Civil Grand Jury County of LOS Angeles

Recommendations 5

• R1

  Page 51
  The District Attorney, being the nexus of all law enforcement in the County as prosecutor of felonies, should take the lead role and become the central repository for coordination of high tech information by doing the following: a. Establish and keep up to date a list of all training available for high tech forensics examination, cyber investigation and cyber security, including local, State and Federally sponsored training, as well as private training opportunities. It is likely the DA’s high tech Forensic Division is already doing this internally and could, with little effort and cost, make this information available to the Task Forces, the LAC Sheriff and the municipal police departments. b. Provide outreach to all police departments and the sheriff on a regular basis regarding the value of and training in high tech forensics in crime fighting in Los Angeles County. i. This could be done through seminars for groups of law enforcement officers organized geographically by Supervisorial District or area; e.g., South Bay, San Gabriel Valley, West LA, San Fernando Valley, etc. ii. Individual department “roll-call” training should also be part of this program. c. Keep a log of the use of digital evidence in the prosecution of cases, both high tech crimes and “old school” crimes. The log should indicate the nature of the digital evidence (cell phone photo, location info, contact info, computer file, GPS, etc.); its importance to the case (useful, important, critical); and the role it played (allowed case to settle, critical to achieving a guilty verdict, sentence enhancements, freed an innocent person, enabled the return of stolen property to rightful owner, etc.). The DA should encourage municipal departments to do this for misdemeanors as well. This will build a body of evidence to help inform decision makers in the budgeting process and persuade law enforcement agencies with no in-house capability to see a need. d. Establish a program for all deputy DAs to acquire the basic knowledge and skills necessary to develop their cases using digital evidence in a manner a judge and jury can understand e. Develop and conduct seminars to educate the judges in digital evidence use in the criminal justice process
• R2

  Page 51
  Arcadia PD, Beverly Hills PD, City of Los Angeles PD, Culver City PD, Downey PD, Glendale PD, LAC District Attorney, LAC Sheriff, Santa Monica PD, Monrovia PD, Redondo Beach PD, Torrance PD, Whittier PD. a. Establish a “High Tech Forensics Bureau.” This will facilitate: i. Promotions and career opportunities for those who are trained and skilled in this area without having to leave the discipline ii. Succession planning and transfer of high tech expertise, preserving the investment made in creating the expertise. b. Update regular law enforcement recruit and detective training to include orientation, procedures, protocols and other training with respect to digital evidence c. Include training in digital evidence collection, analysis and use in “roll call” training. d. Take steps to acquire the POST certification for High Tech training courses for forensic examiners and cyber investigators to allow for reimbursement of the costs.
• R3

  Page 52
  LAC Chief Information Office and Internal Services Department should conduct internal reviews concerning cyber security and infrastructure protection from Cyber attacks and terrorism: a. LAC must have protocols, policies and procedures facilitating timely, efficient rapid response by the most able cyber security resources available and ancillary emergency response by other agencies, if warranted, in the event of a cyber intrusion, fire wall breach or other cyber attack. b. These should include coordination with key third party vendors. Many basic services within the LAC are provided by third party vendors. The Metropolitan Water District and California Edison are two (2) examples.
• R4

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  The LAC Board of Supervisors should task their lobbyist in Sacramento and Washington with looking at opportunities to redirect fees and taxes on land line phones, cell phones or internet access services to provide funding allocated to the support high tech forensics, cyber security and forensic examination programs
• R5

  Page 53
  LAC and the City of Los Angeles establish a "High Tech Endowed Badge Program” to support the training and equipping of FE and CI throughout local law enforcement. Initially, establishment of eight (8) EBs could be evaluated. Setting up five (5) EBs by the LAC Board of Supervisors District one for each Supervisorial District; and setting up three (3) EBs by the City of Los Angeles one for each of the Proprietary Departments (Department Of Water and Power, the Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles International Airport (LAWA)) for a total of eight (8) EBs. Funding Training through an Endowed Badge – A Concept Borrowing a concept from the University system, the CGJ believes there is a future in establishing, within law enforcement, a High Tech Forensics Examination – Cyber Investigations – Cyber Security Endowed Badges Program. If possible, these could be “named” endowed badges (EB). It is in the interest of business to have a safe City/County in which to do business. There may be interest from many sectors to participate in this EB public private partnership. 44 2010-2011 LOS ANGELES COUNTY CIVIL GRAND JURY