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72–157 PDF 2012

S. HRG. 110–1103 

PROTECTING CHILDREN ON THE INTERNET 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, 

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JULY 24, 2007 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 

( 

(II) 

SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Chairman 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

TED STEVENS, Alaska, Vice Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

TRENT LOTT, Mississippi 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine 

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

MARGARET L. CUMMISKY, Democratic Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

LILA HARPER HELMS, Democratic Deputy Staff Director and Policy Director 

CHRISTINE D. KURTH, Republican Staff Director and General Counsel 

KENNETH R. NAHIGIAN, Republican Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 24, 2007 ............................................................................... 1 

Statement of Senator Cantwell .............................................................................. 39 

Statement of Senator Inouye .................................................................................. 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1 

Statement of Senator Klobuchar ............................................................................ 33 

Statement of Senator Nelson .................................................................................. 2 

Statement of Senator Pryor .................................................................................... 36 

Statement of Senator Rockefeller ........................................................................... 3 

Statement of Senator Stevens ................................................................................ 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

WITNESSES

Allen, Ernie, President and CEO, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children .................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14 

Finkelhor, Dr. David, Director, Crimes against Children Research Center, 

University of New Hampshire ............................................................................ 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10 

Jones, Christine N., General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, The Go Daddy 

Group, Inc. ............................................................................................................ 21 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 23 

Nelson, Lauren, Miss America 2007 ...................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 

Neugent, Lan W., Assistant Superintendent, Technology and Human Resources, Virginia Department of Education ....................................................... 17 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19 

(1) 

PROTECTING CHILDREN ON THE INTERNET 

TUESDAY, JULY 24, 2007 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m. in room 

SR–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Inouye, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII 

The CHAIRMAN. Without question, the Internet provides extraordinary benefits to our Nation’s children. In our schools, teachers 

use the Internet and computer technology to enhance instruction 

and enrich student learning. At home, children can use the Internet to exchange e-mail or share pictures with friends and family, 

and to get information on virtually any subject imaginable. 

But the power of the Internet is also a source of its peril. The 

New Yorker once humorously poked fun at the anonymity of the 

Internet, commenting that, ‘‘On the Internet, nobody knows you’re 

a dog.’’ However, there is nothing funny when that same anonymity can be used to the advantage of online predators and others 

who would seek to harm children. 

In addition to protecting their children from online predators, 

parents also struggle with the challenges of shielding their children 

from the significant amounts of material on the Internet that aren’t 

suitable for children. While filtering and monitoring technologies 

help parents to screen out offensive content and to monitor their 

children’s online activities, the use of these technologies is far from 

universal and may not be foolproof in keeping kids away from adult 

material. In that context, we must evaluate our current efforts to 

combat child pornography and consider what further measures may 

be needed to stop the spread of such illegal material over highspeed broadband connections. 

These are all difficult, yet critically important, issues that parents and children face in an information age. If we search for a ‘‘silver bullet,’’ we will not find it. 

And I will have the rest of my statement made part of the record. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inouye follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE, U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII

Without question, the Internet provides extraordinary benefits to our Nation’s 

children. In our schools, teachers use the Internet and computer technology to enhance instruction and enrich student learning. At home, children can use the InterVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:36 Jan 09, 2012 Jkt 072157 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\72157.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
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net to exchange email or share pictures with friends and family, and to get information on virtually any subject imaginable. 

But the power of the Internet is also a source of its peril. The New Yorker once humorously poked fun at the anonymity of the Internet, commenting that, ‘‘On the 

Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.’’ However, there is nothing funny when that 

same anonymity can be used to the advantage of online predators and others who 

would seek to harm children. 

In addition to protecting their children from online predators, parents also struggle with the challenges of shielding their children from the significant amounts of 

material on the Internet that are unsuitable for children. 

While filtering and monitoring technologies help parents to screen out offensive 

content and to monitor their child’s online activities, the use of these technologies 

is far from universal and may not be fool-proof in keeping kids away from adult material. 

In that context, we must evaluate our current efforts to combat child pornography 

and consider what further measures may be needed to stop the spread of such illegal material over high-speed broadband connections. 

These are all difficult, yet critically important issues that parents and children 

face in an information age. If we search for a ‘‘silver bullet’’ solution, we will not 

find it. 

Rather, our efforts must rely on a multi-layered strategy—one that teaches our 

children about safe and responsible online behavior; one that encourages industry 

action to develop tools that will aid parents in their efforts to restrict inappropriate 

material from their children’s access; and one that relies on swift and certain action 

by law enforcement officials in finding and punishing those who would use the 

Internet to harm children. 

We have a very distinguished panel of witnesses today to aid our review of this 

subject. I look forward to their testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. May I now recognize the distinguished Senator 

from Florida, Senator Nelson. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA 

Senator NELSON. Thank you, to my distinguished Chairman. 

One of the most insidious, evil things that is happening in America today is how we are hooking kids through the Internet to explicit material and Internet pornography. It is a plague upon this 

country. And if we don’t take some overt steps to change the legality of this activity, we are going to poison and infect the minds of 

our children that will have results that will last for generations to 

come. 

Over the past couple of years, we’ve passed a number of laws, 

such as the PROTECT Act and the Adam Walsh Act, and made it 

harder for online predators to go after the kids online. But the 

predators are always a step ahead of us. 

We’ve seen, for example, the activities start to change from Internet chat rooms to social networking sites, and, on those sites, sexual predators are often able to mask their identity and pose as children, themselves, in order to solicit the children to reveal personal 

information and to provide pictures and so forth. 

As we work to address these threats, we’ve got work to do, but 

we also need to look at undertaking a comprehensive effort to educate children about the dangers that lurk on the Internet. A few 

states, Mr. Chairman, like Virginia, have already created comprehensive lesson plans and curricula to teach Internet safety in 

their schools. And so, I’m working with others on this committee 

to formulate legislation that would create a pilot program to provide school districts with grants specifically for Internet safety education. 

3 

We teach our kids about school bus safety. We teach them about 

fire safety. We teach them about storm safety. Maybe—one of the 

most insidious diseases—we ought to teach them about Internet 

safety. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you, Senator Nelson. 

Now may I recognize the gentleman from West Virginia, Senator 

Rockefeller. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I like the fact that we’re having these hearings, and we’re having 

quite a lot of these hearings. And it was very interesting to me, in 

a hearing we had several weeks ago on a subject, I think, in which 

you and I agreed on, that not many members of the Commerce 

Committee agree on. And so, it came down to this—the idea of indecency was not simply—it was not repellent enough to them, or 

violence was not repellent enough to them, or vulgarity was not repellent enough to them, so that they were unwilling to overlook, at 

least in some form, the First Amendment. And it’s a little bit like 

if you’re attacked, as a country, and you decide that you’re in a 

peaceful mood, so you’re not going to raise an army, you’re not 

going to fight back. I don’t think that’s the American way. And this 

meeting this morning is very much along the lines of trying to alert 

people to the fact that, you know, child pornography sites on the 

Internet are exploding. They have increased 1,500 percent, according to the National Children’s Home Report, since 1988, which is 

quite a long time ago, but that’s also a pretty big increase. 

Everybody’s always talking about responsible parents, and I 

think parents want to be responsible, and parents try to be responsible, where they can. There are many places where they can’t be, 

simply because of the situation of their work or their day. Nobody 

seems to want to talk about the responsibility of those who produce 

all of this, those who pay for the ads that allow all of this to go 

onto either the air, if we’re talking about television, movies, or onto 

the Internet. In one of the previous hearings, I deliberately showed 

some very vulgar stuff that came right off of children’s-hour television, and they said, ‘‘How can you possibly allow that to go out 

to children at 10:30 in the morning?’’ Well, of course, it was on C– 

SPAN, but that didn’t make any difference to them. The point was, 

you couldn’t talk about anything which would in any way compromise the right of children to have their minds polluted, and polluted, in fact, in such a way that many of them will be affected by 

it for the rest of their lives. 

So, I think this is a very serious subject. I think it has a lot to 

do with the future of America. I like what I heard from the good 

Senator from Florida, Senator Nelson, what he was saying. And I 

think it’s a very unfunny subject that’s going to require some rather drastic action which is going to be displeasing to many. I’m quite 

prepared to displease the cable industry, the movie industry, the 

networks, and all the rest of them, and the Internet industry. You 

know, I don’t think that’s what’s at stake here. I think what’s at 

stake is the health and the safety and the disposition of our chilVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:36 Jan 09, 2012 Jkt 072157 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\72157.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
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dren as they grow older and what it is they carry in their minds, 

and what habits they develop. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much. 

Before we proceed, I should advise you that I’ve just received a 

note from the leadership that votes will commence at 10:30. So, I 

may have to call a recess at some later time. 

This morning, we have a very distinguished and lovely panel. We 

have the lovely Lauren Nelson, Miss America of 2007; Mr. David 

Finkelhor, Director of Crimes Against Children Research Center of 

the University of New Hampshire; Mr. Ernie Allen, President and 

Chief Executive Officer, National Center for Missing & Exploited 

Children; Mr. Lan W. Neugent, Assistant Superintendent for Technology and Human Resources, Virginia Department of Education; 

and Ms. Christine N. Jones, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, The Go Daddy Group, Incorporated. 

And it’s my privilege and pleasure to call upon the lovely Miss 

America of 2007, Miss Nelson. 

STATEMENT OF LAUREN NELSON, MISS AMERICA 2007 

Ms. NELSON. Thank you very much, Senator. 

As Miss America, I have the opportunity to travel around and 

champion a cause that is very, very important to me. I travel about 

20,000 miles a month, speaking on the issue of Internet safety, because I had a personal incident with the issue of Internet Safety. 

As a 13-year-old girl, I was having a sleepover with two of my 

girlfriends, and we decided that we would get into a chat room. We 

were talking with people that we did know and people that we 

didn’t know, which was our first mistake. And the conversations 

continued. We were approached by a man who was older than us, 

and he asked us the question, ‘‘ASL,’’ which means, ‘‘Age, Sex, Location.’’ And we gave him the information, willingly, not knowing 

any better. So, within an instant, he knew that we were girls, he 

knew were females, and he knew where we were in Oklahoma, 

which is ultimately enough information for him to track us down. 

Luckily, that did not happen, but, about a week later, he sent inappropriate pictures of himself, and then we alerted our parents, and 

they alerted the proper authorities. 

These stories happen all the time, and most kids are not as lucky 

as I was and as my friends were. Seventeen million children between the ages of 13 and 17 are online, and one in five of those 

children are approached every day by an online predator. As you 

said, social networking sites and chat rooms and instant messaging 

are huge on the Internet, and it’s huge for our kids. Seventy-one 

percent of kids have a social networking site; 64 percent of those 

kids actually post pictures and videos of themselves on those sites; 

and over half of them leave information on the Internet about 

where they’re located and where they live. And this is part of the 

problem. 

As I said, through my travels I’ve had the opportunities to meet 

with Ernie Allen, at the National Center for Missing & Exploited 

Children, and I’ve also been introduced to John Walsh, who is also 

a huge champion of this issue. After my introduction to John 

Walsh, I had the opportunity to work with the America’s Most 

5 

Wanted television show and do a sting operation. And, as my participation in the sting operation, I ultimately was the 14-year-old 

decoy at the sting house. I chatted online with these men, I talked 

on the phone with them and was the 14-year-old girl that met 

them at the door that they followed into the house. So, I’ve gotten 

to see, from all points of view, how this issue affects kids and how 

it affects these people that are involved with it. 

Through my participation with that operation, I learned a little 

bit more about how predators behave. They prey on the most vulnerable of our children, the kids that are having problems at home. 

Maybe they don’t have friends at school. But these kids divulge 

this information, and these predators know that, and they use emotional tactics to get in there and to make sure that they lay the 

groundwork to make them comfortable with themselves so that 

they can get more information with them and ultimately meet 

them in person. 

I’ve also had the opportunity to work with Cox Communications, 

and, just last month, had the opportunity to be at the Teen Summit, where we had 14 kids from 14 different States across the U.S. 

come and tell us a little bit about their Internet habits, what they 

were worried about, and what they wanted us to do, as adults. And 

one of the neatest things that we found that day was that the kids 

actually want parents to be involved with what they’re doing on 

the Internet, they want their parents to ask questions, but they 

want their parents to know how to ask the questions, and not to 

make it an interrogation. 

We also learned that cyber-bullying is a huge problem. Not only 

do we have to worry about, now, predators, but we also have to 

worry about kids and how they’re using the Internet. There was a 

story that I recently read, that a child was being cyber-bullied, and 

he actually committed suicide because of it, and his parents had no 

idea what was going on. Cyber-bullying is a rampant problem on 

the Internet. 

So, I’m here today to urge you to implement mandatory education for our children about Internet safety. I know that computer 

classes are in high schools, are in even middle schools, and they’re 

learning ways to use the computer. Why not implement some Internet education so that they know the dangers, also the opportunities, of the Internet, but also learn how to be courteous cyber citizens. We don’t allow our children to cross the street without knowing how to do it. We don’t allow our children to drive a car without 

giving them proper education. We shouldn’t allow them to go on 

the Internet without knowing the dangers and the opportunities at 

the same time. 

I feel that it’s the responsibility of kids, of parents, of schools, 

and of government officials to make a change in this problem. 

So, thank you for having me here. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Nelson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LAUREN NELSON, MISS AMERICA 2007 

My name is Lauren Nelson and as Miss America 2007, I am proud to be here 

today to discuss the issue of Protecting Children on the Internet. This is a subject 

that has personally touched my life. When I was 13 years old, my friends and I were 

approached on the Internet through a chat room. We were young and did not know 

of the dangers of the internet, so we provided this person with our names, ages, genVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:36 Jan 09, 2012 Jkt 072157 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\72157.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
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der, and our home addresses. A few days later, the individual sent us inappropriate 

photos. We were shocked and disgusted. We then told our parents, who immediately 

addressed this incident and reported it to the proper authorities, and luckily we 

were able to avoid a potentially dangerous situation. 

Not all children are as lucky as my friends and I were. 

As Miss America 2007, I have made this issue my personal platform and I am 

here today to champion this cause. During my year of service, I am visiting cities 

across the country, speaking to parents, children and the media about the dangers 

of the Internet and the ways we can incorporate Internet Safety into our children’s 

lives. 

Back in the April, I had the opportunity to meet with the National Center for 

Missing and Exploited Children who shared with me their knowledge of Internet 

crimes against children. They introduced me to John Walsh and the television producers for Americas Most Wanted. After meeting with the producers of AMW, my 

commitment grew even stronger to do something that would bring national attention to this issue and get people talking about ways to stop these horrible crimes 

against children. 

When I heard about the Sting Operation being conducted by the Suffolk County 

Police Department and America’s Most Wanted, I immediately wanted to get involved. My role in the Sting Operation was to pose as a 14-year-old girl. I would 

visit chat rooms and wait to be approached. It was shocking to me how quickly a 

benign conversation would turn sexual. The suggestions these men were making 

coupled with the fact that they thought they were chatting with a 14-year old, turns 

my stomach to this day. It was incredibly disturbing to me how young teens can 

so easily be approached on the Internet and ultimately, meet face to face with very 

dangerous individuals who disguise themselves through the veil of the computer. 

