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6 Independent & Free Press,Thursday, March 17, 2011 OPINION Keeping watch Last week Halton police issued a strong warning to the growing number of people exchanging child pornography on the Internet. They will catch you. It's only a matter of time. On Wednesday morning, at a press conference to announce the arrests of four Halton residents who now face child pornography-related charges, police spoke of software they are using to help identify IP addresses and the computers connected to them as they access global child pornography sites. As an example, they offered a "one-second snapshot of Internet activity in Halton" from earlier that morning. At a specific moment, police say 22 locations in Halton were accessing child pornography (including four in Halton Hills). Police from Halton's Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit say the next move in an investigation is to find the owner of the computer, the user who accessed or shared the child pornography and then get a warrant. That is precisely what police did this week, following a two-month Halton investigation. To further combat the problem, this year Halton police doubled the number of investigators dedicated to ICE to four from two. It's not an easy battle. Four years ago Halton conducted about 100 investigations. The number has doubled since that time. We totally support Halton Police's assessment of how serious this kind of crime is and how our society has a duty to do whatever it can to protect its most vulnerable citizens from falling prey to anyone who would take advantage of them. In the meantime, Halton Police, the OPP and about 18 other police services that form the provincial strategy to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation will continue `watching'. Said Det.-Insp. Al Albano Albano, "Our message is loud and clear: If you possess or distribute child pornography in Halton or anywhere else in Ontario, police will find you and arrest you." 905-873-0301 Publisher: Ken Nugent General manager: Steve Foreman (sforeman@independentfreepress.com) Retail advertising manager: Cindi Campbell (ccampbell@independentfreepress.com) Managing editor: John McGhie (jmcghie@independentfreepress.com) Distribution manager: Nancy Geissler (ngeissler@independentfreepress.com) Classifieds Kristie Pells (classified@independentfreepress.com) Accounting Rose Marie Gauthier Editorial Cynthia Gamble: News editor (cgamble@independentfreepress.com) Ted Brown: Photography (tbrown@independentfreepress.com) Lisa Tallyn: Staff writer (ltallyn@independentfreepress.com) Eamonn Maher: Staff writer/sports (emaher@independentfreepress.com) WEB POLL RESULTS All-day Kindergarten will be expanded to 19 additional Halton schools for the 2012-13 school year. Is all-day Kindergarten a good program? · Yes (74%) · No (26%) Steve Nease Go to www.independentfreepress.com Letters to the editor Is hospital getting its fair share? Dear editor, Lately our local MPP and mayor and council have talked about the issue with the CT scanner and how funding is unfair. What I have yet to see is a straight comparison of funding for Georgetown (and Halton Region as a whole) vs. funding for similar areas. Are we being treated differently than, say, Aurora, Belleville, Timmins or Welland (all in the 40-60,000 range for population)? Do they have CT scanners? I know our local MPP would like to blame the Liberals (as would I) but the big questions to be asked are A) do we get our fair share or not vs. other similarly-sized communities and B) has our local MPP worked with the nearby ones (Brampton, Oakville, Milton areas) regardless of party affiliation as a CT scanner here would help reduce the burden on the residents of those cities since people from Georgetown wouldn't be using their services as much. Sadly I don't have the access he has to the statistics by region (nor the staff to do the research) otherwise I'd provide it here. Also useful would be the total number of Georgetown residents who have used CT scanners in other communities-- one would figure this stat would be very useful in proving how much we need one and how much it would help reduce the wait times in neighbouring communities. John Northey, Georgetown, President, Green Party of Wellington-Halton Hills cial and national games ever since. If you are interested in obtaining more information on the Special Olympics Snowshoeing please contact Suzanne White, head coach, 905-702-0400. Suzanne White, Georgetown Honourable driver Dear editor, On January 10, a driver pulled out of the McDonald's parking lot without looking causing a three-car accident. While his vehicle wasn't involved in the actual collision, he stayed at the scene and claimed responsibility to the police. When we went to collect our vehicle we were informed that we needed to pay a $1,000 deductible. Since we were the last car, the accident was deemed "our" fault as per insurance rules. I wrote a letter to the man who caused the accident, explained our situation, and asked if he was willing to help. He called me right away and offered to pay the entire $1,000 deductible. He stood true to his word and we got our vehicle back the next morning. This is an honourable man who took responsibility for his actions right from the start and went above and beyond what was required. Thank-you Aron for doing the right thing! Claire Couchman, Georgetown Special effort Dear editor, We would like to recognize Georgetown's Special Olympians who participated in the Special Olympics Ontario Provincial Winter Games in Thunder Bay, January 20-23. Kim Sullivan and Jeff McDonald of the Georgetown Sno'Cats, competed in the snowshoeing events. Kim won a gold in the 800M and a bronze in the 400M and Jeff won bronze in both the 100M & 400M all the while contending with -25 to -40C temperatures. This is a tremendous representation for our Georgetown community and kudos to Kim and Jeff. The Sno'Cats have represented the Georgetown community since 1999 and the club has medaled in provin- Letters to the editor policy Letters must include an address and daytime telephone number. Anonymous letters will not be published. 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