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SEX CRIMES AND THE INTERNET

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 17, 2007

Serial No. 110–87

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PERRY APELBAUM, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOSEPH GIBSON, Minority Chief Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

OCTOBER 17, 2007

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ..................... 1

The Honorable J. Randy Forbes, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Virginia, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary .......................... 1

The Honorable Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Virginia, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary .................... 2

The Honorable Ric Keller, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Florida, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary .......................................... 8

WITNESSES 

Ms. Alicia Kozakiewicz 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 9

The Honorable Earl Pomeroy, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of North Dakota 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 13

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 15

The Honorable Nick Lampson, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 17

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 18

The Honorable Marilyn Musgrave, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Colorado 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 19

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 21

The Honorable Christopher P. Carney, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Pennsylvania 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 22

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 23

The Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Florida 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 23

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 25

The Honorable Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Washington 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 27

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 28

Mr. Michael A. Mason, Executive Assistant Director, FBI, Criminal, Cyber 

Response and Services Branch 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 30

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 32

Mr. Laurence E. Rothenberg, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of 

Legal Policy, Department of Justice 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 35

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 37

Mr. Flint Waters, Wyoming Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 44

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 46

Page

IV

Ms. Michelle Collins, Director, Exploited Child Division, National Center 

for Missing and Exploited Children 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 61

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 62

Mr. Grier Weeks, Protect, Inc. 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 64

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 65

Mr. John Ryan, General Counsel, AOL 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 69

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 72

Ms. Elizabeth Banker, Assistant General Counsel, Yahoo 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 79

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 81

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Letter from Wayne Bowers, Board Member, Sex Abuse Treatment Alliance 

(SATA), dated October 16, 2007, to Rep. John Conyers ................................... 4

Article from The New Jersey Star-Ledger, dated August 14, 2005 ...................... 105

Letter from the Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a U.S. Senator from the 

State of Delaware, to Robert F. Mueller, Federal Bureau of Investigation .... 118

Letter from James E. Finch, Assistant Director, Cyber Division, Federal 

Bureau of Investigation, to the Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr. ..................... 121

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee on 

the Judiciary ......................................................................................................... 135

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 136

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................................................................................................................... 137

Prepared Statement of Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer, Fox Interactive Media and MySpace .................................................................................. 138

(1)

SEX CRIMES AND THE INTERNET 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:20 p.m., in Room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable John Conyers, 

Jr. (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Conyers, Scott, Jackson Lee, Sa ́nchez, 

Cohen, Johnson, Wasserman Schultz, Coble, Chabot, Lungren, Keller, and Forbes. 

Staff Present: Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and Chief Counsel; 

Mark Dubester, Majority Counsel; Joseph Gibson, Minority Chief 

Counsel; Michael Volkov, Minority Counsel; and Brandon Johns, 

Staff Assistant. 

Mr. CONYERS. Good afternoon. Sorry for the delay. 

The Committee will come to order. 

Welcome, everyone. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to 

declare a recess of the Committee. 

Today’s hearing is on sex crimes and the Internet. The Internet 

has become a remarkable means of communication. It has also revolutionized commerce, the spread of information, but also unfortunately provides a venue for unscrupulous sexual predators to commit their crimes. 

These predators use the Internet to infiltrate social networking 

sites to arrange meetings with minors where they use brute force 

to commit sexual offenses or worse. They use the Internet to join 

chatrooms and arrange sexual encounters with minors. They use 

the Internet to distribute images of child sexual exploitation and 

other child pornography. 

So a goal of this hearing is to solicit input from all who are concerned about this issue, including my friends across the aisle, to 

make sure that any resulting legislation draws from all of the best 

ideas in strengthening the ability of the Federal and State law enforcement authorities to investigate and prosecute those who commit these kinds of crimes. 

I am now pleased to recognize the Ranking minority Member of 

the Crime Subcommittee, the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Randy Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, first, I would like to request unanimous consent 

to allow the statement of the Ranking Member Smith to be submitted. 

Mr. CONYERS. Without, objection, so ordered. 

2

Mr. FORBES. This is an important hearing. 

Finally. The Judiciary Committee is finally focusing on a criminal justice issue of significant concern to the American public. The 

sexual offense epidemic in our country is well-documented. Each 

year an average of 366,000 individuals over the age of 12 are the 

victims of sexual offenses. It is estimated that nearly half of all of 

the sex offenders have attacked children under the age of 12. One 

in four women and one in seven men will be victims of sexual offenses in their lifetime. 

The National Institute of Justice reported that rape costs $127 

billion in victimization costs every year. But no statistic can truly 

capture the pain and suffering of the victims and their families. 

The challenge is even greater when one considers the link between child pornography and sexual attacks on our children. We 

have seen an explosion of child pornography on the Internet. Offenders who possess or distribute child pornography are treated differently in our criminal justice system than those predators who 

prey on our children. 

A recent study, the first in-depth survey of online sexual behavior, found that 85 percent of offenders who downloaded child pornography also committed acts of sexual abuse of children. The policy implications of this study are significant because they firmly 

link child pornography and sexual predators. 

The challenge is for Federal, State and local law enforcement, 

legislators, and industry to work together even more than they 

have up to now to save children from these predators and to make 

the Internet safer. 

The solutions require a combination of approaches. The Adam 

Walsh Act that we passed last Congress was an important step in 

the right direction. We need to continue this effort by using our 

common sense to protect the vulnerable and innocent children of 

our country from sexual predators, to provide law enforcement with 

the tools they need to protect our children, require the business 

community to cooperate with law enforcement when necessary, and 

make sure that the laws we pass are being carried out by the Justice Department and that judges are appropriately sentencing sex 

offenders. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I yield back 

the balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. I am now pleased to recognize the Chairman of the 

Crime Subcommittee, Mr. Bobby Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate you holding this hearing on an important issue of 

sexual predators using the Internet for nefarious purposes. Protecting children from sexual predators is an important goal because 

the suffering caused by these crimes is a tragedy and we must do 

all we reasonably can to prevent such crimes. 

However, even though these cases pull at our heart strings, that 

does not relieve us from the responsibility to legislate on a sound 

and effective basis. 

There are many bills that have been introduced or will be introduced to require sex offenders to reregister their e-mail, instant 

message addresses, or types of Internet identifiers. The theory is 

with this information, law enforcement and others will be able to 

3

track these offenders’ e-mail activity. However, because of the nature of the Internet and the ease with which a person can create 

an online identity, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to keep 

track of a sex offender’s e-mail traffic through this approach, such 

that all we will be doing is adding another charge that could be 

brought after the fact. 

Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, the significant evidence is that of 

those who commit sex offenses using the Internet, only a negligible 

percentage are potentially subject to registration under any of the 

bills. 

I would prefer that our attention be focused on efforts that are 

likely to reduce such offenses based on credible evidence. The evidence is that sex offender treatment programs will significantly reduce sex offender recidivism. Department of Justice figures indicate 

that 5 percent of sex offenders commit other sex crimes and that 

the recidivism rate for child molesters is about 3 percent within 3 

years of release. That is compared to about 65 percent or more for 

other crimes. 

Focusing resources on those who need treatment or other community assistance is far more likely to impact recidivism than relying on notions that we can track their Internet activity from a 

given e-mail address or other online identifier. 

Of course where there are instances of offenses that are not 

being prosecuted through lack of staffing or other resources, such 

as apparently is the situation in peer-to-peer sharing of child pornography over the Internet, we should provide additional resources 

to not only prosecute such crimes but to also thwart attempts to 

commit them, and that would have a deterrent effect because people will know they are getting caught, which is right now not the 

case. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony by witnesses 

on what we can do to actually address the problem of using the 

Internet to commit sex crimes against children and would ask 

unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, that a letter to you from the 

Sex Abuse Treatment Alliance be entered in the record. 

Mr. CONYERS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information referred to follows:]

4


1A-1.eps
5


1A-2.eps
6


1A-3.eps
7


1A-4.eps
8

Mr. SCOTT. I want to site two statistics out of this. The first is 

that Dateline’s ‘‘To Catch a Predator’’ series of over 229 offenders 

who showed up or were prosecuted, four were registered sex offenders, which is 1.7 percent. The other is out of 36,229 registered sex 

offenders, only five committed an Internet sex crime, and that 

works out to a percentage of 0.138 of a percent. 

That means well over 99 percent of the predatory offenders who 

are committing Internet sex crimes would not be affected by this 

legislation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman and recognize the distinguished gentleman from Florida, Mr. Rick Keller. 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing me, and I also want to especially thank you for holding this 

important hearing on sex crimes and the Internet. 

The bottom line is that online child predators must be captured, 

prosecuted and locked away. The television show, Dateline’s ‘‘To 

Catch a Predator,’’ has raised public awareness about the seriousness of the problem we have in this country right now with online 

predators. Specifically, it shows us the problem we have with predators who communicate online with the child or someone who they 

believe to be a child and then travel to meet that person for the 

purpose of sexually abusing him or her. 

It also shows us the problem we have with something called 

grooming, a behavior where predators pretend to be younger than 

they are and lie about their age in order to entice their victims. 

Currently, Florida is the only State in the Nation which has a law 

specifically targeting the criminal practice of grooming. I think that 

is an important issue to address, and, in fact, I will be introducing 

legislation with my colleagues on that issue. 

I do have optimism that this is an issue that we can do something about. 

On Monday, I joined with the Florida Attorney General Bill 

McCollum to cut the ribbon on the Child Predator Cyber Crime 

Unit in my hometown of Orlando which is staffed with six full-time 

employees who sit there much like on the TV show ‘‘To Catch a 

Predator’’ and coordinate with investigators, police officers and 

prosecutors to go out and capture the worse abusers. 

This problem is so bad that all of us on both sides of the aisle 

need to drop what we are doing and address it. Seventy-seven million children in this country use the Internet daily, and one out of 

seven children in America between the ages of 10 and 17 are sexually solicited on line. 

It is clearly a problem worthy of this important hearing, and I 

want to especially thank our witnesses, the Members of Congress, 

who have taken the time to draft thoughtful legislation and will be 

testifying today. And also I want to especially thank the second 

panel who will be made up of a broad cross-section of experts because we look very much forward to hearing your ideas. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. I thank you very much, Mr. Keller. 

And of course we will receive all other opening statements of 

Members. 

9

We have two panels today plus a very important and distinguished speaker. 

Our first speaker is Alicia Kozakiewicz. This brave young woman 

will describe her own personal experience with the issues that we 

consider today. 

And I thank my colleagues, particularly the Ranking Member 

from Texas, Mr. Smith, for permitting us to call her out of turn because of her time schedule. She must leave immediately upon completing her testimony. 

And there are several House Members who have introduced legislation on this issue who have agreed to briefly testify about their 

bills. We don’t expect them to respond to questions, though they 

may be asked to answer written questions that will be submitted. 

We will conclude with another panel from law enforcement and 

from the Internet provider industry. 

Our lead-off witness can give a real voice to what this issue is 

all about, and I welcome her to the Committee. She is here today 

not only as a survivor, but she is sure to warn others of the dangers of the Internet to help us protect our kids. 

Welcome to our hearing, and I would invite you to give us your 

testimony at this point. 

