FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Josh Duggar, former director of the lobbying arm of the powerful, religiously motivated anti-porn group Family Research Council, was found guilty by a federal jury in Arkansas this morning of downloading and possessing child sexual abuse material.
"The jury in Fayetteville, about 140 miles northwest of Little Rock, found the 33-year-old Duggar guilty on one count each of receiving and possessing child pornography," the Associated Press reported today. "He faces up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for each count when he’s sentenced at a later date."
Prior to his work for the Family Research Council, Duggar was known as a reality TV figure for his role on TLC’s "19 Kids and Counting," a show highlighting his extended family. TLC canceled the show in 2015 after it was revealed that Duggar had molested members of his family and a babysitter.
An Ineffective Religious 'Porn Filter'
The Arkansas trial also put in evidence the failure of for-profit, religiously inspired "porn filter" Covenant Eyes, a business highly ballyhooed by anti-porn crusaders trying to reroute state funds to bankroll private religious corporations to fight a supposed "public health crisis" around porn. Back in May, People magazine reported that federal investigators found that Covenant Eyes had been installed on Duggar's computer so that it could monitor and report his internet use to his wife, Anna.
"According to Covenant Eyes' website," People noted, "the program is an 'accountability software' that is meant to protect users from objectionable content and help monitor the screen activity of those with porn addictions. The software 'periodically captures screenshots,' which are then analyzed by artificial intelligence and sent to a trusted 'ally' who can hold the user accountable for their internet usage."
During a May detention hearing, however, an investigator reported that "Covenant Eyes was unable to detect Duggar's internet usage after a password-protected network was installed on his computer."
Last week, Buzzfeed News reported that during the trial, Jeff Wofford, VP of technology at Covenant Eyes, "told prosecutors that Duggar would not have been able to discreetly download and view child sexual abuse materials given that he had a 'mature teen' rating for his subscription, which blocked anything pornographic on his devices. The software would generate a regular report for Anna Duggar, his 'ally,' detailing any 'incidents' of him accessing 'bad' content."
When prosecutors asked whether Duggar "would have been able to circumvent the software if he downloaded what is known as a Linux partition, a sophisticated operating system, Wofford replied 'yes.' That’s because the partition basically splits one computer into two separate devices, and the tracking software wouldn’t have worked on the Linux side, he said."
