FC: Transcript of DOJ "Operation Avalanche" child porn announcement

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Wed Aug 08 2001 - 14:49:23 PDT

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    News coverage:
    
    Child porn conviction brings life sentence
    Aug. 8, 2001 05:29 ET
    http://www.pioneerplanet.com/news/nat_docs/105192.htm
    
    Child porn brings life term
    Aug. 8, 2001 04:41 ET
    http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/08/08/national/CHILDPORN08.htm
    
    U.S. Govt Probe Smashes Online Child Porn Ring
    Aug. 8, 2001 15:35 ET
    http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168834.html
    
    **********
    
     From this morning...
    
          ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: Let me thank all of you for coming today, and 
    good morning.
    
          As we speak here together, more than 125,000 Department of Justice 
    employees are working to provide a safe, free, just America. In 
    neighborhoods and communities across the country, the men and women of the 
    Justice Department are securing our borders, investigating and prosecuting 
    offenders who violate our laws, and ensuring that all our citizens can 
    participate in the full measure of our nation's opportunities.
    
          All of this work is important, but none is more important than the 
    effort we undertake to provide a safe America for our children.
    
          Today we are announcing the results of Operation Avalanche, a major 
    initiative that combines the investigative resources of the department of 
    justice, the Dallas Police Department, and the U.S. Postal Inspection 
    Service. More than merely another successfully prosecuted case, Operation 
    Avalanche stands as a model of federal, state, and local cooperation in the 
    investigation, prosecution, and -- perhaps most importantly -- prevention 
    of the sexual exploitation of children.
    
          Regrettably, the work of the Department of Justice to provide a safe 
    America for children now extends well beyond the physical world into the 
    electronic universe of cyberspace. Few would disagree that the World Wide 
    Web offers unparalleled educational and recreational opportunities for our 
    young people, but there are back alleys and dark corners of the Internet 
    where our children can be exposed to inappropriate material or even become 
    susceptible to offenders who view them as sexual objects. These offenders 
    leverage the technology and anonymity of the Internet to trade and produce 
    child pornography, explore their sexual interest in children, and to 
    identify youth susceptible to manipulation and exploitation.
    
          Large numbers of young people are encountering sexual solicitations 
    they did not want, they encounter sexual material they did not seek, and in 
    the most serious cases, are targeted by offenders seeking children for sex.
    
          Today's Internet has also become the new marketplace for child 
    pornography. In their efforts to stop the electronic proliferation of these 
    obscene materials, our law enforcement officers are often out- gunned and 
    out-teched by the profit-driven purveyors of child pornography.
    
          To help make the Internet a safe place for children to play and 
    learn, the department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 
    Prevention has been working to build a national network of state and local 
    law enforcement agencies to respond to child pornography and cyber 
    enticement offenses. The cornerstone of our efforts is the National 
    Center's cyber tip line, which encourages citizens to report suspicious 
    online activity to law enforcement. Under the Internet Crimes Against 
    Children Task Force Program, we are providing training, equipment and 
    funding to nearly 60 city, county and state law enforcement agencies. These 
    agencies coordinate the efforts of more than 140 law enforcement agencies 
    in 35 different states. In just over
    two years, they have arrested more than 500 offenders, seized more than 900 
    computers, and reached thousands of children, teenagers and parents with 
    information about safe Internet practices.
    
          This successful coordination of all levels of law enforcement builds 
    on the ongoing work of the Department of Justice, in addition to other 
    federal agencies, in battling child pornography. The Federal Bureau of 
    Investigation's Innocent Images National Initiative is a nation-wide effort 
    to investigate those who traffic in child pornography and those who travel 
    to commit sexual offenses against children. The United States Customs 
    Service battles international child pornography, much of which originates 
    in the United States. In addition, the legal experts in the department's 
    Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section provide innovative, 
    technology-based training for investigators on the federal, state and local 
    levels.
    