Eleven predators showed up in person during our Sting Operation . . . and this can 

not be tolerated in our society. 

Upon my last visit to D.C., I had the opportunity to be a part of the Teen Summit 

on Internet Safety with John Walsh and we were amazed at the teens’ responses 

to the questions regarding their Internet habits. Can you believe that one out of 

fourteen teens gives out their personal information on the Internet without knowing 

who they are chatting with? 

It is clear that our teens are not adequately educated on the dangers that the 

Internet can pose or the consequences they may face by sharing personal information with strangers. That is the reason I am here today. 

I believe it is time to government to get involved and provide mandatory education for all of our children. We need to begin educating children as early as possible. We have all heard someone say ‘‘My kids/grandkids are quicker on the computer then I am.’’ It’s so true. Kids today are growing up using computers from a 

very early age and using them on a daily basis. We don’t allow our children to ride 

their bikes without first teaching them about proper safety and we shouldn’t let 

them use the computer and access the Internet without taking the same precautions. 

I am here today to ask you to please implement mandatory education on Internet 

Safety for all of our children. There should be a mandatory class on Internet safety 

that teaches children about how to use the internet, the potential dangers of the 

internet, and how to avoid these dangers. 

As students become more proficient on the computer, they should be taught about 

the various networking sites and chat rooms, and the problems that can occur when 

they mis-use these sites. 

Lastly, they should also learn about being responsible cyber citizens. The issue 

of cyber-bullying is a growing problem in our schools today and it must be addressed 

now. The bullies have moved from the playgrounds to the internet, and this new 

form of harassment cannot be tolerated. 

Through proper education, awareness and a national effort supported by our legislators, we can all begin to make a difference. I sincerely hope that by using my voice 

as Miss America to bring awareness to this subject, that the message of the importance of Internet Safety education for our children will be heard. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Nelson, I’ve been in the Government for 

many years, and, during that period, I’ve heard over 1,000 witnesses, and, without question, your testimony is one of the most informative and articulate. I thank you very much. 

Ms. NELSON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Dr. David Finkelhor. 

7 

STATEMENT OF HON. TED STEVENS, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA 

Senator STEVENS. Mr. Chairman, would you allow me to put my 

statement in the record, just—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

Senator STEVENS.—as though read? Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Stevens follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. TED STEVENS, U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

The Internet is a dynamic space where Americans turn to get information, do research, and exchange ideas. 

Given the increasingly important role of the Internet in education and commerce, 

it differs from other media like TV and cable because parents cannot prevent their 

children from using the Internet altogether. The headlines continue to tell us of children who are victimized online. While the issues are difficult, I believe Congress has 

an important role to play to ensure that the protections available in other parts of 

our society find their way to the Internet. Since introducing the Protecting Children 

Online in the 21st Century Act, my staff and I have worked with a wide variety 

of advocacy groups on this topic. In response to the feedback we have received, my 

staff are currently circulating a new draft with four primary goals. 

The new measure would: 

• direct the Federal Communications Commission to identify industry practices 

that can limit the transmission of child pornography; 

• require schools that receive E-Rate funds to provide age-appropriate education 

to their students regarding online behavior, social networking and cyber-bullying; 

• require the Federal Trade Commission to form a working group to identify 

blocking and filtering technologies in use and identify, what, if anything could 

be done to improve the process and better enable parents to proactively protect 

their children online; and 

• add the selling or purchasing of children’s personal information in connection 

with a criminal offense in the criminal code as an indictable offense. 

I hope the panelists can give us more insight on what we can do within the First 

Amendment to empower parents and whether this bill heads in the right direction. 

The CHAIRMAN. Please proceed. Dr. Finkelhor? 

STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID FINKELHOR, DIRECTOR, CRIMES 

AGAINST CHILDREN RESEARCH CENTER, HORTON SOCIAL 

SCIENCES CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Dr. FINKELHOR. Yes, thank you very much. Appreciate the invitation to be here and your interest in this very important issue. 

I’m the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center 

at the University of New Hampshire. 

Whenever new threats appear on the scene, like SARS or schoolshooters, it’s really crucial to characterize them accurately and as 

soon as possible, because first impressions are lasting impressions, 

and it’s often hard to change these impressions later on. We need 

accurate and early characterizations to get people focused on the 

right thing to prevent the spread of these dangers. 

Now, in the case of Internet safety, though, I’m afraid that we 

may be off to a poor start on some issues. I think the public impression of this crime is really not in sync yet with the reality, 

based on what we know from the research. And it’s this reality that 

I think needs to guide our public education as we get around to 

doing it. 

8 

The public image of this crime is that we have Internet 

pedophiles, who have moved from the playgrounds into your living 

room through your Internet service, who are targeting young children by pretending to be other children, who are lying about their 

ages, identities, and motives, who are tricking kids into providing 

personal information like their names and their addresses, or who 

harvest these things from MySpace, and then, armed with this information, these criminals stalk children, abduct them, rape them, 

or worse. 

But, actually, the research suggests a somewhat different reality. 

And here’s what we’ve found now, based on hundreds of cases that 

we’ve reviewed from national surveys of law enforcement agencies 

and two large national studies of youth Internet users themselves. 

Incidentally, all this research is available in prominent medical 

and scientific journals. I can make them available to you, if you’d 

like. 

First we found that the predominant online sex crime victims are 

not young children, they are teenagers. And the predominant crime 

scenario does not involve violent stranger molesters posing online 

as other children in order to set up an abduction or an assault. It 

turns out only about 5 percent of the online sex crimes against children involve violence when meetings occur, and only 3 percent entail an abduction. And, interestingly, deception is not a major factor, either. Only 5 percent of the offenders truly concealed the fact 

that they were adults from their victims, and 80 percent, by contrast, were quite explicit about their sexual intentions toward the 

kids in their interactions with them somewhere along the line. 

So, these are not primarily violent sex crimes, but, rather, I 

would characterize them as criminal seductions that take advantage of common teenage vulnerabilities. The offenders lure teens to 

meet them for sexual encounters after weeks of, very often, quite 

explicit online conversations that play on the teen’s desire for romance, adventure, sexual information, and understanding. And, as 

Lauren said, these are often troubled youth with histories of family 

turmoil and physical and sexual abuse, as well. 

So, to take a representative case, Jenna, a 13-year-old girl from 

a divorced family, she frequently went to sex-oriented chat rooms, 

under the screen name ‘‘evil—girl.’’ There, she meets a 45-year-old 

guy, Dave. He flatters her, gives her gifts, talks to her about intimate things, and then drives across several State lines to meet her 

for sex; on several occasions, in motel rooms. Dave is arrested with 

her in one of these rooms. Jenna resists cooperating with the police. 

And many of the Internet sex crimes have commonalities with 

this case. In 73 percent of the crimes, the youth go to meet the offender on multiple occasions, for multiple sexual encounters. Half 

the victims were described by the police investigators as ‘‘being in 

love’’ or ‘‘feeling close friendship’’ with the offender. In a quarter of 

the cases, the victims actually ran away from home to be with the 

offender. 

And I think these are aspects of Internet crimes against youth 

that haven’t been fully incorporated into our thinking yet, and they 

have lots of implications for prevention. So, for one thing, we think 

it means that we have to make sure our messages are directed at 

9 

teens, teens themselves, in language, in format, and from sources 

that they relate to. We’ve directed a lot of our information, up until 

now, at parents; but, many of these teens are under limited parental influence. 

We also have to get beyond blanket warnings about not giving 

out personal information. Our research, in fact, has suggested that 

giving out personal information is not what puts kids at risk, neither does having a blog or a personal website or a MySpace social 

networking site. What puts kids in danger for these crimes is being 

willing to talk online about sex, with strangers, having multiple 

risky activities on the Web, like going to these chat rooms or sex 

sites, or interacting with a lot of people online whom they don’t 

know. It’s the kids who move toward, rather than away from, the 

first signs of danger that I think we need to be thinking about. 

So, in order to prevent these crimes, we have to broach more 

awkward and complicated topics that start with an acceptance of 

the fact that some teens are curious about sex. They are looking 

for romance and adventure online. We need to talk with them 

frankly about some of the risky things that they may be contemplating; why hooking up with a 32-year-old guy has major drawbacks, like jail or bad publicity or public embarrassment; why they 

should be discouraging, not patronizing, sites and people who are 

doing offensive and weird things online, fascinating as these things 

might seem to them. 

We also need to do things like making it easier for teens to report the come-ons and the sexual picture requests. We need to empower bystanders to take action. There are often friends or online 

observers in chat rooms who may see what’s happening, but who 

today aren’t doing anything to stop it. 

We could also do things like task some of our Federal agencies, 

like the CDC, OJJDP, organizations like the NCMEC, to help design scientifically grounded prevention programs that address 

these issues and that can be disseminated to educate youth based 

on proven effectiveness. And this is important. I don’t think we 

should be just telling people to do prevention without providing 

solid guidelines about what really works. And, unfortunately, I’m 

not sure that we know, yet, exactly what works. 

We also need law enforcement training, so that they know how 

to handle these cases, and how to deal with the fact that the kids 

in these cases are often reluctant, as witnesses, and make prosecution difficult. They need to know how to work with them to bring 

them along. 

We need training for school officials, mental health professionals. 

These are the kind of people who have contact with some of these 

at-risk youth before they get into trouble. 

And then, we need ongoing research just to keep tabs on what 

kids are experiencing and also what law enforcement is encountering, because one of the things about the Internet environment 

is that it is a very rapidly changing one, and the threats and dangers can morph very quickly, and we have to stay on top of these 

changes. We don’t want to be responding to yesterday’s problems. 

We don’t, also, want to be overgeneralizing from a single high-profile incident. 

10 

For example, I think we could use an annual assessment of 

threats to kids in the Internet environment, something like the annual Monitoring the Future, national survey about drug usage, 

that gives us clues about new trends in drug usage that may be 

plaguing the youth population. 

But the prevention challenges here aren’t easy. Like discouraging 

kids from smoking or drinking, simple scare tactics really don’t 

work. The challenge requires some really very deft maneuvering 

within the teen psychology, which is often obscure, to figure out 

what will stick there. And, in the meantime, we have to be cautious 

about promoting messages that may simply turn teens off or that 

betray a completely unrealistic take on the Internet, and that may 

make them less receptive to the authoritative sources that we really want them ultimately to trust on this issue. I don’t think we 

should allow a sense of crisis to mobilize us into misguided crusades. 

So, I’m saying we have to do our homework, we have to do our 

research. So much happens online that’s hidden. But if we want to 

stop these Internet crimes, we have to understand the details of 

what’s going on. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Finkelhor follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID FINKELHOR, DIRECTOR, CRIMES AGAINST

CHILDREN RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Whenever any new threats appear on the scene, from SARS to school shooters, 

it is so crucial to characterize them accurately and as soon as possible, because first 

impressions are lasting impressions, and it is hard to change them later. We need 

such accurate and early characterizations to get people to be focused on the right 

things to do to prevent the spread of the danger. 

Now in the case of Internet sex crimes against children, I’m afraid we may already be off to a poor start. The public impression of this crime is not in sync with 

the reality of this crime based on what we now know from the research, the reality 

that I think needs to guide our public education. 

The public impression about this crime is that we have ‘‘Internet pedophiles′′, who 

have moved from the playgrounds into your living room through your Internet service, who target young children by pretending to be other children, who lie about 

their ages, identities and motives, who trick the children into providing personal information like their names and addresses, or who harvest it from MySpace; and 

then armed with this information, these criminals stalk the children, abduct them, 

rape them or worse. 

But our research suggests a different reality. Here’s what we have found based 

on hundreds of cases retrieved from national surveys of law enforcement agencies, 

and two large national interview studies of youth Internet users themselves, all this 

research is available now in articles in prominent medical and scientific journals. 

First, we have found that the predominant online sex crime victims are not young 

children, but rather teenagers. And the predominant crime scenario does not involve 

violent stranger molesters posing online as other children in order to set up an abduction and an assault. Only 5 percent of the online sex crimes against children involved violence when meetings occurred, only 3 percent entailed an abduction. 

Nor is deception a major factor. Only 5 percent of offenders truly concealed the 

fact that they were adults from their victims and 80 percent by contrast were quite 

explicit about their sexual intentions toward these kids in their interactions with 

them. 

These are not mostly violent sex crimes but rather criminal seductions that take 

advantage of common teenage vulnerabilities. The offenders lure teens to meet them 

for sexual encounters after weeks of very often quite explicit online conversations 

that play on the teen’s desires for romance and adventure and sexual information 

and understanding. These teens are often troubled youth with histories of family 

turmoil and physical and sexual abuse as well. 

11 

Jenna was a computer-savvy 13 year old, from a divorced family who frequented 

sex-oriented chat rooms under the screen name ‘‘evil—girl.’’ There she meets a 45 

year old, Dave. He flatters her, gives her gifts, jewelry, talks about intimate things 

and drives across several states to meet her for sex on several occasions in motel 

rooms. When Dave is arrested with her, Jenna resists cooperating with police. 

Many of the Internet sex crimes have commonalities with this case. In 73 percent 

of these crimes, the youth go to meet the offender on multiple occasions, for multiple 

sexual encounters. Half the victims were described by police investigators as being 

in love with or feeling close friendship with the offender. In a quarter of the cases 

the victim actually ran away from home to be with the offender. These are aspects 

of Internet crimes against youth that haven’t been fully incorporated into our thinking. 

They have lots of implications for prevention. For one thing, we think it means 

that we need to make sure our messages are directed at teens, in language and format and from sources they relate to. Teens themselves, not primarily parents. Many 

of these teens may be under limited parental influence. 

We also have to go beyond blanket warnings about not giving out personal information. Our research with youth suggests that giving out personal information is 

not what puts kids at risk. Nor does having a blog or a personal website or frequenting My Space. What puts kids in danger for these crimes is being willing to 

talk about sex online with strangers, and having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web—like going to sex sites and chat rooms, and interacting with lots 

of people there. It’s kids who move toward rather than away from the first signs 

of danger. 

So to prevent these crimes, we have to take on more awkward and complicated 

topics and start with an acceptance of the fact that some teens are curious about 

sex and looking for romance and adventure online: We need to talk to them frankly 

about the risky things they might be contemplating—about why hooking up with 

a 32 year old has major drawbacks, you know, like jail, bad press, public embarrassment ; and why they should be discouraging, not patronizing, sites and people who 

are doing offensive things online, fascinating as they may seem. 

We also need to make it easier for teens to report the come-ons and the sexual 

picture requests, and we need to empower by-standers to take action—that is, the 

friends and the online observers in chat rooms, who may see this happening but 

today do little to stop it. 

We need to task agencies that know about prevention, like CDC and OJJDP and 

NCMEC, to help design scientifically grounded prevention programs that address 

these issues and that can then be disseminated to educate youth based on their 

proven effectiveness. We shouldn’t just tell people to do prevention without providing solid guidelines about what really works. And unfortunately, I am not sure 

we that we know yet what really works. 

We need training for law enforcement, so they know how to handle these cases 

and the often reluctant kids whom they need as witnesses to prosecute the offenders. We also need training for school officials and mental health professionals, so they, 

too, can help some of these at risk kids before they get into trouble. 

