Web Police Legal Authority and Powers

Below you will find a copy of a document just recently de-linked from the International Web Police site after they received a notification from the State of Florida about their claims. An archived copy for verification purposes can be found at Archive.Org by clicking on the provided link.

Below you will find a copy of the assumed powers of the International Web Police according to one Peter Hampton et al.

My inline comments can be seen in red italics.

Web Police Legal Authority

Authorization and Powers

Internationally accepted requirements for a Police Agency to be officially recognized as having Police authority and powers vary from country to country.

The generally accepted rules for determining a valid Police Agency are:

The agency must have been formed for the sole purpose of providing Police related services to the community it serves.

The Internet is a properly recognized community and governed by International laws?

The agency must be lead by staff and officers with sufficient knowledge and experience to provide its officers with the training and leadership required to serve the community.

What sufficiently qualified officers with knowledge and experience do they refer to?

The agency must not require payment of fees to assist victims of crime.

See further below for responses to this one.

The agency must always act in the best interests of the community it serves.

Agreed, it should which means that it should be staffed by properly screened and qualified individuals and serious crime reports should be forwarded immediately to the proper agencies without upto a 3 month or more delay.

The agency must always be available to the citizens of the community it serves.

If you call a web site 'available' then I imagine every web site on the Internet could qualify under that part.

The agency must be familiar with the laws and customs of the community it serves.

Unless the International Web Police have a library of law books for every country and state in the world then it can only be assumed that they are not familiar with all laws.

The agency must be staffed with Officers who live within the community they serve.

In order to be truly international it would require an Officer from at least every country and state on the planet.

The agency must be familiar with the traditions and moral values of the community it serves.

They may be familiar with some of them but the obvious question would be, Do they observe them or follow them?

The agency must have the staff, resources, and equipment to protect the community it serves.

Considering they claim to be the largest Internet Police Authority in the world they currently have 1 web server hosted by Verio.Net, no known resources except a chat room, web sites and access to e-mail and a few computers. Their International headquarters is ran from out of Peter Hampton's rented apartment in Land O Lakes, Florida.

The agency must be recognized as a Law Enforcement Agency, by a Law Enforcement Agency within a Country and/or by the Government of a Country, whose authority is already recognized.

We have yet to find a recognized law enforcement agency within the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia or anywhere else for that matter that is prepared to say that they recognize the International Web Police. They also fail to provide a list of any that might recognize them or endorse any of their services.

The International Web Police meet and exceed all of these requirements
and is internationally recognized as the Official Police Agency on the Internet.

They do? Where? When? How?

If you are interested in learning if your local Police or the Government of your country supports Web Police efforts to protect you, please contact them directly.

We did that and contacted many more of them, most of them had never even heard of the International Web Police and those that had claimed not to recognize them, didn't have a good word to say about them or warned me that they had no known legal authority and should not be considered as genuine.

International Web Police
Summary of Qualifications

Requirement #1. The agency must have been formed for the sole purpose of providing Police related services to the community it serves.

Qualification: The International Web Police was founded April 15, 1986. It was founded for no other purpose than to protect every citizen of the Internet Community. For over 16 years, Web Police has been devoted to, and effective in, addressing every conceivable criminal activity on the Internet.

Nobody has ever been able to establish this as a fact and no traces of International Web Police activity can be found on the Internet before Feb 1997 when the domain name web-police.org was first registered. See earliest archived sites at Archive.Org

Domain ID:D1850763-LROR
Domain Name:WEB-POLICE.ORG
Created On:24-Feb-1997 05:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:20-Oct-2003 23:48:52 UTC
Expiration Date:25-Feb-2009 05:00:00 UTC

On being directly asked for proof of existance before 1997, all questions addressed to Peter Hampton the President of the International Web Police were evaded. I can only conclude from my research that they have only been in existance since 1998 and the above claims by the International Web Police are untrue and designed to mislead the public. Please feel free to write to him yourself and ask the same question. Email to: director@web-police.org

Requirement #2. The agency must be lead by staff and officers with sufficient knowledge and experience to provide its officers with the training and leadership required to serve the community.

Many of their staff are minors less than 18 years of age. Their site claims that they are staffed with sworn law enforcement officers as well as properly trained volunteers. It neglects to mention that the few real law enforcement officers they did attract all bailed out very quickly and the day to day operations are run by untrained and incompetent volunteers and children.

