Senators OK $1 billion for online child porn fight

A U.S. Senate panel has unanimously approved a bill that would encourage federal, state, and local police to use and create special software designed to nab child pornography swappers on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to send an amended version of the Combating Child Exploitation Act, chiefly sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), to the full slate of politicians for a vote.

All told, the bill would allocate more than $1 billion over the next eight years for a broad array of efforts aimed at tackling Internet crimes against children. It calls for hiring 250 new federal agents at the FBI, the Immigrations and Custom Enforcement Agency, and the U.S. Postal Service dedicated to child exploitation cases; for beefing up personnel, equipment, and educational programs designed to combat Internet crimes against children; and for creating new forensics laboratories if the attorney general deems it necessary to deal with a "backlog" of online child exploitation cases.

"We need to give law enforcement the funds and the tools to pull the plug on Internet predators," Biden said in a statement.

An amendment adopted Thursday also adds new sections to the original bill that would rewrite existing child pornography laws. One section is designed to make it clear that live Webcam broadcasts of child abuse are illegal, which the bill's authors argue is an "open question." Another change is aimed at closing another perceived loophole, prohibiting digital alteration of an innocent image of a child so that sexually explicit activity is instead depicted.

It's unclear whether the changes are necessary. The Justice Department in the past, for instance, has netted guilty pleas in cases related to live Webcam recordings involving minors engaged in sexual acts.

The bill's passage follows a hearing last month at which Biden and other senators suggested they saw considerable promise in software designed to detect child pornography sources--specifically a tool called "Operation Fairplay." The so-called "comprehensive computer infrastructure" was developed two years ago by Special Agent Flint Waters in the Wyoming Attorney General's Office, where the system is still housed, and is currently being used by online child exploitation investigators nationwide.

The bill approved Thursday allocates $2 million for the attorney general to build upon that software by creating a "National Internet Crimes Against Children Data System," which would make information about ongoing cases--particularly high-priority ones--accessible to investigators nationwide and coordinate development of new software tools designed to detect alleged child predators in real time.

Through the existing Fairplay system, investigators log onto peer-to-peer file-sharing networks as any other person would and search for files containing certain keywords that are likely to indicate child pornography is involved. Then they download files--frequently videos, sometimes as long as 20 to 30 minutes, with names like "children kiddy underage illegal.mpg" and much more obscene--to their own machines. The Fairplay software allows the investigator to obtain the IP address of the file's sender and, in some cases, display its geographic location in map form.

Once armed with an IP address and date and time of the download, investigators can subpoena the Internet service provider for more information, such as name and address of the subscriber who was assigned it at that moment. It's not clear whether any wiretaps are also conducted to monitor ongoing file-swapping.

Through that process, investigators have identified more than 600,000 unique computers allegedly trafficking in child pornography and traced them to the United States. But Biden and others have voiced dismay that they're only equipped with the resources to investigate about 2 percent of those potential cases.

[RipR35]

$1 billion for Child Porn and $80 billion for the Drug War. Misplaced priorities? I think so.

[ReVeLaTeD]

I don't.

Drugs kill people. As perverse as child porn is, it doesn't kill anyone.

[pmfjoe]

I'll agree with ReVeLaTeD while I understand the problems associated with child porn and think the makers should end up in jail for a long long long time, I have personally seen many many more lives affected, damaged, or destroyed by illegal drugs.

[Sir Geek]

Why not spend $ 1 Billion to find the cause of why people LIKE child porn in the 1st place and try to fix the cause instead of the symptom ?

Or does that make too much sense in the long run ?

[PzkwVIb]

Oh great, another "It's for the CHILDREN initiative." Rather then solving real, relevant and and pervasive problems, politicians take the political cheap shot. I have the feeling that the amount of kiddy porn out there is minuscule compared to all of the other problems Congress should be solving. Bravo! The Senate once again proves itself to be full of gutless political hacks.

[yacahuma]

Again , no one here seem to care about the actual children. Drug users do it because the want to. I am pretty sure kids are force to this. I will put 80 billion fightting kid porn and let the drug users die.