And then we need ongoing research to keep tabs on what kids are experiencing 

and what law enforcement is encountering, because in this rapidly changing technological environment the threats and dangers can morph so very quickly. We have 

to stay on top of them. We don’t want to be responding to yesterday’s problem. We 

don’t want to be over-generalizing from one single, high profile incident. So for example, I think we need an annual assessment of threats to kids in the Internet environment, something like the annual Monitoring the Future national survey about 

drug usage. 

The prevention challenges here are not easy. Like discouraging kids from smoking 

or drinking, the simple scare tactics often don’t work. This challenge too may require very deft maneuvering within the teenage psychology to get the message to 

stick. And in the meantime, we need to be cautious about promoting messages that 

turn teens off or that betray a completely unrealistic take on the Internet and which 

may only make them less receptive to the authoritative sources that we want them 

ultimately to trust on these issues. We shouldn’t allow a sense of crisis to mobilize 

us into misguided crusades. 

So we have to do our homework. We have to do our research. So much of what 

happens online is so hidden. But if we want to stop these Internet crimes, we have 

to understand the details of what is going on. It is as simple and as complicated 

as that. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much. 

12 

May I now call upon Mr. Ernie Allen. 

STATEMENT OF ERNIE ALLEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN 

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, let me first express my gratitude to this Committee, which I know has examined this issue and discussed this 

issue for some time. I was honored to appear before this Committee 

last fall in a similar hearing that resulted in a number of initiatives, including Senator McCain and Senator Schumer’s SAFE Act 

legislation, which we think provides a major step forward. So, we’re 

delighted to be here with you again. 

What I would like to do is talk briefly about what we have 

learned, at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, 

about this problem. 

Since 1998, with the mandate of Congress, we have operated the 

CyberTipline, the 911 for the Internet, handling reports from the 

public and from Internet service providers regarding child sexual 

exploitation online. Two weeks ago, we handled our 500,000th report. And what we have learned is that this is a huge and evolving 

challenge for law enforcement, for the public, and for communities. 

The challenges include technology challenges. For example, last 

year, working with six major Internet companies, we created a 

technology coalition in an effort to develop new technology to identify illegal images online, and interdict them, including creating a 

database of known images so that we can prevent their reaching 

consumers. 

Another challenge is the growth of digital photography, Web 

cams and the ease of creating images. Dr. Finkelhor talked about 

the fact—and, in his research, demonstrates—that, increasingly, 

many of these images are self-created. Kids are taking photos and 

distributing themselves, having either been seduced or at least insufficiently sensitive to the risks which they’re posing. 

In 1982, the Supreme Court of the United States said that child 

pornography is not protected speech; it’s child abuse. And, as a result, through law enforcement efforts, it largely disappeared from 

the shelves of adult bookstores and through the mail. What we now 

know is that it went underground, and, when it went underground, 

with the advent of the Internet, it exploded. I talk frequently about 

one case, generated from a lead we received at the CyberTipline, 

that led us to husband-and-wife entrepreneurs who decided to go 

into the child pornography business. When the site was shut down 

and they were arrested, these people had 70,000 customers, paying 

$29.95 a month and using their credit cards to access graphic images of small children being raped and sexually assaulted. 

New technology has enabled child pornographers to stay a step 

ahead of law enforcement. For example, many distributors of child 

pornography are now using peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, 

which do not use a central server, depriving law enforcement of an 

identifiable Internet Protocol, or IP, address. 

Wireless technology, with the increase in connectivity enabling 

people to access the Internet through wireless devices, has increased the size of this problem. 

13 

In 1998, this Congress mandated electronic service providers to 

report child pornography on their systems to law enforcement via 

the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The good 

news is that today 327 electronic service providers are regularly reporting. The bad new is, thousands more aren’t. We have worked 

with the U.S. Internet Service Providers Association, developing 

best practices regarding guidelines to address this problem. The 

major ISPs are reporting, but our concern is that safe havens are 

being created in nonparticipating ISPs, and we need to do more 

about it. 

The U.S. Department of Justice has indicated that the underlying statute is flawed, and this is one of the issues we discussed 

with this Committee last year. We need to fix that statute so that 

every ISP is required to report. 

There is another missing link. Currently, the statute constrains 

the National Center, in that we are only able to forward those 

leads to U.S. law enforcement. One major ISP tells us, for example, 

that much of its system is used in Brazil. That provider wants to 

send us information about child pornography they find on their 

customers’ accounts to Brazilian law enforcement. We’re precluded 

from doing that. 

There is another missing link that we’ve discussed in the past. 

Once our CyberTipline analysts, who look at these images, triage 

them, use search tools and techniques to try to identify who the 

sender, who the distributor is, and then provide them to the appropriate law enforcement agency—once they’ve done that, there can 

be no prosecution until the date and time of that online activity is 

connected to an actual person. And there is currently no requirement for providers to retain connectivity logs for their customers 

on an ongoing basis. Some have policies on retention, many of them 

excellent. But they vary, are not implemented consistently, and are 

far too short a time to have meaningful prosecutorial value. 

We’ve taken some new initiatives. In the area of commercial 

child pornography, through the leadership of Senator Shelby, who 

was then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, in the 

Banking Committee, we’ve created a financial coalition against 

child pornography that includes 29 major companies, including 

MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Bank of America, Citibank, 

Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft. The goal is to follow the money. 

These are illegal transactions and an illegal use of the payment 

system. Law enforcement gets first crack, but law enforcement 

can’t possibly arrest and prosecute everybody, so we’re trying to 

use existing law, existing banking law, to stop the payments, shut 

down the accounts, and put these people out of business. The goal 

is to increase the risk and eliminate the profitability. 

Mr. Chairman, I don’t come before you today with a quick, easy 

solution to the problem, but I can state unequivocally that the advent of the Internet has provided predators with means to entice 

children into sexual acts, and sustain—and create—a new lucrative 

illegal commercial enterprise based on victimizing children. Federal, State, and local law enforcement are more aggressive in this 

effort than ever before. There is a new Justice Department initiative, called Project Safe Childhood, which is attacking this problem. 

But they face significant barriers. I hope that you, in this ComVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:36 Jan 09, 2012 Jkt 072157 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\72157.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
14 

mittee, can help us remove some of those barriers and help us identify and prosecute more of the individuals who are preying upon 

children online. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Allen follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ERNIE ALLEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, as President of the 

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), I welcome this opportunity to appear before you to discuss crimes against children on the Internet. 

NCMEC joins you in your concern for the safety of the most vulnerable members 

of our society and thanks you for bringing attention to this serious problem facing 

America’s communities. 

Let me first provide you with some background information. NCMEC is a not-forprofit corporation, mandated by Congress and working in partnership with the U.S. 

Department of Justice as the national resource center and clearinghouse on missing 

and exploited children. NCMEC is a true public-private partnership, funded in part 

by Congress and in part by the private sector. Our Federal funding supports specific 

operational functions mandated by Congress, including a national 24-hour toll-free 

hotline; a distribution system for missing-child photos; a system of case management and technical assistance to law enforcement and families; training programs 

for Federal, state and local law enforcement; and programs designed to help stop 

the sexual exploitation of children. 

These programs include the CyberTipline, the ‘‘9–1–1 for the Internet,’’ which 

serves as the national clearinghouse for investigative leads and tips regarding 

crimes against children on the Internet. The Internet has become a primary tool to 

victimize children today, due to its widespread use and the relative anonymity that 

it offers child predators. Our CyberTipline is operated in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (‘‘FBI’’), the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘‘ICE’’), the U.S. Postal Inspection 

Service, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation 

and Obscenity Section and the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces, as 

well as state and local law enforcement. Leads are received in seven categories of 

crimes: 

• possession, manufacture and distribution of child pornography; 

• online enticement of children for sexual acts; 

• child prostitution; 

• child-sex tourism; 

• child sexual molestation (not in the family); 

• unsolicited obscene material sent to a child; and 

• misleading domain names. 

These leads are reviewed by NCMEC analysts, who visit the reported sites, examine and evaluate the content, use search tools to try to identify perpetrators, and 

provide all lead information to the appropriate law enforcement agency. The FBI, 

ICE and Postal Inspection Service have ‘‘real time’’ access to the leads, and all three 

agencies assign agents and analysts to work directly out of NCMEC and review the 

reports. The results: in the 9 years since the CyberTipline began operation, NCMEC 

has received and processed more than 500,000 leads, resulting in hundreds of arrests and successful prosecutions. 

However, despite this progress the use of the Internet to victimize children continues to present challenges that require constant reassessment of our tools and 

methods. As technology evolves, so does the creativity of the predator. New innovations such as webcams and social networking sites are increasing the vulnerability 

of our children when they use the Internet. New technology to access the Internet 

is used by those who profit from the predominantly online market in child pornography and seek to evade detection by law enforcement. 

Today, NCMEC is working with leaders in many industries involved with the 

Internet in order to explore improvements, new approaches and better ways to attack the problems. We are also bringing together key business, law enforcement, 

child advocacy, governmental and other interests and leaders to explore ways to 

more effectively address these new issues and challenges. 

Last year, six Internet industry leaders, AOL, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Earthlink 

and United Online, initiated a Technology Coalition to work with us to develop and 

15 

deploy technology solutions that disrupt the ability of predators to use the Internet 

to exploit children or traffic in child pornography. The Technology Coalition has four 

principal objectives: 

1. Developing and implementing technology solutions; 

2. Improving knowledge sharing among industry; 

3. Improving law enforcement tools; and 

4. Researching perpetrators’ technologies to enhance industry efforts. 

Bringing together the collective experience, knowledge and expertise of the members of this Coalition, and applying it to the problem of child sexual exploitation, 

is a significant step toward a safer world for our children. 

In June 2006, NCMEC hosted a Dialogue on Social Networking Sites here in 

Washington, D.C. We did this to respond to the increased attention to these hugely 

popular sites that permit users to create online profiles containing detailed and 

highly personal information, which can be used by child predators to forge a ‘‘cyberrelationship’’ that can lead to a child being victimized. This vigorous and informative discussion brought together leaders from the technology industry, policymakers, law enforcement, academia and children’s advocacy groups. We learned a 

lot about why children are drawn to these sites, the technological capabilities and 

limitations of the site operators who are concerned about the safety of their users, 

and how law enforcement sees these sites as both a danger to kids and a useful 

source of information in investigating cases. NCMEC is continuing to work with several social networking sites on ways to make children less vulnerable. 

Another challenge is the widespread use of the webcam, which offers the exciting 

ability to see the person you’re communicating with over the Internet. While this 

has many benefits, such as allowing divorced parents to have ‘‘online visitation’’ 

with their children in distant states, it, too, can be used to exploit children. The reports to our CyberTipline include incidents involving children and webcams. Many 

children are victimized inadvertently, by appearing on their webcams without 

clothes as a joke, or on a dare from friends, unaware that these images may end 

up in a global commercial child pornography enterprise. Other children are victims 

of blackmail, threatened with disclosure to friends and family if his or her ‘performance’ before the webcam doesn’t become more sexually explicit. Too much technology 

and too much privacy, at a sexually curious age, can lead to disastrous consequences. 

But the most under-recognized aspect of the Internet is how it is used to distribute child pornography. It is not an exaggeration to state that this is a crisis of 

global proportions. 

Following the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Ferber v. New York, holding that 

child pornography was not protected speech, child pornography disappeared from 

the shelves of adult bookstores. The U.S. Customs Service launched an aggressive 

effort to intercept it as it entered the country and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service 

cracked down on its distribution through the mails. However, child pornography did 

not disappear, it went underground. 

That lasted until the advent of the Internet, when those for whom child pornography was a way of life suddenly had a vehicle for networking, trading and communicating with like-minded individuals with virtual anonymity and little concern 

about apprehension. They could trade images and even abuse children ‘‘live,’’ while 

others watched via the Internet. 

Then law enforcement began to catch up, and enforcement action came to the 

Internet. The FBI created its Innocent Images Task Force. The Customs Service expanded its activities through its Cyber Crimes Center. The Postal Inspection Service 

continued and enhanced its strong attack on child pornography. Congress created 

and funded the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces at the state 

and local levels across the country. There are currently forty-six ICAC Task Forces 

and the Adam Walsh Act, enacted 1 year ago, will create ten more. Child pornography prosecutions and convictions have increased. 

But we should have no illusions about the impact of these initiatives on what has 

become a financially lucrative industry. 

The Internet has revolutionized the commercial markets for virtually every type 

of goods and services that can be sold. Unfortunately, this also includes goods and 

services that subsist on the victimization of children. In a recent case investigators 

identified 70,000 customers paying $29.95 per month by credit card for Internet access to graphic images of small children being sexually assaulted. In our experience, 

most of the consumers are here in the U.S., and we have found that of the 820 identified victims in NCMEC’s Child Victim Identification Program, a startling number 

of these children are also here in the U.S. 

16 

A recent report by McKinsey Worldwide estimated that today commercial child 

pornography is a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide, fueled by the Internet. 

There is also strong evidence of increasing involvement by organized crime and extremist groups. Its victims are becoming younger. According to NCMEC data, 19 

percent of identified offenders had images of children younger than 3 years old; 39 

percent had images of children younger than 6 years old; and 83 percent had images 

of children younger than 12 years old. Reports to the CyberTipline include images 

of brutal sexual assaults of toddlers and even infants. These are images that no one 

here could previously even imagine. But they have become all-too-common in the 

new world of child pornography and child sexual exploitation. Children have become, simply put, a commodity in this insidious commercial enterprise. 

New technology has allowed this industry to stay one or two steps ahead of law 

enforcement. Many distributors of child pornography are using peer-to-peer filesharing networks, which does not use a central server, thereby depriving law enforcement of an identifiable Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is key evidence in 

investigating and prosecuting these cases. When we receive these reports to the 

CyberTipline, it is almost impossible to identify the perpetrators responsible for 

trading the illegal files. The anonymity of recent peer-to-peer technology has allowed 

individuals who exploit children to trade images and movies featuring the sexual 

assault of children with very little fear of detection. 

Wireless access to the Internet permits predators to ‘‘piggyback’’ on others’ wireless signals, trade images, and remain undetected by law enforcement because of 

the difficulty in locating the piggybacking activity, compounded by the increasing 

use of wireless access cards manufactured overseas which use radio channels not 

authorized by the Federal Communications Commission. Wireless technology has 

also enabled the trading of these images via cell phone—making the operation of 

this enterprise not only mobile, but also able to fit inside a pocket and easily discarded to avoid detection. 

Another obstacle to overcome is the reporting of child pornography found on customers’ accounts by electronic service providers (ESPs) to NCMEC. Though apparently mandated by Federal statute, 42 U.S.C. § 13032, not all ESPs are reporting 

and those that do report are not sending uniform types of information, rendering 

some reports useless. Some ESPs take the position that the statute is not a clear 

mandate and that it exposes them to possible criminal prosecution for distributing 

child pornography themselves. In addition, because there are no guidelines for the 

contents of these reports, some ESPs do not send customer information that would 

allow NCMEC to identify a law enforcement jurisdiction. As a result, potentially 

valuable investigative leads are left to sit in the CyberTipline database with no action taken. Together with the U.S. Internet Service Providers Association (USISPA) 

we developed ‘best practices’ reporting guidelines to address this problem. The major 

ESPs are following these guidelines—for example, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo. However, these are voluntary rather than mandatory, so there is no enforcement mechanism for those who choose not to follow them. 

