Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Child-porn probe used first live Internet wiretap

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 13:53:22 -0400

Child-porn probe used first live Internet wiretap

By Sam Stanton and Denny Walsh -- Bee Staff Writers - 
(Published May 20, 2004)

Every time Jason Heath Morgan sat down in his Chico apartment and tapped
a 
key on his computer, the law was watching.

For more than three weeks, every Web site, every e-mail, every photo
image, 
every chat room conversation he viewed or took part in was scrutinized,
as the 
26-year-old Morgan unwittingly became the first person in the United
States to 
have his Internet usage monitored live by federal agents probing child 
pornography under a new law.

Wednesday, as federal and state officers involved in the probe were
honored 
for their efforts in Washington, D.C., fallout from the case continued.

Agents are tracking 1,700 e-mail and chat-room users Morgan allegedly
was in 
contact with as part of a massive child-pornography ring. Suspects in
Live 
Oak, Las Vegas and Stockton have been arrested based on leads from the
wiretap 
evidence.

And although civil libertarians have raised concerns about other
government 
efforts to monitor personal computer use, this law, passed in the shadow
of the 
Bush administration's highly publicized USA Patriot Act, so far has
attracted 
little opposition.

"It's a noble thing," said Ronald Wilczynski, the Sacramento FBI agent 
overseeing the probe. "These kinds of investigations involve a child
someplace."

For now, the Sacramento case marks the only use of the new surveillance 
authority. But the investigation and its unprecedented use of a
real-time Internet 
wiretap is being heralded by law enforcement officials and children's 
advocates alike.

At a ceremony Wednesday in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, U.S. Sen. 
Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., presented an award from the National Center for
Missing 
and Exploited Children to Sacramento-based authorities involved in the
case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Laurel White, FBI special agent Reginald K.
Ogata and 
state Department of Justice special agent Jeff Mackanin were among those 
honored for their efforts.

"This was the first time such authority was granted," said McGregor
Scott, 
the U.S. attorney in Sacramento, who attended the ceremony. "What we did
here 
was in real-time follow this guy as he's entering chat rooms or
exchanging 
information."

Morgan pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges and remains in
federal 
custody. Based on wiretap information, he was also charged in Butte
County 
with multiple sex crimes against children. Morgan came to the attention
of law 
enforcement last year as he allegedly cruised chat rooms frequented by 
suspected pedophiles.

Undercover agents from the California Department of Justice were in a
chat 
room, one of them posing as a person seeking information on how to have
sex with 
a young girl and boy in his care.

"He (Morgan) was going to train them on how to perform sex, that's what
he 
thought he was doing with the undercover agent," Wilczynski said. "But
he was 
very cagey with us."

Frequently, pedophiles try to detect undercover agents by asking that
they 
e-mail child pornography or take part in acts that the officers cannot
legally 
perform.

"He was very cagey with these litmus tests, and would say, 'Send me some 
pornography,' " Wilczynski said. "Of course, they couldn't do that.

"They could see he was very active (on the Internet) but he wouldn't do
the 
dance with law enforcement."

Previously, agents would have had limited ability to go after Morgan,
other 
than obtaining a search warrant for his computer and its contents.

But, a federal law passed in April 2003 provided a new option.

The PROTECT Act - officially Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to
End 
the Exploitation of Children Today - gave authorities the right to tap
into a 
suspect's computer to catch child abusers, including Internet
pornographers.

Most of the publicity generated by the act has focused on provisions
that 
increased penalties for child abusers and took much of the sentencing
discretion 
out of the hands of federal trial judges.

When Sacramento agents made their request in August 2003, the wiretap 
provision had not yet been used, and authorities had to convince a
federal judge to 
grant the authority.

"This is the technique of last resort," Wilczynski said. "You have to 
articulate and say all these other things won't work, therefore we want
to go and do 
an interception."

The court order was granted, with a requirement that two groups of
agents be 
involved in monitoring Morgan. The first scrutinized his computer use
and 
culled out everything not related to the investigation. The rest was
turned over 
to the second team.

Technology used in the surveillance is very similar to a phone tap.
Agents 
attached a monitoring device to Morgan's phone line, then tracked his
Internet 
activity from remote computers.

With the wiretap in place, "it doesn't matter who you're dealing with,
we're 
standing over the top of you watching everything that's going on,"
Wilczynski 
said.

And, with Morgan, there was plenty to see, officials said.

"There were almost 1,700 people intercepted," Wilczynski said. "We just
got 
one case outside of California, where the agents went up to a guy's
house and 
did a 'knock and talk' and he said, 'I was expecting you.'"

Others snared through the wiretap include Tim Weintraut, 37, of Las
Vegas; 
John Palmer, 35, of Live Oak; and Frank Lagomarsino, 28, of Stockton.
Weintraut 
and Palmer have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate. Lagomarsino has 
pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

Officials say Morgan's arrest last September was as routine as such
cases can 
be. Agents staked out his apartment, waited until he left to go to a 
convenience market for a soft drink and confronted him when he returned.

"There was nothing remarkable, we just met him at the front of the
apartment 
and said, 'This is what we're about,'" Wilczynski said. "They had some 
discussion and entered his apartment.

"His machine was on, and on his screen was one of the chat rooms we'd
been 
seeing."
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/crime/story/9358093p-10282573c.html
About the Writer
---------------------------

The Bee's Sam Stanton can be reached at (916) 321-1091 or
[email-masked]
. 

Web chat

Lt. Bob Lozito, operations commander for the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech
Crimes 
Task Force, and Deputy Attorney General Robert Morgester will answer
reader 
questions about computer crime in a live Web chat June 17 on sacbee.com.

 Post your questions by visiting 
http://forums.sacbee.com/computer_crimes.

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