[unknown unknown]

Drugs kill people, but then so do legal substances like tobacco and alcohol. Besides with regard to drugs, people usually have a choice whether to stat using them or not. As for the war on drugs, it's a sick joke. I have no doubt congress like these bills because tough on child predators is the latest rage. Unlike the drugs, children don't get a choice and results can lead to behavioral problems, depression, and suicide among others. There are cases were the child has been killed buy their abuser.

[richto]

I guess you have never heard of Lolita then.

[Pete Bardo]

Sound a lot like the RIAA program to find copyrighted material offered for free download illegally. This whole scheme could be taken down by file sharers misleadingly naming files "illegal child porn.mpg". Or name them "Illegal copy of music by the artist formerly known as Prince.mp4".

Then we'll be paying agents to watch kiddie-porn. Maybe some of the predators could get jobs there--they know what to look for!

[humanssssss]

Disclaimer:
These are my opinions. If you don't like it. Don't read. I am not responsible for any actions or damage as a result to my opinions. Don't blame me if you read what I have to say. You have every right to do something else beside reading my opinions.

Americans are obsess with restricting sex. From making prostitution illegal to revoke the rights of an individual to view child pornography to the ability of an individual to alter image to suggest child pornography. Why do we prohibit these 1st amendment right that everyone wants so much? Because we are idiots. When it comes to hurt you, then you will realize these laws are as stupid as the people who wanted it to be enacted.

My position is this. Viewing and possessing child pornography should not be criminalize. The people who make child pornography through use of non-consensual means should be prosecuted for the crime of forcing children to have sex. But if the children consent, I don't see the harm in this.

Sex to many Americans are something of a taboo. If you were to go to other part of the countries which has more people than the US, they have sex even as young as 10 years old. Do they think child pornography is illegal? Doubt it.

The age that the law consider a child is 18. Kids go through puberty at 12 now a day. Unlike 10 years ago, kids go through puberty at 14. Laws should take into consideration science more specifically evolution. Many law makers and many people never took a Biology class. That's why we have stupid laws. Laws that only cater to the mob that "think" they know best when in actuality, they are hypocrites when the laws are on them, and they go on a crusade to change the law.

[RipR35]

TO ReVeLaTeD & pmfjoe:

And how does the drug war prevent drug deaths? Actually it causes more deaths than it prevents. Crack & Meth are a direct result of the drug war.
Prohibition leads to stronger and more dangerous drugs. It has never proven to reduce supply or demand. Cocaine, crack, meth and herion is of higher quality and cheaper today then at any time in the history of the "War on Drugs".
Drugs are a choice, being a victim of child porn is not.
You need to get your head around this issue before you spout off. Your comments are a sad commentary on a generation who's heads are full of propaganda.

[paulej]

Boy, this one sure did get people going I guess we all have our opinions. The government should not be telling me to wear a seat belt, that I can't walk down the street drunk, or that I cannot sit at home and smoke pot. The government passes laws that supposedly everybody wants. (To be clear, I do not drink, smoke pot, and I choose to wear my seatbelt.) User "humanssssss" tries to make a good point in regard to how our society is a bit strange. While I find it hard to believe that the age of puberty has changed over the past 10 years (just seems like an impossible change on the evolutionary scale), just 150 years ago our society was more accepting of people marrying at much younger ages. Heck, 2000 years ago "great men" were 20 years old. Most charges are artificial. Worse, laws often go too far. It just amazes me that people in America can be put in jail for letting their children drink wine when it is a part of society in many countries. Oddly, one cannot buy a beer until age 21, yet at 18 they can be sent to war with a powerful weapon. In some states, if an 18 year old "man" has sex with his 17 year girlfriend, he is guilty of being a child sex offender. Lawmakers had good intentions, but they created broken laws. And, while I do believe we should take steps to protect children, we need $1B to search on-line web sites? I could hire a huge number of people and put them to task every year with that much money. Or, we can just hire a few "experts" we have already jailed to find it for us! I support any effort to curb child porn, but somebody is wasting too much money. And $80B on drugs is definitely insane. Heck, make the drugs legal and then we can control them. Drug seller/dealers would no longer be a problem. Associated crime (e.g., theft to buy drugs) would plummet. Remember, when the government authorizes use of such money, that this is your money. If you appreciate that, I guess you appreciate paying higher taxes all the time as we also see our wages falling and the value of the US dollar falling. I believe we need to be a little more cautious with such spending, especially right now.