This reporting statute also constrains NCMEC in that it permits us to forward 

the CyberTipline leads only to U.S. law enforcement. This is a real problem, considering the global nature of the Internet. As an example, there is a portion of one 

major ESP system based in the U.S. that is used primarily in Brazil. This ESP 

wants us to send information about child pornography they find on their customers’ 

accounts to Brazilian law enforcement. But we are prohibited from doing so. 

There is also another necessary yet missing link in the chain from detection of 

child pornography to conviction of the distributor. Once the CyberTipline analysts 

give law enforcement all the information they need about specific images traded on 

the Internet, there can be no prosecution until the date and time of that online activity is connected to an actual person. There is currently no requirement for ESPs 

to retain connectivity logs for their customers on an ongoing basis. Some have policies on retention but these vary, are not implemented consistently, and are for too 

short a time to have meaningful prosecutorial value. One example: law enforcement 

discovered a movie depicting the rape of a toddler that was traded online. In hopes 

that they could find the child by finding the producer of the movie, they moved 

quickly to identify the ESP and subpoenaed the name and address of the customer 

who had used that particular IP address at the specific date and time. The ESP was 

not able to provide the connectivity information. To this day, we have no idea who 

or where that child is—but we suspect she is still living with her abuser. 

We think this is just not acceptable. 

One of our new initiatives treats this industry like the business that it is. Our 

goal: to eradicate commercial child pornography. Our mission: to follow the money. 

This new initiative is the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography. 

17 

First, we will aggressively seek to identify illegal child pornography sites with 

method of payment information attached. Then we will work with the credit card 

industry to identify the merchant bank. Then we will stop the flow of funds to these 

sites. The Coalition is made up of major financial and Internet companies, including 

MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Bank of America, Citibank, Microsoft, America Online, Yahoo and many others. We are working to bring new members into the 

Coalition every day, especially international financial institutions. 

The first priority in this initiative is criminal prosecution, through referrals to 

Federal, state, local or international law enforcement in each case. However, our 

fundamental premise is that it is impossible to arrest and prosecute everybody. 

Thus, our goal is twofold: 

1. To increase the risk of running a child pornography enterprise; and 

2. To eliminate the profitability. 

NCMEC is working hand-in-hand with both law enforcement and industry leaders 

to explore the best techniques for detection and eradication, and serves as the global 

clearinghouse for this effort, sharing information in a truly collaborative way. 

Mr. Chairman, I don’t come before you today with a quick, easy solution to the 

problem of child sexual exploitation, but I can state unequivocally that the advent 

of the Internet has provided predators with the means to both entice children into 

sexual acts and sustain a lucrative commercial enterprise that demands the heinous 

victimization of children. We suspect that the problem of child pornography will continue to increase as distributors search for lower risk avenues with a lower possibility of being detected. Federal, state and local law enforcement are more aggressive than ever before, but they must overcome significant barriers. I hope that you 

can help us remove some of those barriers and help us identify and prosecute those 

who are misusing the Internet for insidious, criminal purposes. Too many child pornographers feel that they have found a sanctuary, a place where there is virtually 

no risk of identification or apprehension. 

NCMEC urges lawmakers, law enforcement and the public to take a serious look 

at the dangers threatening our children today, and to move decisively to minimize 

the risks posed by those who exploit new technology and target our children. 

Now is the time to act. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much, Mr. Allen. And we’ll try 

our best to do that. 

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness, Mr. Lan Neugent, Assistant 

Superintendent for Technology and Human Resources. 

STATEMENT OF LAN W. NEUGENT, 

ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT, TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN 

RESOURCES, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Mr. NEUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, my name is Lan 

Neugent, and I am the Assistant Superintendent for Technology 

and Human Resources at the Virginia Department of Education, 

and past Chairman of the State Educational Technology Directors 

Association, SETDA. I am very pleased to be here today to share 

Virginia’s perspective on education’s role in protecting children on 

the Internet. 

House Bill 58, introduced by Delegate William H. Fralin, Jr., and 

passed by the 2006 Virginia General Assembly, was signed into law 

by Governor Timothy M. Kaine on March 7, 2006. This new law 

made Virginia the first State in the Nation to require Internet safety to be integrated into all instructional programs statewide. The 

law expanded the existing statute, which was adopted in 1999. The 

existing statute defined acceptable use policies and practices; the 

new law added the requirement that the Superintendent of Public 

18 

Instruction issue Internet safety guidelines to school divisions. I do 

have a copy of this, and I do believe that it’s in your packet. 

Dr. Tammy McGraw, Director of the Department of Education’s 

Office of Educational Technology, and her staff were charged with 

developing these guidance documents for local school divisions. The 

overall approach was to be one of balance, recognizing the need to 

address the rights and the risk and the highlights and the benefits 

of the use of the Internet in schools. We wanted this guidance to 

reflect our belief that the Internet offers unprecedented access to 

resources that can enhance learning, research, communication, exploration of new ideas, and expressions of creativity. At the same 

time, we wanted educators and students to understand that the 

dangers associated with the Internet are real, significant, and constantly changing. 

To develop the guidelines, agency staff consulted with students, 

parents, educators, researchers, law enforcement officials, local and 

State and Federal representatives, and independent nonprofit organizations. These consultations, and an extensive review of research 

and resource materials, led to the following essential conditions regarding an effective Internet safety program: 

First, Internet safety must be a shared responsibility. Children 

and the many adults in their lives all play important parts in ensuring safe and responsible Internet use. In developing the guidelines for schools, we identified key issues that each role in every 

group, from students to board members, should know. 

Second thing, Internet safety must be integrated into the curriculum and be part of teachers’ daily practice. Our work showed 

that Internet safety cannot be covered in a single lesson or a unit 

by use of a single program or resource. The Internet is pervasive 

in children’s lives. Strategies for ensuring safe and responsible use 

must reflect the many ways in which children experience the Internet. We developed a guide to provide teachers with strategies for 

addressing Internet safety in the context of Virginia’s standards of 

learning. 

There are many high-quality resources available to schools free 

of charge; however, schools and family need to be aware that they 

exist. We have reviewed many excellent resources that address various aspects of Internet safety for schools and families. Our greatest challenges are helping schools identify the most appropriate resources and assuring that they have the ability to use these resources effectively to cover the full spectrum of issues. 

Unlike books and other traditional resources, Internet content 

changes every second of every day. As a result, we routinely apprise school divisions of new developments related to Internet safety. Our information briefs provide summaries of the most current 

research. This is a continued process, due to the ever-changing risk 

of the Internet. 

Technical assistance and professional development must be available to school divisions as they design locally appropriate programs 

for their students. Each community is unique, and Internet safety 

issues tend to vary greatly from one part of the Commonwealth to 

another. We provide technical assistance as divisions move forward 

with designing their comprehensive Internet safety programs. Divisions request assistance from the State Department of Education 

19 

on a wide range of Internet-related issues; most notably, they 

struggle with the need to balance safety and security with instructional innovation. Social networking sites and blogs have been particularly challenging for school divisions. 

Virginia is fortunate to have approximately 1500 instructional 

technology resource teachers. These are folks who work directly 

with schools to help integrate technology into instruction. These 

highly skilled educators receive extensive professional development 

and support from our agency. They, in turn, provide training and 

support for the teachers in their schools. Library media specialists 

and school administrators also receive development through conferences and regional events. These educators are essential to our 

Internet safety program implementation. Program implementation 

must be monitored to assure quality and effectiveness. 

To assist division superintendents, we have developed a set of rubrics—that’s also in your packet—that measure the degree to 

which each division has adapted its acceptable-use policy and implemented an Internet safety program. These tools enable divisions 

to track their progress and determine technical assistance needs. 

Also, public-private cooperation is essential. Protecting children 

on the Internet is a daunting task, as you heard from many of the 

speakers, that requires the commitment of everyone. We have been 

particularly successful in working with other organizations, both 

private and public, to advance Internet safety in Virginia. Attorney 

General Bob McDonnell launched an—Youth Internet Safety Task 

Force, comprised of leaders from prominent Internet companies, 

educators, parents, elected officials, and law enforcement, to identify solutions for the growing problem of sexual offenders and other 

criminals who use the Internet to target children and teenagers in 

the Commonwealth. This group’s work has formed the basis for significant legislation and programs to advance Internet safety in Virginia. 

We have also worked closely with Bedford County Sheriff Michael J. Brown on the Operation Blue Ridge Thunder Internet 

Crimes Against Children Task Force, as well as Jane Madison’s 

University Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assistance, 

the National Cyber Security Alliance, and other organizations devoted to Internet safety and security. Furthermore, we have engaged in direct dialogues with companies to help shape their products and their services to address Internet safety concerns. 

All of these efforts are converging toward one principal objective: 

maximizing the potential of the Internet, while ensuring the safety 

of each student. Safe and responsible Internet use is at the forefront of our efforts, even as we develop cutting-edge Internet applications that range from online testing to studying astronomy in the 

daytime through a remotely controlled telescope in Australia. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neugent follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LAN W. NEUGENT, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT, 

TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN RESOURCES, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, my name is Lan Neugent and I 

am the Assistant Superintendent for Technology and Human Resources at the Virginia Department of Education and past Chairman of the State Educational TechVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:36 Jan 09, 2012 Jkt 072157 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\72157.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
20 

* All appendices to this document are retained in Committee files and can be found at 

www.doe.virginia.gov. 

nology Directors Association. I am pleased to be here today to share Virginia’s perspective on education’s role in protecting children on the Internet. 

House Bill 58, introduced by Delegate William H. Fralin, Jr., and passed by the 

2006 Virginia General Assembly, was signed into law by Governor Timothy M. 

Kaine on March 7, 2006. This new law made Virginia the first state in the Nation 

to require Internet safety to be integrated into all instructional programs statewide. 

The law expanded the existing statute, which was adopted in 1999. The existing 

statute defined acceptable use policies and practices; the new law added the requirement that the Superintendent of Public Instruction issue Internet safety guidelines 

to school divisions. 

Dr. Tammy McGraw, Director of the Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, and her staff were charged with developing a guidance document for local school divisions (See Appendix A*). The overall approach was one of 

balance, recognizing the need to address the risks and highlight the benefits of 

Internet use in schools. We wanted this guidance to reflect our belief that the Internet offers unprecedented access to resources that can enhance learning, research, 

communications, exploration of new ideas, and expressions of creativity. At the 

same time, we wanted educators and students to understand that the dangers associated with the Internet are real, significant, and constantly changing. 

To develop the guidelines, agency staff consulted with students; parents; educators; researchers; law enforcement; local, state and Federal representatives; and 

independent nonprofit organizations. These consultations and an extensive review 

of research and resource materials led to the following essential conclusions regarding an effective Internet safety program: 

Internet safety must be a shared responsibility. 

Children and the many adults in their lives all play important roles in ensuring 

safe and responsible Internet use. In developing the guidelines for schools, we identified key issues that each role group—from students to school board members— 

should know. 

Internet safety must be integrated into the curriculum as part of a teacher’s daily 

practice. 

Our work showed that Internet safety cannot be covered in a single lesson or unit 

or by using a single program or resource. The Internet is pervasive in children’s 

lives; strategies for ensuring safe and responsible use must reflect the many ways 

in which children experience the Internet. We developed a guide to provide teachers 

with strategies for addressing Internet safety in the context of Virginia’s Standards 

of Learning (See Appendix B). 

There are many high-quality resources available to schools free of charge; however, 

schools and families need to be aware that they exist. 

We have reviewed many excellent resources that address various aspects of Internet safety for schools and families. Our greatest challenges are helping schools identify the most appropriate resources and ensuring they have the ability to use these 

resources effectively to cover the full spectrum of issues. Unlike books and other traditional resources, Internet content changes every second of every day. As a result, 

we routinely apprise school divisions of new developments related to Internet safety. 

Our information briefs provide summaries of the most current research (See Appendix C). This is a continual process due to the ever-changing risks on the Internet. 

Technical assistance and professional development must be available to school divisions as they design locally appropriate programs for their students. 

Each community is unique, and Internet safety issues tend to vary greatly from 

one part of the Commonwealth to another. We provide technical assistance as divisions move forward with designing their comprehensive Internet safety programs. 

Divisions request assistance from the state Department of Education on a wide 

range of Internet-related issues; most notably, they struggle with the need to balance safety and security with instructional innovation. Social networking sites and 

blogs have been particularly challenging for school divisions. 

Virginia is fortunate to have approximately 1,500 instructional technology resource teachers who work directly in schools to help integrate technology into instruction. These highly skilled educators receive extensive professional development 

and support from our agency. They, in turn, provide training and support for the 

teachers in their schools. Library media specialists and school administrators also 

21 

receive professional development through conferences and regional events. These 

educators are essential to our Internet safety program implementation. 

Program implementation must be monitored to ensure quality and effectiveness. 

To assist division superintendents, we have developed a set of rubrics that measure the degree to which each division has adapted its acceptable use policy and implemented an Internet safety program (See Appendix D). These tools enable divisions to track their progress and determine technical assistance needs. 

Public-private collaboration is essential. 

Protecting children on the Internet is a daunting task that requires the commitment of everyone. We have been particularly successful in working with other organizations, both public and private, to advance Internet safety in Virginia. Attorney 

General Bob McDonnell launched a Youth Internet Safety Task Force comprised of 

leaders from prominent Internet companies, educators, parents, elected officials, and 

law enforcement to identify solutions to the growing problem of sexual offenders and 

other criminals who use the Internet to target children and teenagers in the Commonwealth. This group’s work has formed the basis for significant legislation and 

programs to advance Internet safety in Virginia. 

We have worked closely with Bedford County Sheriff Michael J. Brown and the 

Operation Blue Ridge Thunder Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force as well 

as James Madison University’s Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance, the National Cyber Security Alliance, and other organizations devoted to 

Internet safety and security. Furthermore, we have engaged in direct dialogues with 

companies to help shape their products and services to address Internet safety concerns. 

All of these efforts are converging toward one principal objective: maximizing the 

potential of the Internet while ensuring the safety of each student. Safe and responsible Internet use is at the forefront of all our efforts, even as we develop cuttingedge Internet applications that range from online testing to studying astronomy in 

the daytime through a remotely controlled telescope in Australia. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much. 

And may I now call upon Ms. Christine Jones. 

Ms. Jones? 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE N. JONES, GENERAL COUNSEL 

AND CORPORATE SECRETARY, THE GO DADDY GROUP, INC. 

Ms. JONES. Good morning, Chairman Inouye and Members of the 

Committee. I’m Christine Jones, General Counsel and Corporate 

Secretary of The Go Daddy Group. 

Go Daddy’s principal business is domain name registration. We 

are currently the largest domain name registrar in the world. We 

have something on the order of 22 million domain names under 

management. We register a domain name once every 2 seconds, or 

less. And every single one of those domain names has the potential 

to become a website that children can look at. The amount of 

data—as you mentioned in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman—online is simply overwhelming, and we cannot look at all of 

it to make sure that it’s OK. 