TESTIMONY OF ALICIA KOZAKIEWICZ 

Ms. KOZAKIEWICZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Hello. Thank you for inviting me to speak today. 

My name is Alicia Kozakiewicz, a Pittsburgh resident. I am 19 

years old and a sophomore in college. And for the benefit of those 

of you who don’t know, don’t remember those headlines, I am that 

13-year-old girl who was lured by an Internet predator, transported 

across State lines to Virginia, in fact, not so very far from here, and 

enslaved by a sadistic pedophile monster. 

The authorities told my parents that the odds were a million to 

one against my recovery. But I was the exception. I got the miracle. 

I was rescued. 

So why me? Because I was blessed by the simple fact that I live 

in Pittsburgh, where one of the very best cyber crime task forces 

was created, and because I was enslaved in Virginia, where one of 

the best Internet Crimes Against Children taskforces, or ICAC, exists. Because they had the training, the knowledge and the expertise to find that needle in the haystack. That was—I was a lost little girl. That was me. Because they had the cooperation of another 

fine ICAC team here in Virginia, because they were there, I am 

here. They are the only reason that I am here in front of you today. 

But I want you to know that I am not up here alone. Beside me 

there are so many young girls whose stories will never be heard because they are dead, possibly enslaved or just too terrified to speak 

out. 

When I speak, what I say is for all of us who exist in pain and 

fear and sometimes even shame and for those of us who have been 

silenced by the grave. 

So I guess you need to know how it happened, and why I let it 

happen to me. I want you to stop thinking that right now. I was 

a young girl and just because someone leaves without a struggle 

10

doesn’t mean that they left willingly. It has been 5 years, and I 

have just begun to answer that question myself. 

I know that many of you perceive that those of us who have been 

lured via the Internet as being the stereotypical wild child, drugs, 

broken families, searching for love you can’t find at home. Nothing 

could be further from the truth. Many of us were the shy children, 

the wallflowers, not necessarily the geeks or the freaks, just not 

the partiers, and sometimes, as in my case, those that were very 

shy. 

The Internet provides a type of anonymity that allows a timid 

child to miraculously transform themselves. They are suddenly able 

to act without the fears that have constricted their daily lives. Take 

myself for an example. 

So in an attempt to impart some clarity here, let me start at the 

beginning. Pick a teenage girl, any one of us, and we will be suffering agonies over at least one and probably more of these situations: 

Imagine your 13th birthday was last month and for some ridiculous reason your parents still think you are a child. You are sitting 

home bored and lonely because your best friend decided that you 

are not so cool anymore and your other best friend has moved far 

away. That person you have an unbelievable crush on, they think 

you are the biggest geek. You have a D in algebra despite your best 

efforts and you won’t be making the honor roll this semester. And 

nobody understands anything at all, nobody ever will. You are 

alone in this world and you are so bored, so lonely that you are online just chatting. 

So let me start closer to the beginning. I was 13. I was a good 

student. I had a few good friends. I had the most wonderful, loving 

and supportive family a child could ever ask for, and yet at 13 we 

change. We question everything, especially ourselves. I was that 

typical bored, shy and lonely child just looking for something to do. 

In the beginning, I chatted for months with Christeen, a beautiful red haired 14-year-old girl who just understood me all too 

well. We became the very best of friends. And we shared all of our 

thoughts, all of our intimate girlhood secrets. There was nothing 

that she didn’t know about me, and we traded our school pictures. 

Too bad that hers were fake. Yeah. Christeen was really a middle-aged pervert named John. And he had lots of practice at his little masquerade because he had it all down, the abbreviations, the 

music, the slang, the clothes. He knew it all. I never had a chance 

because these perverts, they congregate on the Internet. They pass 

their little girlfriends around to each other, and they share techniques and they boast in their conquests. John/Christeen was to introduce me to a great friend of hers. This man was to be my abductor, my torturer, and he was my dearest friend. 

My relationship on line with Tyree grew slowly, over a period of 

about 6 months. He was courteous and interesting and subtle. He 

was thoughtful and gentle and nice, and of course entirely deceptive, and so we became friends. 

Slowly and perceptively, he led me into more intimate conversations. I never even realized that our chats had become more intimate. So we just talked about everything. Not just about sex. He 

was interested in me as a person. My thoughts, my goals, my relaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jul 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\101707\38335.000 HJUD1 PsN: 38335
11

tionship with friends and family members. He gave me adult advice and always took my side, and that was just what I needed. 

School was, well, it was school. Mean girls and nasty boys and 

everyone trying to be all that they are not, and my family and I 

were very close but we didn’t always see eye to eye about everything. Sometimes we just seemed to still think that I was still a 

child, but there was always my secret special friend, and I could 

count on him to see things my way. 

He was my confidant, and I wanted to tell him personal things 

or parrot those things that they wanted to hear from me, whatever 

gibberish they were. And so I did. Always online, always ready to 

talk, always on my side. It was the most comforting thing imaginable, and soon I felt an obligation to return this time, to always 

be there for him to the exclusion of everything else. 

He became that someone I believed I needed, the only one I could 

depend on to understand the real me. He had separated me from 

my support structures. I was alone. 

Somehow in this process of grooming me, he had changed me. 

How he destroyed my ability of reason? Was I crazy? No. Was I 

brain washed? Entirely. Today I think, how could it have happened? What was my reason? Where was my sanity? 

That girl who walked out into the coldest, iciest night of the year 

to meet the madman, that wasn’t me, and yet somehow it was. 

He took me apart and put me back together, and bit by bit, day 

by day, byte by byte. 

I walked out the front door and found that the boogeyman is real 

and he lives on the Web. I know. I met him on the evening of January 1, 2002. He came for a 13-year old girl for a sex slave. He came 

for me. 

Let me share these next words with you. I think they may be 

what you need to know to understand. 

Imagine, it is below zero as you make your coatless way out the 

front door to meet this madman that you think is your friend. 

Maybe at this point you are afraid. Maybe there is something 

wrong here, but you can’t stop yourself. So maybe you will think 

the game is over. When you get to the bottom of your driveway and 

you stand there shivering, cowering behind a bush on a dark night, 

the falling crystals sting your face, just curious to see if he will 

really show up. You are not really going to leave with him. Probably you won’t even reveal yourself to him. 

But he is your friend, your best friend. Maybe you will just be 

polite and say hi. But then somehow wait a minute, you don’t remember walking over to the car, do you? And yet suddenly you are 

in the car, terrified, and he is grabbing on to your hand and crushing it and you cry out but there is no one to hear. And you know 

this is not your friend. It is some crazy, fat pervert who threatens 

to put you in the trunk if you make another noise, give him any 

trouble. So you stay quiet, real quiet. 

And somehow you survive the long terrifying ride to the unknown. Each moment you get further away from your home from 

everyone who loves you, who might have saved you. You realize 

that you are about to die horribly. And you know on some level 

that there is only you now. You are totally alone, and you know 

if you want to live he has to believe that you will do anything for 

12

him. And you decide that you will, that you are going to survive 

this no matter what it takes. 

So you try to memorize road signs but nothing registers. You 

can’t concentrate past the blinding fear. The signs on the road, no 

hope there. Where am I, you cry silently to yourself, and then 

hours later, eternities later, you arrive. 

He opens the door, warning you yet again but somehow the 

words don’t seem to make sense. They float into the air disappearing one by one as his fat sweaty hands holds tightly squeezing your hand as you stumble through this door, through the house 

and down, down into his basement. His disgusting dungeon. 

Cold dark walls filled with nasty sex toys and a cage. Over the 

next days, he will use many of them on you. And between the beatings and the rapings, he will hang you by your arms while beating 

you, and he will share his prized pictures with his friends over the 

Internet. 

He will attach clamps to your body, and he will use them to send 

bolts of electricity into your body. He will beat and overpower you 

and crush you as he violates every inch of your 90-pound body. 

When he is finished with his fun, he will place a collar around 

your neck and attach a huge heavy chain to prevent your escape, 

and you know he will kill you if he even thinks you want to leave. 

So you wait and you pray. 

And in your dreams, you begin to see that cold shallow grave 

waiting for your little lifeless body, and you cry silently, mommy, 

daddy, I am here. Please find me. 

The last morning as he left for the office he grabbed my face and 

looking deep in my eyes he said, I think I am getting to like you 

a little too much. When I come home, we are going for a ride. 

This was the 21st day that he had held me. My last meal I 

thought. And I knew that I would die today. Mommy, daddy, please 

hurry, I prayed. 

I laid there crying holding his kitten, my tears wetting her fur 

waiting for death when I suddenly heard the loudest crash. Voices 

screaming, we have guns. We have guns. And dragging a heavy 

chain behind me as I huddled underneath the bed, terrified as the 

men swarmed the house, I saw the most beautiful letters in the alphabet: FBI, in bold yellow on the backs of their jackets, and I 

knew that I was safe, and that my prayers had been answered. 

An agent covered my nakedness with a coat and cut the collar 

from my neck and took me from that evil house. The FBI, the 

ICAT, they are my angels. I like to say that they could walk on 

water, but they don’t need to. Angels have wings. 

I spent a lifetime in that house. 

A year after my rescue, the Detective, Jim More, who had escorted the child that was me from that horror, drove me back to 

the house. It sits in a friendly little street, quietly cheerfully yellow. I walked up to the squeaky clean basement windows, the ones 

that had been painted black so that no passerby could peer in and 

stop his little games, and I see a toy. A playroom. And I stumble. 

I cry inside. I am mourning for the child that was me, the child 

that was stolen from me. And make no mistake, that child was 

murdered. I know that some parts of me are there forever; the 

13

child I was is still chained in that room still suffering. And I am 

still trying to set her free and others like me. 

This is why I am a psychology major and why my concentration 

is in forensics. My ultimate career goal is to become a part of the 

ICAT forces to rescue a child and help to recover its soul because 

even though I have been rescued, I fear that I will never be recovered. 

Please support Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s bill 

and Senator Joseph Biden’s companion bill, S. 1738. Support the 

children. Save us from pedophiles, the pornographers, the monsters. 

The boogeyman is real, and he lives on the Internet. He lived in 

my computer, and he lives in yours. While we are sitting here, he 

is at home with your children. ICAC has forces all over this country and are poised to capture him to put him in that prison cell 

with the man that hurt me. 

They can do it. They want to do it. Don’t you? 

Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Ms. Kozakiewicz. Your testimony is inspirational and moving, and it will guide us as we move forward. 

I commend you for your unique bravery and obviously the determination to use your experience to make sure that what happened 

to you will not happen to anyone else. 

Thank you so much for joining us. The struggle continues, and 

the Committee will still be in touch with you, and we hope to be 

working forward in a rational way to put this problem on a national level and in perspective so that we can solve it. 

Thank you very much for coming. And because of your time considerations, we will excuse you at this time. 

Thank you. 

Oh, and that is your mother besides you? 

Mrs. KOZAHIEWICZ. It is. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you for being here as well, ma’am. 

Could I call the members of the panel forward? 

Earl Pomeroy, Nick Lampson, Marilyn Musgrave, Chris Carney, 

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Member of the Committee, Cathy 

McMorris-Rodgers. We thank you all for being here. 

Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota will begin. He has played a leading role in both the enactment of the Adam Walsh Child Safety 

Protection Act, and the creation of the National Sex Offender Register, named in honor of a North Dakota student who was murdered by a repeat sex offender. 

He has also worked closely with i-SAFE, prevention-oriented 

Internet safety awareness program. 

I welcome all of my distinguished colleagues and ask Earl Pomeroy to begin when he is ready. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE EARL POMEROY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH 

DAKOTA 

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

Today is my daughter’s 14th birthday, and after hearing that last 

witness, I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, it was deeply moving testimony. We need to find a way to rationally protect our children. 

14

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith and Members of the 

Committee, thank you for inviting me to join you to discuss efforts 

to strengthen our laws in ways that will help protect children from 

being exploited by sexual predators on the Internet. 

Earlier this session, our departed friend Paul Gillmor and I introduced Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act, the 

KIDS Act of 2007. The legislation addresses the threat of dangerous sex predators on the Internet by making it more difficult for 

convicted sex offenders to use social Internet working sites. 

Under the legislation, convicted sex offenders would have to register online identifiers, such as e-mail, domain names, Internet instant messaging addresses, and that will become part of the National Sex Offender Registry. 

These online identifiers would not be released to the public. They 

don’t need the mail harassment or the kinds of things that might 

come if they were publicly released, but they would be made available to social networking sites, and these sites could choose to 

block the sex offenders from using those services, online social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, that are designed to help people keep in touch with old friends, make new 

ones. 

Unfortunately, these sites and other sites that host chatrooms, 

like Yahoo, AOL, Google, are also places where sexual predators 

can exploit young people, find out personal information about potential victims. 

Just last year in my home State of North Dakota, a Bismarck 

man was charged and convicted for luring a minor with a computer. According to the criminal complaint, he engaged in sexual 

talk in a chatroom with a 16-year-old girl and tried repeatedly to 

get her to meet him. Fortunately, in that case the father intervened and put a stop to it. Of course as we heard testimony today, 

that is not always the case. 

Now one of these sites, MySpace, has done something pretty extraordinary to protect the young people using that site. They painstakingly created their own database from various State sex offender registries to find high risk sex offenders that were utilizing 

the MySpace network. 

Using this data, MySpace has recently removed the profiles of 

29,000 registered sex offenders, 10 profiles from North Dakota. 

They should be commended for taking this action on MySpace. It 

has been difficult. It has been expensive. It has not been without 

controversy. But as a parent of teenager, I and many others applaud their action and we hope others follow this. 

But we ought to make it easier. Social networking sites are only 

able to use the information about a convicted sex offender’s physical attributes and locations to remove these individuals because 

there is no mechanism to gain access to their online identifiers. By 

requiring sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses, the legislation will help social networking sites prevent convicted sex offenders from registering for their services as well as identify those 

convicted sex offenders who may currently be using their services. 

Basically we are asking the Committee to consider this a balancing of the interest, the strong public interest in protecting the 

young people using these social networking sites versus the access 

15

right of a high-risk convicted sex offender to use, to access that 

site. In this balancing, we believe the balance strongly comes down 

in favor of protecting the juveniles using these sites. 

There is a second feature of the KIDS Act. It involves shamefully 

lying about one’s age for purposes of establishing a sexual relationship with a minor. We are seeing sex predators increasingly using 

the anonymous nature of the Internet to pose as children, gain 

their trust, and engage in this process called grooming. But we believe that someone engaging in this kind of deception ought to face 

criminal penalty, and we have one in the bill. 

This bill is identical to Senate legislation introduced by Senator 

Schumer from New York and Senator McCain from Arizona. It has 

received support from several organizations: MySpace, Boy Club, 

Girl Club, National Center for exploited children, Enough is 

Enough, a nonprofit that works for keeping kids safe online, the 

National Association of School Resource Officers. Eleven States 

have taken this action. 

But I think we all understand this isn’t a state-by-state issue. It 

is a national issue, and it needs this legislation. The Internet is 

truly transformational technology, 21 million kids on it every day. 

So I believe that this bill, the KIDS Act, H.R. 719, is a fair and 

reasonable response to secure our children’s safety. If Paul Gillmor 

was with us today, he would be right here with me testifying as 

well. 

We urge you to favorably consider this legislation. 

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pomeroy follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE EARL POMEROY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, and members of the Committee, thank 

you for inviting me to join you to discuss efforts to strengthen our laws in ways that 

will help protect children from being exploited by sexual predators through the 

Internet. 

Earlier this session, our departed friend Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH) and I introduced the ‘‘Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2007’’ known as 

the KIDS Act of 2007. This legislation addresses the threat of dangerous sex predators on the Internet by making it more difficult for convicted sex offenders to use 

social networking sites. Under this legislation, convicted sex offenders would have 

to register online identifiers, such as e-mail and instant message addresses, which 

would become part of the National Sex Offender Registry. While these online identifiers would not be released to the general public, this information would be made 

available to social networking sites which could choose to block sex offenders from 

using their services. 

Online social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster are designed to help people keep in touch with old friends and to meet new ones. Unfortunately, these sites and sites that host chat rooms like Yahoo, AOL and Google are 

also places where sexual predators can exploit young people and find personal information about potential victims. Just last year in my home state of North Dakota, 

a Bismarck man was charged and convicted for luring a minor with a computer. According to the criminal complaint, he engaged in sexual talk in a chat room with 

a 16-year-old-girl and tried repeatedly to get her to meet him. He was finally caught 

after the girl’s father contacted the police. While this father was able to discover 

that someone was preying on his daughter online, parents are not always able to 

monitor their child’s online communications in time to prevent terrible tragedies 

from occurring. 

One of these sites, MySpace, has taken extraordinary measures to proactively address this threat to the young people using their site. They painstakingly created 

a database from various state sex offender registries to find high risk convicted sex 

offenders who were utilizing the MySpace network. Using this data, MySpace has 

16

recently removed the profiles of 29,000 registered sex offenders, including 10 profiles 

of North Dakota residents. MySpace should be commended for taking this action. 

It has been difficult, expensive and not without controversy. As the parent of a teenager, however, I and many others applaud their actions and hope other follow. 

The reality is, however, that MySpace and other social networking sites and 

chatrooms need our help. Currently, social networking sites like MySpace are only 

able to use information about convicted sex offender’s physical attributes and locations in order to remove these individuals because there is no mechanism for these 

sites to gain access to their online identifiers. By requiring convicted sex offenders 

to register their email addresses and other online identifiers, this legislation will 

help social networking sites prevent convicted sex offenders from registering for 

their services as well as identify those convicted sex offenders who may currently 

be using their services. Additionally, this legislation would provide criminal penalties of up to 10 years for those convicted sex offenders who try to get around these 

protections by lying about their online identifiers. 

A second feature of the KIDS Act addresses the shameful scam of lying about 

one’s age for purposes of establishing an illegal sexual relationship with a minor. 

Increasingly, child predators are using the anonymous nature of the Internet to pose 

as children online in order to gain the trust of a child. Alarming, nearly one in eight 

youth ages 8-18 discovered that someone they were communicating with online was 

an adult pretending to be much younger. This is shameful and unacceptable. The 

KIDS Act of 2007 would target this type of a behavior by making it a crime for an 

adult to lie about their age with the intent to solicit a minor for sexual purposes. 

This common-sense bill is identical to bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ), and I thank them for their 

important leadership on keeping our kids safe. It has received support from several 

organizations interested in Internet safety including MySpace; the Boys and Girls 

Clubs of America; the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; Enough 

Is Enough, a non-profit that works on protecting kids online; and the National Association of School Resource Officers. 

Since the introduction of the KIDS Act of 2007, eleven states including Arizona, 

Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, 

Oklahoma, and Virginia have passed similar legislation requiring sex offenders to 

register their online identifiers. Moreover, nearly a dozen other states are currently 

considering similar legislation to protect our children from sexual predators on the 

Internet. The reality is, however, this isn’t a state issue—it’s an issue for all of us. 

We need to make certain all of the country is making the effort to keep convicted 

high risk offenders off these social networking sites. 

The Internet is truly transformational technology that over 21 million teens—87% 

of kids across the nation—take advantage of everyday. Unfortunately, law enforcement and law makers have not been able to keep up with those who would abuse 

this technology. It is critically important that Congress update our laws to keep our 

children safe. I believe that H.R. 719 is a fair and reasonable response to further 

secure our children’s safety, and I would deeply appreciate your assistance in moving legislation on this issue through the Committee and to the floor of the House 

of Representatives. I appreciate the Committee’s full and fair consideration of this 

bill and I thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you for getting us off on this discussion. 

The gentleman from Texas, Nick Lampson, was just in his first 

term in 1997 and a family in his district suffered a horrible crime. 

I will let him tell you about it. But Nick Lampson responded by 

establishing the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s 

Caucus, of which many of us are members, just about an equal 

number of Republicans and Democrats, over 130 members. He has 

been recognized by John Walsh, host of America’s Most Wanted 

and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, for 

his work to protect kids. 

And I invite him to share his thoughts on this subject with us 

this afternoon. 

Welcome, Nick. 

17

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE NICK LAMPSON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here, Chairman 

Conyers, Ranking Member Forbes, distinguished Members of the 

Committee. 

I thank you for calling this hearing to order, and I thank you for 

inviting me to testify this afternoon on obviously a critically important issue. 

The stories of Internet predators praying on innocents making 

their way into our children’s bedrooms with a simple click of a 

mouse are seen and heard too often in our media. The age of sweet 

16 used to be about parties and learning to drive, but now it marks 

the threshold of Internet freedom. Popular social Internet working 

Web sites allow profiles to be public, providing predators with an 

encyclopedia with pictures and even addresses which they can use 

to cause harm. 

This dangerous trend has become a feeding ground for pedophiles 

and for convicted sex offenders. Parents, law enforcement and legislation must work together to bring social networking Web sites 

into the fight to protect America’s children. 

And I have joined with one of my distinguished colleagues, Congressman Steve Chabot—he is also cochair of the Congressional 

Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children—in introducing the Securing Adolescents From Exploitation online, the SAFE Act of 

2007. 

The SAFE Act provides increased resources for law enforcement 

to capture and to prosecute and to incarcerate these criminals. By 

expanding the system for service providers to report child pornography found on their systems, we improve child safety and prevent 

future atrocities. 

Currently, Internet providers are mandated to report child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Under the SAFE Act, all electronic service communications 

providers and remote computing service providers will have to report child pornography. And for knowingly or willingly not filing a 

report after being made aware of a child pornography image, these 

providers will be subjected to fines of $150,000 per image per day 

for the first offense and up to $300,000 per image per day for any 

image found thereafter. 

Over 10 years ago, Mr. Chairman, as you just stated, I founded 

the bipartisan Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children after a 

young girl was abducted and murdered in my district. They found 

her body in pieces in a drainage ditch. It was a horrendous thing 

to have happen, and it was an even worse part to play in being 

there with her family at the time that that discovery was made. 