The above also fails to state that the International Web Police are also staffed by convicted criminals and Peter Hampton himself claims to have a criminal record. Peter Hampton who is the self appointed President of the International Web Police is an individual and not a law enforcement officer. He is reported to be a 61 year old retired construction worker and ex Sears store security guard who claims to have a criminal record. Peter Hampton also according to his daughter Barbara, lives off Social Security checks.

Qualification: The staff and officers of the International Web Police have been dealing directly with Internet crime longer than any other agency in the world. Their many years of experience and training qualifies them as the worlds leading authority on Internet crime.

As many of their members who were never properly screened have criminal convictions I can well believe that they have much direct experience with crime. However I fail to see how this is helpful to the public and victims of crime.

The above also refers to years of training and experience, in fact it takes no more than a few minutes to complete their training which mainly consists of obvious and easy multiple choice questions about chat rooms.

Peter Hampton was once seen to congratulate one of his own staff members on winning a large sum of money in an email lottery which required an up front fee to collect the money, without realising that it was little more than an advanced fee scam.

Requirement #3. The agency must not require payment of fees to assist victims of crime.

Qualification: The International Web Police has never, and will never, charge fee's, surcharges, commission fee's, costs, taxes, levy's, or require a payment in any other form for their services to any citizen of the Internet community. Large corporations and organizations requesting dedicated police services may be charged a fee to cover any additional costs beyond normal expenses.

They claim not to charge fees yet will accept paypal and all major credit cards for their services. They claim not to charge costs and immediately contradict themselves with the bolded text and also disqualify themselves under #3. They regularly send out letters requesting donations to continue to provide their services, see here.

You can sign up at http://igwpnet.securesites.net/mailman/listinfo/webpolice-news-service to join their public mailing list to receive further examples of their above begging letters. Although it claims to be a free public newsletter they do not mention that visitors to this site are denied access to any of their newsletters.

Almost every page on their web sites solicits for donations, gifts and free services. The International Web Police / InterGOV or any of their other pseudo official agencies are not legally registered as not for profit or charitable status in the State of Florida and are therefore not in my opinion operating legally.

Requirement #4. The agency must always act in the best interests of the community it serves.

Qualification: The International Web Police is made up of staff and officers from countries around the world whose only purpose is to serve in the best interests of their community.

Staffing the agencies with convicted criminals, incompetents and untrained staff is certainly not my idea of acting in the best interest of any community, unless of course he means the criminal community. Surely this should state "The International Web Police is made up of convicted criminals and staff from countries around the world including Palestine"

Requirement #5. The agency must always be available to the citizens of the community it serves.

Qualification: The International Web Police has staff and officers available to the community every day, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. Every citizen of the Internet community is provided a complete selection of open lines of communication to an officer who can assist them. Citizens may select any of many varied forms of contact, ranging from e-mail, instant messaging, private messaging, pagers, cell phones, fax lines up to and including, one on one personal contact by phone, chat rooms and in person.

Victims of crime who visit their chat rooms are often ill advised or ridiculed and usually kicked out. Those that they do supposedly help are directed to a page with an invalid secure (SSL) certificate to fill out a crime report. Those asking for an update on a previously reported crime are told that crimes will not be discussed with them and usually have to wait several months for a response if they are even lucky enough to get one.

People reporting ebay, paypal or similar scams have absolutely no chance as most things must be resolved within 30 days or you lose the right to redress. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been lost by people reporting fraud cases to the International Web Police?

Requirement #6. The agency must be familiar with the laws and customs of the community it serves.

Qualification: The only method to accomplish this requirement is to actually have staff and officers living in, and familiar with the laws, customs, traditions, moral, and religious values of every country that utilizes the Internet. The International Web Police has active officers in 61 countries and Law Enforcement contacts who assist us, in over 100 additional countries. They provide the guidance and assistance needed to protect the citizens of their communities.

Looking at their current members list they have a few people from the USA, a couple from Canada, a couple from the UK, a couple from Palestine and maybe one or two from elsewhere, but nowhere near the 61 countries they claim or state in the above.

Requirement #7. The agency must be staffed with Officers who live within the community they serve.

Qualification: See qualification #6 above.

