Noem’s Right: Janklow, Not Jackley, Created Internet Crimes Task Force

Last updated on 2018-03-16

…But Real Thanks Go to Uncle Sam!

Marty Jackley’s first gubernatorial campaign ad, launched last week, includes this sentence at second 11:

Marty Jackley created the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to protect our kids from predators….

Jackley’s primary challenger, Kristi Noem, says Jackley is misusing the verb “created”. This September 4, 2002, press release from the office of Governor Janklow (staffed then by journalist Bob Mercer, who may be asked to weigh in on this matter) appears to agree:

The annual State of the States Computer Crimes Consortium will be held at the Ramkota Hotel and Convention Center in Sioux Falls starting Monday September 9 through Wednesday, September 11.

…Janklow will address the group at 8:30 a.m. (CT) on Monday, September 9, at the opening of the conference. Bill Mickelson, Commander of the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Enforcement unit, is hosting and moderating the conference.

Janklow created the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Enforcement Unit (ICAC) in October 2001, and hosted a statewide conference on the problem of child exploitation and child pornography… [Office of Governor Bill Janklow, press release, 2002.09.09].

So does this Janklow/Mercer release from September 9, 2002::

Gov. Bill Janklow said South Dakota will be able to better protect children against pornographers and other sexual predators who lurk on the Internet with the help of a $1 million Internet Child Safety grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The grant will be used by the Internet Crimes Against Children enforcement unit (ICAC) that Janklow started last year. The unit works with local law enforcement and the state Attorney General’s Office in investigating and prosecuting internet crimes against children.

…To date, the state ICAC has opened more than 150 investigations and searched 91 computers. The unit’s work has resulted in 18 arrests [Office of Governor Bill Janklow, press release, 2002.09.09].

AP blurbed the Bill Mickelson-run ICAC in this October 30, 2001,  Yankton Press & Dakotan article:

The head of a new state office vows to attack Internet crimes against children through law enforcement and education.

Projects in the works include a video for young people, instructional guides for teachers and an educational CD for parents, Bill Mickelson said.

The materials will alert everyone to the dangers lurking on the Internet, Mickelson said.

The new state office will have two full-time forensic experts who will analyze computers involved in Internet crimes [“South Dakota Digest: Office to Focus on Internet Crimes,” AP via Yankton Press & Dakotan, 2001.10.30].

In the early months of his brief Congressional career, Janklow said his ICAC was the first statewide program among many that sprang up nationwide with support from the Department of Justice:

Mr. Janklow. Sir, is your agency involved in the Justice Department funding of those Internet Crimes Against Children Programs?

Mr. Netherland [John M., acting director, CyberSmuggling Center, ICE, DHS]. We have an advisory role with respect to
the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces.

Mr. Janklow. Do you know of any reason; is it a shortage of money; what is it that has prevented all 50 States and the territories from getting funding to get these things launched? My State happened to have been the first Statewide program. We were lucky to get in on the funding. But what does it take? Is it a funding issue, to make sure that every Government has the opportunity to get together to do this?

Mr. Netherland. I believe that it would certainly help, in terms of making sure that every single State has an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and organizes one. Because this is across the Nation; it is across the globe.

Mr. Janklow. And sir, I will say that this is one of those issues where the Federal Government, the Federal prosecutors have truly stepped up to the plate, and have really dealt with it, when the evidence is turned over to them with respect to these predators [“Stumbling onto Smut: The Alarming Ease of Access to Pornography on Peer-to-Peer Networks,” Hearing Before the Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, 2003.03.13].

Uh oh—is Marty falling into Kristi’s habit of misrepresenting the past?

Jackley stands by his verb but changes his article:

As US Attorney, Marty Jackley created a stand-alone Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) in South Dakota with an ICAC grant issued by the US Department of Justice in 2007.

Prior to 2007, South Dakota was an affiliate unit of the Minnesota ICAC Task Force.  As a result of Jackley’s efforts, South Dakota now has a stand-alone ICAC Task Force that is no longer under the authority of Minnesota [Marty Jackley for Governor, press release titled “Jackley Created Statewide Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force,” 2018.03.15].

Jackley offers a variety of documents:

1. This April1, 2005, document from the Minnesota Senate noting that the Minnesota ICAC task force was overseeing South Dakota’s Department of Criminal Investigation.
2. This 2005 map from Minnesota’s ICAC task force showing DOJ Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention ICAC task forces in most states but none in South Dakota.
3. This FY2007 call for grant applications which said DOJ would only consider a “cooperative agreement” under which South Dakota would share an ICAC task force with North Dakota.
4. This January 22, 2007, e-mail snippet from then-U.S. Attorney Jackley lamenting the DOJ restriction to joint funding but “hop[ing] we are able to continue to build on our partnering efforts in SD to avoid deuplication and word toward the best combined use of these resources.”
5. This DOJ notice from October 15, 2007, which notes a $250,000 federal grant to the office of Attorney General Larry Long to support the new South Dakota ICAC. Today’s campaign press release says this grant came only “after continued efforts by Jackley“… which sounds like an invitation for logicians everywhere to chant smirkingly (Kristi, join in—you picked up Latin at university, right?), “Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc!“

The ad said Jackley created the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. His response to Noem’s fact check says he created a task force, another task force, a stand-alone ICAC. Perhaps stand-aloneyness is the difference between an enforcement unit and a task force. (Nah—Jackley used the terms unit and force interchangeably in this March 24, 2014 release on two ICAC busts.)

Nonetheless, Jackley’s original ad claim was not that he got the feds to reconfigure their funding to allow South Dakota to cleave its existing ICAC task force from its neighbors. Jackley’s original claim was that he created the ICAC, protecting kids from predators where no comparable protection existed before. Noem appears to correctly point out that Janklow created comparable protection years before Jackley’s exertions.

Notice that neither Janklow nor Jackley could have created any ICAC unit or force without federal tax dollars. Maybe that’s the real hook Noem needs to pursue: since South Dakota is too cheap to fight online perverts with its own money, she’s been saving South Dakota’s children from cyberpredators with seven years of boffo federal budgeting.

Yeah, because South Dakota Republicans are mightily proud of all the good things made possible by the federal government.