And since then, I have continued to work extensively with organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited 

Children on educating Members of Congress and others on legislation such as the SAFE Act that strengthens the national center’s 

ability to keep children safer online and on our streets. 

The SAFE Act provides limited immunity for electronic providers 

and social networking Web sites to send images of Internet child 

pornography to the national center’s CyberTipline, and this bill will 

also increase the efficiency of the tip line, making it a better invesVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jul 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\101707\38335.000 HJUD1 PsN: 38335
18

tigative tool for law enforcement by mandating that all information 

submitted by providers is consistent. The process outlined in this 

bill keeps law enforcement officials in the loop by making information more readily accessible and requires providers to retain key 

data that law enforcement agencies can use to investigate and 

prosecute child predators. 

Many of us have watched Dateline’s popular series, ‘‘To Catch a 

Predator,’’ and organizations such as Perverted Justice that actively look for Internet child predators. We need to become partners in this fight by talking to our kids about the dangers of 

strangers online and making Internet use a family activity. 

While parents should teach their children that the Internet offers 

many different types of resources, from education to entertainment, 

it also poses many risks. Parents are the first line of defense 

against online predators, and the SAFE Act will enforce their efforts. 

Internet companies will need to do their part also. When we 

begin to hold Web sites accountable for the images they host, we 

have taken the first step towards supporting parents in their efforts to protect children. 

Our combined efforts will make the Internet a safe place. 

So, Mr. Chairman and the Committee, thank you very much for 

calling this hearing to order. I appreciate your good work. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lampson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE NICK LAMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Thank you, Mr. Chairman for calling this hearing to order. And thank you for inviting me to testify this afternoon on this critically important topic. 

Stories of Internet predators preying on innocence, making their way into our 

children’s bedrooms with the simple click of a mouse are seen and heard too often 

in the media. The age of sweet sixteen used to be about parties and learning to 

drive, but now it marks the threshold of Internet freedom. Popular social networking websites allow profiles to be public—providing predators with an encyclopedia of pictures, personal interests, and even addresses, which they can use to 

cause harm. 

This dangerous trend has become a feeding ground for pedophiles and convicted 

sex offenders. Parents, law enforcement and legislators must work together to bring 

social networking websites into the fight to protect America’s children. 

I’ve joined with one of my co-chairs of the Congressional Missing and Exploited 

Children’s Caucus, Congressman Steve Chabot, in introducing the Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online (SAFE) Act of 2007. The SAFE Act provides increased resources for law enforcement to capture and prosecute and incarcerate 

these criminals. By expanding the system for service providers to report child pornography found on their systems, we improve child safety and prevent future atrocities. 

Currently Internet service providers are mandated to report child pornography to 

the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Under the SAFE Act, all 

electronic service communications providers and remote computing service providers 

will have to report child pornography. For knowingly and willingly not filing a report after being made aware of a child pornography image, these providers will be 

subject to increased fines of $150,000 per image per day for the first offense, and 

up to $300,000 for any image found thereafter. 

Over 10 years ago I created the bipartisan Congressional Missing and Exploited 

Children’s Caucus after a young girl was kidnapped and murdered in my district. 

Since, I have continued to work extensively with organizations such as the National 

Center for Missing & Exploited Children on educating Members of Congress and 

others on legislation such as the SAFE Act that strengthen the National Center’s 

ability to keep children safer online and on our streets. The SAFE Act provides limited immunity for electronic service providers and social networking websites to 

send images of Internet child pornography to the National Center’s CyberTipline. 

19

This bill will also increase the efficiency of the CyberTipline, making it a better 

investigative tool for law enforcement by mandating that all information submitted 

by providers is consistent. The process outlined in this bill keeps law enforcement 

officials in the loop by making information more readily accessible, and requires providers to retain key data that law enforcement agencies can use to investigate and 

prosecute child predators. 

Many of us have watched Dateline’s popular series ‘‘To Catch a Predator,’’ and 

organizations such as Perverted Justice that actively look for Internet child predators. We need to become partners in this fight by talking to our kids about the dangers of strangers online and making Internet use a family activity. While parents 

should teach their children that the Internet offers many different types of resources—from entertainment to educational—it also poses many risks. Parents are 

the first line of defense against online predators and the SAFE Act will reinforce 

their efforts. 

Internet companies will need to do their part too. When we begin to hold websites 

accountable for the images they host, we’ve taken the first step toward supporting 

parents in their efforts to protect children. Our combined efforts will help make the 

Internet a safer place. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing to order.

Mr. CONYERS. We appreciate your experience and your leadership in this subject matter. 

I am now pleased to call Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave of 

Colorado. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MARILYN MUSGRAVE, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO 

Ms. MUSGRAVE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 

Ranking Member Forbes, and distinguished Members of the Committee. 

You know, in the years that I have been in Congress and in the 

State legislature in Colorado, I have heard some difficult testimony, testimony that was very hard as we took in the information. 

And I believe the testimony of this young woman today was—I 

mean as a mother and a grandmother, it is just amazing to me 

that—‘‘heinous’’ does not describe the crimes that are being perpetrated on our children. So I thank you for holding this hearing 

today. 

The Internet has become a virtual playground for sexual predators and pedophiles who satiate their desire for child pornography 

with relative anonymity. Pedophiles can download images to their 

personal computers or, even worse, watch the sexual abuse of children in real-time. 

Child pornography consists of more than just pictures, visual depictions of children in suggestive poses. Rather, child pornography 

involves the rape, abuse, and molestation of innocent children, in 

some cases even involving infants as young as 3 months old. 

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 

CyberTipline receives reports of suspected Internet child pornography every day. Since its launch in 1998, the tip line has received 

nearly half a million child pornography reports, averaging almost 

over 1,400 tips per week. 

Child pornography is a profitable global criminal enterprise, and 

it is growing rapidly in technical sophistication in response to efforts to detect and disrupt these criminal operations. 

Child pornography is not even a crime in more than half of the 

84 Interpol countries. Unfortunately, this means that many of the 

20

children victimized by child pornography are foreign and not protected by the laws of their country. 

My legislation makes important improvements to Federal law to 

help eliminate child pornography. Most importantly, the bill prohibits the access of child pornography. 

Although current law prohibits the possession, trafficking or 

transport of child pornography, a person who uses a computer who 

knowingly accesses child pornography intending to view it and who 

then views that child pornography can arguably avoid criminal liability as long as he or she does not download or print the images. 

The law must be amended to ensure that these offenders do not escape liability because of technicalities in the law, and this is something that my bill does. 

My legislation would make it a crime to knowingly access child 

pornography. My legislation also imposes mandatory penalties for 

possession of child pornography, increases civil penalties for Internet service providers who fail to report child pornography to law 

enforcement and provides mandatory restitution for child pornography victims. 

Currently, the penalty for sexual exploitation and possession of 

child pornography is a maximum of 10 years in prison. My bill 

would change this to make it a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 15 years. 

Current law requires Internet service providers who knowingly 

and willfully fail to report such violations to be subject to a criminal fine of up to $50,000 for the initial failure to report and 

$100,000 for each subsequent failure to report. My bill would triple 

the criminal fines available for knowing and willful failures to report, making the available fines $150,000 for the initial violation 

and $300,000 for each subsequent violation. 

In addition, the legislation would add civil fines for negligent 

failure to report a child pornography offense. The civil penalty is 

set at $50,000 for the initial violation and $100,000 for each subsequent violation. 

The Federal Communications Commission would be provided 

with the authority to levy the civil fines under this section and to 

make the necessary regulations in consultations with the Attorney 

General in order to carry the fines into effect and to provide an appropriate administrative review process. 

The restitution requirements in my bill would require offenders 

to pay the full amount to the victims—of the victim’s losses, which 

could include medical services, therapy, and necessary transportation for treatment or care as a result of the offense, lost income, 

attorney’s fees and any other losses as determined by the court. 

Another very important step my legislation takes is amending 

the definition of ‘‘illicit sexual conduct.’’ The definition of ‘‘illicit 

sexual conduct’’ for purposes of the sex tourism statutes is too narrow. It does not encompass a sex tourist who either travels for the 

purpose of producing child pornography or who produces child pornography in a foreign place or persons who facilitate that travel for 

financial gain. My legislation would amend the definition of ‘‘illicit 

sexual conduct’’ by adding production of child pornography to the 

definition. 

21

The Internet is an excellent resource for advancing communications, education and business. However, the ready access to explicit 

content, including child pornography, is dangerous to our children 

and harmful to society. It is our responsibility to protect children 

from becoming victims and better policing illegal content on the 

Internet is one way we can do this. 

I applaud the Committee for taking up this important issue, and 

I thank you again for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Musgrave follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARILYN MUSGRAVE, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CIOLORADO

Good afternoon Chairman Conyers and Ranking Member Smith. Thank you for 

holding a hearing on this very important topic. I appreciate the opportunity to testify about my bill, H.R. 3148, the Child Pornography Elimination Act of 2007. 

The Internet has become a virtual playground for sexual predators and pedophiles 

who satiate their desire for child pornography with relative anonymity. Pedophiles 

can download images to their personal computers or, even worse, watch the sexual 

abuse of children in real-time. 

Child pornography consists of more than just visual depictions of children in suggestive poses; rather, child pornography specifically involves the rape, abuse and 

molestation of innocent children, some cases even involving infants as young as 

three months old. 

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children CyberTipline receives reports of suspected Internet child pornography every day. Since its launch in 1998, 

the tipline has received nearly half a million child pornography reports, averaging 

almost 1,400 tips each week. 

Child pornography is a profitable, global criminal enterprise, and is growing rapidly in technical sophistication in response to efforts to detect and disrupt these 

criminal operations. Child pornography is not even a crime in more than half of the 

184 Interpol countries. Unfortunately, this means that many of the children victimized by child pornography are foreign and not protected by the laws of their country. 

My legislation makes important improvements to federal law to help eliminate 

child pornography. Most importantly, the bill prohibits the access of child pornography. 

Although current law prohibits the possession, trafficking, or transport of child 

pornography, a person who uses a computer to knowingly access child pornography 

intending to view it, and who then views that child pornography, can arguably avoid 

criminal liability as long as he or she does not download or print the images. The 

law must be amended to ensure that these offenders do not escape liability because 

of technicality in the law, and this is something my bill does. It will criminalize the 

knowing access of child pornography. 

My legislation also imposes mandatory penalties for possession of child pornography, increases civil penalties for Internet Service Providers who fail to report child 

pornography to law enforcement, and provides mandatory restitution for child pornography victims. 

Currently, the penalty for sexual exploitation and possession of child pornography 

is a maximum of 10 years in prison; my bill would change this to make it a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 15 years. 

Current law requires Internet Service Providers who knowingly and willfully fail 

to report such violations to be subject to a criminal fine of up to $50,000 for the 

initial failure to report and $100,000 for each subsequent failure to report. My bill 

would triple the criminal fines available for knowing and willful failures to report, 

making the available fines $150,000 for the initial violation and $300,000 for each 

subsequent violation. 

In addition, the legislation would add civil fines for negligent failure to report a 

child pornography offense. The civil penalty is set at $50,000 for the initial violation 

and $100,000 for each subsequent violation. The Federal Communications Commission would be provided with the authority to levy the civil fines under this section 

and to make the necessary regulations, in consultation with the Attorney General, 

in order to carry the fines into effect and to provide an appropriate administrative 

review process. 