Commented on above.

Requirement #8. The agency must be familiar with the traditions and moral values of the community it serves.

Qualification: See qualification #6 above.

Unless traditions or morals in some countries are to make knowingly false reports about individuals to the Police or their web hosts or to subscribe me to Penis enlargement mailing lists and other junk mailing lists, then I can only assume that they have little or no comprehension of these morals which they speak about.

Requirement #9. The agency must have the staff, resources, and equipment to protect the community it serves.

Qualification: The International Web Police has spent over 16 years acquiring the necessary staff, resources, and equipment needed to undertake the enormous task of protecting over 500 million men, women, and children. Their lives and safety depends on our ability to perform our duties. No other agency in the world has the combination of resources that is available to us.

As it is 2004 now and their web site full of outlandish claims first appeared in 1997 I find it difficult to see how the maths works out for 16 years. I would be interested to know just how these 500 million men, women and children's lives are protected by the International Web Police. We have as yet been unable to establish how people that have never even heard of these bogus agencies are being protected by a handful of individuals who have often been known to impersonate real Police officers.

They have a small handful of children and untrained volunteers, a web server to host their pseudo official sites on, an IRC chat room and presumably each member of their group has a computer yet feel justified to claim that no other agency in the world have the same resources that are available to them. Have they never heard of the FBI? or various computer crime departments?

Requirement #10. The agency must be recognized as a Law Enforcement Agency, by a Law Enforcement Agency within a Country and/or by the Government of a Country, whose authority is already recognized.

Qualification: Through the years, hundreds of Police and Government agencies from around the world, have recognized the International Web police as the Official Police agency on the Internet. Web Police Officers have worked hand in hand with Police agencies and their Officers in virtually every country. Providing a list of all these agencies and Officers would be in direct violation of the strict confidentiality agreement we have agreed to honor.

Every Police agency we have thus far contacted has either never heard of the International Web Police, does not recognize them in any official capacity or has little good to say about the. As for confidentiality agreements, no Police agency requires a confidentiality agreement of recognition or why have recognition in the first place?

I can only conclude that this is an outright lie and Peter Hampton has yet to name one Police agency that recognizes him officially let alone the hundreds he mentions above. Confidentiality agreements are required only when discussing crimes which may be jeapordized by being public knowledge and are not required for official recognition or endorsement purposes.

Many Police departments work together on International crime cases and it is no secret that this takes place or which departments are involved in joint operations. Why would it need to be confidential if as Peter Hampton claims that the International Web Police are officially recognized by all these hundreds of law enforcement agencies?

If you are interested in learning if your local Police or the Government of your country supports Web Police efforts to protect you, please contact them directly.

We have long been interested and have written many enquiries to Police and Government agencies only to discover that nobody appears to recognize the International Web Police in any official capacity, unless of course all of these agencies are honor bound by the strict confidentiality agreement that Peter Hampton refers to above, not to mention their association with the International Web Police.

It is my belief that he invites people to contact their local Police to make the reader believe that there is little point in contacting them as the International Web Police are official and would not make such an offer if they were not. A double bluff that has long been effective in misleading the general public.

This information is openly provided to the public so they may make
an informed decision on the authenticity of the International Web Police,
and if they wish to utilize any of the many services we provide.

The information provided is in my opiion provided with the purpose of deceiving the public as any additional questions about their official status or claims are evaded. Please feel free to write to Peter Hampton directly with any of your concerns or questions to see if you can elicit a a straight answer to a straight question.

To email Peter Hampton directly: Director@Web-Police.Org We would also be interested to see his responses to any questions you may have asked.

Replies and comments to author of this article can be directed to admin@web-police-warning.com

Apparently the State of Florida did not believe his outlandish claims either and sent Florida, International Web Police members an official letter stating their concerns about Police impersonation, misleading the public and investigating without a license. [1] - [2] - [3] - [4] - [5] - [6]

The enlarged images are a scan of the official letter that they received outlining concerns about the way in which they portray themselves to the public. If the above manifesto of authority and powers the International Web Police saw fit to publish was in fact true, then it is highly unlikely that they would ever have received such an official letter from the State of Florida. One can only assume that their above claims to official status and authority are completely *untrue*, but we will however let the reader draw their own conclusions from the verifiable facts.