AG Knudsen, Rep. Love tout accomplishments

by John Dowd

A couple weeks ago, House District 85 Representative Kathy Love and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen stopped into the Bitterroot Star office to speak on the success of their recently passed House Bill 82 (HB82), in early April. The bill was sponsored by Love, and Knudsen spoke highly of how Love “spearheaded” the bill, and, “as a freshman, knocked it out of the park.” 

Knudsen lauded the bill, and noted that it really was meant to tackle several problems the Montana Department of Justice was seeing when prosecuting child sexual abuse crimes. The proposed changes to the law addressed in the bill, according to Knudsen, “came from prosecutor experience, things that they are seeing, as well as gaps in the law.”

One element to see a benefit from the bill will be sting operations. In sting operations of these cases, a detective or officer will pretend to be a child communicating with a criminal. Prior to HB82, the defense often used was that since there was no real victim, there was no crime. Now, with HB82, intention is important, and it is assumed the criminal would have acted upon their intentions. According to Knudsen, “Before it required that you had actually victimized someone,” but as this would mean the direct damaging of a child, potentially for the rest of their life, Knudsen believes that was just not an option.

Also, prior to the passing of HB82, the grooming of a child for these types of crimes was not considered a crime. The bill now makes those actions punishable under Montana law. The bill also addressed Artificial Intelligence (AI), and especially its use in the alteration of images. Now, the creation or alteration of images to display child-related explicit content is considered child sexual abuse material. According to Knudsen, “AI is the fastest growing technology in the world,” and according to him, they should try to get out ahead of it.

These images are also being utilized in what Knudsen referred to as, “sexploitation.” This is where a young person communicates with a criminal who they believe to be a friend. The “friend” convinces the youth to send images or information that the criminal then holds as ransom material to extort the youth. Images can be digitally altered, using AI, to become more explicit, and therefore more dangerous and embarrassing for the victimized youth. 

Criminals can also create realistic personas with AI images that match, in order to hide their identity and appear as anyone they wish. This also affects crimes like identity theft. According to Knudsen, the type of sexploitation activity mentioned above is also often linked to youth suicides. This is also why the Montana Department of Justice is working to spend more time in schools, educating youth on how to “lock down their social media,” and to stay safe from these types of crimes. 

Knudsen also mentioned the use of AI applications to improve law enforcement. Being an emerging technology, the Justice Department is looking to incorporate tools aided by AI. According to Knudsen, these tools have genuine law enforcement applications.

Knudsen also talked about elder abuse being another concern, and that these types of scams are common in Montana. With the state having such a high population of elderly, many are falling victim to various types of identity theft, and various scams.

Knudsen said this is why they formed an “Elder Justice Unit,” to tackle specifically these types of cases. Before this unit was created, these cases were given to the Office of Consumer Protection, which is civil, and has no criminal element. Knudsen said he always thought this was not an appropriate place to send these types of cases. The Elder Justice Unit is small, and includes a criminal prosecutor and a criminal investigator. However, according to Knudsen, so far it has been very successful. 

Returning to the topic of HB82, Knudsen added that HB710 was a companion bill that allowed the Montana Department of Justice to go after criminals with intent to act before children even got involved and became victimized. This second bill goes hand in hand with HB82, and was also passed in early April. 

HB710 is attached to the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. According to Knudsen, with these types of crimes against children, it’s critical for law enforcement to be able to act quickly. This bill allows ICAC to write their own subpoenas. 

Knudsen is also trying to see that there are more ICAC officers in the state. “There is absolutely a need,” he said.

According to Love, the ICAC officer in Ravalli County told her that when he started he saw about seven cases of child sex crimes in a year. Now, he receives seven tips a month. “It’s happening in our own backyard,” said Love. “Every one of those tips represents a child, potentially.”

Love talked about her experience sponsoring HB82, saying, “I was like a deer in the headlights,” but added that the Attorney General’s Office made the process easy. Love also expressed that, “it was a real eye opening experience for me,” and she learned a lot, not only about sponsoring a bill, but what all is involved in prosecuting these types of crimes against children.