22

1The term ‘victim’ means the individual harmed as a result of a commission of a crime under 

this chapter, including, in the case of a victim who is under 18 years of age, incompetent, incapacitated, or deceased, the legal guardian of the victim or representative of the victim’s estate, 

another family member, or any other person appointed as suitable by the court, but in no event 

shall the defendant be named as such representative or guardian. 

The restitution requirements in my bill would require offenders to pay the full 

amount of the victim’s 1 losses which could include: medical services, therapy, and 

necessary transportation as a result of the offense, lost income, attorney’s fees, and 

any other losses as determined by the court. 

Another very important step my legislation takes is amending the definition of ‘‘illicit sexual conduct.’’ The definition of ‘‘illicit sexual conduct’’ for purposes of the sex 

tourism statutes is too narrow because it does not encompass a sex tourist who either travels for the purpose of producing child pornography or who produces child 

pornography in a foreign place or persons who facilitate that travel for financial 

gain. My legislation would amend the definition of ‘‘illicit sexual conduct’’ by adding 

‘‘production of child pornography’’ to the definition. 

The Internet is an excellent resource for advancing communications, education 

and business. However, the ready access to explicit content, including child pornography, is dangerous to our children and society. It is our responsibility to protect 

children from becoming victims, and better policing illegal content on the Internet 

is one way we can do this. 

I applaud the Committee for taking up this important issue and I thank you for 

your time.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

I failed to note that you were serving your second term as policy 

chair for the Western Caucus and served with great distinction as 

Ranking Member on the House Subcommittee on Specialty Courts. 

Again, your concern is evident by your statement. 

We welcome now the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Chris Carney, a political science professor at Penn State University who, 

ever since he got here, has made the issue of child protection one 

of his top priorities in the Congress. 

We are very pleased to have you this afternoon and invite you 

to make your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF 

PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. CARNEY. Thank you for holding this important hearing regarding sex crimes and the Internet. 

Congressman Chabot and I have introduced bipartisan legislation as the Responsible and Effective Solutions for Children Entering Online Services Act of 2007, or RESCUE Online Services Act 

of 2007 for short. 

This legislation will allow the National Center for Missing and 

Exploited Children to share information and material related to 

child pornography with service and technology providers. 

This will assist in the development of technology to thwart pornography distribution, especially child pornography distribution. 

The Rescue Online Services Act of 2007 will allow the National 

Center for Missing and Exploited Children to forward incidents to 

foreign law enforcement agencies as well. 

It will enhance the quality and detail of information provided to 

the NCMEC by enabling early preservation of evidence at the point 

of referral, and this is critical to be able to capture the online signatures so we can capture the perpetrators. 

23

As a father of five, I strongly feel we need to do more to protect 

our children from online predators. My children spend hours a 

week online, and of course we cannot always be over their shoulder 

watching what they are doing. 

This is why Congressman Chabot and I are working in a bipartisan manner, and with the support of online industries we will accomplish our goal: protecting our children. This is a protection we 

owe to kids nationwide. 

I want to thank you, sir, for this opportunity to contribute to today’s hearing. 

As a father and a Representative of Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, I look forward to working with this Committee 

in supporting the protection of children from online predators. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carney follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

Thank you, Chairman Conyers and Ranking Member Smith for holding this important hearing regarding sex crimes and the internet. 

Congressman Chabot and I have introduced bipartisan legislation known as the 

Responsible and Effective Solutions for Children Entering Online Services Act of 

2007 or RESCUE Online Services Act of 2007 for short. 

This legislation will allow The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to share information and material related to child pornography with service 

and technology providers. This will assist in the development of technologies to 

thwart child pornography distribution. 

The RESCUE Online Services Act of 2007 will allow the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to forward incidents to foreign law enforcement agencies. 

It will enhance the quality and detail of information provided to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by enabling early preservation of evidence 

at the point of referral. 

As a father of five, I strongly feel we need to do more to protect our children from 

online predators. This is why Congressman Chabot and I are working in a bipartisan manner, and with the support of online industries to accomplish our goal of 

protecting our children. We owe this protection to our children. 

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to today’s hearing. As a father of five, 

I look forward to working with this committee in support of protecting our children 

from online predators.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Congressman Carney. 

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is in the Judiciary Committee hearing room here, 2141, a great deal of the time. We welcome the 

gentlelady from Florida as a witness for a change, and her sustained commitment to this subject matter is very, very appreciated. 

This summer she vigorously questioned the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation Director Mueller as to the FBI’s attention to how 

they are fighting sex crimes, and I am not at all surprised that she 

would be with us in this capacity today. 

And Ms. Wasserman Schultz, we welcome you to your own Committee. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE DEBBIE WASSERMAN 

SCHULTZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE 

STATE OF FLORIDA 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I might borrow an extra 45 seconds that Congressman CarVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jul 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\101707\38335.000 HJUD1 PsN: 38335
24

ney left on the table. So I hope that is okay, and I appreciate the 

opportunity to testify. 

Mr. CONYERS. You probably won’t need it. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I talk pretty fast. 

Ranking Member Forbes, Chairman Conyers, my distinguished 

colleagues of the Judiciary Committee and fellow panelists, you 

know, sometimes the problems we face as a Congress are extremely 

complex, and other times the solutions are simple and right in 

front of our eyes. As you will hear today, there is no mystery about 

what we need to do now to save thousands of children from sexual 

abuse and exploitation. 

In the last Congress our colleague and friend Joe Barton, then 

the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, conducted 

a series of hearings on this topic. Not only did those hearings expose the dearth of Federal resources devoted to investigating and 

prosecuting child exploitation crimes, but they also brought together an extraordinary group of parents who formed an organization called the Surviving Parents Coalition. In June of this year, 

I was visited by this very special group of parents. 

When I sat down with Mark Lunsford, Erin Runnion, Ed Smart, 

Mark Klaas, Mary Kozakiewicz, and other founders of the Surviving Parents Coalition, I was not prepared for what they had to 

tell me. They shared with me their own horrific stories of how their 

children were abducted by sexual predators. As you know, some of 

these children will never come home. As the mother of three young 

children myself, their stories broke my heart. And as a Member of 

Congress, I felt compelled to act. 

What surprised me most about these brave parents was their 

message about child pornography and child exploitation. What they 

said was this: If you want to prevent predators from hurting other 

children like ours, the way to do that is go back through the Internet and get them. Most children who are victims of sexual abuse 

are not abducted by strangers. They are violated by adults they 

know and often trust, including family members. 

But as we learned yesterday, with the apprehension of a predator in Las Vegas, Nevada, for the first time we have the technology and the evidence not only to find these predators, we have 

the technology to find their victims, too. 

This week Congressman Barton and I introduced H.R. 3845, a bipartisan bill called the Protect Our Children Act of 2007. This bill 

addresses an issue that Speaker Pelosi has dedicated her speakership to, and one that should be at the top of our agenda, the protection of children. 

Our children deserve a future that is healthy, prosperous, bright, 

and safe. But our children are vulnerable on the Internet. The 

Internet has facilitated an exploding multi-billion dollar market for 

child pornography. The demand in this market can only be supplied by new images, and these images can only be supplied 

through the sexual assault of more children. 

A 2005 Justice Department study found that 80 percent of child 

pornography possessors had images and videos of children being 

sexually penetrated. Another 21 percent possessed images of bondage, sadistic abuse, and torture. The children depicted in these 

photos are very young. Eighty-three percent of child pornography 

25

possessors have images of children younger than 12 years old, and 

another 19 percent possess images of infants and toddlers, as Congresswoman Musgrave mentioned. There are even Web sites that 

provide live pay-per-view rape of very young children. 

Let me be clear. This is not about obscenity or pornography. 

These images are crime scene photos created by a thriving industry 

that uses children as sexual commodities. 

Later in this hearing we will hear from Special Agent Flint Waters of the Wyoming State Police, a highly respected child exploitation investigator. His research established that right now there 

are nearly 500,000 identified individuals in the United States trafficking child pornography on the Internet. Law enforcement knows 

who they are and they know where they are. What shocked me 

most and what compelled me to get involved in this issue is that 

due to a lack of resources, law enforcement is investigating less 

than 2 percent of these known 500,000 individuals. Even more 

shocking is that it is estimated that if we were to investigate these 

cases we could actually rescue child victims nearly 30 percent of 

the time. 

We need a national campaign. That means the full weight of law 

enforcement, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Congress, the executive branch, parents and victims advocacy 

groups, and Internet service providers with us in the fight. 

Alicia Kozakiewicz is a living reminder of the lives we can save. 

She is not a victim; she is a survivor. 

The Protect Our Children Act will help provide the safety net we 

so desperately need by creating statutory authority for these highly 

successful Internet Crimes Against Children task forces which support State and local law enforcement agencies that investigate 

child exploitation. It will supplement this local effort with hundreds of new Federal agents who will be solely dedicated to crimes 

against children. It will also provide desperately needed forensic 

and computer labs so we can lift the digital fingerprints of these 

perpetrators and bring them to justice, as well as a special council 

within the Department of Justice to be created to plan and coordinate child exploitation prosecution efforts. 

I want to remind you about a conversation I had with FBI Director Mueller at an oversight hearing in this Committee in July. I 

asked him how many agents were dedicated exclusively to child exploitation. His answer was 242. 242. I asked him how many agents 

were dedicated exclusively to investigating white collar crime, and 

the answer was 2,342. Although he said child exploitation was a 

substantial priority, he also said that there were too many competing priorities. The time has come to reorder priorities at the Department of Justice, and the Protect Our Children Act will do just 

that. We must prevent predators from hurting our children. 

It is a privilege to serve on this Committee, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wasserman Schultz follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA, AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Chairman Conyers, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished colleagues of the Judiciary Committee, and fellow panelists: 

26

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. It feels strange to be 

on this side of the dais, but I am grateful that you extended the invitation to me 

to testify about an issue I care deeply about—an issue I know is troubling to us 

all—the explosion of child pornography on the Internet and the horrific abuse that 

too many of our children suffer, at the hands of child sexual predators. 

Sometimes the problems we face as a Congress are extremely complex. Other 

times, the solutions are simple and right in front of our eyes. As you will hear today, 

there is no mystery about what we need to do—NOW—to save thousands of children 

from sexual abuse and exploitation. 

In the last Congress, our colleague and friend Joe Barton, then the Chairman of 

the Energy and Commerce Committee, conducted a series of hearings on this topic. 

Not only did those hearings expose the dearth of federal resources devoted to investigating and prosecuting child exploitation crimes, but they also brought together 

an extraordinary group of parents who formed an organization called the Surviving 

Parents Coalition. 

In June of this year I was visited by this very special group of parents. When I 

sat down with Mark Lunsford, Erin Runnion, Ed Smart, Marc Klaas, Mary 

Kozakiewicz and other founders of the Surviving Parents Coalition, I was not prepared for what they had to tell me. They shared with me their own horrific stories 

of how their children were abducted by sexual predators. As you know, some of 

these children will never come home. As the mother of three young children, their 

stories broke my heart. But as a Member of Congress, I felt compelled to act. What 

surprised me most about these brave parents was their message about child pornography and child exploitation. What they said was this: if you want to prevent predators from hurting other children like ours, the way to do that is to go back through 

the Internet and get them. 