[loserguy3000]

I'm not supporting dissemination of child pornography here, but consider this. The courts have found repeatedly and without fail that downloading child porn for 'research purposes' does not constitute a valid or legal reason to obtain or otherwise view such material.

With the Operation Fairplay software, a government agent would then have to actively download the alleged file in order to determine its validity. Its not as though it was randomly obtained, or the result of a legal subpoena. This implies that in order to even consider a crime, a crime must be perpetrated in order to indicate a crime has taken place.

Again, if a DoJ or otherwise sanctioned officer is allowed to download and view child porn without explicit permission to do so (which is prohibited under current law), what legal ramifications would this have for others hoping to study the epidemic? Scholars? Psychologists?

[rsnic]

They gotta stop appropriating money out of thin air, this will add to the inflation of the US money supply(already out of control) and pedophiles will adapt quickly. They might as well burn the money.

[Dr. Kardasz]

Supporting the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007

Dr. Frank Kardasz, May 17, 2008

The Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007 will provide funding to fight Internet sex offenders in areas where support is desperately needed. Historically, the success of the DOJ, OJP, ICAC Task Force program was due in part to the abilities of personnel at the local, state and federal levels to overcome egoism, empire-building, and jealousy in order to organize and cooperate towards the common goal of apprehending deviant offenders. Since the programs' inception, some quietly dedicated and talented people who possess steadfast resolve to protect children have done some amazing work, mostly in the shadows of cyberspace and largely unnoticed by the community. Administrators at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention played an important role in these efforts.

My thoughts about the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007 are mixed. It represents bright hope towards progress in our difficult endeavors against clandestine cyber-sex enemies, foreign and domestic. If implemented, the Act will seek justice for those invisible child and teen victims who are marginalized; who have no political voice and who are unrecognized by traditional community based policing efforts. The addition of more federal agents dedicated specifically to this battle is sorely needed. Increased funding to the local ICAC Task Forces nationwide promises to permit more personnel, training and equipment to our understaffed, under trained and under equipped colleagues.

When the US Attorneys Office created Project Safe Childhood a couple years ago, I was pleased to see that added attention was being given to the problem of Internet crimes against children. The predictable result of the increased attention included some inter agency jockeying, bruised feelings, and political maneuvering - that happens at every level of government. After the fallout, the law enforcement soldiers in this battle will regroup and press forward.

The fine work of local, state and federal law enforcement over the past ten years has resulted in enough attention being drawn to the subject that serious consideration is finally being given to horrible cybercrimes involving children. Although our numbers and resources are still far fewer that those of the criminals, the present initiative, the Combating Child Exploitation Act (S.1738), offers our best hope to date of progressing from the stone-age to the horse-drawn-carriage age of cybercrime enforcement.

Assuming that the bill passes the house and is approved, I hope that whoever is chosen as special counsel will be a non-partisan supporter of local, state and federal efforts. The position requires a person of high character and determined resolve. The appointee should transcend political ladder-climbing ambitions and be someone deeply rooted in law enforcement. The appointee should remember that although the power-base will be Washington DC, some of the most effective law enforcement efforts are still being made at the state and local levels nationwide.

It is important to remember that federal law does not grant enforcement responsibility for "hands-on" contact sex offenses to federal agents unless there is some interstate nexus. Because many cyber criminals are also contact offenders the investigations must often be worked cooperatively between federal agents and local law enforcement. The important local, state and federal partnerships established through the DOJ OJJDP ICAC Task Force Program must continue.

