Law Enforcement - Legal Research - State Attorneys - Other Government - Child Protection - Computer Crime Utilities

Law Enforcement Links

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Florida Department of Law Enforcement:  This site contains many useful features.  The most helpful is the sexual predator and offender database.  Registration information and photographs of all registered sexual offenders and predators can easily be located.  You can simply enter your zip code and get a list of all registered offenders living near you.  The site also contains a legal bulletin outlining the registration procedures for sexual offenders and predators.  This is an excellent source for understanding this complex statute.

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Florida Department of Corrections:  This site provides a database of all inmates in the Florida prison system.  Photos, as well as release dates and other helpful information is included.  The site also provides information on individuals currently serving probationary sentences.

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Broward Sheriff's Office:  This is the official site of the Broward Sheriff's Office.  It contains a lot of helpful information.

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Department of Justice Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS):  A very informative site with especially helpful information about prosecuting computer crimes.  The Federal guidelines for searching and seizing computers is an excellent reference for both prosecutors and police.

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Sex Offender Registry Information Center: Although not actually a law enforcement site, this site provides you with links and information about the sexual offender registries from every state.  If you want to check out a suspect who has moved here from another state, this is a good start.

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State Sex Offender Registries from Prevent-Abuse-Now.com:  This is another valuable source for obtaining links to various sexual offender registry laws and other helpful information regarding sexual abuse of children and child pornography on the Internet.

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U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics:  This site also provides a good listing of the varying sexual predator registration laws and their respective Internet sites.  It is more difficult to use than the Sex Offender Registry Information Center, but it contains more information and can be printed in Adobe format.

Legal Research Links

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Florida Statutes:  This link takes you directly to the Florida Criminal Statutes.

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FindLaw:  An excellent site to anything pertaining to the law around the country.

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Florida Law Online:  A good source for locating legal resources in Florida, such as statutes, bills and supreme court opinions.

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Crimelynx:  This site contains helpful links to legal information.  It calls itself "The defense practitioner's guide through the Internet."

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National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information:  This is probably the best site I've found for those who want to research the child abuse laws of various states.  This link takes you directly to the "Statutes" section, but there is a wealth of research information available on other parts of the site.  It is well worth your while to browse through this extensive database of information to see what is available.

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Florida State University Law School:  This site contains an excellent collection of legal resources to assist in your research.  A particularly helpful component of this site is the section on Florida Supreme Court briefs and opinions.  This section will allow you to view and print the legal briefs filed by both parties on all Supreme Court cases since October of 1999. The site also contains links to other helpful legal databases.

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Cornell University Legal Information Institute:  This site is a good source for searching various legal topics, including the constitutions and statutes of the various states and federal government.

bulletUnited States House of Representatives U.S. Code Search:  This is the official governmental site publishing the U.S. Code.  This version of the code is not as easy to read as the version from Cornell University, but it contains more information such as legislative history and will let you download sections in their entirety. 

bulletNational Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse:  This site contains very useful information about training, publications and comparative statutes concerning child abuse.

State Attorney Office Links

bullet17th Judicial Circuit:  This circuit (my home) covers Broward County.

bullet4th Judicial Circuit:  This circuit covers Clay, Duval and Nassau Counties.

bullet6th Judicial Circuit:  This circuit covers Pinellas and Pasco Counties.

bullet7th Judicial Circuit:  This circuit covers Volusia, Flagler, Putnam and St. John's Counties.

bullet10th Judicial Circuit:  This circuit covers Polk, Highlands, and Hardee Counties.

bullet11th Judicial Circuit:  This circuit covers Miami-Dade County.

bullet15th Judicial Circuit:  This circuit covers Palm Beach County.

bullet20th Judicial Circuit:  This circuit covers Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades Counties.

Other Government Links

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Online Sunshine:  The official guide to the Florida Legislature.  A wealth of information about Florida government and the people who run it.

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Florida State Courts: Everything you want to know about the Florida Court system.