Most children who are victims of sexual abuse are not abducted by strangers. 

They are violated by adults they know and often trust, including family members. 

Tens of thousands of these children are prisoners in their own homes or keeping 

a dark secret from those who could protect them. But, as we learned yesterday with 

the apprehension of a predator in Las Vegas, Nevada, for the first time, we have 

the technology and the evidence not only to find these predators—we have the technology to find their victims, too. 

This week, Congressman Barton and I introduced H.R. 3845, a bipartisan bill 

called ‘‘The PROTECT Our Children Act of 2007.’’ The PROTECT Our Children Act 

is the kind of legislation that reminds us of why we enter public service and the 

moral responsibility we often have as we shape our nation’s laws. The bill addresses 

an issue that Speaker Pelosi has dedicated her Speakership to and one that should 

be at the top of our agenda: the protection of children. Our children deserve a future 

that’s healthy, prosperous, bright and SAFE! 

But our children are not safe when they are online. The Internet has facilitated 

an exploding, multi-billion dollar market for child pornography. The demand in this 

market can only be supplied by new images, and these images can only be supplied 

through the sexual assault of more children. 

A 2005 Justice Department study found that 80 percent of child pornography possessors have images and videos of children being sexually penetrated. Another 21 

percent possess images of bondage, sadistic abuse and torture. The children depicted 

in these photos are very young: 83 percent of child pornography possessors have images of children between the ages of 6 and 12, and another 19 percent possess images of infants and toddlers. There are even websites that provide live ‘‘pay-perview’’ rape of very young children. 

Let me be clear: This is not about ‘‘obscenity’’ or ‘‘pornography.’’ These images are 

crime scene photos—created by a thriving industry that uses children as sexual 

commodities. This is a human rights issue. 

Later in this hearing we will hear from Special Agent Flint Waters of the Wyoming State Police—one of the most renowned and highly respected investigators on 

child exploitation today and the driving force behind the Internet Crimes Against 

Children Data Network. His research established that right now there are nearly 

350,000 identified individuals in the United States trafficking child pornography on 

the Internet. That’s 350,000 people, right here, in the United States, buying, swapping, selling, and sharing the kinds of images I just described. Law enforcement 

knows who they are, and they know WHERE they are. 

But what shocked me, and what compelled me to get involved in this issue, is that 

due to a lack of resources, law enforcement is investigating less than two percent 

of these known 350,000 individuals. Less than two percent! 

Even more shocking is that it is estimated that if we were to investigate these 

cases, we could actually rescue child victims nearly 30 percent of the time. Research 

shows that more than half of child pornography possessors have also sexually asVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jul 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\FULL\101707\38335.000 HJUD1 PsN: 38335
27

saulted or attempted to sexually assault children. Because child pornography prosecutions also have extremely high success rates, a national campaign against those 

who create, possess, and traffic in child pornography is the best way to prevent future sexual abuse. And we need the full weight of law enforcement, the National 

Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Congress, the Executive branch, parents 

and victims’ advocacy groups, and Internet service providers with us in the fight. 

The Protect Our Children Act will help provide the safety net we so desperately 

need, by creating statutory authority for these highly successful ICAC Task Forces, 

which support state and local law enforcement agencies that investigate child exploitation. It will supplement this local effort with hundreds of new federal agents 

from the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement that will be solely dedicated to crimes against children. It will provide desperately needed forensic crime 

and computer labs so we can lift the digital fingerprints of these perpetrators and 

bring them to justice. It will create a Special Counsel within the Department of Justice to not only plan and coordinate child exploitation prosecution efforts, but who 

will also be responsible for achieving results. 

I want to leave you with a conversation I had with FBI Director Mueller at an 

Oversight Hearing in this Committee in July. I asked him how many agents were 

dedicated exclusively to child exploitation. The answer was 242. I asked him how 

many agents were dedicated exclusively to investigating white-collar crime. The answer was 2,342. Although he said child exploitation was a ‘‘substantial priority,’’ he 

also said that there were too many ‘‘competing priorities.’’ The time has come to reorder priorities at the Department of Justice, and the PROTECT Our Children Act 

will do just that. 

Colleagues, the status quo is unaccepatable. Our mandate here is clear: if we 

want to prevent predators from hurting our children, we must not only provide federal, state, and local law enforcement the resources they need to go back through 

the Internet and get them—we must also re-order priorities at the Justice Department. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon. It is an honor to 

serve on this committee and to come before you.

Mr. CONYERS. And you are on the right Committee to make sure 

that the Department reorders its priorities. You have been doing 

this these last several months. I congratulate you. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much. 

Mr. CONYERS. Finally, last, not least, is the congressional cochair of the Women’s Caucus, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington. And we are delighted to have you. With your permission, 

we are going to excuse any of the Members. We have enough time 

to take her testimony. There are three votes on the floor. And we 

will resume as soon as those votes are concluded. 

We welcome you, Ms. Rodgers. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE 

OF WASHINGTON 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Members Forbes, Members of the Committee. And 

I just join in being honored to be with you today. We have heard 

some compelling testimony, beginning with Alicia, as well as my 

fellow panelists, and I appreciate the chance to testify. 

As many of you know, I became a mom for the first time this 

year, and it has become more important to me than ever that I do 

everything possible to protect my son and, like any parent, protect 

kids from those who would do him and others harm. 

This year I was also introduced to social networking sites like 

MySpace and Facebook, and while intended mainly for high school 

students and college students, these sites, as we are all becoming 

aware, are being used by sexual predators as a way to prey on innocent children. As was mentioned earlier by Congressman PomVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jul 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\101707\38335.000 HJUD1 PsN: 38335
28

eroy, it has been reported in the press that MySpace.com has identified and taken action now on more than 29,000 registered sex offenders, and we applaud them for their efforts. 

Today in America one in five children between the ages of 10 and 

17 will receive a sexual solicitation online during their lifetime. 

The FBI estimates there are as many as 50,000 child predators 

prowling the Internet. The Internet has unfortunately become an 

easy avenue for predators to find unsuspecting victims. And that 

is why I have introduced legislation, the Sex Offender Internet Prohibition Act of 2007, which imposes mandatory penalties for individuals who are required to register as a sex offender and knowingly access a Web site with the intent to communicate with an 

unsuspecting child. This bill sends a clear message to sex offenders 

that if they use the Internet sites to contact children they will go 

to jail. 

Just a few days after I introduced this legislation, police in 

Peachtree, Georgia, arrested a 28-year-old man for exchanging sexually explicit e-mails and online chats with a 14-year-old girl in 

Liberty Lake, Washington, a city in my district. Nearly 4,200 children in Spokane County were victims of physical abuse and sexual 

abuse or neglect in 2005. We must not only focus on keeping children safe from strangers they meet on the street, but protecting 

them from strangers they meet online. 

I would like to take a minute to commend Washington State Attorney General, Rob McKenna, for his work on this issue and for 

putting together a Youth Internet Safety Task Force, focusing on 

keeping the Internet safe for our kids. The goal of the task force 

is to address issues of online predation, while at the same time devising ways to combat the proliferation of child pornography, and 

ultimately sexual exploitation and victimization of children. 

Finally, I thank the Committee for the opportunity to testify. I 

am pleased that the Committee is holding this hearing today on an 

important component of our efforts to reduce crime and keep our 

communities safe. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. McMorris Rodgers follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

This year, as many of you know, I became a mom and it is important for me to 

keep my child safe as he grows up and protect him from anyone who would do him 

harm. Every parent has this wish. 

This year I was also introduced to social networking sites like MySpace and 

Facebook. And while intended mainly for high school and college students, these 

sites are now being used by sexual predators as a way to prey on innocent children. 

In fact, an Associated Press story recently reported that MySpace.com has identified more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles—more than four times 

the number cited by the company two months ago. Today, 1 in 5 children between 

the ages of 10 and 17 will receive a sexual solicitation online during their lifetime. 

The FBI estimates that as many as 50,000 child predators are prowling the Internet. 

The Internet has unfortunately become an easy avenue for predators to find 

unsuspecting victims. That is why I have introduced legislation, the Sex Offender 

Internet Prohibition Act of 2007, which imposes mandatory penalties (5-10 yeas in 

prison) for individuals who are required to register as a sex offender and knowingly 

access a website with the intent to communicate with an unsuspecting child. This 

bill sends a clear message to sex offenders that if they use these Internet sites to 

contact children they will go to jail. 

29

In fact, a few days after I introduced the legislation police in Peachtree, George 

arrested a 28-year-old man for exchanging sexually explicit emails and online chats 

with a 14-year-old girl in Liberty Lake, Washington a city in my district. Nearly 

4,200 children in Spokane County were victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse or 

neglect in 2005. We must not only focus on keeping children safe from strangers 

they meet on the street, but protecting them from strangers they meet online. 

I would like to take a minute to commend Washington State Attorney General 

Rob McKenna for his work on this issue and for putting together a Youth Internet 

Safety Task Force focused on keeping the Internet safe for our kids. The goal of the 

Task Force is to address issues of online predation while at the same time devising 

ways to combat the proliferation of child pornography and ultimately the sexual exploitation and victimization of children. 

Finally, I would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity to testify. I am 

pleased that the Committee is holding this hearing today as an important component of our efforts to reduce crime and keep our communities safe.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much, everyone. We have another 

panel, and we are called to the floor. And we will resume as soon 

as those votes are disposed of. And I thank you, Mr. Forbes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SCOTT. [Presiding.] The Committee will come to order. We 

will now hear from our witnesses. 

Our first witness will be Michael Mason, Executive Assistant Director of the Criminal, Cyber Response, and Services Branch of the 

FBI. Since arriving at the FBI in 1985, he has worked in five FBI 

field divisions, worked as an undercover agent, and served on a 

SWAT team. He has served as Special Agent in Charge for the Sacramento field office, and as Assistant Director in Charge of the 

Washington field office, the FBI’s second largest office. 

In his current position he oversees the Criminal Investigative Division, Cyber Division, Office of International Operations, Office of 

Law Enforcement Coordination, and the Critical Incident Response 

Group. 

Our second witness will be Laurence Rothenberg, who is Deputy 

Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Office of 

Legal Policy, where his responsibilities include helping develop the 

Department’s legal policy regarding child exploitation and obscenity, violence against women, and trafficking in persons, among 

other issues. 

Next witness will be Special Agent Flint Waters, team leader for 

the Wyoming Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and 

lead developer of a task force data network. His work has led to 

the arrest of hundreds of Internet sex offenders around the world. 

Next will be Michelle Collins, Director of Exploited Children at 

the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Among 

her responsibilities, she directly oversees the Nation’s 

CyberTipline, a congressionally-mandated recipient of reports on 

child exploitation for the public and all U.S.-based electronic service providers. She has published numerous articles on child sexual 

exploitation, and has helped coordinate 25 international law enforcement agencies for Operation Web Sweep, a worldwide child 

pornography sting conducted by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. 