          Today we are announcing the results of Operation Avalanche, a first 
    of its kind initiative involving unprecedented cooperation between local, 
    state and federal law enforcement. Operation Avalanche combined the 
    investigative resources of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force 
    Program and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Co-managed by the Dallas 
    Police Department and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and coordinated 
    through the ICAC Task Force Program, this operation offers a blueprint of 
    how federal, state and local law enforcement agencies can work together to 
    protect children in cyberspace.
    
          In a few minutes, Chief Inspector Ken Weaver will provide you with 
    some specific details of this initiative. But before he does, I would like 
    to recognize the co-managers of this investigation, Lieutenant Bill Walsh 
    (sp) of the Dallas Police Department, Postal Inspector Ray Smith (sp), and 
    to thank them for their hard work and their leadership. In addition, 
    investigators worked closely with attorneys from the Department of 
    Justice's Criminal Division Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. They 
    provided critical legal guidance at the undercover design stage and 
    throughout the operation of this particular effort. We thank them as well 
    for their dedication and their expertise.
    
          Now, understandably, today's announcement may alarm some parents, but 
    I want to caution those with children who use the Internet not to 
    immediately yank the cord from the family computer. The Department of 
    Justice is not saying that you should deprive your children of the 
    educational and recreational opportunities of the Internet. In this, as in 
    so many other areas, exercising caution is the best course. Parents may 
    want to talk with their children about possible dangers online, set out 
    rules for their online activities, and encourage children to tell parents 
    when they become alarmed or disturbed by something that is seen online 
    which is inappropriate.
    
          Today's announcement emphasizes the resolve of the Department of 
    Justice to make sure that cyberspace does not become a fire free -- or a 
    free fire zone to target children. It notices that there are no free rides 
    on the Information Highway for traffickers or child pornography. To those 
    in the sex industry who illegally prey on America's innocents, the 
    Department of Justice will use every resource available to identity, 
    investigate and prosecute those who violate the law to the fullest extent 
    of the law. With the help and cooperation of parents, we will not only 
    identify and prosecute those who seek to victimize children in cyberspace, 
    but we will prevent future children from becoming victims as well.
    
          It's now my pleasure to introduce Chief Postal Inspector Kenneth 
    Weaver, to provide the details on Operation Avalanche.
    
          I want to thank all of you for your concern and your participation in 
    this event as I call upon Chief Inspector Weaver. Chief?
    
    
          MR. WEAVER: Thank you, Attorney General Ashcroft, and good morning.
    
          Sexual abuse and exploitation results in physical and emotional 
    suffering, ruined lives, and shattered dreams. The use of the mail to 
    traffic in child pornography continues to be a tragic problem in our 
    society. Of even greater concern, more and more child molesters and child 
    pornographers are turning to cyberspace to seek out potential victims, 
    communicate with others, and locate sources of child pornography.
    
          This morning I would like to announce the results of a two-year- long 
    undercover investigation into this murky world. The multi-agency effort was 
    called Operation Avalanche. It started out with the shutdown of the largest 
    known commercial child pornography enterprise in the history of the United 
    States and continued with the arrest of 100 individuals for trafficking of 
    child pornography through the mail and via the Internet.
    
          In early 1999, postal inspectors uncovered a Fort Worth company 
    called Landslide Productions, Incorporated. Landslide advertised and 
    conspired to distribute child pornography, primarily through the 
    subscription of Internet websites. The names of the sites will give you a 
    feel for their content.
    
          Use of the Internet indicates it truly is a World Wide Web. During 
    the course of this investigation, the National Center for Missing and 
    Exploited Children received over 250 complaints against this company from 
    American citizens and from individuals around the world. Those complaints 
    were forwarded on to investigators.
    
          Landslide took in as much as $1.4 million in a one-month period. It 
    was clearly a multi-million-dollar enterprise. The vast majority of this 
    money was from subscriptions to the child pornography websites. As you can 
    see from this e-mail message, more than $98,000 was transferred to one 
    webmaster for just one month's business. An operation of this magnitude was 
    previously unheard of in the United States.
    
