Attorney General gets tough about Child Porn

was elated to see that such high ranking officials are cracking down on internet porn and solicitation of sex online. Do you think officials are currently doing enough to predators? I think the severity of online crimes are just now starting to take precedent. Its great though that NCMEC's Cybertipline is so involed in catching predators, hopefully they will inform the public just how serious this is.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192523,00.html

Gonzales Says ISPs Are Blocking Efforts to Combat Child Pornography
Thursday , April 20, 2006

WASHINGTON Attorney General Alberto Gonzales used strikingly graphic language Thursday to focus attention on online child pornography and said Internet services companies are not doing enough to combat the problem.

"It is graphic, but if we do not talk candidly, then it is easy for people to turn away and worry about other matters," Gonzales said in a speech at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.

Acknowledging that his descriptions could make people uncomfortable, Gonzales said he wanted to make sure people knew what was going on.

"I have seen pictures of older men forcing naked young girls to have anal sex. There are videos on the Internet of very young daughters forced to have intercourse and oral sex with their fathers. Viewing this was shocking and it makes my stomach turn," said Gonzales, who was accompanied by his wife, Rebecca.

It was their second visit to the center, created in 1984 as a clearinghouse for information about missing and exploited children.

Ernie Allen, the center's president, said many Americans continue to hold mistaken impressions of the issue. "We hear all the time that this is really just adult porn, 20-year-olds in pigtails made to look like they're 15," Allen said. "This is about children being sexually victimized. They're young children and they're getting younger."

Without identifying companies, Gonzales said some investigations have been hampered by the failure of Internet service providers to retain certain records long enough to help authorities identify purveyors of child pornography. He did not propose a remedy Thursday.

But he did support tripling the criminal fines for companies that fail to report apparent violations of child pornography laws ? to $150,000 for the first instance and $300,000 for subsequent failures.

The Justice Department has never written regulations establishing standards on how to report illegal activities or mandating how long records must be kept.

Kate Dean, director of the United States Internet Service Provider Association, said AOL, Earthlink, BellSouth, Verizon and other association members "currently have robust policies in place to ensure that law enforcement can obtain the information they need to prosecute child pornographers."

Dean said the companies would welcome a discussion with Gonzales on the issue.

The Internet companies last year made 34,939 reports to the missing children center, which forwards them to law enforcement authorities, said Michelle Collins, director of the center's exploited children unit.

Last week alone, there were 938 reports, Collins said.

"Several people a week are being arrested somewhere in the country because of information provided by an electronic service provider," she said.

The Justice Department was criticized recently by a victim of child pornography, who said investigators were acting too slowly on information he provided on 1,500 pedophiles. Justin Berry testified to Congress in early April that he starred in his own Web cam child pornography business for five years.

"I believed that the government would protect the children being abused. I believed they would act quickly," Berry, now 19, told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "I was wrong."

Gonzales and other officials have declined to discuss Berry's case and resulting investigations, but they have pointed to a threefold increase in federal prosecutions of child pornography and abuse cases nationally over the past decade.

 

I'd put Lorena Bobbitt in charge of sentencing of those found guilty; that should help some.

 

There would be NO plea bargains made for shortened sentences.

 

I just hope they dont use this as the stepping stone to start censoring the net

 

I think that they need to have a way to track down pedophiles and predators. I don't think that there should be "censorship" on the internet but at the same time i think that illegal activity should not be tolerated. Organizations such as Cybertipline and police officials should have a way to track down these perverts and put them behind bars. Just because you are on a computer doesn't give you the right to harass small children.

 

Halo, its great to see that the UK has a similar agency as Cybertipline for the US. Child porn and online predators are a worldwide problem. Its great that other countries are joining in the fight against these perverts!

 

Yeh let the liberals screw the country up for a change,they'v not had a turn for a while

IMO if you go to live in someone elses country and are convicted of a crime crime you should be deported immediately and your assets used to pay for your conviction and deportation

 

Well this is great news!!! How about this for the perverts being sentenced and the court system cracking down on these types of crime!!

KENNETH R. JOHNSON, 46, of Williamsville, Missouri, was sentenced to a total of 60 years imprisonment on two felony counts of production of child pornography (30 years consecutive on each count), one felony count of transportation of child pornography (20 years concurrent), and one felony count of possession of child pornography (10 years concurrent). Upon release from prison, Johnson will be placed on supervised release for life. He appeared before U.S. District Judge Rodney W. Sippel on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 in Cape Girardeau.

Previously with his plea, Johnson admitted that on May 22, 2004, he transported ten images of child pornography to his Yahoo! Briefcase using his laptop computer and hard drive. Law enforcement officials were notified of the postings through a Cyber Tip received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Many of the images involved prepubescent children engaged in various sexual acts with adults. Johnson transported these images over the Internet through the use of his computer. In addition, Johnson admitted that on or about June 21 and July 25, 2004, he took photographs of children under the age of twelve engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Finally, on June 21, 2005, a search warrant was executed at Johnson’s residence and his laptop computer was found to contain more than 600 images of child pornography, including images involving sadistic or masochistic conduct. For example, more than one image involved the sexual penetration of prepubescent minor females by adult males, as well as images of young girls and boys, and even infants, performing fellatio on adult males.

Hanaway stated, “The sixty year sentence in this case demonstrates the severity of child pornography related crimes. With all the good that comes from the information superhighway, the internet provides opportunity for easy access to pornographic images of children. Often the identities of child pornography victims are unknown, nevertheless, the children in the graphic images have been sexually victimized and assaulted. In this case, the serious nature of the offense is compounded by the fact that the defendant not only transported and possessed images of child pornography, but also produced them.”
Hanaway commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the Regional Computer Crimes Education and Enforcement Group, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as well as the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department and Juvenile Office for their combined efforts to prosecute this case. Wayne County Prosecutor Jon A. Kiser prepared the state search warrant involved in this case. Assistant United States Attorney Abbie Crites-Leoni handled the prosecution for the Government.

 

I wish that ALL porn sites ended with.xxx and that it was illeagle to redirect a search to those addresses. let the ones who want to look at porn view it but change it where my kids are not confronted with it while doing a simple search for other information! child pornography must stop!!! But realisticaly it never will! hope they burn in Hell!!!!

 

Google would be out of business in a week