The Marietta Daily Journal is reporting that Georgia law enforcement executed a statewide roundup of online child pornography suspects:
Cobb County Police were among almost 50 state agencies that came together Wednesday to show up at front doors with search warrants for 98 suspects accused of distributing child pornography over the Internet.
In Cobb alone, six warrants were issued and numerous computers were taken and submitted for forensic analysis, according to Officer Mike Bowman with Cobb Police.
“No physical arrests have been made at this time,” he said. “Charges may be forthcoming pending the completion of the computer analyses.”
As of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, there have been 73 search warrants executed statewide and 41 arrests were made in connection with this continuing operation, according to John Bankhead with GBI.
I like these cases not because of the subject matter, but because of the technology. I would be just as interested in these cases if people were rounded up for downloading copyrighted song or movies, but those cases rarely get the attention of law enforcement.
I used a computer hard drive graphic because that's what these cases will come down to. The computers will be imaged and examined by bigger computers to see if there's anything on there that is illegal to possess. After that, charges will be filed, people will be arrested, and the war will begin:
- The search warrants will be challenged, of course.
- If any of the drives are encrypted, there will be an additional fight over whether the owner can be forced to decrypt it.
- The technology will be examined and experts for both sides will argue over the results.
- If suspected child porn is found, there will be arguments over whether it's really "child" porn or perfectly legal adults or computer-generated images.
- If anyone has the "Vicky Series," expect Kylie Freeman and her lawyer to show up and file a civil suit against the owner regardless of how the criminal case goes.
Considering the Peter Mallory just got sentenced to 1,000 years in south Georgia for child pornography, any person who had his computer seized in this raid should already be in a lawyer's office planning their defense. These charges aren't to be taken lightly.
In 2006 he was a founding partner of Crosby, Haldi & Steakley, LLC, located in Decatur. Now in private practice since 2007 as John A. Steakley, P.C., headquartered in Marietta, he represents individuals in a wide variety of matters, using his experience to provide his clients with quality legal representation. He is licensed to practice law in both Tennessee and Georgia, but focuses almost solely on Georgia. 