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Attorney General:  The site for Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth.  This site is especially helpful for those seeking information on consumer fraud.

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Government Information Locater: If you have a question about anything related to Florida government, this is a great place to start.  In addition to countless other features, this site has links to numerous law enforcement agencies.

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State of Florida Telephone Directory:  An efficient way to find that state agency telephone number you've been looking for.

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Victim's Rights Section of the Executive Office of the Governor:  This site provides a lot of valuable information regarding victims' rights in Florida.

Organizations Dedicated to Protecting Children

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National Center for Missing and Exploited Children:  This site contains a wealth of information on various topics related to the exploitation of children.

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Florida Sex Crimes Investigator's Association:  This website contains information of interest to investigators and prosecutors of sex crimes and child abuse, as well as those who provide services for victims of such crimes. It may be used also as a resource for the general public who may have questions related to the subject matter.

Web Sites That Aid in the Detection of Computer Crime

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SamSpade.org :  This is an excellent site for tracking IP addresses etc...  You can also download their freeware program that is most helpful for tracing Internet information.  The program and site are very popular with law enforcement.

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DNSSTUFF.com:  This is a very useful tool to track domain names and IP addresses.

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Whois.sc:  This is another very useful tool for tracking domain names and IP addresses.

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Geektools.com:  Another good site for accessing various Internet tools to track down IP addresses and domain names etc...

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NetworkSolutions.com:  The "Whois" section of this site will tell you to whom an Internet site is registered.  The information is similar to what you get in SamSpade and Geektools.

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Webopedia.com: This is an online dictionary for computer and Internet technology.

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Netlingo.com:  "NetLingo is an online dictionary about the Internet. It contains thousands of words and definitions that explain the technology and community of the World Wide Web, e-mail, chat, and the newsgroups."

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Whatis.com:  Another useful online technical dictionary.

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Howstuffworks.com:  An extremely helpful site to show you how various technical components of a computer and the Internet work.  The site contains several photos of computer parts to illustrate the explanations.

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Archive.org: This site archives old web sites so that you can access them long after they have removed from the web.  It might be a handy way to keep up with the scam artists who remove their sites after making their fortune.

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ICANN:  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.  This is the official organization that governs the assignment of domain names and IP addresses.  Several informative links and information regarding this topic are available.

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Arin.net:  This is the original source for tracking IP addresses.

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InterNIC:  This website has been established to provide the public information regarding Internet domain name registration services.  It is similar to ICANN and contains a whois section to research domain names.

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Forensicsweb.com: A site dedicated to technology related investigations and forensics.  Formerly called infobin.org, this site contains a helpful contact list for the various ISPs in the download section.

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Hot Pepper Technology's Email Detective: "In the field of Computer Forensics, only Hot Pepper Technology provides a software tool that allows investigators to extract all email contents (including graphics) from America Online’s database stores on a user’s disk drive."  

Useful Shareware Programs

This is a list of helpful programs you can download from the Internet.  Most allow you to use them free for thirty days before paying for them.  Click on the program name and it will take you to a site where the program will be downloaded.  The potential for broken links is high for this section, so if you encounter a problem establishing contact, just go to www.tucows.com or www.download.com and type in the program name.

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ACDSee:  This is an excellent image viewer.  You just click on a directory and it will quickly show you thumbnail images of all the images contained in it.  There is also a more expensive version with more features, but for investigative purposes I like the basic version best.

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Free Agent:  This is a popular freeware program that allows you to view and post messages to newsgroups.

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mIRC:  This program allows you to chat on Internet Relay Chat.  It is the most popular program for that purpose.

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SamSpade: This software helps you trace IP address, emails and web sites, etc...  It is a great investigative tool.  It is free for personal use. You can get most of the features through the www.samspade.org web site, but the downloaded version seems to work a little better.

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SnagIt:  This program allows you to capture computer screens into image files.  It even captures the screen as you scroll up or down.  Since data on the Internet changes continually, you need a way to preserve what you are viewing.

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WinZip:  This is the most popular program to zip and unzip files.