FC: New York official explains why police seized ISPs

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 21:50:03 -0600 
From: Sean Donelan <SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM> 
Subject: It must be election time again 

The New York State Attorney General seized the computers at a 
couple of ISPs in New York State.
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/oct98/oct28_98.html
The ISPes responses to the AG's press release are at
http://www.dreamscape.com/dream98/statement.htm 
http://www.buffnet.net/ag/
It is unclear what the purpose of physically seizing the news servers 
since according to Buffnet.net, none of the accused traffickers used 
Buffnet.net as their ISP. Nor was either ISP actually charged with any 
criminal activity (as opposed to the AG's implication to the media) If 
the AG's office wanted to receive those newsgroups they could have received 
their own feed. Maybe the A.G. just needed some new computer hardware 
for his offices.
Anyone care to guess just how many different law enforcement agencies 
are conducting various undercover activities? More seem to pop out of 
the wood-work every week.
In case anyone missed it, notice that all the arrested people are 
identified by AOL screen names. I assume it was AOL, since the term 
"screen name" is rarely used by any other provider. Any prediction 
when New York's AG is going to sieze AOL's servers, or does the AG only 
target small ISPs likely to have limited legal resources. 




Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 20:03:52 -0600 
From: Sean Donelan <SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM> 

=================================================
From: mikemc@cops.ORG (Mike McCartney) 
Subject: Re: Breaking the law (Re: RE: ISP's Raided by POLICE) 
Date: 31 Oct 1998 13:21:06 -0600
I would like to breifly state a few points regarding this thread of 
discussion. I would like to start by stating that I have very much enjoyed 
most of the very intellecual comments and concerns raised by this group. 
All of your comments will be reveiwed and considered in the comming months.
Yes, I am the guy you have all been talking about. My name is Michael 
McCartney and I am the Lead NYAG Investigator responsible for Operation 
RipCord and most recently, Operation Sabbatical initated by the New York 
State Attorney General's Office.
I will keep my comments brief due to the fact that the investigation is 
still on - going. But I felt it important to mention a few concepts here 
in an attempt to keep all of your comments focused.
With respect to Task Force Agencies investigating child porn: Operation 
Innocent Images headed by the FBI in Baltimore MD has been investigating 
and prosecuting end users and producers for over 5 years. Additionally, 
U.S. Customs has been very active in investigating and prosecuting end 
users and producers for much longer, both domestically and internationally. 
Lastly, my office has been investigating and prosecuting end users and 
producers for the past 32 months. Our collective mission is to identify 
the people or persons responsible for the production and disemination of 
this most horrific material. Let just be clear that we are talking about 
children as your as 18 months being brutely raped by adults and having this 
crime documented by the attacker in the form of photos or videos (*.jpg, 
*.avi and many other formats) and then distrubted to other interested 
partiies. You will all be happy to know that the first amendmant of the 
U.S. constitution is alive and well here in America. We will not and can 
not enforce the text discussion of these people (Canadian citizens may want 
to be more careful in this regard however)
Operation Sabbatical: OS is an investigation into an organized group of 
child pornographers which were identified living all over the world. They 
called themselfs Pedo University (PU). They operated predominately on the 
news group side of the internet, although they also operated in other 
places as well. The two (2) places they called home were 
Alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen (ABPEPT) and 
Alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.early-teen (ABPEET). When I first began this 
investigation, It was difficult to find an ISP that carried these 2 NG's, 
for obvious reasons. In fact, AOL, ix.netcom and many other local ISP's in 
NY did not allow access to these groups. I was able to find a couple ISp's 
in NY that did and the investigation in to PU and the end user / producers 
of this material began. On any given day over the six month investigation, 
we would connect to those NG's and download literally hundreds of binary 
attachments depicting this recordation of the sexual abuse of our children. 
the NG's contained hundreds if not thousands of these pics. There is no 
mistaking that the name of the NG alone is not and was not illeagl but 
coupled with the material contained therein, it became an legal issue.
Timing: the operation was the culimation of over 30 law enforcement 
jurisdictions at the local, state and federal level working together to 
fight this crime. as many of you know in your own line of work, it is 
difficult to coordinate a meeting with just a few participants to attend 
let alone 30 LE jurisdictions. The date to take this down was the date it 
came down where we felt we could get the best benefit of sucess regarding 
as many jurisdictions and targets involved. In addition, and most 
importantly, this investigation revealed that a number of the targets were 
actually producing this material and victimizing actual children in the 
process. would you have rather I waited until after the election to stop 
this victimization? In fact, my boss, Dennis C. Vacco did not have a press 
confrence on this case. A press confrence where agency heads from many 
LEA's would have atended, including both democrates and republicans (if 
that matters). He only got on the TV after the major network affiliates 
where standing outside his office wanting to know what happened. The other 
jurisdicitions that had held press confrences and the network affilates had 
pick up the fact that something big had happened.
Monitoring: Let me just say that no one is asking you or anyone else to 
monitor NG's for there content. LE will continue to actively do that role. 
For the most part, most of the NG's are text based and are not at issue 
here. Of the ones that are binary, most of those are the free exchange of 
adult pornography which "most" LEA's are not interested in investigating or 
prosecuting. Most of that material is also protected by our first 
amendmant. What we are all talking about is child pornography. The mere 
possession of which is a felony in all states and most countries. When 
someone, anyone, informs you that there is a NG that appears to be 
"dedicated" to the exchange of "child pornography" It may be in your best 
interest to investigate that information and take some approriate action. 
As far as taking ISP equipment for a few pics posted in an out of the way 
NG, it just wont happen. Just like we (LEA's) cant seize a vehicle because 
it has a MJ roach in the ash tray. there are things called the 
"excessiveness" and "proportionality" clauses. In the case where a few CP 
pics are discoverd posted to a NG, you can count on LEO tracing down the 
poster and working with the everyone to determine the IP log addys and NNTP 
posting host to determine the resposible party. In the case where an ISP 
is informed of the content and character of the material occuring in a NG 
and the name alone is a very good indicator of the content and the ISP 
chooses to do nothing about it, additional action may be taken under the 
possession theory.
Analogies: the post office and telephone analogies are legally flawed. In 
fact, the post office workes very closly with LEA's when they are informed 
or "discover on their own" that narcotics and/or child porn is being 
transmitted through the services they provide. It just the right thing to do.
Please keep up the comments and suggestions on this very important issue.
Michael McCartney 
Investigator 
New York State Attorney General's Office 
mikemc@cops.org
- 



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