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on 29-09-2007 19:22
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Published in : The News, Latest News |
It’s hard enough to catch criminals when they cross state lines.
The vague boundaries of the Internet and the increasing number of crimes committed online — from identity theft and fraud to sexual predators trolling for victims — only adds to the challenges facing today’s law enforcement officials.
To meet that challenge, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone is launching the “Cyber Protection Program,” a team focused on Internet crime, which will include Assistant DA Dana Leccese as well as other lawyers; State Police; and civilian forensic specialists.
“One of the challenges of a dynamic and fluid cyber world is jurisdictional,” Leone said. “Which is why we rely heavily on coordination, collaboration and cooperation between law enforcement officials and agencies. It’s another reason why it’s important to have a statewide agency and a federal agency working in tandem with us.”
The Cyber Protection Program is an offshoot of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the U.S. Attorney’s General office in May 2006 to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse.
Project Safe Childhood, like the Cyber Protection Program, focuses on collaboration between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
On the state level, the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force Program supports state and local law enforcement agencies in dealing with online sexual predators through forensic and investigative components, training and technical assistance, victim services, and community education.
Like the ICAC program, Leone’s team will encompass investigations and prosecutions, as well as training and education.
Leone said the education portion of the program provides training for his prosecutors, as well as state and municipal police officers who partner with his office. He added that, “an extremely important third prong of training and education is young people, parents and schools, which flows directly into our school based intervention and prevention programs.”
In terms of investigating and prosecuting online crimes, Leone said the partnership will work both ways, with local police departments bringing cases to the Cyber Protection Program team and Leone’s office reaching out to local and State Police.
“As far as investigative techniques and approaches, it runs the gamut,” he said. “Some are more conventional, like the referrals … you’ve got undercover-type techniques and strategies where officers control electronic mediums, or act in an undercover way from cyber mediums and set up sting operations. You’ve really got a number of different approaches that we use. Some are directly tailored to the cyber medium.”
Investigative prosecutors
Leone said the cyber team will use the same collaboration between attorneys and police as in other cases that take place, in Internet-speak, “IRL” — in real life.
“The approach that we have used here for a long time, whether a homicide case or cyber enforcement, is that our prosecutors are investigative prosecutors,” he said. “They work hand in glove with officers at the earliest possible stage. Then we’re getting the benefit of their investigative abilities, as well as our knowledge at the end of the day of what’ll it take to prove a case. That’s optimal.”
Because of the fluid and dynamic nature of the Internet, investigating and prosecuting online crimes can be fairly complex, Leone said.
“That ranges everywhere from the legal process needed to obtain information, to how to navigate investigations and avoid defense scrutiny and claims,” he said.
Dana Leccese, the assistant DA who will be the coordinator and lead prosecutor for the cyber enforcement unit, said prosecuting online crimes “is not unlike” prosecuting any other kind of crime, although the online realm brings new challenges.
“The cyber world has proven to be a great opportunity for law enforcement to go after collateral evidence in a case,” she said. “There may be some logs kept by an ISP [Internet Service Provider] that have activity on them and that content may not be what’s important, but the time zones linked to that activity indicate someone at a keyboard at a certain date and time. Someone may blog and may point us to the [right] direction by blogging about that person or their activity.”
Online social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook, can also provide information about possible crimes, Leccese said — and provide information to those looking to commit crimes.
“People seem to advertise their activities to a great extent [on social networking sites],” she said. “Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking we’re being private. In our Internet safety programming we say that if you’re online in a public forum, you might as well be handing out pamphlets to not just hundreds, but thousands of people at Logan Airport.”
The cost of knowledge
A yet-to-be named civilian investigator will be part of the team, highlighting the high demand for computer experts in both the public and private sectors, Leone said.
“One of the largest challenges we run into is not only attracting, but retaining people who have this [computer] background,” he said. “If you have this background and expertise, it goes without saying you could make a lot more money in the private sector. The fact of the matter is, once you have this background, it’s in demand.”
Leone said the optimum situation would be teaming a police officer who is a forensic specialist with a civilian with an educational background, training and experience in computers.
“The forensic specialists who are out there now are people who have been studying this stuff since high school,” he said. “They’ve grown up with it, they’ve studied it, they’ve got advanced degrees in these areas. To have a civilian who has made the cyber world and electronic communications their subject matter of expertise, they’re very helpful to us.”
Leccese said law enforcement agencies lack the pool of computer experts they would like to see.
Read full article on TOWNONLINE
By Daniel DeMaina,Tue Sep 18, 2007
Last update : 14-10-2007 12:00
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