By Susan Taylor Martin, Times Senior Correspondent
At any one time, some 750,000 pedophiles are prowling the
Internet, the United Nations says. They might be lurking in chat rooms.
Or swapping images of adults having sex with kids.
[tampabay.com] It’s a virtual
epidemic of child pornography, and to fight it, law enforcement
officers from all over are converging on a cavernous building in South
Florida. Here they have access to the most advanced technology for
finding pedophiles.
But this isn’t run by any government agency.
The desks, computers, technology — all are provided free by a former
drug smuggler named Hank Asher.
Called a "mad scientist“ by one
employee, Asher has made a fortune collecting public records — deeds,
lawsuits, voter registrations — and combining them into databases that
can be invaluable in locating people. Plug a name into Accurint,
Asher’s best-known product, and you’ll see addresses, possible
relatives, licenses held.
It was Asher’s technology that helped police find the Washington, D.C., snipers.
Now he is building a super computer and a database "a thousand times more powerful" than anything he has developed yet.
It’s
a project that worries privacy-rights advocates and other critics. They
wonder if Asher’s real reason for donating some of his technology to
government agencies is to get access to confidential data like firearms
registries, tax information, even health records — information that
could be a boon to businesses and an unprecedented intrusion into the
lives of millions of Americans.
"He wants to have every scrap of
personal data that he can acquire on any and everybody,“ says Marion
Hammer, a past president of the National Rifle Association. "I know
that he has people working to find ways to get data from state agencies
and of course there is data that we would never want him to get his
hands on.“
Fueling speculation about Asher’s motives are his
controversial past and the fact he has hired many well-connected
individuals. Among them: Bob Butterworth, former head of the Florida
Department of Children and Families.
Asher acknowledges that his
new database product could earn billions of dollars for his Boca Raton
company. But he says he’ll continue to provide his predator-tracking
technology free to police and the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children.
"No matter what you think about him, he has a
great record of philanthropy,“ says John Walsh, who helped start the
center after his son Adam was murdered in Hollywood, Fla., in 1981.
Gerald
Bailey, head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, applauds
Asher’s efforts on behalf of kids. But FDLE declined his offer of free
space and his request that it assign someone to help develop better
ways of finding sexual predators.
"I could never get a handle
on exactly what the product was or what they wanted from us,“ Bailey
said. "I did not want to be obligated to follow through with something
when we’re not sure where the end is going to be.“
Cocaine to computers
At
58, the thrice-divorced Asher is a long way from the "simple Indiana
farm boy“ who moved to Florida and made his first fortune painting
Gold Coast high-rises. He bought a house in the Bahamas and, as he has
admitted, piloted several cocaine flights in 1980 and ’81. (He was not
prosecuted, and later cooperated with drug enforcement authorities.)
In
the late ’80s, Asher began dabbling with computers and learned to
combine databases. He discovered he could buy databases not only from
public sources like state motor vehicle bureaus, but also banks and
other businesses whose databases contained Social Security numbers and
other information not generally open to the public.
Asher’s 1992
breakthrough was collating this wealth of data into an easily
searchable product he dubbed AutoTrack. It proved a boon to police, who
previously had to search many sources in doing background checks.
Even
Asher was surprised by AutoTrack. Searching on his own name, he got a
long list of "associated“ people, including "my ex-wife and her newest
victim. I thought, ‚What have I done?‘ “
Forgoing what he says
could have been millions in profits, he limited sales of AutoTrack to
what he considered legitimate users like reporters and insurance
investigators. The father of two girls, he also offered AutoTrack for
free to the National Center for Missing Children.
"I think he
shared my frustration that law enforcement agencies don’t work together
and don’t exchange information,“ Walsh says. "I thought, ‚Why not give
it a go?‘ It turned out to be a huge boon to (the center) and America’s Most Wanted,“ the TV show hosted by Walsh.
In
1999, Asher’s drug-smuggling days returned to haunt him. The FBI and
Drug Enforcement Administration suspended their use of AutoTrak,
worried that his company, DBT, could potentially monitor activities in
ongoing cases.
There was no evidence any cases had been
compromised, but DBT’s directors forced Asher to sell his ownership
stake (he walked away with at least $117 million) in order to save the
law enforcement contracts.
Asher already had started another company and was developing Accurint, faster and more comprehensive than AutoTrack.
Then came Sept. 11.
Tracking terrorists
Acting
on his own a few days after the attacks, Asher wrote a computer program
so powerful it culled through data on hundreds of millions of people
and flagged 419 possible suspects.
The hijackers‘ names were not yet public, but the program hit on one: Marwan al-Shehhi, a 9/11 pilot.
For
months, Asher was stymied in efforts to demonstrate his program to top
Bush administration officials. So in December 2002, court records show,
he paid $2 million to Republican Rudy Giuliani, the former New York
mayor turned lobbyist. He also gave a $15,000 watch to the wife of a
California sheriff serving on a federal homeland security panel.
Barely
a month later, with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush introducing him, Asher made
his case to Vice President Dick Cheney and Homeland Security director
Tom Ridge. Soon afterward, Ridge’s office authorized a $12-million
pilot project.
MATRIX — for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information
Exchange — was controversial from the start. Several states dropped
out, concerned about costs and violation of privacy laws. The American
Civil Liberties Union warned that people could be wrongly labeled as
potential terrorists.
"There is a lot of scientific evidence that
you cannot predict the actions of terrorists or criminals or anyone
based on their computer profiles,“ says Chris Calabrese of the ACLU’s
liberty and technology project. "That’s a very dangerous thing that
could cause people a lot of harm.“
In 2005, the federal money ran out and the project ended.
"The existence of MATRIX should have been kept a national secret,“ Asher says.
