A Michigan man has been sentenced to five years in prison for possessing over 41,000 bondage, domination, and sadomasochistic content involving children while stationed at Guantanamo Bay.
David Mark Bartels, 38, of White Cloud, admitted to purchasing collections of child pornography while he was working at the detention camp, Guantanamo Bay.
A forensic investigation of Bartels’ five-terabyte hard drive revealed over 41,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The folders called “NSFW\Nope\Dont open\You were Warned\Deeper\” contained 1,500 images and videos of 285 known victims,” the Department of Justice said in a press release.
These videos and images were sourced from the dark web using the Tor browser, which protects users online and makes their searches anonymous.
While the Tor browser is legal, many people use this method to search for illegal content like child pornography on the dark web.
According to Tor’s website, the service uses a “network of virtual tunnels that allows you to improve your privacy and security on the Internet.”
“Tor works by sending your traffic through three random servers (also known as relays) in the Tor network. The last relay in the circuit (the "exit relay") then sends the traffic out onto the public internet,” the website reads.
This means that you’re technically anonymous, as your internet traffic bounces across various servers, making it hard to trace.
Bartels exploited the Tor browser to access troves of CSAM, which included content like bondage, domination, and sadomasochism.
He pleaded guilty to “one count of possession of child pornography by a person employed by the armed forces outside of the United States,” the DoJ said.
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