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Fighting Child Porn

Aired October 09, 2003 - 13:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's one of the downsides of the Internet, child pornographers, able to do business online, often without even being detected. And in Toronto, one detective got tired of seeing the bad guys win, so he went to the world's richest man for help.
Joining me now to talk about what happened next, Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police Department.

Sergeant good to see you.

DET. SGT. PAUL GILLESPIE, TORONTO POLICE: Thanks for having me on.

PHILLIPS: You bet. First of all, put it into perspective for our viewers, child pornography. I mean,. we're not just talking about underage children and sex, but pretty brutal situations, even involving babies, right?

GILLESPIE: Absolute horrific images of child abuse that most people couldn't understand unless they saw them. Children as young as babies, brutalized, raped, tortured, tied up, hung upside down, bleeding. Words can't describe it.

PHILLIPS: And you've just -- you've been in the sex crimes unit for a while, and I even remember working in Los Angeles, and they had a whole unit on child pornography. What is it about this that makes it so popular, and so, I guess, common, on the Internet right now, so available?

GILLESPIE: Yes, I guess the Internet simply allows those who want to meet like-minded individuals and who trade this stuff as if it were simple trading cards, in an environment where they're anonymous, borderless, no international laws regulating, and they're operating in an environment with total criminality, thus the analogy of the Wild, Wild West is certainly accurate.

PHILLIPS: Well, you've got to come in every day and see this garbage. And obviously, you have become extremely frustrated with a lack of resources. So tell me about this e-mail, you sat down and wrote, and who it was to and what happened.

GILLESPIE: Well, first of all, we're seeing such -- with computers and sizes of hard drives, we're seeing massive seizures, that it's not unusual to recover 100,000, 200,000, 500,000 images of abuse, and we're not very good at identifying the poor children. So decided one day in January, staring at my wall -- I have a saying on the wall. It's by Einstein. It says, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." And it all of a sudden occurred to me, I'm not sure who created this problem, the police aren't dealing with it very well, and I -- the only person I can think of is that Mr. Gates might have an idea as to how we might handle things or make it a little better.

So I sent him an e-mail and explained our problems, and truthfully, didn't really think we'd hear anything back. And about three weeks later, I was contacted by representatives of Microsoft Canada, wondering what they could do to help.

PHILLIPS: What a statement about -- not only your efforts and thinking out of the box, but for Bill Gates to respond to you. So tell me what happened. Have you been meeting with folks? Tell us about the new software now.

GILLESPIE: Well, we've had several meetings from representatives from Microsoft Canada. About a month ago, my boss, the chief of the Toronto Police, and myself went down and did a presentation in Redmond, Washington at Microsoft Corporation, and they have just given us a total buy-in and have really stepped up to the plate. We have identified every problem we have, and when I say we, I represent every police officer in the world who deals with this, and they are addressing it on several different levels, the work that they're doing for us.

At the end of the day, they're developing some real cutting-edge software that's going to assist police officers all over the world, and I just absolutely laud their efforts.

PHILLIPS: Well, we must applaud your efforts, too.

Now Microsoft is even taking another step and actually shutting down these free chat rooms, right, because you talked about how these chat rooms create such a problem.

GILLESPIE: Yes, I mean, in my mind, that an industry leader would recognize -- there's really no good in some areas and take that step themselves to shut down these chat rooms and shut off this access, I think it's fabulous. And it's only, however, going to be totally successful if other service providers and people in the industry do the same, and perhaps a little more self-policing would assist us with what we do.

PHILLIPS: Well, sergeant, Have you had a chance to talk to Bill Gates?

GILLESPIE: No, I haven't. And maybe someday I will, but I've talked to several people in Microsoft and they've just -- we're doing some real good things, and they're doing some things that will change the way policing's done in the future.

PHILLIPS: Well, rumor has it he watches CNN. So do you want to say anything to him?

GILLESPIE: Well, I'd like to thank him very much, and you know what, it's obvious that he's a very generous man and take up causes which are worthwhile, and I can think of no other cause which is worthwhile, such as saving our children. So you know what, his work and our efforts, I think we're going to do some good together.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's great to see that software going to you. Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police Department, thanks for your time. And once again, we're very admirable of your -- we admire you efforts tremendously.

GILLESPIE: Oh, thanks very much, and we'll keep plugging away.

