Sunday, March 15, 2009

Search Warrants Reveal Bump in Web Activity

In court documents obtained Friday by the North County Times, Escondido police state that two of Amber's friends told a police detective Feb. 19 that the teenager had told each of them she had been spending time online talking to boys.

One of her friends told officers she tried to dissuade Amber from doing so, "due to her type of conversations that Amber stated she was talking about and the dangers associated with this behavior," according to the search warrant affidavit from Escondido police Officer Damon Vander Vorst.

Amber's parents each said they were surprised to hear the revelation. Both raised doubts and concerns about what their daughter's friends had said...

"It makes me nervous about Internet predators," he said, adding that he was unaware that his daughter could have been taking part in online chats with boys. He said he routinely checked her computer communications when she was with him at his Orange County home.

Amber's mother, Carrie McGonigle, echoed those concerns and said she also monitored her daughter's Internet activity. She said Amber could have been lured by someone she may have known or somehow had been acquainted with.

The warrant affidavit also states that a probe of the computer revealed Internet activity on it had increased the week prior to her disappearance and that activity stopped after Amber went missing.

The warrant obtained by police last week allows them to search the content and subscriber information of Amber's Yahoo account, on which she used the online name "wolfintheend."

With no solid leads, police said they are putting out feelers everywhere they can, looking into everything they can including obtaining warrants to search Amber's Internet records.

The law requires that each social networking site, as well as Internet content providers like Yahoo, must be individually served with a search warrant in order for police to probe Amber's activity on those sites. (source)

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