I want to make a distinction between a domain name registrar 

and an Internet service provider, just to make the point. For example, if you wanted to register ChairmanInouye.com, you could go to 

Go Daddy and register that name, except that I already registered 

it, in anticipation of this hearing, so now you can’t, but, nevertheless, that’s what we do. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. JONES. OK. I’ll give it to you at the end of the day. OK. And 

Mr. Stevens, you know we went through this once before, as well. 

A domain name—and I gave him a domain name, for the record. 

[Laughter.] 

22 

Ms. JONES. A domain name is different from a traditional ISP, 

in that the ISP provides the access to the Internet, so through a 

DSL line or a cable modem or even an old-fashioned dial-up connection. The registrar provides the entrance to establishing the 

presence on the Internet. So, in your case, ChairmanInouye.com. 

We also host a substantial volume of Internet data. That means 

once you build your Website, you have to have a computer to put 

it on. We provide those computers, and we have a whole lot of 

them. So, we end up seeing a lot of what Ms. Nelson and Dr. 

Finkelhor and Mr. Allen and Mr. Neugent talked about, on a daily 

basis. And we devote substantial resources to working with law enforcement, the National Center, other watchdog groups, and others, 

to help protect children from Internet predators. 

This can be frustrating, because it seems like the number of ‘‘bad 

guys’’ is growing faster than the number of ‘‘good guys.’’ And we 

count ourselves among the ‘‘good guys,’’ by the way. 

Six years ago, when I joined Go Daddy, we had one guy, one employee, working on these types of issues. Today, we have two full 

departments that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with dozens 

of employees that do nothing but try to respond to issues of child 

pornography, child modeling, online harassment, cyber bullying, inappropriate content, outright child predators, like the one that Ms. 

Nelson talked about, and other issues affecting children and their 

use of the Internet. It is a huge and growing, menacing problem. 

And, despite our efforts and the efforts of many of my esteemed 

colleagues here, there are still grave dangers for children who 

spend time online, some of which Senator Nelson mentioned in his 

statement. 

Not one single day passes when we don’t have at least one example of something nefarious happening. I mean, every single day. 

These include school districts calling us, asking us to remove 

websites where children are being harassed or threatened; parents 

calling us, because their children have been approached by adults 

in online communication communities; videotaped kidnappings— 

I’m not kidding you—some real, some not—that we work with the 

FBI on; and so on and so on and so on. 

There’s one very real example I wanted to share to make a point, 

that we must educate children and parents about the risks of sharing information about themselves online. 

A few months ago, we got a call from MySpace, the social networking community. They told us that there was a website online 

that had about 60,000—that’s six with a zero, 60,000—MySpace 

user name and passwords posted on the website for everybody in 

the whole world to see. MySpace asked us to take that website 

down. And we thought, OK, that sounds like a good idea, we don’t 

want MySpace user names and passwords out on the Internet for 

people to see. Most of those are run by children. A lot of those children put information about themselves out there. So, we took it 

down. 

The gentleman who ran the website immediately removed the 

content. We put the website back up. There was no problem with 

that. The entire thing lasted about an hour. But, I want to tell you, 

the amount of outrage and backlash that we experienced as a result of taking that down was phenomenal. To this day, there are 

23 

full-blown websites devoted to criticizing our decision for removing 

that content. 

I don’t know what people would have had us to do. Leave the 

user names and passwords out there, so that everybody can go 

stalk Ms. Nelson, like the gentleman that did that to her when she 

was 13? I don’t know, you tell me. 

Many people, I think, would simply rather that the Internet be 

a free exchange of ideas, with no rules and no oversight. They have 

little or no concern for the potential dangers this model creates for 

children. 

Because so much of the burden, therefore, rests on parents, we 

would encourage the Committee to focus on ways to educate both 

children and parents about the dangers of using the Internet. Apparently, protecting your MySpace data with a user name and 

password is not good enough anymore. 

I would say most major corporations want to do whatever they 

can to help. The legitimate ones, the ones that Mr. Allen is talking 

about, that his organization works with. But we need to have some 

tools, to be effective, as Mr. Allen mentioned in his testimony. 

So, Mr. Inouye, thank you so much for the kind invitation to testify. We are grateful that this Committee is once again looking at 

this issue and for your leadership on this, and for recognizing that 

the problem of exploitation of children online, generally—and, specifically, child pornography—is a growing and unacceptable problem that must end. And we are committed to working with law enforcement to see to it that that happens. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jones follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE N. JONES, GENERAL COUNSEL AND CORPORATE

SECRETARY, THE GO DADDY GROUP, INC. 

Introduction 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. I am Christine 

Jones, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of The Go Daddy Group, Inc. 

Background 

The Go Daddy Group, Inc. consists of eight ICANN Accredited domain name registrars, including Go Daddy.com. We have over 22 million domain names under 

management, and are the number one domain name registrar in the world. GoDadd 

registers a domain name every 2 seconds or less. Go Daddy is also a large hosting 

provider. 

A domain name registrar serves as the point of entry to the Internet. For example, Chairman Inouye, if you wanted to register the domain name 

www.ChairmanInouye.com, you could go to www.GoDaddy.com to register that domain name. A domain name registrar is different from a traditional Internet Service 

Provider (ISP), such as AOL, MSN, or EarthLink. The ISP provides access to the 

Internet whereas the registrar provides the registration service for .com names and 

the like. In short, in exchange for a fee, the ISP provides the means by which an 

Internet user connects to the Internet via a dial-up connection, cable modem, DSL, 

or other connection method. A registrar, on the other hand, enables Internet users 

to establish a web presence by registering a unique name such as 

www.ChairmanInouye.com. 

Once www.ChairmanInouye.com is registered, you would need to build a website 

and find a place to store, or ‘‘host,’’ that website. Again, you could go to 

www.GoDaddy.com for storage, or hosting, services. A hosting provider differs from 

a traditional ISP in that the hosting provider supplies space on a computer that is 

accessible from the Internet rather than access to that computer which is provided 

by the ISP. 

24 

How Go Daddy Deals With Online Child Predators 

The Go Daddy Group devotes considerable time and resources to working with 

law enforcement to preserve the integrity and safety of the Internet by quickly closing down websites and domain names engaged in illegal activities. We work with 

law enforcement agencies at all levels and routinely assist in a wide variety of 

criminal and civil investigations. We are also quick to respond to public complaints 

of spam, phishing, pharming, and online fraud and work closely with anti-fraud and 

security groups such as the Anti-Phishing Working Group, Digital Phish Net, the 

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and CyberTipLine. Go Daddy 

has made it a high priority to use its position as a registrar to make the Internet 

a better and safer place. It is also a priority for me personally. 

My staff routinely investigates and suspends sites involving child pornography 

and exploitation of children in many forms and degrees of severity. These include, 

but are not limited to, the following: 1) sites depicting children of both genders engaged in sexual acts with adults or other children; 2) sites depicting children nude 

or exposing inappropriate areas of their bodies; 3) sites advertising, advocating, or 

promoting sexual relations with minors; and, 4) sites with false or altered images 

depicting children in various sexual situations. Our investigations have also uncovered sites containing photographs, videos, and text descriptions; children depicted 

in a sexually solicitous manner; sites that claim only to be ‘‘nudist’’ sites, but include 

pictures of naked children; and, even cartoon images depicting sex acts with infants 

and small children. We take each instance seriously and devote high priority attention to ensuring such websites are removed from our network, as described in more 

detail below. 

The Domain Name Registration Process 

The domain name registration system is entirely automated. There is no human 

intervention into the process. Because many words have multiple meanings and 

combinations of words can be used for both legitimate and illegitimate purposes, no 

domain names are automatically prohibited from registration. As mentioned above, 

Go Daddy registers a domain name once every 2 seconds or less. This makes it virtually impossible for a human being to verify the legitimate use of every domain 

name registration, particularly on an ongoing basis. To compensate for this, we have 

developed a notification system for reporting instances of all types of network abuse, 

including child pornography (hereinafter, ‘‘CP’’), to our Network Abuse Department. 

The Notification Process 

With over 22 million domain names under management, most of our data come 

from third party complaints or notices. The Go Daddy Network Abuse Department 

can receive information that a CP site may be residing on our network in several 

ways: 1) direct complaint from a third party via email; 2) direct complaint via telephone; 3) tip from Go Daddy employees who have either become aware of, or suspect 

the existence of, CP on a customer site; and, 4) notifications from CyberTipLine and 

other ‘‘watchdog’’ groups. 

The Investigation Process 

Once Go Daddy is made aware that a potential CP site is registered through Go 

Daddy, we immediately investigate to determine whether there is CP content, and 

if so, whether that customer has other domain names resolving to the site with the 

CP content, and whether there are other hosting sites in the customer’s account 

which contain CP content. 

In many cases, Internet users can only access CP content by supplying a paidfor membership user name a password. While we cannot investigate content that 

requires payment to access, we do investigate all web pages found to be freely accessible to Internet uses without a user name and password for any site that we suspect may be involved in CP. If the site is hosted by Go Daddy, we may also access 

content directly in the customer’s hosting account to ensure we eliminate all CP content. Often, the operators of websites of a pornographic nature are guarded about 

images on publicly accessible landing pages and store the most offensive content in 

directories that site visitors can only reach with payment. 

After we determine that there is content meeting the criteria for classification as 

CP, we archive a screenshot (in the case of a registered domain) and all or partial 

content (in the case of a hosted site) sufficient to demonstrate evidence of CP for 

future use in law enforcement investigations. 

The Reporting Process 

Once Go Daddy’s investigation is complete, we report the offending domain 

names, websites, and registrant information to law enforcement. We give law enforcement a short time period to request that we leave a website in tact to assist 

25 

in their investigations. This allows authorities to expeditiously gather screenshots, 

downloads, WHOIS data, and other information necessary for further investigation. 

We also report the offending domain names, websites, and registrant information 

to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) via their online submission and complaint area, CyberTipLine. 

The Suspension Process 

After the offending domain names, websites, and registrant information have been 

investigated and reported, we permanently suspend our services. It is important to 

note that domain names are not suspended prior to the investigation and reporting 

processes, especially where domain names are not associated with an active website. 

It is very difficult for us to suspend a domain name before it is associated with an 

active website because many words have multiple uses. And, if there is no CP content associated with a particular domain name, there is no reason to suspend the 

domain name itself because there is nothing unlawful about a domain name, in and 

of itself. 

How Go Daddy Deals With Private Domain Name Registrations 

Go Daddy offers privacy services for domain name registrations. A private domain 

name registration is recorded through a proxy registrant. This enables a domain 

name registrant to avoid publication of their personal information in the public 

WHOIS data base. We find that most of the users of the private registration service 

are legitimate users; bad actors typically do not want to pay extra to hide their 

WHOIS data when they are probably going to provide false WHOIS data, anyway. 

Most CP sites do not have privacy protection on them. More often, the registrant 

simply provides false, but valid looking, WHOIS data, upon registration. 

The registration process for a domain name is exactly the same regardless of 

whether the customer chooses to enable privacy. While we do not have different 

rules for registering a domain name with privacy, we do use our Universal Terms 

of Service broadly to cancel privacy when the Go Daddy Abuse Department determines it is being used for ANY improper purpose. Go Daddy also gives law enforcement the proxy registrant information on private domain name registrations when 

they are investigating a domain name with privacy. In the case of a CP site, this 

information is voluntarily provided to law enforcement during the notification process described above. 

Child Pornography Statistics 

Go Daddy investigates thousands of domain names and websites each year for CP. 

The number of unique customers investigated in the past twelve months was approximately 1,500. (This number does not include the child modeling sites discussed 

below which are growing in numbers daily.) The number of domain names investigated each year is much higher than the number of unique customers investigated. 

One unique customer may have many domain names in one account. Once we find 

out about potential CP in a customer’s account, we look to determine what other 

products they may have associated with CP. Many times, one customer will have 

literally hundreds of domain names on account. In those cases, we suspend ALL the 

domain names with CP, not just the one upon which we received a complaint or 

notification. 

Importantly, these numbers are skewed slightly lower because many times when 

Go Daddy is the registrar, but not the hosting provider, the website content has already been removed by the hosting provider by the time we conduct our investigation. This is a result of third party complaints being sent to both the domain name 

registrar and the hosting provider at the same time. This is a sign that many 

hosting providers take complaints of CP as seriously as we do and we are, of course, 

grateful when we find that they are fully cooperating with us to rid the Internet 

of CP content. 

Approximately 70 percent of the sites we suspend are registered, but not hosted, 

with Go Daddy. This means that in about 70 percent of the investigations we conduct, we find that the website content itself is stored by another hosting provider 

and Go Daddy provides the domain name registration service only. Approximately 

80 percent of the CP websites we investigated in the past year were registered to 

an individual or company in Eastern Europe. The most common areas were Russia, 

Ukraine, and Romania. Importantly, the majority of CP sites we investigated in the 

past twelve months were registered fraudulently. This makes identifying the exact 

nation of origin difficult, and brings into question the reliability of numbers we collect. 

26 

How Go Daddy Deals With Child Modeling Websites 

Much like CP websites, we routinely investigate and suspend sites involving child 

modeling. These include, but are not limited to, the following: 1) images of underage 

children posing in a manner intended to be explicitly sexy. (e.g., emphasizing genital 

areas or posing in situations easily identified with sex); 2) images of underage children in adult lingerie; and, 3) images of children in states of partial nudity or very 

little clothing not associated with normally acceptable situations. Images of a child 

in a bikini swimming at a pool would not be considered. Images of the same child 

in a thong bikini laying on a bed and spreading her legs would be. 

As these sites typically do not rise to the level of technical CP, we classify these 

sites as ‘‘morally objectionable,’’ a term taken from our Universal Terms of Service. 

We tend to be more aggressive than most registrars on child modeling sites. We 

typically remove them, even if we can’t find CP, because our experience has been 

that the operators of child modeling sites tend to be associated, even if attenuated, 

with CP in some way. We also remove the non-traditional forms of CP like nudist 

sites and cartoon CP. 

The Domain Name Registration Process 

While there is no prohibition against registering a child modeling domain name 

(because there is nothing illegal about the domain name itself), we do treat child 

modeling websites in a manner similar to CP sites. We have seen child modeling 

sites with more and more frequency over the past year. Almost every time we find 

a child modeling site, we learn that the customer has multiple domain names specializing in child modeling. We also find that a customer who runs child modeling 

sites typically also has CP on its site somewhere, or that the child modeling sites 

lead, even if circuitously, to CP on another site the customer controls somewhere. 

Based on our investigations, we have found that the vast majority of these sites are 

of little girls. 

The Notification Process 

All child modeling website investigations originally come in as notification of alleged CP (as described above) by third parties or employees. When we are notified 

of a child modeling site, it is transitioned to a child modeling investigation as soon 

as it is discovered to be a child modeling site not containing explicit pornography. 

The Investigation and Reporting Process 

We follow nearly the same procedure for child modeling sites as described for CP 

investigations. Because the child modeling sites fall squarely under the charge of 

the NCMEC, as they are clearly exploiting children, these sites are also reported 

to the NCMEC. 

