For that matter, what does slogging thru smut targeting kids, or posing as a parent with a child to seduce, do to the investigators who track down these Internet predators? WSB's Veronica Waters reports the horrors these authorities see online are matched by their determination to stop those who prowl the Web looking for kiddie sex.

"You know, they all kinda stay with me," admits Police Cpl. Heather Lackey. She isn't a 13-year-old, but she plays one online and endures the come-ons from men old enough to be the fathers of the girl they think they're seducing.

"It's hard to leave it behind at times when you do have several investigations going on, and you worry are you acting quick enough, are there true children being violated, being harmed," she says.

"If it saves him from molesting a kid, that's why we're here," says Clayton County Agent J. J and other FBI Safe Child Task Force agents are evaluated every six months before being given the green light to continue with the group.

Not surprisingly, Lackey and Agent J. choose to turn off their computers in the comfort of their own homes, knowing that before logging off and heading home to family, they gave it their best shot for the day.

"As an officer, you strive your whole career for that one case where you actually save a kid," says J. "When we get these people, it's every day that there's a kid not molested. Not the call, 'Hey, my son or my daughter's been molested, can you come take a report.' We get it before it happens. So it's really awesome. Really awesome."

But even more than making the arrests, Lackey wants parents to get the message.

"We have parents call us that find out three doors down that a known sex offender has just moved into the neighborhood. The whole neighborhood is up in arms about it. They want this person ran out of town. But yet, they are the very ones that will allow their child to get online, shut the door to their room and they're on there for hours and they're exposed to millions and millions of pedophiles," she says.

Meantime, the dedicated officers work to sweep out the Internet's nastiest, darkest corners, so the child predators have an increasingly hard time finding a place to hide. Chief Murray says the Internet has been a bonanza for pedophiles.

"It's going to get tougher and tougher," says Murray. "We need to be tough on these people. We don't need to leave them around kids.

"People ask, when are they cured? I say, when they die. When they put 'em in the box, they're cured."

Friday, 15 December 2006

E-Mail Veronica Waters

FBI Atlanta Tip Line: 404.679.9000

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

Peachtree City Police: 770.487.8866

Chief Murray has some simple tips for parents wanting to track their young kids' activities online:

• 1) Put the computer in a family room and consider only allowing your child to get online when you can be at home;
• 2) Demand their passwords to e-mail accounts and networking sites. No passwords, no computer privileges;
• 3) Consider key-logging software to track where computer users go. Desktop Hunter and eBlaster are two such programs (WSB has not evaluated and does not endorse either one).

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Sex Offender Registry