Colonel guilty of sending porn over computer Associated Press SAN ANGELO -- The former commander of Goodfellow Air Force Base was convicted in a court martial Monday of sending obscene material via his home computer. A jury of four men and one woman, all Air Force colonels, deliberated about two hours before returning guilty verdicts on all counts again Col. James Maxwell. He was convicted of transmitting obscene material via home computer, of transmitting child pornography through his computer and using indecent language with a junior Air Force officer. Maxwell, a 26-year Air Force veteran, now faces a possible 16-year prison sentence and loss of his military retirement benefits. Charges were filed against Maxwell after the FBI found his name among users of an on-line computer network who accessed computer-generated pornographic images of children. Maxwell also was said to have used the computer network to inquire about the location of homosexual meeting places. Maxwell's attorney had sought to have the charges dropped on grounds his transmissions on the computer from the privacy of his home were protected under the constitution. But the trial judge, Col. Donald Weir of Randolph Air Force Base, allowed the charges to stand last week, ruling that freedom of speech can be limited when it involves conduct unbecoming an officer. "That the writings were private between consenting adults, that they may have been welcome doesn't place them under the judicial umbrella of a constitutional protected condition," Weir had ruled. Weir dismissed a count alleging Maxwell had disgraced the Air Force by allegedly using electronic mail to ask about homosexual bars and child pornography. Maxwell, 48, was removed from command at the Goodfellow Air Force Base training center last summer after the charges were filed. +++++++++++++++++++++ COMMENT: Looks to me like this thing is full of red flags. Isn't it coincidental that the story breaks just as there's a flap over gays in the military?! And where it says "the FBI found his name among users of an on-line computer network who accessed computer-generated pornographic images of children", one might ask what network? what was the FBI doing there? how did the images get there? how did the FBI think to track them? who else is getting snared? civilians? were the images really "computer-generated" or just scanned? It's enough to restore one's healthy paranoia...