          The investigation was worked in partnership with the Dallas Police 
    Department Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and revealed that 
    Landslide customers could subscribe to child pornography websites through a 
    Fort Worth post office box or via the Internet.
    
          In September 1999, the business was shut down when a multi-agency 
    task force served federal search warrants obtained by postal inspectors on 
    Landslide's office building and the residence of Landslide owners Thomas 
    and Janice Reedy. The Reedys were living very well, enjoying a spacious 
    home, driving highly priced automobiles, and living a grand lifestyle at 
    the expense of children who were sexually exploited.
    
          An 89-count federal indictment was returned against the Reedys in 
    April of 2000. Five international webmasters were also indicted. Efforts 
    continue to locate and bring to justice the international co- conspirators.
    
          Following a jury trial in December of 2000, the Reedys were convicted 
    as charged. And just this past Monday, Thomas Reedy was sentenced to life 
    in prison and Janice Reedy was sentenced to 14 years in prison. And to be 
    technically correct on this, Mr. Reedy was sentenced to 15 years for each 
    of the 89 counts, which totaled 1,335 years, to be served consecutively.
    
          But putting Landslide out of business was not enough. Those who 
    created the demand for this child pornography, the consumers, were still 
    out there. The consumer or user of child pornography is no less responsible 
    for sexual exploitation of children than is the producer or distributor. 
    And it has been our experience that many of the consumers are also child 
    molesters.
    
          Postal inspectors nationwide combined forces with the 30 federally 
    funded task forces located throughout the United States and launched an 
    aggressive, proactive undercover operation targeting some of the most 
    egregious offenders identified through intelligence gained from this 
    investigation. Over the last year, postal inspectors and task force 
    investigators conducted 144 searches in 37 different states. The vast 
    majority of these search warrants were executed immediately following 
    controlled deliveries of child pornography ordered by the suspects. 
    Prosecution of these cases -- (audio break) -- have been charged so far, 
    and we expect many more arrests in the near future.
    
          Let me give you an example of what we encountered in some of the 
    cases. We searched the home of a 36-year old man in North Carolina. This 
    man had worked as a computer consultant. In his home, Postal inspectors and 
    investigators from the North Carolina task force found a collection of 
    videotapes produced by this individual depicting the sexual abuse of a 
    number of young girls. One of these girls was only four years old. The 
    offender would record some of his illicit activities with a pin-hole camera 
    hidden in a bedroom smoke detector. The camera was connected to both a VCR 
    and a computer. Just yesterday, the man was sentenced to 17-1/2 years in 
    federal prison, and additional state charges are pending.
    
          It's only through investigations such as Operation Avalanche, where 
    law enforcement agencies work together at all levels -- federal, state and 
    local -- that we can have an impact on the staggering effects of child 
    pornography and the sexual exploitation of children in this country. We are 
    deeply indebted to the Department of Justice, the United States Attorneys, 
    as well as state and local prosecutors for their efforts to prosecute the 
    individuals we identify. We also owe a special debt of gratitude to the 
    Dallas Police Department Task Force. Without their commitment and 
    coordination of this effort, we would not have been able to achieve the 
    results being reported to you today.
    
          And finally, I would also like to thank Attorney General Ashcroft for 
    his personal involvement in this effort.
    
          Thank you very much.
    
          STAFF: Thank you.
    
          The chief inspector and the attorney general will now take a few of 
    your questions, and we would like to keep them related to Operation 
    Avalanche and the child pornography effort.
    
          Pete?
    
          Q Mr. Weaver, can you tell us, in addition to these arrests that 
    you've already made, how many people are you still investigating because of 
    this website, and how likely is this operation to continue to grow?
    
          MR. WEAVER: The operation will continue to grow. There were literally 
    thousands of subscribers to the websites. And as I mentioned, we took the 
    most egregious -- those individuals who had a clear predisposition to 
    violate the law and went after them. But there will be many more arrests in 
    this operation.
    
