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density have more cases and sex traffcking has increased greatly and some cities have whole units dedicated to traffcking cases. There are 61 ICAC task forces, at least one in each of the 50 states, available to every law enforcement offcer in the country. The task forces can assist local offcers in determining what evidence they need to get cases fled in their local jurisdictions. For instance, if an adult predator sends an image of their genitals to a child in one state, it may be illegal, but it may not be illegal in another state. For cases to be fled in federal court, there needs to be an interstate nexus or the production of child pornography. On The Street Every offcer should know the name of the closest computer forensic expert to call to a scene. If there is not one in the area, the offcer can locate the nearest ICAC Task Force on their website. Det. Minton reported more often than not, their cases come from proactive law enforcement, locating offenders themselves on the Internet, but they also get referrals from other law enforcement agencies and citizens��� complaints. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) tips also come in all the time, anonymously or otherwise, and the task force is working proactively every day online looking for predators. Since interagency Internet task forces whose offcers pretend to be teenagers and contact offenders online are already in place, other offcers should leave that up to the experts unless they have received the same type of training. When a citizen makes a report such as suspected predator is speaking to that person���s child, it is important to get as much information as possible. Get the screen name of the child and perpetrator, the date and time they were speaking to the child, a printout of the conversation if possible, the child���s password, and any other social networking sites the child has used with this perpetrator. When sexual predators take that fnal step of making contact with victims and abducting them, immediate and decisive action is necessary to rescue the victims and save their lives. Fortunately, because of the bad acts by such people in the past, safety nets have been set up for these eventualities. NCMEC can provide immediate technical support to your site and fnancial assistance. This is used in coordination with an Amber Alert. Det. Minton said the most important advice he can give offcers who encounter an Internet exploitation case is to not be afraid to work the cases. He advised any offcer can contact their closest ICAC resource online and get assistance. He advised against trying to enter chat rooms and pose as an underage child without training because the offenders know what questions to ask and can easily unmask someone not trained to deceive them. Minton often responds to the site where a computer allegedly has child porn images to do an initial examination before the computer is seized. ���It is important to remember that seizing a computer is no different than seizing any other piece of evidence. There are three ways we are allowed to do this: with a search warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances,��� he explained. ���The examination of the data on a computer also requires one of the three circumstances, but almost always is the result of obtaining a search warrant to do so,��� Minton explained. He suggested offcers fnd a resource in advance they could call on to respond to the scene and let someone who is trained deal with the computer. Forensic computer examiners are trained to determine if child pornography is present on a computer and how to maintain it as legal evidence. Det. Flip Minton of the Cyber-Crimes Task Force has made it his goal to target Internet predators. He stated by pulling the plug on a live system, you lose what is stored in RAM. He was working a case in which the contents of the RAM would be used to convict the suspect. He said capturing RAM is not for the line offcer, so if a trained offcer is not available, pulling the plug is the best option for untrained offcers. If the computer is on, then take a photo of the screen and surroundings. It is also very important for the offcer not to look at any fles or run any programs on the live system unless he is running a preview tool he has been trained to use. Under no circumstances should the offcer boot the computer back up. It should be held in a pristine state for the forensic examiner. Kathy Marks has been a child abuse investigator for 30 years. She teaches classes regarding domestic terrorism and is a previous contributor to LAW and ORDER. She can be reached at kathymarks53@aol.com. LaO Post your comments on this story by visiting www.lawandordermag.com www.lawandordermag.com 59