Kenneth Buniak, Programme Manager of the New York State Missing and Exploited Children Clearinghouse/ Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and a major authority on children abused by paedophiles, recommended that I speak with Ken Citarella, whom he described as one of the most successful District Attorneys bringing to justice paedophiles who are making use of the Internet to access and groom children for sexual abuse.
Ken believes it is very important that law enforcement and the state prosecutors work together closely. He has an excellent relationship with law enforcement and this is symbolised by the fact that the investigators he works with are employees of his office, and share the same building in White Plains. (White Plains is about 30 minutes by train from Central Manhattan).
Ken believes there are a number of effective lobby groups around at the present in the USA. A particularly important one is EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Centre).
Police are now receiving special training, Ken says, to deal with such Internet problems as aggravation and harassment. He noted that some of the offenders caught had as many as forty gigs of encrypted child pornography on their computer hard drive.
Ken has dealt with four cases of minors collecting and trading in child pornography. In at least one of the cases the authorities had presumed that it was the father who owned the collection, but in fact it was the boy. Ken was very interested in the work of the New Zealand Internal Affairs Censorship and Compliance team whose investigation into Internet trading of child pornography reveals that between 20 to 25% of those caught, are boys aged between 14 and 17.
The investigators Ken works with have been on-line, undercover, since 1999. There is now an awareness in the community that collections of child pornography will result in a response from law enforcement, in the sense of arrest, search warrants and so on.
In New York City the response to Internet child pornography is apparently somewhat fragmented. The police have exactly the same procedures, but the different prosecutors' offices, one for each of the five boroughs, have somewhat different procedures. In New York State, every county has its own DA and its own investigation teams. Ken works closely with his own investigation team and monitors their work. There have been 52 Internet arrests since July 1999 (as of September this year the figure is now over 60) and he and the investigators work as a close-knit team. However, other counties don't have a similar partnership, and Ken believes this partnership is critical to success. And of course there is no central repository of data.
The work of Ken and his team has such an impact on potential offenders that online in chat rooms, newcomers are asked if they are with the DA's office!
Chatrooms are the focus of the work done by Ken and his team in Westchester County, especially with offenders who live near Westchester County itself. Any information Ken gains on people living too far from Westchester he passes on to the relevant authorities. There are excellent networks across the United States law enforcement agencies. Ken himself works particularly closely with Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maryland, and New Jersey, as well as the New York City PD and other prosecutors in the Metro-New York area.
While discussing legislation, Ken noted that New York and the Federal Government have a consistency in what they are doing, though the wording in the legislation is somewhat different. While the federal government can deal only with issues that are interstate ones, it is interesting that the government considers any Internet communication at all as being interstate and therefore as being under Federal jurisdiction. However, other states don't necessarily have statutes similar to those in New York State. The big differences are in policy and resources available.
The general community is greatly supportive. Ken and his team are making at least three community presentations a month, to Rotary Clubs, parents' groups etc. His experience is that most parents are uninformed about the Internet and about the dangers on it, and therefore let their children take over. They are amazed when they hear from Ken and his team about the reality of those dangers.
Ken noted that some parents argue that their kids should be able to have 'profiles' on the Internet. Ken is most concerned about this, as he sees it as very dangerous for young people. Even a few details supplied by kids can enable those who mean them harm to get quite a complete profile. Ken stated that one of his undercover officers, while accessing email he kept in the persona of a 14 year old, was within a few minutes propositioned by a man. Ken also notes that there were children with only limited profiles, for example that they belong in a particular sports team, but that it was so easy for paedophiles even from that very limited amount of information, to gather schedules of the sports teams and so on, and then hone in, access more details about the child and eventually have such a full profile that they are able to successfully begin the grooming process.
Ken added that many parents are shocked to know that paedophiles go to sports games to watch children get into cars, note their licence numbers and from the Internet gain the address of the families. He also notes the danger on some school websites of information which leads paedophiles to particular young people.
The US Courts have likened the Internet to a single book. Thus, just as in a library if you choose to stock the book you have to have the entire book, so it is with how US Courts see the Internet. This is of great concern, Ken says, and shows a lack of understanding of the realities of Internet use.
In the US there was recently a Child Pornography Prevention Act which outlawed virtual pornography. This has just been ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. How this will affect future prosecutions remains to be seen, but defence attorneys are beginning to assert as a defence that the state cannot prove that child pornography is not virtual. The controversy is of course whether or not simulated child pornography (e.g. cartoons) goes on to facilitate actual child abuse. There have been great concerns expressed about the amount of pornography coming out of Russia where there is no regulation whatsoever. Ken noted that even the advertisements for this Russian pornography are prosecutable. Such concerns are passed on to the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children - www.NCMEC.org.
Ken notes that the ISP's are very cooperative in the United States. This has been particularly so since the Columbine High School shooting. Ken notes there have been 7 cases in Westchester County of threats to schools. Ken said he was dealing with a case just recently where it was important to know the identity of someone threatening a school. He said the ISP's will tell him within 30 minutes of his request who the person is. There have been 7 convictions come through from those 7 cases. Although these cases turned out to be mock threats, they were treated very seriously by law enforcement people.
Ken stated that in the UK there is tough legislation against ISP's but the US cannot do this because of the First Amendment. They cannot require an ISP to keep all information, so because ISP's know they do not have to, they tend to be open to personal relationships developed with law enforcement agencys.
