A Minnesota task force uses high-tech tactics and old-fashioned police work to stop online predators
When Neil Nelson’s daughter was in high school, she often had one eye on her homework and another on the family computer’s instant messenger window. Messages popped up all the time, even when Nelson was using the computer and his daughter was nowhere around.
“That goofy IM screen would come up and I couldn’t get out of it, I had no idea what it did,” says Nelson. A few years later, Nelson’s daughter created an IM account for her father – “I think I’m NelsDogg99,” he laughs – and taught him how to send messages so they could stay in touch while she was away at college.
That was the beginning of Nelson’s Internet education. Now, as the commander of the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC), he not only knows how to send instant messages, he knows how predators might use chat rooms and social networking sites to lure unsuspecting kids. He says too many parents are like him in his pre-NelsDogg99 days.
“Our kids are far more savvy with the Internet, so they expose themselves to dangers. And because the parents aren’t as savvy about what dangers are out there, they haven’t had the simplest talk with their kids,” says Nelson.
Minnesota’s ICAC, one of 46 such task forces around the country, and covers North and South Dakota as well. It handles more than 400 cases a year – from helping police departments with Internet forensics to sting operations – in partnership with about 40 law enforcement agencies.
During the legislative session, Minnesota emphasized Internet crimes as a state priority by passing a bill that brings the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) into the task force, along with nine more full-time employees to join Nelson and his partner Sgt. Bill Haider.
“The biggest benefit is the increase in resources,” BCA Special Agent Eric Knutson says. “We’ll have more bodies now to do the job Neil and Bill were trying to do, plus we’ll have the capabilities of full-time computer forensics and IT specialists.”
The legislation also made sure the community would be brought up to speed on the latest in Internet safety by including a full-time trainer to speak at schools and public events about ensuring the online safety of children.
The Internet, now a fixture in our lives, has grown explosively since the early days of dial-up: Americans’ use of the Internet has doubled since 2000. And with a new medium comes new kinds of criminal activity.
Nancy McBride, national safety director for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, says that one in seven children receives a sexual solicitation or approach over the Internet – and the ICACs are a vital tool in catching those predators. “The ICACs are phenomenal; we’re their biggest fan,” she says. “It’s very gratifying to know there’s multijurisdictional, trained investigators doing the investigations they do, and knowing they are very, very successful at what they do.”
“We are on the Internet, we are undercover, we are in the chat rooms out there,” says Nelson. “If people are going to solicit children, we’re going to find them.”
How to really catch a predator
Online predators are getting plenty of press these days, in large part thanks to Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” stings.
“That’s what gets the attention because it’s juicy,” says Haider, although the show doesn’t portray the way a group like ICAC actually works.
In reality, most of ICAC’s cases start with tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “They’re our right arm,” explains Haider. A federal law makes Internet service providers like AOL and Yahoo responsible for reporting any exploitation, solicitation, or child pornography they uncover to the National Center, which then forwards those tips to the appropriate ICAC for further investigation. Leads also come in from private citizens who contact either the National Center or their law enforcement agencies.
Tip in hand, Haider works to determine whether a crime has been committed, and from there he attempts to identify people who believe the Internet provides total anonymity. “That’s sort of the lure of the Internet: there’s an implied anonymity to it. However, if that were true I’d be out of a job,” says Haider. “It’s not true, and we can find anybody.”
Haider uses court orders to go after the people behind screen names, interviews victims, and follows clues that lead back to the criminal. Small leads can produce big results: when a concerned citizen notified authorities about a man named Titipa Andrews soliciting children online last year, the ICAC task force got involved by posing as a 13-year-old girl in a chat room. After multiple communications, Andrews set up a meeting at the Mall of America in order to have sex with a person he believed to be a young girl. Instead, he was arrested and charged with solicitation of child. “It’s priceless to see the look on a suspect’s face because they believe that no one will reach out and touch them,” says Haider.
Successful predator-nabbing techniques go beyond chat room stings. When the Child Victim Identification Program (CVIP), which is run by the National Center, found a pornographic image involving several children, they used image enhancement software to aggressively analyze the picture. By identifying a troop number on a Girl Scout sash, information on an envelope, and the name of a storage facility – all from the photo – CVIP traced the predator to Minnesota and made an arrest.
The task force also supports agencies that are dealing with Internet- and computer-related crimes but aren’t as familiar with the territory. “Oftentimes, our efforts involve reaching out to law enforcement that doesn’t always do this kind of thing,” explains Nelson. “We give them whatever help they need with investigating, search warrants, getting into computers.”
With all the attention focused on online sexual predators, it can be easy to assume predators have become more aware of efforts to catch them. That’s not entirely the case, says Haider. “They might be more wary, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop,” he explains. “Wanting to victimize a child for sex is a need-driven response, it’s not thought-driven. So they see the stings and know we’re out there, but that doesn’t stop them.”
Parents: the missing piece
While the majority of Sgt. Haider’s week is devoted to handling cases, concerned parents looking for help are often directed to his desk. “About once a week, I get a call from a parent just looking for advice. Typically they are stumbling upon something on the computer that is making them uncomfortable, or they’re wondering what their kid is into online,” says Haider. “A lot of it comes down to flat-out parenting, how involved are they going to be with their child’s online activity.”
What does that mean? For Haider, it starts with a few basic questions every time a child logs on. “When a child leaves home for the night you ask: ‘Where are you going, what are you going to do, and who are you going to be with?’ The same thing should apply to the Internet.”
The National Center’s McBride says many parents are reluctant to admit that their child knows more than they do about the Internet – but that’s not a good reason to avoid the technology. “Ignorance is no excuse,” she says. “And just because your kids are using the home computer doesn’t mean they’re okay.”
Instead of turning a blind eye, McBride suggests going straight to the source for a crash course in the World Wide Web. “Ask your kids to teach you,” says McBride. “It’s a great opportunity to start that dialogue about why you’re concerned about safety, what the rules are, and what your child should do if anything or anyone makes them uncomfortable.” Haider recommends that parents create a family acceptable-use policy that everyone signs. “We all sign acceptable-use policies at our jobs, and there’s nothing wrong with parents creating one for their children,” explains Haider. “It’s just a matter of going over what’s acceptable and what’s not on your home computer.”
Parents also should try to make children feel comfortable about coming to them to report problems they encounter. Often children avoid telling parents because they fear losing all Internet access. Instead punishing the child, McBride recommends keeping all lines of communication open. If e-mails or messages of solicitation exist, parents should save any communication that will help investigators, then visit CyberTipline.com to report the incident to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Avoiding the whole topic can have unfortunate consequences – consequences that McBride and ICAC see every day.
“If kids can’t go to their parents or don’t know what to do, there’s always someone waiting in the wings who’s more than happy to step in,” says McBride of online predators. “They are very patient, very tenacious, and they know exactly what to say to kids to get a response.”
Monica Wright is Minnesota Parent’s staff writer.