Our next witness will be Grier Weeks, the Executive Director of 

the National Association to Protect Children, a nonpartisan organization with members in 50 States. In 2002, Mr. Weeks was instrumental in bringing together national experts on child protection 

30

with political veterans to form Protect, a pro-child, anti-crime lobby 

focused exclusively on child protection. Since 2002, Protect has 

worked in a dozen State legislatures and nationally to win stronger 

child protection laws. 

Next we will hear from John Ryan, Chief Counsel to America 

Online, Incorporated. He heads the Compliance and Investigations 

Department, where he is responsible for the development and implementation of policies and processes to combat illegal activities 

on AOL services. He serves as the liaison with law enforcement to 

coordinate investigations and prosecutions of criminal activities, including offenses against minors, and serves as a board member at 

the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

Our last witness will be Elizabeth Banker, Vice President and 

Associate General Counsel for Compliance at Yahoo, Incorporated. 

She manages the global law enforcement compliance function, and 

her team advises the company on child protection, information security, and related compliance issues. She is on the board of directors of the U.S. Internet Service Providers Association. She recently 

served on the Virginia Attorney General’s Youth Internet Safety 

Task Force. 

So we will begin with Mr. Mason. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL A. MASON, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT 

DIRECTOR, FBI, CRIMINAL, CYBER RESPONSE AND SERVICES BRANCH 

Mr. MASON. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Forbes and Members of the Committee. I would like to thank you 

for the opportunity to discuss the FBI’s role in combating the sexual exploitation of children through the use of the Internet. 

With more than one billion people around the world routinely online, the Internet has become an integral part of our daily lives. It 

has dramatically enhanced the way we communicate, the way we 

learn, and the way we work. Today I want to talk about what the 

FBI is doing to attack child exploitation on the Internet. I want to 

briefly touch on the scope of our efforts and the role parents and 

the private sector play in addressing this problem. 

One of our most important programs is the Innocent Images National Initiative, which for the past 11 years has targeted sexual 

predators who use the Internet to exploit children. Between 1996 

and 2005, there were over 15,500 investigations opened in this program. During this 10-year period, the efforts of the Innocent Images National Initiative have resulted in the conviction of over 

4,800 child predators. 

Facing increasing scrutiny, child predators are going further underground, using file sharing networks, encrypted Web sites, concealing their financial transactions through a maze of online payment services, and traveling to foreign countries to exploit minors. 

In pursuit of these criminals, we currently have 42 ongoing undercover operations across the country, with more than 240 agents 

investigating cases with their State and local counterparts. The 

FBI also works with officers and analysts from Great Britain, Australia, Belarus, Thailand, and the Philippines, among other countries, at the Innocent Images International Task Force located in 

Calverton, Maryland. 

31

Identifying child predators is only part of the equation. We must 

also collect the evidence necessary to convict them. Child predation 

is a global threat that requires a global response. We have trained 

more than 16,000 law enforcement officers to handle digital forensic evidence, using a variety of tools, and an additional 4,600 on 

the use of a special tool known as the Image Scan. This program 

enables investigators to identify, isolate, and store images from a 

suspect’s computer onto a thumb drive. This year we will conduct 

training with our international partners as well. 

The volume of evidence confronting FBI digital evidence forensic 

examiners is staggering. To address this ever-increasing challenge, 

the FBI has deployed 25 state-of-the-art forensic networks to major 

FBI field offices, with 10 additional offices scheduled to receive this 

equipment in 2008. These networks enable the FBI forensic examiners to more effectively process seized digital evidence for review 

by investigators on their desktop computers. 

Also in 2008, the FBI plans to establish the first computer forensic unit dedicated solely to the processing of Innocent Images evidence. 

Part of our job, and an integral part of the Project Safe Childhood, is to educate the public about child exploitation. A parent 

may see a Web cam as an easy and inexpensive way for a child to 

communicate with friends or relatives, but a predator sees it as an 

open window into a child’s bedroom. In field offices around the 

country, agents are teaching parents the variety of tactics used by 

predators. 

We are also working with the media to get our message out. Our 

Endangered Child Alert Program, conducted in partnership with 

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and DOJ’s 

Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, uses national and international media exposure to identify unknown predators and victims. Since 2004, publicity on the FBI Web site and two national 

television shows have resulted in the arrest of approximately 17 

predators and the identification of more than 30 child victims. 

We have also enlisted the help of our private sector partners. We 

have asked Internet service providers and search engine operators 

to monitor their Web sites for child pornography and to alert us 

when they discover illegal content. We are working with Internet 

service providers, seeking assistance in the retention of records of 

online activities long enough so that when we identify predators 

and their activities, legal process will be effective to gather the necessary records in order to pursue successful prosecution. 

In closing, I want to recognize those who investigate and prosecute these cases. They deserve our respect, our admiration, and 

our gratitude. They have seen the darkest side of humanity, and 

continue to press on, as this is among the most important work we 

do. 

I would like to thank the Committee for addressing this very important issue and for allowing me to testify. I now look forward to 

answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mason follows:]

32

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL A. MASON

Good morning Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith and distinguished members 

of the Committee. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to address the FBI’s 

role in combating the sexual exploitation of children through the use of the Internet. 

With more than one billion people around the world routinely online, the Internet 

has become an integral part of our daily lives. It has dramatically enhanced the way 

we communicate, the way we learn, and the way we work. 

As New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote in his best-selling book 

‘‘The World is Flat,’’ the Internet has leveled the playing field, creating a convergence of people, places, knowledge, and information. We have gone global as individuals. 

However, globalization has brought about new challenges. Criminals are making 

ready use of the Internet, engaging in illegal activities ranging from credit card 

scams, consumer frauds, computer intrusions, money laundering and a host of other 

illegal activities. Terrorists around the world are recruiting, communicating and 

planning attacks, aided by laptops and Internet access. 

One of the most insidious uses of the Internet is for child sexual exploitation. An 

increasing amount of this exploitation takes place in the dark shadows of the Internet—on websites and message boards, through file sharing and e-mail, and in real 

time with web cams and streaming video. 

The assault on children is nothing new, however the internet grants a far greater 

level of immunity to those who would prey on our children. As a result, there can 

be no tolerance and no retreat in our efforts to combat this scourge. We cannot and 

will not rest until these predators are shut down and locked up. That is why coordinated efforts like Project Safe Childhood, which brings federal, state, and local law 

enforcement and prosecutors together in task forces led by the local United States 

Attorney to combat online child sexual exploitation, are so important. 

Today I want to talk about what we in the FBI are doing to attack child exploitation on the Internet. I want to touch on what we do in terms of evidence collection 

and prosecution. Lastly, I want to talk about the role of both parents and the private sector in addressing this problem. 

One of our most important programs is the Innocent Images National Initiative, 

which for 11 years has targeted sexual predators who use the Internet to exploit 

children. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of work in this arena. Between fiscal 

years 1996 and 2005 there were over 15,556 investigations opened in this program. 

In 2005 alone, there were over 2,500 cases opened as opposed to 113 in 1996. This 

represents an increase of 2050%. During this ten year period, investigations under 

the Innocent Images National Initiative have resulted in 4,784 individuals being 

charged, 6,145 individuals being arrested, located or summoned to appear in a court 

of law and 4,822 convictions being obtained. 

We have ongoing undercover operations across the country, with more than 240 

agents who investigate cases with their state and local counterparts. 

On any given day, these investigators may pose as children to lure online predators into the open. They may pose as collectors seeking to share images through 

peer-to-peer networks. They may coordinate with the National Center for Missing 

& Exploited Children to identify children and adults featured in child pornography. 

Or they may train police officers to investigate cases in their own jurisdictions. 

With heightened scrutiny in the United States, child pornographers are going further underground, using file-sharing networks and encrypted websites. They are 

concealing their financial mechanisms through a maze of online payment services, 

including the use of stolen credit cards. They are traveling to foreign countries to 

exploit minors. They are victimizing more children, in more ways, at younger and 

younger ages. 

In one instance, agents in Chicago searched a predator’s residence and found a 

customized computer with five hard drives and several external drives. They seized 

more than a terabyte of digital evidence—the equivalent of more than one million 

paperback books. This man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison not only for 

distributing pornography, but for producing images of his own resulting in the victimization of a minor child. 

In another such case, a cyber agent traced images downloaded from a file-sharing 

network to a man in the Pittsburgh area. Together, agents and members of the 

High Tech Crimes Task Force seized more than 2,500 images of highly graphic child 

pornography, housed everywhere from the subject’s computer to DVDs to his Apple 

iPod. 

These cases are significant not just because of the amount of material seized, but 

because of our collaboration with state and local counterparts. 

33

This coordination is not limited to the national level. Police officers from Britain, 

Australia, Belarus, Thailand, and the Philippines, among others, work with agents 

and analysts on the Innocent Images International Task Force in Calverton, Maryland. 

Our international partners know the language, the customs, and the cultures of 

their home countries. Today, information that once took weeks or even months to 

relay can be exchanged simply by walking across the room. Together, we have convicted a number of child predators around the world. 

For example, last October, Ukrainian investigators arrested a man associated 

with a young girl featured on a pornographic website. The man had received money 

and gifts in exchange for allowing the girl to be sexually abused on camera. This 

investigation started in Denmark, and spread to Ukraine and the United States. It 

was a Ukrainian police officer, a member of the task force, who played a key part 

in capturing this criminal and shutting down this website. 

Child pornography is a global threat that requires a global response. We have no 

choice but to work together. It is not just a matter of preference, but of necessity. 

As these cases illustrate, identifying child predators is only part of the equation. 

We must also collect the evidence necessary to convict them. 

Our Regional Computer Forensics Labs (RCFLs) and our Computer Analysis Response Teams (CART) work with federal, state, and local officials to find and preserve this vital evidence. 

Last year, RCFL examiners working with the San Diego Internet Crimes Against 

Children Task Force targeted an international ring of child molesters, who distributed photos and videos over the Internet. These individuals victimized at least 45 

children, including 37 children from the United States, ranging in age from 2 to 14. 

Twenty-five individuals in Europe and North America were arrested and tried for 

their involvement. Examiners spent more than 500 hours collecting the evidence 

necessary to put these men away. 

Unfortunately, such cases are all too common. In the past five years, RCFL and 

CART examiners have conducted more than 31,000 examinations. As the number 

of computer crimes we investigate has increased, so has the need for computer 

forensics. 

It is always a struggle to square priorities and improve services with limited resources. We must find a way to balance our forensic needs in counterterrorism, 

counterintelligence, and computer intrusion cases with an ever-increasing need for 

such analysis in child exploitation cases. 

To meet that need, we have trained more than 16,000 law enforcement officers 

to handle digital forensic evidence. 

FBI digital evidence forensic examiners developed a special tool to aid investigators known as Image Scan. This tool and its training course is one of our most 

sought-after training programs by both domestic and international law enforcement 

agencies. This program enables investigators to identify, isolate, and store images 

from a suspect’s computer on a thumb drive without altering the original evidence 

on the computer. 

