Computer-Edited Photos Lead To Child-Porn Locale

Leilah writes "Toronto police have found a new application for computerized photo editing. The police released edited photos on Feb. 3 from a series of child pornography pics in an attempt to locate where the photos may have been taken. Two days later, they have identified the Port Orleans hotel in Disney World as being the location. This seems to be the first time photo editing has been used in law enforcement this way and strikes an interesting line between protecting the victims and being able to get public tips. It looks like it may be used quite heavily in the future given this success."

Comments

The girl

[Doomie]

An article in the Montreal Gazette (that I just finished reading -- what a coincidence!) says that if necessary the police might release the photos with the girl's face, the reason being that they believe that it might help the girl escape a "life of abuse"...

Re:No punishment strong enough

[wwahammy]

That's only partly true. There are two types of child molesters. One does it due to a stressor as a way of coping. In that sense its like drinking or what not to get away from the pain of a divorce loss of job or what not. These people very rarely reoffend because once the stressor is gone and they get counseling to deal with the stressor they have no urge to do it again.

The other is the classical child molestor in the sense that they have a constant sexual urge towards children and this in all likelihood will not go away. It is effectively a form of sexuality (albeit an incredibly destructive one). The only real treatment is counseling and some form of castration. Even with treatment, reoccurance is possible; without treatment its almost absolute.

Even though its incredibly unpopular to say so, I do have compassion for these people. The vast majority know that they are causing hurt but are unable to stop. I don't think they're evil, just very mentally ill.

Re:Homeland Security?

[Dun Malg]

The Department of Homeland Security is a combination of what used to be several departments in the federal government. If you get all your information from TV news, you might believe that all they do is counter terrorism, but they actually do much more. A quick perusal of their web site lists some of their various parts:

Border and Transportation Security (BTS) - this is the TSA and Border Patrol, mostly.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - www.fema.gov
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
U.S. Coast Guard
U.S. Secret Service (USSS) - formerly part of the Treasury Dept.

What they did was take all those gov't agencies with overlapping responsibilities vis-a-vis "homeland security", but no communication because they were in separate departments, and combine them under one department. Really, this should have been done a long time ago.

In this case, it's the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arm that's investigating because it appears to involve a child from Canada being brought to the US. If this were a purely domestic investigation, the FBI would take care of it.