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By
Maria Glod
Washington Post
LRon
Horak joined the Loudoun County sheriff's office nearly
25 years ago, as a guard in the county jail. He later patrolled
the countryside when only four deputies were on duty at
a time.
He
figured he'd spend his entire career patrolling this still-rural
Virginia county, some 35 miles west of Washington, D.C.,
where violent crime is rare and smashed mailboxes make the
news.
Then
America Online moved in.
Now,
Horak - still wearing his trademark cowboy boots - is on
the ground floor of some of the nation's most high-profile
criminal investigations: horrific rapes, murders, bombings.
From his quiet Leesburg office, he has one of the most far-reaching
views into the seedy side of cyberspace.
"Every
time I think I've seen it all, I see something else," Horak,
52, said. "My grandchildren hear the war stories. They hear
the horror stories."
Horak
is Loudoun's America Online detective. That's all he does.
Nationwide requests for information from AOL are so frequent,
the sheriff's office has had to devote all Horak's energies
to dealing with the applications.
Horak,
the gatekeeper for police seeking clues in the online missives
of AOL's 23 million subscribers, has worked with police
from all 50 states. His full-time job is to handle the warrants
needed to peer into the online communication of bobcat8me
or honeycupid or satangirl. He's averaging more than one
a day.
With
more than 46.5 million households nationwide with Internet
access, online conversations and images can hold a wealth
of evidence for police investigating such crimes as fraud,
arson and identity theft. AOL, the nation's largest Internet
service provider, moved to the county in 1996. As Loudoun's
main law enforcement agents, sheriff's officials knew the
law required that most requests for AOL account information
be funneled through their office. But they never dreamed
there would be so many.
At
the red brick courthouse, clerks record each new warrant
in a leather-bound ledger with entries dating to 1975. The
first AOL search warrant was filed in Loudoun in 1996. The
next year there were 33.
After
that, the requests skyrocketed.
In
1998, Loudoun magistrates signed off on 152 Internet searches
as police from New York to Texas peered into the accounts
of users including sexylilwildcat and lonelywife69, looking
for the identities of criminals or motives. Last year, there
were 299 AOL searches; this year, there already are 245.
"We
didn't realize the magnitude of this when we started," said
Loudoun Sheriff's Maj. John Patton. "We didn't realize how
much it would grow."
Bill
Taylor, president of the Oregon-based International Association
of Computer Investigative Specialists, said Loudoun shouldn't
expect requests to level off soon. Groups like his are training
front-line officers nationwide to consider the potential
for computer evidence in every case.
"It's
becoming more and more common for street cops on the front
line to think to preserve a computer, just like they do
fingerprints or blood stains," Taylor said.
Patton
said the work load already has strained his department,
but officials know Horak's job is critical to prosecutions
nationwide.
New
Jersey investigators called on Loudoun to help with an AOL
search when they were investigating the 1997 death of Edward
Werner, 11, who was strangled by neighbor and avid Internet
user Sam Manzie, 15, who had himself been molested by someone
he met online. Pennsylvania police recently pursued accounts
associated with Richard Baumhammers, 34, charged with killing
five people during an allegedly racially motivated shooting
spree.
Mark
Marshall, a detective with the Worthington, Ohio, police
department, said Horak helped him put a child predator behind
bars.
In
1998, Marshall had gotten a tip that Mark W. Maxwell had
tried to lure a 13-year-old girl he met online to a hotel.
Marshall
called Horak, who helped prepare a search warrant and delivered
it to the magistrate. Included in the records Horak sent
back were pornographic images and the names of hundreds
of people Maxwell communicated with online.
"It
made our case," Marshall said. "Here was an agency who didn't
know us ... (but) he hand-delivered the warrant. He got
us the information. He said, 'If you need me, call.' You
can't ask for better than that."
Horak
said he fell into his job by chance. He began processing
the warrants in 1998 when the department's computer expert
went away for a two-week class and one or two requests filtered
in. But each week there were more.
Still,
the frequency hasn't numbed Horak to the content. Children
who threaten teachers. Men luring girls for sexual encounters.
Someone sending e-mail using the names of the town mayor
and police chief.
"The
brazenness of people never ceases to amaze you," Horak said.
"They are just so bold."
He
has taught seminars in Santa Fe, N.M., Ocean City, Md.,
and Virginia Beach. Sometimes officers call and say they
heard about him from friends in other agencies.
"Detectives
will call and say, 'I don't have a clue where to start,'
" Horak said. "I know I'm in trouble if they say, 'I had
to get my grandson to turn on the computer for me.' "
Horak
faxes them a how-to letter describing the warrant procedure,
and they send back an affidavit explaining why they need
the information. But Horak also must know enough details
of each case to justify the need for the search when he
goes to the magistrate.
To
obtain an AOL search, Horak must prove there is "probable
cause" to look into an account - that "there's a 51 percent
chance that a crime was committed and that this evidence
would aid the investigation," said Loudoun County Deputy
Commonwealth's Attorney Owen D. Basham. "It's the same standard
as if you were searching someone's house or car. And it
doesn't mean that (the person whose account is searched)
is the one who did something wrong."
"If
they just want a 'look-see,' I reject it outright. Big Brother
does not do that," Horak said. But "if you have broken the
law and used AOL to do it, you have reason to worry."
AOL
spokesman Rich D'Amato said the company, to protect its
subscribers, requires a legal order by a judge or magistrate.
"We work with law enforcement to get them the information
as quickly as possible," he said, adding that AOL also has
one person devoted to processing such requests.
"I
don't think we truly envisioned years ago it would get this
big this soon," Horak said. "It's good to be able to reach
out and help people prosecute."
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