Flint Waters responds to my rabble column about child porn and the media
February 28, 2008
From Flint Waters, who heads up an investigative team for the Wyoming Attorney General and is Commander of the Internet Sex Crimes Against Children task force in the U.S.
He’s responding to my piece on the front of rabble.ca (http://rabble.ca) today.
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I read your article this morning on how the media can misrepresent the web. I found it to be very impressive.
It has been fascinating to watch how the media has represented the details from the undercover operation I developed to investigate the distribution of child sexual abuse images.
There were a couple of small points that I felt compelled to address. First off, I completely agree with you that there are legitimate uses for P2P technology. I use P2P to get operating systems for use in our classroom and lab facilities. I am a strong supporter of open source efforts. I get a good bit of my information from blogs and webcasts, based on my own desire to hear from those with more opinion than agenda.
The system that I built does not do any form of sniffing though it does read the public ads generated by people trading child sexual abuse images. We identify images based on hash value and disregard all information not related to child exploitation. While I have received several offers to work for large companies with deep pockets I have held true to the mission at hand. Realizing others can and probably have developed similar solutions for the RIAA or MPAA I still choose not to share my applications or methods with them. I run an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and that is where my original jurisdiction lies.
At no point do I advocate the claims that the Internet is the “source of all evil.” You are correct that this is a common theme among stories that relate to our data. No matter how much you address the issue during the interviews it does not make it into the stories.
Pedophilia is a clinical diagnosis that I refuse to speculate about. At no point do we assume that people trafficking in child pornography are pedophiles. Rather, we focus on computers that are involved in the re-distribution of material that primarily depicts children under the age of eight in extremely graphic sexual situations. I won’t go into more detail about how horrendous the material is since it just interjects emotion into a discussion that is already fraught with risk of misinterpretation.
I believe the New Hampshire study was primarily based on interviews with Internet investigators. I wrote the original undercover training course used by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces and know that it is primarily targeting chat rooms and direct communications with potential offenders. While helpful, I think everyone involved in the study or those investigations would agree that this single study is not comprehensive in terms of identifying the wide array of technology facilitated child crimes on the Internet. The study was however specific about the relationship between child pornography and child sexual abuse in this excerpt, “A considerable number of online child molesters also possess child pornography, and child pornography production is an important element in many cases, including situations where offenders solicit victims to produce sexual images of themselves.” This statement is consistent with what we are seeing as well.
You made a great point in identifying that 90% of child and sexual abuse is taking place in the home. While I don’t have the actual study I can say that, anecdotally, we see similar numbers. The hands on abusers that we catch are more frequently targeting children that they have otherwise legitimate access to and would never bother trying to contact someone in a chat room. These are offenders that frequently use the Internet to normalize their feelings and rationalize the next step they take in targeting their own child. That said, these are not the offenders that will ever be detected through traditional chat room investigations. We more often find them uploading pictures of their own crime or trading movies involving child sex abuse with other people of similar interest. This is a key motivator in our determination that interdicting the trafficking of child pornography could lead us to children that would not otherwise be identified. It has proven successful in that regard. I am fascinated by how little notice has been given to this facet of these crimes. I guess the image of the shadowy predator sneaking through the darkest corners of the Internet sells the story. It’s just not an accurate representation of what we are seeing. It would be like alleging that recent seizures of drugs from cars on the Interstate proves that the highways are causing drug problems.
I should add that we fully understand the risk that comes with dealing with such emotional charged situations. This is an area where some people could be lulled into allowing greater invasions of privacy and the erosion of civil liberties. For that very reason I try to insure we stay far from the lines delineating appropriate investigations from intrusive intervention.
In no way do I advocate throwing out the baby. Since we have found that a number of people are using this technology to commit heinous crimes it is our duty to try to detect and investigate those actions. I try to conduct my investigations with the highest degree of transparency short of demonstrating how those that abuse the system can better hide in it. It is a difficult balance to walk but it is necessary if we are going to recognize where these crimes are evolving.
In the past law enforcement has been reluctant to participate in these discussions. While some could say it is risky to speak of ongoing investigations I prefer to go another direction. From the perspective of an Internet citizen I would want to know what the government was doing. That is why I took the time to drop you a note.
Thank you for your article. While I am only a practitioner, I can say I appreciate your efforts to look beyond the headlines.
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My response:
Dear Mr. Waters:
You are a class act.
Thank you for your thoughts and kind words.
I did not mean to suggest that you felt or expressed the opinion that the web is the source of all evil. My beef is with media outlets that are too quick to jump all over the web as easily as sneeze.
I have to say if more law enforcement and public relations folks responded to media coverage as you have here the world would be a better place.
I would very much like to publish your letter on my blog if I have your permission.
My best wishes, Wayne MacPhail
