Remarks
of
Keith Lourdeau
Deputy Assistant Director, Cyber Division
“Operation Peer Pressure”
Washington,
D.C.
Good afternoon. For the past ten
years the FBI’s innocent images national
initiative has led the way in combating the proliferation of child pornography
and child exploitation facilitated online. Since the inception of the program,
over 3,000 subjects have been convicted.
Recently, the FBI has initiated
three new programs to enhance its effort in protecting America’s children, the endangered child alert program, ‘e’ groups,
and peer pressure. The creation of these three initiatives has led the FBI
to identify and rescue more than 50 victim children.
During the past two years, we have identified a new and vastly growing problem
in the dissemination of child pornography in peer-to-peer networks.
In response to the problem, the
FBI has worked aggressively with the department of justice’s child
exploitation and obscenity section to develop protocols for investigating
the transmission of these materials over these networks.
In November, 2003 the
FBI initiated Phase I of what we refer to as “Operation
Peer Pressure.” During this phase the FBI conducted 166 on-line sessions
in which undercover agents were able to download child pornography from the
offender’s computer. It is important to note that anyone with a computer,
including children, could have had the same access to the images that our
undercover agents did. The sessions resulted in the identification of 106
subjects located throughout the U.S.
Using evidence gathered during
the undercover operation, agents obtained search warrants for subjects’ residences
where computers and other contraband were seized. To date, 103 searches
have been executed and 17 subjects
have been arrested or indicted.
There were two cases which exemplify the types of cases generated by operation
peer pressure:
After a search conducted in the Houston division, agents found a subject
who was in possession of hundreds of child pornographic images as well as
several violent movies depicting graphic sexual abuses of children. The subject
also confessed to molesting his seven year old stepdaughter.
An additional case in the Albany division lead agents to question an individual
who immediately confessed to possessing hundreds of images and movies depicting
the sexual abuse of children. This individual then told agents that he had
molested two girls, ages 6 and 8.
Overall, 41 of the FBI’s 56 field offices were involved in this first
phase of operation “Peer Pressure”.
It is important for parents to be educated to the risks associated with
peer-to-peer networking. While not all aspects of these networks are bad,
like other Internet services, they provide pedophiles with a false sense
of anonymity to collect and transmit images. This sense of anonymity encourages
pedophiles to openly share as much of their child pornography to as wide
an audience as possible.
Pedophiles will often use innocuous or popular search terms to expose innocent
children and adults to graphic child pornographic images. This creates a
situation in which children search peer-to-peer networks for their favorite
pop music artist only to find search results which include child pornography.
Parents should be aware that access to these networks is free and exposure
to child pornography is not uncommon.
Let there be no doubt that peer-to-peer
networks are not, and will never be, sanctuaries for those who engage in
these most abhorrent crimes. We will
continue to be very aggressive in pursuing those who victimize our nation’s
children. The FBI continues to work closely with our local, state, and federal
law enforcement partners, in addition to our international counterparts,
to address this egregious crime problem.
Thank you