800 people in Cedar Rapids could be downloading child porn right now

Authorities estimate 800 people in Cedar Rapids are downloading child pornography at any given time, but offenders often avoid arrest for several months after their computers are seized, due to a backlog of cases.

It's a nationwide problem as digital storage devices grow larger, and the time needed to fully examine them increases, officials said. Computer hard drives are about 20 times larger than they were just five years ago.

“As (the size of) any type of digital storage increases, so does our analysis time, exponentially,” said Gerard Meyers, a lead agent in the cyber crime unit at the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. “It's concerning to us. It's getting bigger, faster.”

Meyers said child exploitation cases have been delayed as long as 12 months in Iowa. In some states, the delay is 16 to 18 months, he said.

One solution to easing the backlog is money, Meyers said.

“We have the potential for identifying known victims, and it may be sitting up on the shelf right now on a computer, because we don't have sufficient resources,” Meyers said. “My message to the public and to the legislature is, if you want to invest your tax dollars, let's do it in the protection of children.”

In Cedar Rapids, members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force have favored comprehensive inspections on the computer equipment. The approach has paid off in terms of prison sentences - no one they have indicted has received less than 20 years - but it also keeps child pornography suspects free until the examination is complete.

Authorities sometimes speed up the examinations, especially if they find a child who has been exploited. It gets suspects in custody sooner, but some fear that going to quickly will lead to less evidence and a prison term that could be 10 to 15 years shorter.

“There's no good way,” said Charity Hansel, an investigator with the Cedar Rapids Police Department.

Hansel, the only full-time investigator with the ICAC task force in the state, and three forensic examiners handle cases from 32 counties in eastern Iowa from a corner room at Cedar Rapids police headquarters. Each day, she receives hundreds of IP addresses of possible child pornography suspects from Internet service providers.

Once she has an IP address, Hansel gets a legal subpoena to find out from the Internet service provider where the IP address is coming from. Early on, she gets an indication of the number of images being transferred.

Hansel said her team doesn't have the resources to look at every IP address they get.

“We're going after collectors,” Hansel said. “We're going after people who have a sexual attraction to children.”

Many of the investigative techniques are confidential, but in an ideal case, the investigators could connect peer-to-peer with the suspect's computer, allowing them to see the contents of shared folders. A search warrant for the suspect's home usually follows.

Meyers said the technology to identify those involved in child pornography has evolved greatly, and IP addresses are now being captured in real time. But Hansel said challenges remain as savvy computer users cover their tracks.

“Honestly, we're always one step behind,” Hansel said. “But there are a lot of law enforcement officials throughout this nation that are very intelligent that are coming up with new, better and faster ways to identify the people who exploit our children.”

Meyers, the DCI agent, said there has been a “dramatic increase” in the number of child exploitation cases investigated in Iowa, due in part to additional resources being devoted to that mission.

He said the backlog is leading some investigators to do on-site analysis with computer equipment, rather than collecting everything and bringing it back to a lab.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Berry said some child exploitation cases have been prioritized over others if they include hands-on offenses. He said cases aren't prosecuted as quickly as anyone would like, but remained confident in their efforts.

“The bottom line is, whether they jump to the front of the line or the end of it, we're going to get them, and they're going to do a lot of time,” Berry said.