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07/17/03
On July 17, the
Chicago Regional Forensic Computer Laboratory (RCFL) officially
opened its doors for business. This cutting
edge cyber lab, which is dedicated to analyzing evidence
found on computers and other digital media, is a partnership
venture of the Chicago and Palatine Police Departments, Cook
and Will County Sheriff’s Departments, Illinois State
Police, Illinois Attorney General’s Office, the University
of Illinois at Chicago Police Department, and the FBI. “Law
enforcement at every level has seen a steady growth in the
use of computers to facilitate criminal activity,” Special
Agent in Charge of the FBI Chicago Office Tom Kneir noted. “The
establishment of this RCFL will give law enforcement in northern
Illinois the resources needed to combat this growing trend.”
Using the latest
imaging software and high-end computers, and having undergone
exhaustive training, eleven specially
trained examiners from the 8 partner agencies are hunting
for digital evidence of criminal activity in everything from
cell phones and video cameras to MP3 players and computers
seized in investigations of a variety of crimes: terrorism,
child pornography, white-collar crime, fraud, intellectual
property theft, and even violent crimes in the Illinois region. “They’re
putting in first-rate equipment, and it will be more advanced
than what we have,” said Sgt. David Hudspeth of the
Chicago Police Department. “Everyone needs collaboration
like this.” In fact, the examiners at the facility
are already processing thousands of pages of evidence files
from cases in the region.
The Chicago RCFL
is the fourth regional lab to open in the U.S., following
Kansas City’s opening earlier in the
month, and San Diego’s and Dallas’ last year.
A fifth lab is slated to open in San Francisco in 2003. All
these multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional facilities are designed
to support the explosion of cases involving computer-based
evidence. Between 1998 and 2001, this number rose nearly
650%.
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