Jim Glendinning, acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service's Orlando Field Office (left) joins Carrie Whitcomb, director of the National Center for Forensic Science at UCF; and Erickson. Photo by Jerry Klein
New UCF Laboratory to Help Police, U.S. Secret Service Solve Electronic Crimes
By Chad Binette
ORLANDO, June 22, 2004 -- Headquartered at the National Center for Forensic Science at the University of Central Florida, a new team of local police officers and U.S. Secret Service agents will fight bank and credit card fraud and help companies protect their computer systems from hackers.
The Florida Law Enforcement Electronic Evidence Team, or FLEET, will make it easier for state and local law enforcement agencies to work together to solve electronic crimes. The new lab, one of two in Florida coordinated by the Secret Service, also will make it easier for deputies and officers to access the resources and training available through the National Center for Forensic Science, said Jim Glendinning, acting special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Orlando Field Office.
Glendinning joined National Center for Forensic Science Director Carrie Whitcomb at a grand-opening ceremony and news conference Tuesday in the center's first-floor lecture hall. State Attorney Lawson Lamar and representatives from the Orlando Police Department and several Central Florida sheriff's offices also attended the ceremonies. Luke Erickson, the national center's program manager for digital evidence, gave demonstrations of the equipment in the lab.
The equipment will allow agencies to copy entire hard drives, including deleted files and e-mails, from seized computers and to make sure the evidence is preserved properly so it can be used as evidence during trials. The equipment also will help agents track the locations of hackers and potentially find the sources of threats made against government officials.
"This is a powerful partnership for law enforcement for crime-fighting in the state of Florida," Lamar said.
The creation of the lab stems from the Patriot Act, which required the establishment of regional task forces to investigate electronic crimes. The Secret Service has set up 13 such task forces, including one in Miami. While the Orlando center won't officially be a task force at first, the center is designed with goals similar to the task forces missions.
Glendinning and Whitcomb stressed the importance of partnerships in the new venture. Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in central and northern Florida will be invited to participate as much as they want. Sharing information among law enforcement agencies and corporations will be a priority.
UCF and the Secret Service already have good relationships in computer forensics with several area agencies, including Orlando police and the Orange, Seminole, Lake and Polk county sheriff's offices. The new lab should strengthen those partnerships.
One of the new program's long-term goals is to train employees of local police departments and to help them create computer forensic programs. That will be especially helpful to smaller agencies that cannot afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the training and equipment that an officer needs to do that job, Glendinning said.
UCFs National Center for Forensic Science, a member of the National Institute of Justice's Forensic Resource Network, and the Secret Service bring many years of experience in working with electronic crimes to the new team.
Whitcomb has worked with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to develop rules for obtaining, preserving and examining electronic evidence, such as e-mail and Palm Pilot messages, to improve the chances of criminal charges standing up in court. The Secret Service has investigated credit and bank fraud since the mid-1980s, and the agency's role in investigating financial crimes has increased dramatically since then.
Whitcomb and Glendinning said they hope their collaboration will help them better identify new trends in electronic crimes and to show residents and businesses how they can use technology to protect themselves against such crimes.
"Technology will assist people in committing all of the traditional crimes we have always had," Whitcomb said. "In the old days, it was obvious when your bank was being robbed. Now, when criminals hack into your bank's computers, it is not so obvious, and it may even take time for the bank to realize it has been compromised. We want to work together to make businesses more aware of the technology they can use to prevent these crimes."
For more information on the National Center for Forensic Science, go to www.ncfs.org. More information about the Secret Service is available at www.secretservice.gov.
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