The following example demonstrates the importance of all ISPs, registrars, and 

hosting providers taking child modeling sites seriously. One child modeling investigation we conducted recently uncovered a registrant engaged in CP. We discovered 

this particular customer had over 200 domain names attached to active child modeling websites. After following our standard investigation procedures, Go Daddy 

submitted their information to authorities. Two weeks later, this customer was arrested and indicted on multiple counts of CP. This is just one of many examples 

of a direct link between information we have provided and arrests for CP. 

Child Modeling Statistics 

We investigate thousands of domain names and websites each year for child modeling. The number of unique customers investigated in the past year was approximately 780. As with CP, the number of domain names investigated each year is 

much higher than the number of unique customers investigated. This is because one 

unique customer may have many domain names in one account. Many times, one 

customer will have literally hundreds of domain names in its account. In those 

cases, we suspend ALL the child modeling domain names, not just the ones upon 

which we received a complaint or notification. 

Approximately 60 percent of the sites we suspend are registered, but not hosted, 

with Go Daddy. This means that in about 60 percent of the investigations we conduct, we find that the website content is stored by another hosting provider and Go 

Daddy provides the domain name registration only. This statistic might tend to suggest that child modeling operators are more comfortable using the services of a 

mainstream hosting provider than those who engage in pure CP, although we have 

no independently verifiable data to support that suggestion. Approximately 60 percent of child modeling websites we investigated in the past year were registered to 

an individual or company overseas, typically in European countries. Unlike with full 

blown CP, approximately 40 percent of child modeling sites we investigated and susVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:36 Jan 09, 2012 Jkt 072157 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\72157.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
27 

pended in the past twelve months were registered to an individual or business in 

the United States. 

Conclusion 

Thank you, Chairman Inouye, for the kind invitation to testify today regarding 

protecting children on the Internet. We are grateful for this Committee’s attention 

to this important issue and for recognizing that the problem of online exploitation 

of children generally, and child pornography specifically, is a growing and unacceptable menace that must end. Go Daddy is committed to taking whatever steps are 

necessary and feasible to assist in ending this practice, and we would challenge our 

counterparts on the Internet to make the same commitment. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Jones. 

Senator Stevens? 

Senator STEVENS. Thank you very much. I would not be able to 

come back after the vote, so I do thank you, appreciate the opportunity. 

I’m interested, Ms. Jones, in the question of whether or not the 

community out there dealing with the Internet in general has any 

idea of what type of an education program would work. 

Ms. JONES. There are many conversations that happen around 

this issue. And, as Mr. Allen said, there’s not one single silver bullet, there’s not one single simple solution. But, if you teach a teenager not to post pictures and not to put their address and phone 

number, not to put their hometown on the Internet, those kind of 

simple solutions—I mean, basic, fundamental stuff—that would go 

a long way toward helping kids escape some of the predators that 

are out to get them. 

I think Ms. Nelson made the point, people on the Internet go 

after the weakest link. They want the kid that’s easy to get. So, 

if each child knows, ‘‘Hey, you know what, if you’re going to be on 

the Internet, don’t put your stuff out there,’’ that would go a long 

way to solving the problems that we’re talking about right now. 

Senator STEVENS. Is there any way that you think that the system could be modified so that parents would have greater control 

over children? 

Ms. JONES. Well, there are some proposals around that issue, for 

example, the dot-US [.us] country code top-level domain, which is 

central to the United States. They have an area called dot-kids-dotUS [.kids.us], which is supposed to be used specifically for children 

on the Internet. That type of thing would work for smaller kids. 

Teenagers, they’re not going to buy it, right? Because they want to 

go out, and they want to explore, and they want to do their own 

thing. But, if you had some areas that were defined so that parents 

could know and monitor and get feedback and reports on every single spot that their kid went to, every single chat conversation they 

had, every website they viewed, I think the parent would kind of 

get the idea, if they know their kid was talking to some kind of 

strange-sounding person in another State. That is pretty simple to 

implement. Getting the word out and helping people to understand 

that that’s available, that’s the educational process that we’re talking about. 

Senator STEVENS. Is there agreement on the panel that the real 

problem is in the sub-teens, rather than in the teen level? Teens 

have access to a lot more computers in school and in clubs and everything else. I think the sub-teen level ought to be the main target 

of any legislation. And is there agreement on that? 

28 

Dr. FINKELHOR. I guess I would say no. I think that, while it’s 

important to educate the preteens about the dangers that they can 

encounter online, I don’t think that they are quite yet ready to understand some of the kind of risky activities that will really get 

them into a lot of trouble. I think this has to go along with some 

of the information that we give them when they start to be interested in romance and taking risks, so that there’s a different kind 

of educational package that we need to target at those teens, and 

particularly at these teens who are inclined to take risks and who 

may be having serious problems in their—— 

Senator STEVENS. I was talking more about parental control. It 

seems to me we could put some parental controls on home computers, but I don’t think we can go out to the stores and other 

places where teenagers can access the Internet somewhere. The 

sub-teens really don’t have that opportunity. 

Anyone else comment on that? 

Ms. Nelson, what do you think? 

Ms. NELSON. I feel, as Dr. Finkelhor said, I think that we can 

educate our teens on ways to stay away from predators, but I feel 

that education of safe Internet usage should start a lower level. 

Kids as young as 5 and 6 are using the Internet. If they knew simple habits, like, ‘‘Don’t talk to strangers,’’ just like you don’t on the 

street, ‘‘Don’t share your personal information, involving adults if 

you feel uncomfortable,’’ if they know those habits at a younger 

age, they will learn to be more responsible Internet users as they 

grow with age. 

Mr. ALLEN. Senator Stevens, let me add, I think there’s no question that educational emphasis has to be put on the sub-teen group. 

Teens are tough. And what we’ve tried to do, what many of the 

groups that are doing such great work in this area have done is 

try to look for that way to really communicate with teens on their 

level, that they understand. The second part of the message is to 

parents, ‘‘Your parenting obligation isn’t over just because your 

kid’s 13 years of age. They’re not virtual adults, they are still kids.’’ 

I think we have to continue to pound home the message on parents 

that, ‘‘You need to be involved in your kids’ lives, you need to talk 

to them and communicate with them, and make sure you understand the kinds of challenges they’re facing.’’ 

So, I think the answer, unfortunately, has to be multifaceted, 

comprehensive, and target both age groups, and keep parents in 

the mix. 

Mr. NEUGENT. If I may add to that, in education what we’ve 

found is that many of the teachers that are working with children 

don’t have all of the skills that are necessary to help protect them, 

and that’s why we’re developing the Internet curriculum, so that 

they can take a look at that. And we do find it pervasive, all the 

way from kindergarten through high school. There are unique 

issues with every age group, and the guidelines and the things that 

we’re working on are to try to make it so that all of those areas 

have some influence over that. The role of leaders, the role of administrators in school, the role of the people that influence children’s lives, is critically important as they start to work with it. 

One of the things we’re trying to do, for example, is to educate 

parents so that they understand how to check a log and see where 

29 

children have been, just as many of the panelists have said, sometimes a simple thing like that, parents just don’t know how to do 

that, and can’t track where their children have been. 

Senator STEVENS. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Senator Nelson? 

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We know, on the basis of Mr. Nugent’s testimony today, what 

they’re doing in Virginia with regard to education. And I’d like to 

ask the rest of the panel, what do you think are the kind of programs that will work the best in order to educate children as part 

of the overall curriculum? 

Ms. NELSON. As I said earlier in my testimony, they have the opportunity to be a part of computer classes, as young as the middleage schooling. Taking time during those computer classes to implement Internet safety education is one of the ways that I feel that 

it would be most effective, because they would be made to learn 

about the issues of the Internet. Kids aren’t always going to want 

to hear these stories, they’re not like Ms. Jones said, they want the 

Internet to be a free place where they can express themselves. But 

if they’re made to learn about it, if they’re made to be safer Internet users, they will learn these rules a lot easier. 

Dr. FINKELHOR. I’d just like to make another pitch for what I see 

as crucial here: research on this issue. I’m not sure that we know 

what the best prevention message is. I’d like to highlight some 

missteps that were made many years ago with the drug-use problem. We ran in, in response to the sense that kids were taking 

drugs, and tried to scare them off. And it turned out not to have 

been very effective. And it took us a decade or more before we understood that we had to go in and teach kids specific drug-resistance techniques, and help them by role-playing these skills. 

Senator NELSON. Well, do you think that—— 

Dr. FINKELHOR. And we need to go through that same process—— 

Senator NELSON. Do you think Virginia—— 

Dr. FINKELHOR.—to try to do it earlier. 

Senator NELSON.—is on the right track? 

Dr. FINKELHOR. Do I think what? 

Senator NELSON. Virginia is on the right track? 

Dr. FINKELHOR. I’m not familiar, entirely, with what they’re 

doing, but my sense is that a lot of the messages that we’ve got 

are based on hunches about what would work, but we really 

haven’t roadtested them yet to see if they actually get kids to be 

safer online. 

Senator NELSON. Mr. Allen, you mentioned a number of additional tools that you’d like to see Congress give to law enforcement. 

Of those proposals, which are the one or two that you think are the 

most important? 

Mr. ALLEN. Well, the two that I think are the most important, 

Senator Nelson, is—one, I think the Congress needs to fix the 1998 

law that mandates Internet service providers to report child pornography on their system. The good news is, the major players are 

30 

doing it willingly and aggressively. I think that’s a problem that is 

fixable by statute and needs to be fixed. 

The second thing is, I think there is a huge challenge for law enforcement in terms of the connectivity information. I know that’s 

a complex issue, with—certainly with the ISP community. I’m convinced there is a reasonable resolution that does not go after content, but just requires preservation of those connectivity logs. 

And third—and I know this is the Commerce Committee and not 

the Appropriations Committee, but I think law enforcement needs 

help. Somebody said earlier, the sheer scale of this problem far exceeds anything that we anticipated, and Federal law enforcement, 

the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative, ICE, and the agencies that are attacking this problem, need resources. State and 

local law enforcement needs resources. 

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I just want to agree with your 

comments about the young lady providing testimony. And I want 

to say that, Ms. Nelson, you’re in a unique position because of what 

you have been given, the title, in order to have a great deal of influence on a lot of people. And the fact that you have chosen this 

as your subject area, I think, should indicate the highest of compliments from us, who are concerned about this. 

Thank you. 

Ms. NELSON. Thank you very much, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Rockefeller? 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I’m a little bit mystified by the whole concept of educating parents and educating children, as opposed to stopping the activity, in 

the first place, through law. 

There was a instance recently here where the movie industry spent $250 million—not of their own money, I might add—of trying 

to convince Americans that they were doing the best that they 

could on indecency, and how to use the V-chip, and all those kinds 

of things. And it was a predictable failure. It was a predictable failure. 

I agree with, I think, with what you said, Ms. Nelson, that if people—if children—young people feel they’re being talked down to, or 

they’re being ‘‘educated’’ to achieve a higher moral standard in, sort 

of, a special circumstance, they’re less likely to listen. I think parents are more likely to listen, but parents, on the other hand, are 

less likely to understand what the problem is, except as their generation is younger and they’re more familiar with it. 

I mean, for example, 85 percent of parents, which is certainly the 

overwhelming majority, claim to have implemented rules in their 

homes about Internet sites their children can visit. Implemented 

rules. That’s definitive. And, additionally, a majority of parents, 53 

percent, claim to have filtering software to limit access to certain 

Internet content. Again, that would seem to be a case-closed type 

of activity. But then, at the same time, 70 to 90 percent of children 

claim to have viewed pornography online, much of it graphically 

very hardcore. So, on the one hand, we educate, or we give people 

either—in the case of television, V-chips or Internet—other types 

of ways of blocking. And, on the other hand, it doesn’t seem to 

work. So, I think this is the conundrum. There’s no single bullet. 

31 

I think what appeals to me the most is what you suggested, and 

that is making it part of the curriculum. I don’t know, what do you 

have, a 45–50-minute Internet class, and little kids start, you 

know, at 4 or 5 years old, or 3 or 4 years old, and they start, and 

then they get better at it. But they always have that available to 

them. And I think it ought to be—just as we don’t teach physical 

fitness anymore, maybe we could substitute mental stability for 

physical fitness, and at least not have people fall into those types 

of situations. 

I think children respond to what they learn in the classroom, because it’s sort of like math and science. I mean, it’s likely to be 

right. What you’re told is likely to be right, or at least it’s a point 

of view which is given to you by a figure that you respect who’s 

not threatening to you—that is your teacher—as opposed to your 

parent, who can be put into that position. 

So, on the other hand, I have no idea that that will work either. 

I have no idea that that will work either. And I just wonder, several of you made your remarks, and you said we’ve got to do more 

of this and more of this and more of this, and nobody really got, 

again, back to the people who are actually doing it. It was a question of how to stop something from appearing on the Internet, stopping opportunities for children to be able to do things they 

shouldn’t, but not foreclosing—you were different, Ms. Jones, when 

you talked about getting rid of some of these sites, and then all of 

the backlash, which I find absolutely fascinating, which I think underlines the problem of the voracious hunger for this kind of stuff, 

which ought to be extremely scary to all of us. 

But, to me, if you don’t want to have bad language on family programming, which is now described as 7:00 to 10:00, and children’s 

hours are 7:00 to 10:00, and which we all know is ridiculous. I 

mean, children start their homework at 10:00. And so, they get to 

see all the bad stuff, even while we’re preaching the 7:00-to-10:00 

concept. So, isn’t it—actually making it a part of the curriculum— 

I don’t know what you do about parents, because I think parents 

are a very mixed group. Some want to, but don’t know how to. In 

the case of the Internet, obviously, if you come from a rural State, 

West Virginia, like I do, there are a lot of parents who don’t know 

how to use the Internet, so they wouldn’t have the first idea of how 

to tell their children about what to do, or there is no Internet connection at home. In the classroom, yes; at home, no. I think a lot 

of parents are also afraid to appear to be moralistic in such direct, 

‘‘You can do this, you can do that, I’m going to block this, I’m going 

to block that, this is why I’m going do it.’’ And so, that’s a hard 

thing for—it’s a hard intervention for a parent. It’s a necessary 

intervention for a parent, but, on a human basis, it’s a difficult one 

for them to make. 

So, my feeling, still, is that you put this into the education, you 

make it part of the training, and you don’t make it just for 1 year, 

you make it all throughout, so that whether you’re dealing with 5- 

year-olds or 15-year-olds, they’re all children, and they’re all subject to different people’s, you know, malevolent interests. And then, 

second, finding ways to close legal loopholes, to raise fines, or simply to make something illegal, to make something criminal. I mean, 

if there’s anything that’s criminal, it’s the attacking of a young 

32 

child, even the attracting of a young child. It’s a criminal activity, 

as far as I’m concerned. Now, I’m not a lawyer, it may be treated 

as such, but I don’t think so. So that I think sometimes we’re too 

delicate in the way we try to approach things. Education is a very 

long-term process. There are a lot of people that don’t know a 

whole lot about Shakespeare, and we’ve been teaching Shakespeare 

for two or three hundred years. 

