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Canada arrests dozens on child porn charges
TORONTO, Canada (CNN) -- Canadian authorities said Monday they have arrested 42 people on child pornography charges in the nation's largest such investigation, but their ability to make more arrests is hampered by a lack of federal resources. The investigation began four years ago with a tip about a Web site in Dallas, Texas, to which 300,000 people paid monthly access fees, said Detective Inspector Bob Matthews of the Ontario Provincial Police. The names of the 2,329 Canadian subscribers were sent to Canadian authorities, who initiated the ongoing "Operation Snowball," he said. But progress has been slow, Matthews told reporters. "We are barely scratching the surface." Those arrested come from all walks of life, and include a police officer, a schoolteacher and a doctor, he said. Information from the same Web site has initiated investigations in other countries. It led to the arrest of guitarist Pete Townshend of the rock group Who in Britain. But Detective Sgt. Paul Gillespie of the Toronto police sex crimes unit said Canadian authorities are not as equipped as authorities in other countries to handle the problem. "There are numerous police services in Canada that have taken no action with the project information they were given," he said. "Unlike the U.K. and the U.S., we in Canada do not have a national operational strategy to deal with large-scale Internet child porn operations." He added, "International cooperation is a dream; national cooperation is a nightmare." The need for immediate action is critical, Gillespie said. "We're talking about our kids here. If you watch a 6-month-old baby being raped, you'll never feel the same way again." He added, "We've seen babies with signs of an umbilical cord still on." One problem, he said, is that, in some cases, "judges and justices don't want to see the pictures."
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