PHILLIPS: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 9, 2003 - 13:45   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's one of the downsides of the Internet, child pornographers, able to do business online, often without even being detected. And in Toronto, one detective got tired of seeing the bad guys win, so he went to the world's richest man for help.
Joining me now to talk about what happened next, Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police Department.

Sergeant good to see you.

DET. SGT. PAUL GILLESPIE, TORONTO POLICE: Thanks for having me on.

PHILLIPS: You bet. First of all, put it into perspective for our viewers, child pornography. I mean,. we're not just talking about underage children and sex, but pretty brutal situations, even involving babies, right?

GILLESPIE: Absolute horrific images of child abuse that most people couldn't understand unless they saw them. Children as young as babies, brutalized, raped, tortured, tied up, hung upside down, bleeding. Words can't describe it.

PHILLIPS: And you've just -- you've been in the sex crimes unit for a while, and I even remember working in Los Angeles, and they had a whole unit on child pornography. What is it about this that makes it so popular, and so, I guess, common, on the Internet right now, so available?

GILLESPIE: Yes, I guess the Internet simply allows those who want to meet like-minded individuals and who trade this stuff as if it were simple trading cards, in an environment where they're anonymous, borderless, no international laws regulating, and they're operating in an environment with total criminality, thus the analogy of the Wild, Wild West is certainly accurate.

PHILLIPS: Well, you've got to come in every day and see this garbage. And obviously, you have become extremely frustrated with a lack of resources. So tell me about this e-mail, you sat down and wrote, and who it was to and what happened.

GILLESPIE: Well, first of all, we're seeing such -- with computers and sizes of hard drives, we're seeing massive seizures, that it's not unusual to recover 100,000, 200,000, 500,000 images of abuse, and we're not very good at identifying the poor children. So decided one day in January, staring at my wall -- I have a saying on the wall. It's by Einstein. It says, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." And it all of a sudden occurred to me, I'm not sure who created this problem, the police aren't dealing with it very well, and I -- the only person I can think of is that Mr. Gates might have an idea as to how we might handle things or make it a little better.

So I sent him an e-mail and explained our problems, and truthfully, didn't really think we'd hear anything back. And about three weeks later, I was contacted by representatives of Microsoft Canada, wondering what they could do to help.

PHILLIPS: What a statement about -- not only your efforts and thinking out of the box, but for Bill Gates to respond to you. So tell me what happened. Have you been meeting with folks? Tell us about the new software now.

GILLESPIE: Well, we've had several meetings from representatives from Microsoft Canada. About a month ago, my boss, the chief of the Toronto Police, and myself went down and did a presentation in Redmond, Washington at Microsoft Corporation, and they have just given us a total buy-in and have really stepped up to the plate. We have identified every problem we have, and when I say we, I represent every police officer in the world who deals with this, and they are addressing it on several different levels, the work that they're doing for us.

At the end of the day, they're developing some real cutting-edge software that's going to assist police officers all over the world, and I just absolutely laud their efforts.

PHILLIPS: Well, we must applaud your efforts, too.

Now Microsoft is even taking another step and actually shutting down these free chat rooms, right, because you talked about how these chat rooms create such a problem.

GILLESPIE: Yes, I mean, in my mind, that an industry leader would recognize -- there's really no good in some areas and take that step themselves to shut down these chat rooms and shut off this access, I think it's fabulous. And it's only, however, going to be totally successful if other service providers and people in the industry do the same, and perhaps a little more self-policing would assist us with what we do.

PHILLIPS: Well, sergeant, Have you had a chance to talk to Bill Gates?

GILLESPIE: No, I haven't. And maybe someday I will, but I've talked to several people in Microsoft and they've just -- we're doing some real good things, and they're doing some things that will change the way policing's done in the future.

PHILLIPS: Well, rumor has it he watches CNN. So do you want to say anything to him?

GILLESPIE: Well, I'd like to thank him very much, and you know what, it's obvious that he's a very generous man and take up causes which are worthwhile, and I can think of no other cause which is worthwhile, such as saving our children. So you know what, his work and our efforts, I think we're going to do some good together.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's great to see that software going to you. Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police Department, thanks for your time. And once again, we're very admirable of your -- we admire you efforts tremendously.

GILLESPIE: Oh, thanks very much, and we'll keep plugging away.

PHILLIPS: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com