So, I’d just like to have you react to my point; that is, number 

one, you make it a part of the curriculum, so that the children 

themselves ingest in an atmosphere which they can trust and feel 

comfortable with, surrounded by their peers, therefore no bullying, 

as to how they can get into trouble; and then, after class, they discuss how some of them did get into trouble. And so, it sort of feeds 

upon itself, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, action which 

strikes down the profitability factor, not just closing in on the 

records, but figure out ways to make it impossible for people to do 

it. 

Mr. NEUGENT. Mr. Rockefeller, before others respond, if I could 

just say that, in your packet is Virginia’s Internet Safety Guidelines Curriculum. We certainly concur with what you’re saying, 

Internet safety instruction needs to be in the schools, it needs to 

be in all of the curricula areas. And you’ll see examples in all of 

the major areas in Virginia. 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Is it done every time an Internet class is 

taught, is it done? Is it done three times a week? Is it done once 

a week? Is it a regular part? Does it go on for 10 or 12 years? 

That’s what I’m interested in. 

Mr. NEUGENT. Yes, in all of the curricular areas. 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. It just never gets—you never can get 

away from it in school. 

Mr. NEUGENT. This is a shared responsibility of all teachers. 

That’s the way we work with Internet safety in Virginia, so that 

a teacher in kindergarten, first grade, a history teacher in ninth 

grade, all have a shared responsibility. And what we’ve tried to do 

is to show them, against our standards, those things that they 

should do in each of the curricula areas. 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. And then they have to do it. 

Mr. NEUGENT. They have to do it. 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. And then, are they monitored by the—— 

Mr. NEUGENT. Also in your packet is a monitoring document to 

check and see that it is being done. 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Any other—— 

Mr. NEUGENT. I don’t think it’s something we will have an answer to immediately, but certainly the monitoring document will 

give answers over time—— 

Senator ROCKEFELLER.—comments? 

Mr. NEUGENT. I don’t think it’s enough, it’s just a start, but I 

know we will do more in the future. 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. No, no, it’s—— 

Dr. FINKELHOR. I agree with what you’re saying, and I think that 

broadening the approach across the curriculum is very important. 

There’s an additional broadening dimension, in addition to talking 

about Internet safety: we need to be talking about Internet citizenship. We can take a lesson from the community policing and crime 

33 

control experience. When communities were able to mobilize neighborhoods into Neighborhood Watches, where everybody felt a kind 

of responsibility for what was going on, reporting things that they 

saw that were disturbances, behaving well themselves when they 

were in public spaces, we cleaned up a lot of neighborhoods. And 

I think the Internet is a kind of neighborhood too, which needs this 

kind of Neighborhood Watch kind of orientation. And that’s something we can be also addressing in this curriculum that you’re talking about. 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Mr. Chairman, will you yield me an additional 30 seconds? 

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed. 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. I want to disagree with that. I don’t want 

to say it’s a bad idea, but, to me, there is such an enormous difference between the Neighborhood Action Committee, between 

breaking and entering and permanently either scarring a child’s 

mind or damaging a child, which is a criminal activity of an entirely different dimension. I meet regularly, when I go back to West 

Virginia, with students and parents and psychologists and others, 

and school officials, and we talk about that. Their view is so onesidedly in favor of cracking down, it’s not even funny. And I don’t 

pick them out to reflect the way I think about it, they just show 

up. I mean, they’re angry about this, and they feel helpless about 

this. And if the parents have tremendous Internet capacity, that’s 

terrific, but most of them don’t feel confident, or they don’t feel confident how to approach their children on this thing. And I think it 

has to be a really targeted one-on-one type of thing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Klobuchar? 

STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, all of you, for coming. 

And I know Mr. Allen well, from the work he’s done, as a former 

prosecutor. We’ve worked together. 

And I will say that I look at this just from, first, as a parent, 

the challenges I’ve had. I remember the last 2 years, the only campaign question that stumped me was at a teen program. They 

asked me if I knew what ‘‘LOL’’ meant. Do you know what that 

means—— 

Ms. NELSON. Laugh—— 

Senator KLOBUCHAR.—Ms. Nelson? 

Ms. NELSON.—out loud. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Exactly, laugh out loud. Well, I didn’t know 

that, and my daughter, who’s 12, reminds me of that every day. 

And one of the things I think we see is that these kids are ahead 

of us on the Internet, and it means that we have to learn what 

we’re doing and make sure those standards are in place. And I’ve 

been impressed by some of the work you’ve done, Mr. Allen, on 

that, as well as the rest of the panelists. 

The second way I look at this is as a former prosecutor. And I 

saw these horrific cases that we had, where we would trace them 

34 

back—rapes or other cases—to where young people had met people 

over the Internet. And we had a number of child porn cases, as 

well. And one of the things I always reminded our people was that 

these child porn cases, while it’s a crime itself, there’s something 

sort of distant about it, where it doesn’t seem real, but it became 

very real to us when we had a case where it was just a child porn 

case, actually, against a professor. I remember, his name was Professor Pervo—— 

[Laughter.] 

Senator KLOBUCHAR.—and he had been looking at hundreds of 

images of porn. He was prosecuted. There were some pictures, so 

we were trying to figure out, Are these real kids? Do they live in 

Minnesota? Can we help them at all? And we saw—one of the pictures had a high school—some kind of emblem in the back, and the 

police traced it, and they found a kid in a small town in rural Minnesota who had basically, been molested, and he somehow had 

ended up in this grouping of pictures that this professor had as a 

series of pictures of child porn. And it reminded me again that 

these are real children who are real victims of crimes, and not just 

images on the Internet. 

So, I look at this in terms of law enforcement. My questions are 

more along that vein. First of all, I know that we’ve had some concern in investigating these cases, about the data retention policies 

of some of the Internet service providers, that they’re inadequate, 

and sometimes we’re unable to get the information we need. And 

I guess I’d ask you, Mr. Allen, or anyone else that could shed some 

light on this, What is the average time that ISPs retain this information? And what do you think would be an appropriate amount 

of time? 

Mr. ALLEN. It varies widely, and that really is the problem. 

There are a number of companies that have been extending that 

retention period 30 days, 60 days, 6 months. From the law enforcement folks that we talk to, in our view it needs to be at least a 

year, preferably longer. And, again, our accommodation, recognizing that this has real impact on these companies if they’re required to maintain massive amounts of data, our view is that what 

they should be required to retain are the connectivity logs. The key 

issue for law enforcement is, you have to establish that this person 

went online at this time from this particular site. I think there is 

a way to resolve this conflict without devastating the industry. But 

we hear it from our law enforcement partners across the country 

every day, you can’t make the cases without that basic information. 

We really have to resolve the whole data retention issue. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And the other piece of this, which you 

touched on is the training of police officers. I just remember some 

cases we had early on with small police departments, where they’d 

come upon a scene and were investigating a child porn case. And 

sometimes there aren’t big rings, it’s just one person or they’re trying to figure it out, and they get to the computer, and they start 

turning it on, themselves, and turning it off, and basically there 

were triggers in there that would ruin all the evidence that we had. 

And we did some training videos on this that were really basic. But 

I remember, at some point, the Federal Government was offering 

to do these regional investigations to help local law enforcement 

35 

with forensics and other things. And I just wondered what the status is of that. It’s clearly a problem for local police departments. 

Mr. ALLEN. It’s a huge problem. We, at the National Center, are 

bringing law enforcement in, as well as going out to do these kinds 

of training programs. A real step forward in all this has been the 

creation of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program. Your ICAC in Minnesota has been terrific, and has made lots 

of cases. 

Another major challenge in this area is the whole issue of 

forensics, because computer forensics are very demanding, are time 

consuming. If you seize a computer that has 60,000 images on it, 

it’s going to take time to get that. I’ve talked to FBI leadership 

about it. One of the big challenges now is, it’s just taking too long 

to build these cases. I know there’s a dollar sign attached to that, 

too, but we’ve really got to pay more attention to building forensic 

capability targeted to this kind of issue. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And my last question is, Is there technology 

currently on the market or in development that can catch perpetrators who rely on this peer-to-peer file-sharing networks to traffic in 

child pornography? 

Mr. ALLEN. The answer is yes, but this is an evolving proposition. One of the real challenges here, as you know from your time 

as a prosecutor, is, like every other aspect of human life, the bad 

guys tend to get the new technology before law enforcement. So, 

we’ve spent 10 years trying to help law enforcement catch up. And 

what we’re seeing now is that, when you make headway in one 

area, the technology evolves. So, it is a continuing process. 

I think the most encouraging thing is that these technology companies want to help. For example, we are now working with AOL, 

Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, EarthLink, and United Online in an effort to develop a database of hash values. Basically, each one of 

these images has a fingerprint; and a lot of the images on the 

Internet are not new images, they circulate forever. So, one of the 

things we’re trying to do is work with technology companies to try 

to develop new technologies to identify and interdict those identified illegal images and keep them from reaching the computers of 

America’s consumers. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

And I also wanted to thank you, Ms. Nelson, for being here. I 

must tell you that we had a case once when I was a prosecutor, 

a white-collar case, and one of your predecessors testified in favor 

of the defendant, because she was his friend, that he should get a 

lighter sentence. And I was always telling the story, for years, that 

we took him on, even though the former Miss America testified on 

his side, and that it didn’t bother me, because I was a former Miss 

Skyway News of March 1988. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. So, I’m just so pleased that you are on our 

side, testifying on this issue, so that you’ve righted the name, in 

my mind. 

Ms. NELSON. Well, thank you. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Senator Pryor? 

36 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARK L. PRYOR, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ARKANSAS 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me start, if I may, with Dr. Finkelhor. In your testimony, 

and in your written testimony, you say that—I guess you come to 

the conclusion that giving out personal information or participating 

in social networking sites is not the most crucial factor that places 

children at risk. Is that fair? 

Dr. FINKELHOR. That’s right. 

Senator PRYOR. All right. I’d like to ask Mr. Allen if you agree 

with that statement. 

Mr. ALLEN. We think that putting personal information out there 

puts kids at risk. I think what Dr. Finkelhor is saying is that—I 

won’t speak for Dr. Finkelhor—but that there are other factors that 

appear greater. 

We think there is abundant evidence, including Dr. Finkelhor’s 

research, that indicates more kids are posting personal information, more kids are posting photographs today than ever before. His 

research indicated that kids are being more cautious. Fewer kids 

are interacting with people that they don’t know. But, in our judgment, it puts kids at risk, and that we should continue to work to 

stop kids from doing it. 

Senator PRYOR. Dr. Finkelhor, do you agree with what he just 

said? 

Dr. FINKELHOR. Well, I think it’s a generally good idea to tell 

kids, ‘‘Be judicious about what you do with personal information, 

because you don’t know where it’s going to end up or who’s going 

to use it.’’ But our research does suggest that it’s the exchange of 

personal information, the posting of certain elements of personal 

information, like your Web address, and things like that, are so 

widespread. And our research suggests that that’s not an indication 

of the kids who are actually getting solicitations and getting into 

trouble. 

The parallel, I think, to make is with kids being out on the street 

say, walking to school. It’s probably the case that if you never walk 

to school, your chances of getting abducted are reduced somewhat, 

because some kids are going to get pulled off the street. But there 

are other reasons to be on the street. And it’s not a big factor. 

What’s most important is to talk to kids about what to do when 

they get approached, how to not play into the hands of the solicitors and the predators there. If we think that we’re making kids 

safe by just telling them, ‘‘Don’t post information, don’t talk to anybody you don’t know,’’ that that’s not going to really take them very 

far on this road to protecting them. 

Senator PRYOR. All right. Well, just to be clear for the Committee, in your opinion is the Internet fostering an increase in inappropriate contact between adults and minors? Is the Internet 

adding to the problem, or is it a net neutral? 

Dr. FINKELHOR. Well, that’s a really good question, because it 

would seem as though adults have greater access to kids on the 

Internet, and the Internet has provided a kind of community forum 

for people who have these deviant sexual interests, to kind of communicate with one another, maybe even learn from one another. 

But an interesting fact is that, during the same period when the 

37 

Internet was penetrating into so many households over the last 10– 

12 years, sex crimes against children have actually been declining 

in this country. 

Senator PRYOR. So, is—— 

Dr. FINKELHOR. And I’m not sure that it’s the Internet that has 

caused that decline. In fact, I don’t think it’s really been a part of 

it. But it seems to me a mistake to jump to the conclusion that the 

Internet has made kids much more vulnerable to sex crimes than 

ever before, when you see this decline in overall sex crimes. 

Senator PRYOR. All right. In your opinion, then, is it fair to say 

that child predators have, kind of, moved from the shopping malls 

and the playgrounds and et cetera, et cetera, ball fields, et cetera, 

to the Internet? 

Dr. FINKELHOR. No, actually—for the people we consider 

pedophiles, that is, people who have a primary sexual interest in 

prepubescent kids—they really don’t get much access to kids online. Those kids, at that early age, are really not interested in communicating with people online. These pedophiles have to go 

through the traditional social networks to access kids. What it has, 

perhaps, increased is access to teenagers, and particularly those 

teenagers who are vulnerable because they’re in turmoil in their 

lives and in search of romance and affection and understanding. 

Senator PRYOR. Interesting. 

Mr. Allen, let me ask you—and it’s good to see you again, by the 

way—but let me ask you about—you mentioned something—I believe it was Senator Bill Nelson, here, a few moments ago—about 

the statute needs to be updated, needs to be fixed. Could you give 

the Committee some more of your thoughts on that? What do we 

need to do to the statute? 

Mr. ALLEN. Well, the Congress mandated Internet service providers to report, but regulations have never been issued by the Justice Department. The law was passed in 1998. And, while we have 

worked with the companies voluntarily—327 companies are reporting—the position of the Justice Department has been that this was 

a flawed statute that’s essentially a civil statute with a criminal 

penalty; and, therefore, for ‘‘intent’’ reasons, nobody’s ever been 

sanctioned under the statute. Our view has been: If the statute is 

flawed, we ought to fix it; we ought to amend it. 

And so, simplistically, the code section is 13032, and we believe 

it’s time—we think this is an important tool. These reports have 

led to hundreds of successful arrests and prosecutions. And what 

we have learned, anecdotally—I mean, we’ve handled 500,000 reports, but, of the cases that we have handled from these reports 

from the ISPs, we are learning that these are overwhelmingly not 

instances in which people are just downloading images and looking 

at the pictures; these are people who are downloading images, looking at the pictures, fantasizing about it, and then acting physically 

against real kids. So, we think this is, in the scope of things, I’m 

sure it’s not as big as some other issues, but we think it’s one that 

is yielding real dividends, and our concern is that, if there are only 

327 ISPs reporting, what we don’t want to see is smaller ISPs become safe havens for this stuff. So, our recommendation is that 

that statute be amended so that regulations can be promulgated, 

38 

and every electronic service provider be mandated to report. And 

if they don’t, they should be sanctioned under the statute. 

Senator PRYOR. Well, I’d like to work with you on that. If you 

all have some language or some—you know, if we can get down and 

really look at the statute and try to come up with some specifics, 

I’d really like to work with you on that. 

Mr. ALLEN. That would be great. 

Senator PRYOR. So, please be in touch on that. 

