The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held two hearings this week on the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet. Tuesday’s hearing examined how the Internet has made children vulnerable to this form of exploitation; Thursday’s hearing focused on prosecution efforts by federal, state, and local law enforcement.
April 4 Hearing
In his opening remarks, Chair Ed Whitfield (R-KY) said that “with the growing use of the Internet, the number of child predators who seek to make, distribute and view images of children being sexually abused continues to skyrocket. This is primarily due to the anonymity, accessibility and ease with which child predators can operate on the Internet…The scope of this growing problem is astounding. This is a despicable practice that must be stopped.”
Ranking Member Bart Stupak (D-MI) agreed, adding, “Hopefully, this hearing will reduce the unmonitored use of web cameras, picture phones and other equipment that enable these people to prey on and abuse our children…The darkest side of the Internet can invade any home in America. Parents and their children must themselves be increasingly vigilant in the absence of real resources for law enforcement and real actions by Internet providers.”
The panel heard testimony from Justin Berry, who began his own child pornography website six years ago at the age of 13. His story was profiled in The New York Times by reporter Kurt Eichenwald who also appeared before the subcommittee. They explained how Justin was manipulated by the men he thought were his “friends,” and how he came to free himself from a life of “drugs, money, and sex.” With Mr. Eichenwald’s assistance, Justin went to authorities with information about the men he had been in contact with and also about other children operating sites like his own. He expressed dismay with the results: “I believed the government would protect the children being abused. I believed they would act quickly. I was wrong…I wish I could say the prosecution story had a happy ending. It did not.” Adding that some sexual predators “could not get arrested even if they tried,” Mr. Eichenwald and Justin urged Congress to do everything they could to ensure that children who use the Internet are protected from sexual exploitation.
Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), explained that social networking sites, such as MySpace, have been used by sexual predators to target teens and younger children: “They can use the information posted by children to pretend to be someone with shared interests, then develop a ‘cyber-relationship’ that can lead to that child being victimized. The number of reports involving online journals received by our CyberTipline has increased. In recent years, many kids were using their e-mail profiles and chat rooms in a similar fashion to share their hobbies and interests and make ‘friends.’ However, those forums didn’t have nearly the same implications as the social networking sites given the enormous universe of users.” Pointing out that child pornography has become a $20 billion industry, Mr. Allen said that the NCMEC would work with federal, state, local and international law enforcement to increase criminal prosecutions by increasing the risk and eliminating the profitability of maintaining child pornography websites.
April 6 Hearing
Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Mercer said that the Department of Justice had recently announced Project Safe Neighborhood, an initiative “aimed at combating the growing threat of children being exploited online through child pornography and enticement offers. As this initiative begins to be implemented in the coming months, it will provide for even better coordination by law enforcement at all levels in investigating and prosecuting child exploitation cases; it will enable us to bring even more federal prosecutions in this area; it will make more training available for officers and prosecutors; and it will further ongoing community education and awareness efforts.” He also noted that the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) provides training and other assistance to help state attorneys general to investigate and prosecute child exploitation cases. Finally, Mr. Mercer highlighted the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force program, which “helps state and local law enforcement agencies develop an effective response to cyber enticement and child pornography cases. The help consists of forensic and investigative components, training and technical assistance, victim services, and community education.” Explaining that the program had received 198,883 complaints of Internet crimes against children in FY2005, he said that in the first six months of that year, ICAC investigations resulted in 3,423 state charges and 563 federal charges.
Chris Swecker, acting executive assistant director of the FBI, summarized the Innocent Images National Initiative whose operations “involve FBI agents working online in an undercover capacity to seek child predators and individuals responsible for the production, dissemination, and possession of child abuse images…Between fiscal year 1996 and 2005, there has been a 2050% increase in cases opened (113 to 2500). During this ten-year period, the program has recorded over 15,556 cases opened; 4,784 criminals being charged; 6,145 subjects being arrested; and 4,822 convictions obtained.” He also noted that in 2005, the FBI, CEOS, and NCMEC collaborated on the Innocence Lost National Initiative to address child prostitution: “Investigations are manpower intensive, intelligence driven and make use of sophisticated investigative techniques such as Title III wiretaps. To date, five FBI field offices have utilized Title III wiretaps in these investigations. As a result, since FY2004, 166 cases were opened, 28 criminal enterprises disrupted, 16 enterprises dismantled, 101 individuals indicted, 75 subjects convicted and 80 seizures claimed. Since the inception of Innocence Lost, over 300 children have been removed” from prostitution enterprises.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Department of Homeland Security said that Operation PREDATOR “coordinates enforcement efforts against child sex offenders both nationally and internationally,” adding, “To date, ICE has successfully arrested more than 7,500 child predators. Of these, 6,600 (88%) of the arrestees have been non-U.S. citizens, and of those, more than 3,900 (59%) have been deported from the United States.” He also highlighted the National Child Victim Identification System (NCVIS), whose prime focus “is to help all law enforcement agencies identify victims of child sexual exploitation and to track the transmission and circulation of digital images via the Internet, websites, e-mail, instant messenger, newsgroups, and chat rooms. NCVIS is a secure computer-based initiative that…allows us to analyze specific child pornography images, which have been seized as evidence or otherwise, to determine whether they match already identified child victims or actual child victims depicted in known child pornography magazines. To date, the ICE Cyber Crimes Center has analyzed more than 150,000 images utilizing NCVIS, resulting in the authentication of more than 2,065 images used to facilitate the criminal prosecutions and/or sentencing of child predators.”
The subcommittee also heard testimony from Grier Weeks, the executive director of the National Association to Protect Children. He said that as his organization works on child protection issues in state legislatures, “one of the greatest problems we see is our national failure to aggressively respond to child pornography and the use of the Internet for both dissemination of such material and direct exploitation of individual children.” He added that “an estimated 96 percent of those arrested for child pornography possession are convicted. But fewer than 60 percent are ever incarcerated. Of those convicted solely of child pornography possession, fewer than one in three serves more than a year in jail. This is despite the fact that child pornography like narcotics is illegal contraband in and of itself, and is easily prosecutable.” Mr. Weeks praised the Innocent Images National Initiative and the ICAC Task Forces, but argued that these programs lack adequate funding based on the magnitude of the problem.