‚It’s quite scary‘
Frustrated
by the flap over MATRIX, Asher sold his company in 2004 for $260
million. He helped care for his dying sister and established a cancer
research center in conjunction with the Mayo Clinic.
Asher also
started another company, TLO, and offered to develop, for free, a means
of tracking children in state care. In 2001, 5-year-old Rilya Wilson
had disappeared from a Miami foster home. She was missing for 18 months
before anyone in the Department of Children and Families realized she
was gone.
The idea for a tracking system was pushed from two main
quarters: the National Center for Missing Children, of which Asher is a
board member and major donor; and DCF, whose secretary, Butterworth,
resigned in August 2008 and went to work for Asher.
Two months
later, Butterworth’s successor, George Sheldon, and other top
department officials visited Asher’s Boca Raton headquarters to hear
what he had to offer.
Sheldon says Asher came across "like a
really bright guy“ and demonstrated his search capabilities by pulling
up reams of personal data on one member of the DCF group.
"I
don’t think the average citizen realizes how much information is out
there,“ Sheldon says. "The collection of information about individuals
can be a slippery slope, and I think government always has to be
careful about that.“
Did Asher ask for any data from DCF in exchange for designing a free system?
"I
don’t think we got that far,“ says Sheldon, who adds that the agency
decided to work with a company already doing business with the state.
Soon
after that visit, though, several DCF employees met in Orlando with
representatives of Asher’s company, FDLE and other agencies. The main
topic for discussion: a three-page list of databases that the National
Center for Missing Children said could be helpful in finding child
predators.
Among the databases: financial records, credit card data, even Blockbuster accounts.
From
a privacy standpoint, “it’s a lot and it’s quite scary,“ says Lee
Tien, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier
Foundation.
Butterworth, who helped organize the meeting, insists
it was only a "wish list“ and that no one expected to get access to so
much confidential data. But he understands why people were spooked.
"Our
biggest mistake was that we should have looked at privacy first,“
Butterworth says. "Then we would not have the problem we have now. If
we could take that meeting back, things would be entirely different.“
Asher’s
company tried to organize another "brainstorming" session last year,
and urged FDLE to send a representative. But the meeting never got off
the ground: An e-mail obtained by the St. Petersburg Times reflects the skepticism of FDLE Commissioner Bailey.
"Bottom line,“ he wrote to his chief deputy, "this is a vendor asking us to help develop a product.“
Grateful police
One of Asher’s current "passions,“ as he puts it, is combatting pedophilia.
Canadian
researchers say as many as 4 percent of adults are sexually attracted
to children. Most never physically act on their fantasies, but they
have unprecedented access to pornographic photos, videos, even children
themselves.
"The problems of pedophilia have exploded because of the Internet,“ Asher says. "It’s an epidemic.“
Since
2008, his company has leased 143,000 square feet in the Boca Raton
complex where IBM once made personal computers. Asher has set aside
part of that space for investigators from the Palm Beach County State
Attorney’s Office and other agencies to work on sex crimes against kids.
By
law, Internet service providers are required to inform the National
Center for Missing Children of any suspected child pornography detected
on their networks. Those tips are turned over to law enforcement
agencies, many of which use technology developed by Asher and his
employees.
"We get requests from all over the world,“ says Flint
Waters, a former Wyoming detective. "In 33 countries there are
investigators who have access to this (technology). If they work here,
they have the newest tools. If they have a need for forensic tools that
our tools don’t accomplish, we’ll write it in a day or two.“
Waters
and Asher say those "tools“ have led to thousands of arrests. Where
investigators once had to send computers to a lab to see if they
contained pornographic images — a process that could take six months,
while a predator continued abusing children — "now they pop a disc in
and it shows if there’s child porn,“ Waters says.
Another tool lets investigators zero in on certain frames without watching all 20 or 30 minutes of a pornographic video.
Security
in the law enforcement area appears tight, with surveillance cameras
and restricted entry. Though his company provides the phones, desks and
computers, Asher says he has no access to data on the hard drives or
the server, which is owned by Palm Beach County.
"If the time
ever comes that Hank profits from the cops, I hope they rain on him,“
Waters says. “The commitment he’s made to me is that he gives those
tools away (to police).“
Commitments aside, there are no
contracts with any of the agencies that have people working here, and
the center seems to operate on a casual basis.
"I think it’s ‚at
will.‘ They can kick us out if they want to,“ acknowledges Palm Beach
County State Attorney Michael F. McAuliffe.
Still, he says, the
free space and access to technology have been good for both taxpayers
and children. The county’s predator unit has made more than 30 arrests
since setting up shop in May.
FDLE and other agencies, however, have declined the no-rent offer.
Despite
his crusade against cybercrimes involving kids, Florida Attorney
General Bill McCollum did not want to be in a position "where there
were any questions about whether the acceptance of that free gift would
be appropriate,“ says spokeswoman Sandi Copes.
Tomorrow’s risks
Asher
says the new database "product“ he is developing — AK, for Accurint
Killer — will revolutionize the businesses of assessing risk and
investigating fraud. He plans to introduce AK in March at a conference
of private investigators in Dallas, where he and John Walsh will be
featured speakers.
Asher acknowledges that AK could be very profitable.
"Half-a-trillion
dollars of fraud has come to us looking for remedies,“ he says. "I’ve
never seen financial opportunities like this in my life. I think it
will do several billion dollars a year.“
Could it also flag
potential terrorists, like the Nigerian who got on a U.S.-bound flight
Christmas Day despite many signs he was up to no good? Asher, whose
MATRIX technology sparked such privacy concerns after 9/11, hints that
it could.
"Our new systems have the capacity to address
tomorrow’s risks and threats. We have built the next generation of what
I built before. It’s going to be much less safe to be dangerous.“
Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Susan Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.
Source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1064010.ece