And the last thing, Ms. Jones—and I know I’m out of time here, 

but—parental controls. Are parental controls the answer? I mean, 

it seems to me—I have a bill that, you know, really tries to do a 

better job of identifying images, et cetera, information out there 

that we don’t want young people to see and be exposed to. But how 

important is the parent in this process? And what is some of your 

practical advice of things we can be doing, or should be doing, as 

a Congress? 

Ms. JONES. There’s no simple answer to that question. Parental 

controls are not ‘‘the’’ answer. Parental controls are ‘‘an’’ answer. 

Amending the 1998 statute so that my colleagues in the hosting 

community actually provide data to Mr. Allen’s organization is ‘‘an’’ 

answer. Getting out and implementing something like what Virginia has in schools in schools is ‘‘an’’ answer. But I cannot overemphasize the importance of parents being involved in this process, 

because if your kid is sitting in their bedroom looking at the Internet, and you don’t know what they’re looking at, chances are 

they’re looking at something bad, just like everything else your kid 

does in the bedroom with the door closed without you knowing 

about it. Kids push boundaries, and so, the parent has to be involved. 

Some parental controls that are available work. Some of the filtering works. If the technology coalition that the National Center 

has put together actually gets this database of known images, that 

will be hugely helpful. I can go bump up against our database of 

thousands upon thousands upon thousands of computers with millions of hosting accounts, clean the entire thing of every image 

that’s in that data base. That’s a filter. That’s helpful. But the parent has to put the filter on the computer of the kid that’s looking 

at it in order for what I just did to make it effective. 

I think no matter what we do, it’s always going to come back to 

the user. And I know Senator Rockefeller was uncomfortable with 

that, because it seems like we’re putting the burden on kids and 

parents to do the right thing, and we’re letting the criminals run 

free. That’s not the case at all. We get phone calls every single day 

from law enforcement all over the country who are pursuing the 

‘‘bad guys.’’ Yesterday, in Florida, 22 people were arrested in a case 

that we helped with in a child pornography ring. That stuff is also 

happening—that’s another sort of parallel line that’s going on. But 

you’ve got to have the parents involved. I cannot overemphasize it. 

And if you’re a kid, and your parent doesn’t know how to use the 

Internet, teach ’em how to use it. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Senator Cantwell? 

39 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank all the panelists for being here, and, Mr. Chairman, 

for holding this Committee. 

Could we talk about statistics for a minute? Because I know that 

some were mentioned, but I want to understand—I think, in 2004, 

there were reports of 200,000 online child pornography cases. Do 

we know, Mr. Allen or others, if that has increased? This was part 

of the International Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s 

data. 

Mr. ALLEN. Right. We—— 

Senator CANTWELL. And that was, one in five children ages 10 

through 17 has been solicited online—— 

Mr. ALLEN. That—— 

Senator CANTWELL.—for unwanted sexual advances. So—— 

Mr. ALLEN. The one-in-five data were from Dr. Finkelhor’s research, which the University of New Hampshire conducted for the 

National Center in 2000. The good news is, his most recent version 

of that indicated that that number has gotten a little better. It’s 

now one in seven. 

In terms of child pornography cases, we don’t have the same kind 

of scientific data. What I can report to you is that the numbers of 

child pornography reports received by the National Center for 

Missing & Exploited Children are up dramatically. 

The other thing that we’re seeing from those reports is that the 

victims are getting younger. Again, citing Dr. Finkelhor’s research 

from a couple of years ago looking at offenders, what we’ve found 

is that most people don’t understand what the true composition of 

this issue is. His research found that 39 percent of the offenders 

who were identified had images of children younger than 6 years 

old; 19 percent, younger than 3. Many people think this is a problem of 20-year-olds in pigtails made to look like they’re 15. It’s not. 

Overwhelmingly, the demand is for prepubescent children, and the 

numbers are getting younger and younger. 

Senator CANTWELL. So, if you were going to say the decrease of— 

in fact, if it is a decrease—and, you know, you never know what’s 

going on; it may be that people have gotten better at hiding the 

contacts or who knows, maybe software on the other side, and 

encryption technology, who knows what’s happening. But, let’s say, 

for example—for sure there is an improvement in the situation. To 

what do we think we can attribute the effort that led to that reduction? 

Dr. FINKELHOR. One of the things that we found was that young 

people, between 2000 and 2005, when we did our two surveys, reported they were going to chat rooms less, that they were talking 

to people that they don’t know less, and it suggested that actually 

they had gotten some of the prevention education messages that we 

had been putting out, and that was the good news. 

I don’t want to put too much stock in the decline from the one 

in five to the one in seven. We didn’t see a change in the number 

of kids who were experiencing what we call ‘‘aggressive solicitations.’’ Those were the really endangering ones, where the person 

who was soliciting them tried to make contact with them offline, 

40 

in addition to the computer communication. That stayed at around 

4 percent. Those are the ones that concern me, that one in 20. Most 

of the kids are handling those pretty well, the other ones, that 

don’t involve these aggressive solicitations. Unfortunately, the aggressive solicitations did not decline. 

Senator CANTWELL. And, Mr. Allen, I’m assuming that the National Center does work with the International Center on—— 

Mr. ALLEN. Yes. 

Senator CANTWELL.—on these efforts, since the Internet is global 

and—— 

Mr. ALLEN. Absolutely. 

Senator CANTWELL.—and so, that connectivity issue and data 

storage issue is being addressed on an international basis, because 

you don’t want to just chase the problem to some server somewhere 

else that isn’t regulated. So, are we working on that, on an international basis? 

Mr. ALLEN. Senator Cantwell, we’re working on it. In fact, you 

helped us launch our partnership with Interpol on that. The great 

challenge, internationally, is that we reviewed the law in the 186 

member countries of Interpol, and we found that 95 of them have 

no law at all, child pornography is not even a crime. And in 136 

of the member countries of Interpol, the possession of child pornography is not a crime. It is a real challenge, because, in much of the 

world—this is now an issue in which Eastern European organized 

crime is very much involved, because it’s so easy and so profitable. 

And we have great work we need to do work to change the law 

around the world and build capacity. With Interpol, we’ve now 

trained law enforcement in 100 countries to build capacity—— 

Senator CANTWELL. And do—— 

Mr. ALLEN.—but there’s a long way—— 

Senator CANTWELL. And do you have—— 

Mr. ALLEN.—to go. 

Senator CANTWELL. And do you have data from that, Mr. Allen, 

about the success of that? Do you have any statistics from that? 

Mr. ALLEN. From the legislative research? 

Senator CANTWELL. No, from that 2004 Interpol effort of training 

law enforcement to identify an online crime scene, so they could 

better find the perpetrators. That training, which I did applaud, I 

thought was a useful effort, particularly given, again, that so much 

of these activities, from an international basis, are going to impact 

us here in the United States. We can do a really good job of trying 

to clean things up here, but, if we’re seeing Websites, you know, 

from all over the globe—— 

Mr. ALLEN. Absolutely. We—— 

Senator CANTWELL. So—— 

Mr. ALLEN.—can certainly get you the data that was generated. 

Senator CANTWELL. So, do you think that that’s worked, this— 

here’s my point. I think everybody’s doing great work, but we definitely have an enormous task in front of us, and we’re only going 

to have increases in communication and technology. We do want to 

use that to our advantage. But, measuring what—to the best of our 

degree—what is being successful, so that we can invest more in it, 

I think, is critical, at this early stage. 

41 

Mr. ALLEN. I agree. And there’s very little research, or very little 

empirical data, on this issue outside the United States, and that’s 

a real challenge. 

Dr. FINKELHOR. And even the information that we have within 

the United States, I’m afraid, is woefully inadequate, in many respects, for tracking what’s going on. I would just contrast the information that we have on infectious diseases, for example, which are 

another threat to the public, but we have tremendous information 

about infectious agents and accidents that we can track, over time, 

to see how we’re doing. In the crimes-against-children area, we are 

woefully lacking, with just general epidemiological information, on 

some of the things that are most frightening to families, like abductions and Internet crimes against kids, and we could really improve. And it would answer some of the questions that you’re interested in, I think. 

Senator CANTWELL. Well, I think it’s very important. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the hearing, and thank everybody on the panel for your hard work. But we obviously have 

a lot more work to do. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

I’ve been listening intently to the testimony. And, according to 

reports that we have gathered, about 5 years ago there were about 

100,000 child pornography Websites. Today, I think they get close 

to 400,000. At the same time, over 70 percent of children, teenagers, preteenagers, have viewed child pornography on the Internet. At the same time, we have statistics that suggest that the 

American family, 67 percent have both parents living with their 

children, the remainder are either living in homes, institutions, or 

with single parents, or with grandparents. At the same time, statistics suggest to us that most of these single parents are so overwhelmed with trying to make a living, they spend very little time 

with their kids. And I believe in parental involvement, but these 

numbers suggest that, for many of our kids, parental involvement 

does not exist. And so, I am concerned about what the Federal District Court in Utah did—making one of those laws unconstitutional. 

What I’d like to know is, What can we do—and maybe this is in 

the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee—to toughen the laws? 

Now, for the record, what are the punishments that we have in 

the books, at this time? 

Mr. ALLEN. Well, Senator, the Congress, certainly on Federal offenses, over the past several years has increased penalties significantly. And I think that’s been a huge step forward. The States 

have some more work to do. 

On the issue you raised about the Utah court decision, my reaction certainly is one of discouragement. This Congress has tried 

very hard to address this issue with governmental solutions, limiting the access, filtering and blocking and keeping kids from 

reaching this kind of content, or content reaching them. 

Frankly, I think my judgment is that one of the things this Commerce Committee can do is to encourage and promote more privatesector innovation, because there are tools that are being developed. 

Ms. Jones talked about some of the leadership within the technology industry. I think there are tools that are being developed on 

42 

the private side that should be encouraged, should be examined, 

and we should begin to try to implement them. 

Frankly, the courts have sent a pretty loud-and-clear message, 

and that message is, they’re going to look very carefully at governmental regulatory mandates in some of the areas. And I think 

what the Congress has to do is look for a balanced approach, not 

that previous approaches weren’t—but a more balanced approach 

that put greater emphasis on private-sector tools and private-sector 

innovation. 

The CHAIRMAN. How can we convince our parents that what is 

involved here is serious, dangerous, and will just eventually break 

up families? What can we do? Can we do anything, legislatively? 

Mr. ALLEN. Well, Mr. Chairman, our view, from the beginning, 

has been that this is a three-pronged process. One, the kind of activity we’re talking about, almost without exception, is illegal. And 

so, I think law enforcement—an increased emphasis on law enforcement to identify those who are misusing the Internet for unlawful purposes, is more important than ever before. 

Second, I think we have to continue the drumbeat to try to motivate America’s parents, and awaken them. We live in a unique 

time, in which kids know more about a transcendent technology in 

our lives than do their parents. There are some terrific models and 

programs out here. Jackie Leavitt, the wife of the HHS Secretary, 

is here with us this morning. She has mobilized the Nation’s first 

ladies around a program called iKeep Safe. There is a terrific training program that’s gone into schools across the country, called iSAFE. We, at the National Center, created, with Boys and Girls 

Clubs of America, an interactive online educational tool, called 

NetSmartz, with animation for younger kids. There are great tools 

out there. The Virginia model of mainstreaming it, of institutionalizing it, for making it a part of ongoing educational curricula, I 

think, is real important. So, we have to continue to emphasize and 

promote prevention and education. 

But, third, I think the ultimate answer to a lot of this problem, 

frankly, is rooted in technology. The softwares have not yet been 

developed that can automatically identify, interdict, prevent certain 

kinds of issues. Members of this Committee talked, this morning, 

about the concern about a hands-off approach. I think if we continue to promote technology innovation to develop tools that can be 

used to prevent the most heinous of these problems, while emphasizing education in the classroom as an ongoing and integral part 

of what kids are taught and what they learn, continue the efforts 

to reach out to parents, recognize it’s hard, but we’ve got to do it, 

and then give law enforcement the tools and the resources they 

need to go after, and prosecute, the ‘‘bad guys’’. The good news is, 

there have been thousands of them brought to justice. The bad 

news is, there are far more of them than we thought there were. 

And the reality is, as someone raised earlier, the Internet does create a situation where people can be anonymous, they can fantasize 

in the privacy of their own homes, they have little risk of detection. 

That’s something we have to deal with. 

The CHAIRMAN. Any closing remarks here? 

Miss America? 

43 

Ms. NELSON. Again, thank you for the opportunity for allowing 

me to be here to speak on this issue. I feel that the legislation has 

been put in place, that there are things being done that are the 

step in the right direction, but there is more that we can do. Again, 

I want to promote education, because I feel that education on this 

issue will help to keep our kids, and help them from being the victims in the first place. If we can police the Internet on our side of 

the keyboard, I think that’s the best way to go about this issue. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Finkelhor? 

Dr. FINKELHOR. I want to thank you, also, for the opportunity to 

address the Committee, and also appreciate your interest in this 

topic. 

My final remark is that the vulnerability of children on the 

Internet is an extension of their vulnerability in every aspect of 

their lives, and we should not ignore that, as well, as we try to face 

the risks that are posed online. But children are still being bullied 

in school, sexually abused in their families, and they are still witnessing domestic violence in their homes. And this is all part of one 

fabric and in order to address victimization online, we also need to 

address some of these other issues, as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Allen? 

Mr. ALLEN. Just, finally, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for your extraordinary leadership and commitment on this issue. This is timely, and it’s important. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Neugent? 

Mr. NEUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, also, for allowing me 

to speak today. I do believe that education is one of the answers, 

and we will continue to pursue that in Virginia. We will continue 

to work with the attorney general’s task force. And we hope, at 

some point, to have information to show that, in effect, our programs are working. 

Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Jones? 

Ms. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I’m sure you know, but your staff, James Assey and Margaret 

Cummisky and the people that work behind you, are tirelessly pursuing this, that the staff members of every Committee member 

here that we’ve met with who pursue this issue are. We are profoundly grateful for that, because, we feel like we’re out on the 

front line, trying to defend this thing. It’s nice to know that somebody in Washington is paying attention to it. 

It seems like a noncontroversial issue, nonpartisan. Nobody 

thinks child predators are a good idea. So, we would continue to 

urge passage of the McCain-Schumer child pornography bill, the 

bill that Senator Pryor mentioned, in regards to online parental 

controls. Any of the tools that are small steps in the overall solution, we would encourage this Committee to continue to pursue. 

But, most importantly, just thank you so much for taking a look 

at the issue and for making it a priority at the end of a session 

and on a hot summer day, when you might be off doing something 

else. So, we are just profoundly grateful for that. 

Thank you. 

44 

The CHAIRMAN. Obviously, there’s much to be done. And we’re 

not quite knowledgeable as to what should be done. 

But, Mr. Allen, we will find out. And I promise all of you that 

we’ll make it tougher, we’ll get more parents involved, we’ll have 

PTAs involved. And that has been a concern of mine. I used to attend PTA meetings, as a Member of Congress, which meant I had 

to miss some votes. But, today, in a school of, say, 500 children, 

if you have 50 parents at a PTA meeting, you are doing very well, 

which is sad. It wasn’t so in my days of youth. But I suppose, with 

all the advancement and technology advancements, we don’t need 

these things. But I think they’re wrong. Parents must get involved. 

And I thank you all very much for your contribution. 

The session is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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