          Q Yes, these 100 people that were arrested, were they all affiliated 
    with Landslide? Were they subscribers or were they subscribers to other 
    places?
    
          MR. WEAVER: They were subscribers to Landslide.
    
          Yes, ma'am?
    
          Q Can you talk at all about what efforts are being made to locate and 
    help some of the children that were obviously used, abused on these child 
    porn sites and the people who are responsible for using them?
    
          MR. WEAVER: That's very important. And the National Center for 
    Missing and Exploited Children devotes a great deal of their time in 
    helping children and looking after the abused children. We also pay 
    particular attention to this. Since 1997, we've tracked that of 100,000 
    investigations or arrests that we've conducted, we've saved over -- and we 
    like to use that term, "saved" or "rescued" -- over 400 children from abuse.
    
          Yes, sir?
    
          Q Two of the facts that you presented here put together would seem to 
    be very alarming to parents. If you determine that roughly a million and a 
    half dollars a month was coming in from people who would pay money to view 
    pornography, and you went on to find out -- and you've reported this 
    before, and the FBI has reported it before -- that you found the link 
    between consumers of child pornography and child molestation in the real 
    world, well, a million-four-a-month would suggest that there'd be -- what? 
    -- how many potential child molesters out there? Can you guesstimate, 
    quantify the relationship between what you've discovered here in terms of 
    the hunger for pornography involving children and the potential for maybe 
    -- you termed it "unheard of dollar" -- how about unheard of numbers of 
    child pornographers. Is that a concern?
    
          MR. WEAVER: It is a concern, and that's why we're aggressively 
    pursuing it, not only our agency, but Customs, the Federal Bureau of 
    Investigation. And as the attorney general mentioned, it's got to be a 
    coordinated effort, even with local law enforcement areas. So it is very 
    important.
    
          How many is out there? I don't know.
    
          Q Can I ask follow-up?
    
          MR. WEAVER: Sure.
    
          Q You've got children who are victimized by appearing, being forced 
    to appear and having secret pictures taken, and whatever, to go into these 
    websites and into the videos and the pictures I presume that are mailed 
    out. You've got children victimized by stumbling into this stuff on the 
    Internet and viewing it and that kind of trauma. And then you've got 
    children who are actually molested in the real world. Can you -- is there 
    any way to quantify which is the bigger problem, to put numbers to those 
    three categories of danger to the society?
    
          MR. WEAVER: I know there are degrees of it, but I look at it all as 
    the same problem.
    
          The exploitation of children is vicious, in and of itself. And I 
    heard at one point in my career somebody mention that it was a victimless 
    crime. It's not. The children are victimized, and just the appearance of 
    the children is -- leaves scars for life on these individuals.
    
          Yes, sir?
    
          Q About how many children were involved in this operation in terms of 
    Landslide's involvement? And how many parents of these children were 
    included in the 100 of those who were arrested?
    
          MR. WEAVER: I don't have those numbers available. Possibly one of the 
    gentlemen in the back may have those numbers. They can furnish them to you. 
    I don't know.
    
          Yes, ma'am?
    
          Q The site itself had something like 250,000 subscribers -- (off 
    mike). Does that mean that it's possible to go after the -- you don't have 
    the resources to track down all of them?
    
          MR. WEAVER: Well, that may be part of it, but you've got to 
    understand that a good part of these were also
    foreign-originating. So a lot of the subscribers or the subscriptions were 
    from other countries. And many of them -- it wasn't clear whether they were 
    interested in child pornography or adult pornography, and many of those 
    were just interested in adult.
    
          We focused on those that clearly demonstrated that they were 
    interested in child pornography, in the sexual exploitation of children.
    
          Yes, ma'am?
    
          Q Yes. Given that the Reedys were the masterminds of this particular 
    operation, General Ashcroft, are you satisfied with the prosecution and the 
    sentencing that they received on Monday?
    
          ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: Well, first of all, let me just say that I'm glad 
    we were able to apprehend them, and I think the sentences reflect the 
    seriousness with which these offenses have to be understood.
    
          On the other hand, let me say that I did not -- was not a participant 
    in the trial and was not familiar with all of the facts and details. It was 
    pretty clear, though, that a sentence for 1,335 years against Mr. Reedy is 
    not to be taken lightly, and nor would a sentence for 14 years against his 
    spouse be taken lightly.
    
          I think what is clear is that we cannot take this major challenge to 
    the safety and security of our children lightly, and for that reason, we 
    are reaching out to cooperate with state and local authorities, and are 
    very pleased to commend the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for its 
    outstanding work in collaboration with the Dallas Police Department. When 
    you look at that one poster over there, and it says one out of every five 
    children last year was invited into inappropriate sexual activity on the 
    Internet or encountered inappropriate sexual material on the Internet, that 
    says that there are very high levels of risk for a person like me, with a 
    3-year-old grandson who lives in a house which is the equivalent of a 
    computer lab -- his father and mother are both very active users of the 
    computer -- it sends a signal to me.
    
          And I would hope that one of the messages that we send clearly today 
    is that we encourage parents to be actively involved in their children's 
    participation in any Internet activity, because this elevates the capacity 
    of parents to be a part of making sure that their children are unmolested 
    and unassaulted with this kind of material and in activities that would be 
    seriously harmful, so that from my perspective, the department is -- wants 
    the concern and understanding about the nature of this problem to be well 
    understood by people all around the country and to understand that far too 
    many children -- I mean, any children being assaulted this way -- but this 
    is a very pervasive problem in our culture, and we need to be alert to it.
    
          Q Are you satisfied that existing laws are adequate and sufficient 
    and that the existing penalties in the statutes are also sufficient, or, 
    for example, in the case of subscribers, are there heavy penalties?
    
          MR. WEAVER: Well, since the legislation was passed in 1990, the mere 
    possession of child pornographer carries a penalty of five years -- up to 
    five years in prison. The distribution and proliferation of it carries a 
    much stiffer penalty.
    
          But judging from the sentences that are being handed out, in many of 
    these cases, I would say that yes, we are satisfied.
    
          Q What countries are the five international webmasters from? And what 
    is the status of the efforts to get them to the United States?
    
          MR. WEAVER: I believe -- I know two of the countries, and there might 
    be multiple webmasters in one of them -- but Indonesia and Russia. And we 
    have been working -- our Forth Worth-based operation has been working 
    intently with Customs to locate those individuals and bring about some 
    extradition. But we also have contacted our counterparts around the world 
    and worked with Interpol to try to identify and locate them.
    
          Q (Off mike) -- undercover aspects of this operation, was the website 
    taken down -- (off mike) -- in the way that aspects of this operation, was 
    the website taken down -- (off mike) -- make any difference in the way that 
    -- (off mike)? How did that work?
    
          MR. WEAVER: Well, the whole operation was worked out with the 
    Department of Justice, and we come up with a clear investigative plan, 
    which did involve undercover inspectors making contact with individuals. 
    I'm not going to go into the details of the investigations or the 
    operation. We still have ongoing investigations that we have to conclude 
    out there.
    
          Q (Off mike.)
    
          MR. WEAVER: It was operational.
    
          STAFF: We'll take one last question.
    
          Q For all of the progress that you say you've made in this operation, 
    is this only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what's out there?
    
          MR. WEAVER: It may be the tip of the iceberg. But I think the results 
    of this investigation should send a clear message that it's taken very 
    seriously, and hopefully it's going to have a dramatic impact on those 
    people who want to delve into this very vicious crime.
    
          STAFF: Thank you very much, Chief. And thank you, Attorney General 
    Ashcroft.
    
    END.
    
    
    
    
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