I support the initiative and hope that it passes.

see also : http://kardasz.org/blog/2008/04/investigating_internet_crimes_2.html

Information about the Child Exploitation Act of 2007: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?tab=main&bill=s110-1738

[johnalphonse]

Children will eat candy until their teeth rot out too. An undeveloped mind needs, requires the guidance of adult, developed minds. Cultures that do not see this need are not very enlightened or advanced as evidenced by several other of their practices. And just because an entire culture agreed upon something doesn't make it right. You are in effect saying that killing Jews during WWII or ANYONE else in a similar was okay as long as the entire culture within agreed upon it.

You are definitely free to express your own, opposite opinion on this - and I applaud you for publicly displaying your own ignorance! Sincerely, thank you!

[johnalphonse]

1) Senators would love us to think that the INTERNET is the place where child porn was born, for creep's sake! They would love to draw the attention away from themselves and the CATHOLIC AND OTHER RELIGIOUS PRIESTS who have been destroying lives for their own pleasure and means. You are showing your lack of understanding of this situation to actually condone child sex abuse, and it is disappointing to see this level of ignorance in the year 2008. PUT THE BILLION into other OFF-LINE programs, because this is total HORSE TURD to BLAME THE INTERNET when this activity has been gong on for centuries behind closed doors IN THE REAL WORLD, in YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD and maybe even in your own house and you have no idea. *Where was the billion to help out when priests in Portland, MAINE at Cheverus High School and in BOSTON were outed? Those who exposed the pedophiles and abusers of young high-school boys were ostracized, minimized, ignored and scorned. What a sick shame. Some people related to politics actually ran to the aid of a 30-year teacher/coach who was a perpetrator and DELIBERATELY tried to flush kids' lives down the tooilet if they didn't respond favorably to his advances. This is all FACT and I will back every single word of it. My name is not hidden, go for it, Google me if you are able stand the truth.

2) Children will eat candy until their teeth rot out too. An undeveloped mind needs, requires the guidance of adult, developed minds. Cultures that do not see this need are not very enlightened or advanced as evidenced by several other of their practices. And just because an entire culture agreed upon something doesn't make it right. You are in effect saying that killing Jews during WWII or ANYONE else in a similar was okay as long as the entire culture within agreed upon it.

You are definitely free to express your own, opposite opinion on this - and I applaud you for publicly displaying your own ignorance! Sincerely, thank you!

3) Rape is not about sex; child sex abuse is NOT about sex. People still don't seem to reailze this, so I'm asking you all to do some real-life research and start talking to those whose lives hve been damaged by the psychological and physical intimidation that accompanies these behaviors. The we as a humanity can act correctly and positively toward change.

[johnalphonse]

the level of ignorance in these blog comments is also alarming and people with no experience with sexual abuse ought to opt out and start doing some reading and discussing.

[chuck_whealton]

I have to say that it makes me ill reading some of these comments where people are saying it's a waste of money to fight scum who take advantage of children.

Then, we have one guy who thinks it's flat out alright, as long as they (children) agree?

What a sad world. I'm glad they're going to allocate the funding and I hope they allocate more.

[hal Summers]

I believe steps should be taken to protect children from those sick bastards who would prey on them. My brother-in-law used to work with the FBI in apprehending these people. More often then not they would be looking to meet an underage kid for sex. It was more than just looking at sick pictures.

The drug war is a different story. This is money wasted and the government is only spending so much because the law enforcement and prison lobby pushes so hard to it. That $80 billion dollars is going into someone's pocket. I would imagine that the drug cartels and gangs would also not want to see that drug war end because that would be the end of THEIR profits. Do people die from drugs? Of course. Have you ever heard of Vioxx?

If just hemp were legal we could create ethanol from it and be off foreign oil. It uses no pesticides, fertilizer and little water. It is a weed, after all. Plus, the oxygen created by the growing plant would help counteract climate change. And if pot were legal a lot of people could get off expensive and far more dangerous drugs. But why aren't these things legal? Too many people--the oil companies, law enforcement, and big pharma--would lose too much money.

Protecting children should be the government's job. Protecting the profits of big business should not.