Investigating Internet crimes against children has been more of a difficult task than Viroqua Police Officer Emilee Nottestad originally thought it would.

Nottestad has undergone hundreds of hours of training, leading the Viroqua Police Department in its role as an affiliate of the Wisconsin Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC).

There are 88 affiliate departments to the ICAC in the state and Nottestad and the Viroqua Police Department were recently recognized by Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen for protecting the state’s children from internet predators.

Nottestad has received specialized training from the state’s justice department and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). She also recently returned from attending a week-long training session from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The training has helped prepare Nottestad to conduct multiple online investigations into child predators.

To date, she has handled four child enticement cases, four cases of obscenity directed to minors, four cases of possession of child pornography and one case of manufacturing child pornography. Her work has led directly to three arrests. She’s also referred four other cases to federal authorities or officers in other states.

Her work has led her to speak to more than 150 students to tell them about the dangers posed by online predators.

She says collecting and gathering evidence is difficult.

“It’s a terrible job, but it’s worth it in the end if you get the bad guy,” Nottestad said. “We’ve got to get these predators off the street.”

Nottestad’s cases have included months of investigation gathering evidence against suspected child predators. She uses special computer equipment, purchased by using a state grant, to record evidence.

To date her investigations have basically included catching predators who approach children in online chatrooms while on the Internet. She said she will soon branch into another area of investigation, tracking file sharing networks, where child pornography is sold and traded.

While Nottestad’s investigations have led to arrests of men in Green Bay and Madison, she said the crimes are a local problem. However, the ICAC network, along with about a thousand of other affiliates nationwide, are working together to ramp up internet investigations.

“The state DCI, the FBI, other law enforcement agencies, all have been good to work with,” Nottestad said. “It’s not territorial, where somebody’s concerned with who makes the arrest. Agencies just want the people out there doing this arrested.”

Nottestad spends about 10 hours a week working on her Internet investigations. She currently has six investigations active. Investigations often take months to complete.

Van Hollen’s office reported that law enforcement agencies have seized more than 23 million child pornography images and movies since 1992. The NCMEC’s Cyber Tipline has received almost 700,000 reports of online child exploitation since 1998.

The ICAC task force has arrested more than 600 offenders in the last 11 years.

Van Hollen said parents should beware online child predators and protect their children by doing the following:

n Be an active parent who keeps lines of communication open with their child regarding Internet use.

n Prepare children for the online world as you would the real world. Talk to children about the dangers of the Internet. Just as you tell your children not to go into a stranger’s car, they shouldn’t use on the Internet without supervision.

n Watch a child’s Internet use. Predators are watching for children online, too. Keep computers in common areas so you can monitor online use.

n Use software resources. Use filters that block inappropriate websites on online services that are harmful to kids. Consider installing monitoring software, which records everything kids do online.

n It’s not just the computer. There are other technologies children use to communicate. If you can’t supervise use, don’t allow it.

n Report online exploitation. Call local law enforcement of the ICAC Task Force at (608) 266-1671. The NCMEC’s website is at www.netsmartz411.org It includes information that can help you keep children safe from online predators.