even legal help. When a person is past the start of puberty, their care may include hormones, but not everyone chooses to use them. When a person is an adult, a patient may also seek out surgery to better align their body with their gender. A 2024 study of medical insurance claims in the US from 2019, the latest year available, found that there were no gender-affirming surgeries performed on transgender youth 12 and younger. For older teens and adults, the rates of gender-affirming surgery with a trans or gender diverse-related diagnosis were 2.1 per 100,000 and 5.3 per 100,000, respectively, the study said. Transgender people have been a major focus of the second Trump administration. Soon after his inauguration, Trump signed executive orders that denied the existence of transgender people and instructed government agencies to acknowledge a strict gender binary and withdraw any support for people who identified otherwise. The administration has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding used to study trans issues and removed information about transgender people from government websites. Trump has ordered trans troops out of the military, and on Tuesday, he threatened to withhold federal funding from California over a transgender athlete's participation in an upcoming sporting event. Earlier this year, the administration moved to strip funding from Maine, to include funding that fed children and disabled adults, because the state allows trans students to compete in athletics. Gender-affirming care for youth has also been a growing target for state governments. As of March, 27 states have enacted restrictions on such care, meaning about 40% of trans youth live in a state with limited gender-affirming health care options, according to KFF, a health policy organization.
ABC News
6 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
New charity connected to Julian Assange will help other whistleblowers facing persecution
A new charity connected to wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been launched to support whistleblowers, writers and activists who face persecution for sharing confidential information in the public domain. The new charity is called The Information Rights Project and is designed to offer advocacy, education and other practical support to those not just in Australia but worldwide. Guest: Gabriel Shipton, brother of Julian Assange, and founder of the Information Rights Project Producer: Anne Barker
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The resistance to Trump worked once. It has to work again now.
Heady from Joe Biden's triumph, I penned a piece for the Des Moines Register on Nov. 22, 2020, arguing that 'the Resistance worked.' In the face of Donald Trump's norm-breaking presidency, judges defended the rule of law, the media fearlessly reported on Trump's transgressions, congressional Democrats blocked some of his most damaging policies, public servants did their jobs, whistleblowers exposed wrongdoing, fact-checkers corrected lies, protesters took to the streets, donors funded Democratic campaigns, and voters removed Trump from office after four years of turmoil and trouble. America's democratic institutions survived one of the most serious tests of the past century. Alas, less than two months later, Donald Trump directed both an insurrection and a false elector scheme designed to deny Biden the White House. While these shocking moves failed, so did subsequent efforts to impeach Trump or to hold him accountable in court. Instead, Trump is back, and so too are the threats to our democracy. This time, the dangers are far worse. Trump's lesson from his first term's failures is that no independent centers of power must go unchallenged. Trump is attacking universities, the media, elite law firms and the Federal Reserve. Republicans are challenging the tax status of nonprofits, withdrawing federal grants, launching partisan investigations, robbing government agencies of congressionally mandated independence, weakening civil service protections, kneecapping media organizations and mobilizing the anger of MAGA nation against perceived enemies. In authoritarian fashion, Trump seeks to intimidate opponents, drain their funds, undermine their legal status, discredit critics, and dismantle the eco-system that supports the Democratic Party and the broader liberal and progressive movements. Some steps are explicitly partisan. Republicans have forced the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue to spend precious time and money defending itself against dubious congressional and Justice Department investigations. Even if no legal action is taken, a wounded ActBlue could hamper the ability of Democrats to raise competitive war chests ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Likewise, Trump is using the withholding of federal grants, threats to the nonprofit tax status of universities, Title IX investigations, impediments to the enrollment of international students, and legal attacks on accreditation bodies to undermine academic freedom and remold higher education in a MAGA image. Trump is blackmailing elite law firms that represent his perceived enemies: hire conservative lawyers, drop liberal clients, and provide pro bono legal representation for Trump-approved groups, or else lose access to federal agencies and courts. Trump has directed the Justice Department to bring legal sanctions against lawyers who sue him or his government. This misuse of state power threatens to dry up the pool of high-quality attorneys available to pursue the more than 150 lawsuits brought against Trump's illegal executive orders. While lower courts have upheld challenges to many of Trump's executive orders, it remains to be seen how far the Supreme Court will go to rein in our rogue president. The justices have shown a reluctance to draw clear red lines in response to Trump's lawless behavior, perhaps fearful that their orders will be ignored. The real brake on an authoritarian president is political. The good news is that effective opposition to Trump 2.0 is emerging. Massive protests have been mounted. The stock and bond markets have punished Trump's wacky tariff policies. Following the lead of Harvard University, higher education is mounting a defense of academic freedom. Two hundred college and university presidents issued a public letter denouncing government intrusion into higher education. While some elite law firms quickly caved to Trump's pressure tactics, others are taking him to court. Small cracks within the Republican Party and among Trump's advisers are increasingly evident. Democrats and progressive non-profits have attracted a flood of donations. Most importantly, the public is quickly souring on Trumpian chaos and cruelty. Trump's overall approval rating is falling fast. More tellingly, majorities disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, tariffs, inflation, immigration and the Ukraine war. Voters are noticing — and rejecting — Trump's threats to democracy. In a New York Times/Siena poll, 54% of respondents felt Trump was exceeding the power of the presidency. Overwhelming majorities insisted that presidents must obey Supreme Court decisions. Two-thirds described his first months as chaotic and 59% as scary. Only 44% expressed confidence that Trump 'understands the problems facing people like you.' Neither is Trump impervious to resistance. He pulled back on the most extreme tariffs and the threat to remove Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell after the stock and bond markets tanked. Trump rescinded orders to terminate international students in the face of skeptical judges. And he appears to be distancing himself from Elon Musk. Trump has a record of buckling when the political heat becomes too intense. Opposition has taken time to mobilize and has yet to fully recover from Trump's early blows. But it is rapidly building now. As daunting as the task appears, it is worth remembering that the Resistance worked once. Together, we can ensure that it works again. We can't afford to fail. David Skidmore is a political scientist. This essay has been updated to correct a misspelling and clarify the author's affiliation. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Resistance to Trump worked once. It has to work again now. | Opinion
