Sunday, February 09, 2003

With the help of ordinary Internet tools like Google, Mapquest and Internet phone directories, the Clovis team was able to track down the abusers of 70 children.


Fighting Child Pornography
…in the world of child pornography, as in any culture of collecting, the material most difficult to obtain is the most highly prized. Most of this so-called fresh material is circulated only in children pornography rings that are difficult to crack, the authorities say.

"What we are trying to do is stop the actual abuse," said Lars Underbjerg, a child pornography investigator with the Danish National Police. "If there isn't abuse, there aren't any child abuse images."

Mr. Underbjerg sparked Operation Hamlet by tracing a Danish couple that was abusing their child through a partial shirt logo of a company in Denmark.

A year ago, material found on the computer of the Danish couple led to the arrest of Lloyd A. Emmerson, a 45-year-old chiropractor in Clovis, Calif. Mr. Emmerson was a hub in several child pornography trading networks, prosecutors say. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of manufacturing and trafficking in child pornography, as well as a conspiracy charge. His case is pending in Federal District Court.

Over the past year, four officers from the 90-member Clovis Police Department sifted through half a million photos and films found on Mr. Emmerson's computer hard drive and 400 computer CD's.

Two Clovis officers, Mike Casida, and James Gentry, spent late nights tracking down abusers in the case, often aided by the fact that they appeared in the photos with the children.

Since the photos often show the children at home with their abusers, the sleuthing begins with tiny clues: partial street signs in the background, blurred license plates, the shape of electric outlets and chimneys, the type of vegetation in the yard and company directories in the backgrounds.

With the help of ordinary Internet tools like Google, Mapquest and Internet phone directories, the Clovis team was able to track down the abusers of 70 children.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/technology/09PORN.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

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