Crime in the Digital Age by Russell Smith

Author:Russell Smith [Smith, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Criminology
ISBN: 9781351525060
Google: 7PdKDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-02-06T04:41:53+00:00

Law enforcement

Those areas of cyberspace which are public are as accessible to law enforcement as they are to any net or web surfer. Not only may they be subject to monitoring, and possibly, to prosecution; so too can they be targeted for investigation using "sting" techniques bordering on entrapment (Weinstock 1996).

In mid-1995, the FBI charged an adult male who had arranged over the Internet to meet someone at a motel whom he thought was a 14-year-old girl. The Internet contact was in fact an FBI agent. The accused was targeted because of his history of sex offences involving minors. Similar tactics have been directed at those who would traffic in pornographic material. Law enforcement officers can easily pose online as prospective consumers of pornography. Laws will vary across jurisdictions with regard to the defence of entrapment, and the extent to which an offence was created by police (Chandrasekaran 1996).

Toward the end of 1995, the FBI's Operation Innocent Images sought to identify purveyors of child pornography on the Internet. Concentrating on America OnLine, the nation's largest online service provider, the investigation led to the seizure of materials from over 125 homes and offices (Lewis 1995).

It would not strain credulity to suggest that law enforcement agencies are in a position to use the Internet to gather tactical intelligence about illegal activity, in addition to obtaining information for use as evidence in criminal prosecutions.

Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies in some jurisdictions have begun to exert pressure on service providers to assist in limiting the availability of objectionable content. In the United Kingdom, the Internet Service Providers Association, representing 60 of an estimated 140 providers, has encouraged members to block access to certain sites. The denial of access was requested by the Metropolitan Police in a letter to service providers which specified 134 sites (Financial Times 10 August 96; Computer Underground Digest 25 August 1996). The letter concluded with the words "We trust that with your co-operation and self regulation it will not be necessary for us to move to an enforcement policy".24

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