We have provided Image Scan training to more than 4,600 state and local task 

force officers, enabling them to collect data necessary to obtain search warrants, or 

to detain subjects pending a more comprehensive analysis. This year, with the Department of Justice’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, we will 

train our international partners in Brazil, Budapest, Estonia, Portugal and Canada, 

to name just a few. 

At the same time, the FBI is constantly evaluating, expanding and improving the 

way that it performs computer forensics and delivers the processed results to investigators. Each year the size of personal computing storage capacity increases while 

the overall cost drops. The result is that the volume of evidence confronting FBI digital evidence forensic examiners today has become staggering. As of the end of FY 

2007, FBI CART reports that it has processed in excess of 2.5 petabytes of data 

(that is in excess of 2.5 million gigabytes). To combat these trends, the FBI has deployed 25 state-of-the-art forensic networks to major FBI Field Offices. These networks enable FBI forensic examiners to more efficiently process seized digital evidence and then present the results to investigators for their review through their 

desktop computers. 

Despite the unprecedented growth of seized data, the FBI has witnessed a ten per 

cent reduction for the past two years in the backlog of child exploitation digital evidence examinations as a result of these network efficiencies. Based upon the proposed FY 2008 budget, the FBI plans to expand the forensic networks to an additional ten field offices while continuing to examine smaller network solutions for the 

FBI’s smaller field offices and resident agencies. To enhance our investigative efforts, the FBI’s Digital Evidence Section and Cyber Division have recently joined 

34

forces to stand up the first digital evidence forensics unit dedicated solely to the 

processing of Innocent Images evidence. The new unit, expected to be fully operational by the end of FY 2008, will be in Linthicum, Maryland, and will have up 

to ten full time forensic examiners. It will perform full content forensic examinations on priority investigations. 

By giving cyber investigators the tools they need, we are reducing our backlog and 

leaving more complex matters for the CART teams and the RCFLs. 

We know there is a real need for additional training, faster services, and better 

coordination, and we will continue to expand these efforts in the years to come. 

I want to talk for just a moment about the importance of community outreach and 

private sector partnerships. 

Part of our job—and an integral part of Project Safe Childhood—is to educate the 

public about child exploitation. The Internet has provided child predators with a 

sense of anonymity and their products a world-wide portability. These are not mere 

pictures or posed shots, but live acts of molestation. And as predators become desensitized, those who once collected images may start to create images, seeking to harm 

younger children, in more terrifying ways. 

Our cyber agents routinely meet with members of the community to talk about 

Internet safety. Parents may not understand the dangers lurking in cyber space, or 

what they are doing to put themselves and their children at risk. A parent may see 

a web cam as an easy and inexpensive way for a child to communicate with friends 

or relatives, but a predator sees it as an open window into a child’s bedroom. 

In field offices around the country, agents are teaching parents how to protect 

against the tactics used by predators, and the risks of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, instant messaging, and social networking sites. 

We are also working with the media to get the message out. Our Endangered 

Child Alert Program, conducted in partnership with the National Center for Missing 

& Exploited Children and Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity 

Section, uses national and international media exposure to identify unknown predators and victims. Through publicity on the FBI website and the television show 

‘‘America’s Most Wanted,’’ we have identified and arrested eight predators. More importantly, we have identified more than 30 child victims. 

In another effort, Oprah Winfrey uses her television show to alert viewers to 

known sexual predators and posts their faces and identifying information on her 

website. She is offering $100,000 out of her own pocket for each predator brought 

into custody. Within the first week, two fugitives were arrested. Since then, two 

more predators have been taken into custody. 

We have also enlisted the help of our private sector partners. We have asked 

Internet service providers and search engine operators to monitor their websites, 

and to alert us when they discover illegal content. 

We in law enforcement face another hurdle in purging predators from the Internet—and that hurdle is tracking both the criminal and the crime. Data linking 

criminals to their crimes is absolutely essential in the fight against online child exploitation. We are working with Internet service providers on a voluntary basis to 

retain records of online activities so that we can identify predators and their activities and successfully prosecute them. 

Everyone in this room is familiar with violence and injustice. There are few things 

more difficult to bear than the victimization of a child. These cases are horrific, 

heartrending, and seemingly endless in number. 

The FBI is committed to protecting the most vulnerable among us. We are committed to sweeping sexual predators off the street, off the Internet, and out of our 

children’s lives. 

In closing, I want to recognize those who investigate and prosecute these cases. 

They deserve our respect, our admiration, and our gratitude. They have seen the 

darkest side of humanity. However, this is some of the most important work we do. 

I would like to thank the Committee for addressing this very important issue and 

for allowing me to testify. I look forward to answering your questions.

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Mason. I forgot to advise people 

about the little lights before you and to confine your remarks to 5 

minutes, but Mr. Mason, apparently you didn’t need directions. So 

I thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. MASON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Rothenberg. 

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TESTIMONY OF LAURENCE E. ROTHENBERG, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, OFFICE OF LEGAL POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Mr. ROTHENBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Forbes, and the other Members of the Committee. Thank you for 

inviting me to represent the Department of Justice at this important hearing, and to describe our current proposals for enhancing 

our ability to investigate and to prosecute predators who sexually 

exploit children, especially through the Internet. 

The fight against child exploitation is a priority for the Department as exemplified by our work in Project Safe Childhood, a nationally coordinated investigative and prosecutorial initiative linking U.S. Attorneys offices across the country with Federal, State, 

and local law enforcement, and with organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Department 

appreciates Congress’ strong support for these efforts, and the work 

that you have done recently. Most notably, the passage of the 

Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 has already 

made a difference. 

I ask that my full written statement be included in the record, 

and I will just summarize our principal proposals. 

Three of these proposals are contained in the Violent Crime and 

Antiterrorism Act announced by former Attorney General Gonzales 

this past May, and we also have several new proposals to facilitate 

prosecution of fugitive sex offenders. A number of these proposals 

will be familiar to you from Congressman Musgrave’s testimony 

earlier today, and I will provide the Department’s perspective on 

them. 

First, we urge that Congress establish a mandatory minimum 

sentence for possession of child pornography. This is crucial because too many people believe that child pornography is just pictures and not a big deal. That is wrong, Mr. Chairman. Each child 

pornography image is a visual record of the sexual exploitation of 

a child. It is not just a picture. And every time it is viewed the 

child is violated again. Furthermore, it is the demand for such images that fuels the physical violation of the child in the first place. 

Unfortunately, since the Federal Sentencing Guidelines became 

advisory, the number of downward departures by judges in child 

pornography possession cases has leapt to 26.3 percent, more than 

twice the average rate of such departures. Establishing a two-year 

minimum sentence will be a warning to potential consumers of 

child pornography, prevent unwarranted downward departures, 

and forcefully express our society’s revulsion at this type of material. 

Our second proposal would amend the current law providing that 

an Internet service provider who knowingly and willfully fails to 

report the presence of child pornography images on its computer 

services is subject to a criminal fine. This provision has been virtually impossible to enforce. Our legislation would therefore add a 

civil penalty that would be easier to enforce for negligent failure to 

report such images. Those images are out there, they are on somebody’s computer server, and law enforcement needs to know about 

them to investigate and prosecute the crimes. 

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Our third proposal fills a gap in existing law that has led some 

courts to overturn convictions of possessors of child pornography. 

Some courts have narrowly interpreted, incorrectly in our view, the 

definition of the term ‘‘possession’’ in the Federal Criminal Code so 

that a person who, for example, viewed images of child pornography on his computer but did not save them onto his disk drive 

would not have violated the statute. Our proposal would amend the 

statute explicitly to cover, quote, knowingly accessing child pornography with the intent to view it, close quote. 

Our final set of proposals relates to 18 U.S.C. Section 2250, created in the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, 

SORNA, part of the Adam Walsh Act. Section 2250 creates the 

Federal felony offense of failure to register as a sex offender or to 

update a registration. By terms of the statute, it applies to a person who travels in interstate or foreign commerce. Since the law 

has been enacted, one Federal district court has found that the 

statute’s use of the present tense ‘‘travels’’ means that the law only 

applies when the interstate or foreign travel occurred after the 

statute enactment. In order to clarify that this jurisdictional requirement is satisfied, regardless of whether the travel occurred before or after the enactment of the Adam Walsh Act, it should be 

amended to add ‘‘has traveled.’’

Additionally, our proposal will clarify that section 2250 offenses 

are continuing offenses as long as an offender’s failure to register 

or update a registration exists. This clarification would eliminate 

the possibility of a claim by an offender that section 2250 was an 

ex post facto law. 

Finally, as an enhancement of the current law, we propose to include section 2250 among the child abduction and felony sex offenses that can be prosecuted at any time without limitation. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss our proposals, and I am happy to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rothenberg follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF LAURENCE E. ROTHENBERG


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Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. Mr. Waters. 

TESTIMONY OF FLINT WATERS, WYOMING INTERNET CRIMES 

AGAINST CHILDREN TASK FORCE 

Mr. WATERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Forbes, and Members of the Committee. I want to thank you for 

the opportunity to speak on this matter. I am Flint Waters, Special 

Agent with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. 

I am not here to testify on behalf of the entire Internet Crimes 

Against Children network. There are others that can do that. I am 

here to speak from my work on the front lines investigating these 

cases and building the ICAC data network. Let me share with you 

some of the material we see every day. 

Imagine the movie of the 4-year-old girl being sodomized on a 

bed, as her attacker tries to force her to comply with his wishes. 

And from the speakers you can hear her screams of no, no, no. This 

child is trying to free herself unsuccessfully from this attacker. We 

have got movies, the movie of the toddler on a changing table. The 

video zooms in as her diaper is removed, and an unknown adult 

male penetrates the child. From the video it is obvious that this is 

frequent activity for this little girl. In many of these videos, the offender films as they sneak into a child’s bedroom with the lights 

from their camera. We can only imagine that the child’s mother 

must be asleep, unaware, somewhere else in the house. 

In a recent case, an offender filmed himself drugging the juice 

boxes of neighborhood children before tricking them into drinking 

the mix. He then filmed himself as he sexually abused unconscious 

children. Through the interdiction of his trading in child pornography, investigators found numerous local victims. 

When you do this sort of work there is certain pictures you just 

can’t get out of your mind. For me, one is the picture of a young 

girl about six or seven. She is nude, she is strapped to a chair, and 

the chair has fallen over, and this child is being sexually assaulted 

by a dog. The tears are streaming up this little girl’s face. And to 

my knowledge, she has not been identified. 

In one case investigated out of Wyoming, an offender was so fixated on manufacturing these child sexual abuse images, they arranged to abduct two girls, one on the East Coast and one in Wyoming. When he came to Wyoming, he was arrested. During his 

interview after his arrest he talked about plans to make his fortune 

selling child pornography. When asked about his intentions with 

the Wyoming girl, he said he was going to use her to make movies, 

and then sell her or leave in the mountains to, quote, be eaten by 

a bear or a lion. She wouldn’t survive. 

Recently, our investigators have been using systems to find individuals trafficking using peer-to-peer file sharing, searching for sadistic images where the victims are especially young, and they are 

reported online trading these images at that moment. In one day 

we found 4,500 unique locations throughout the United States. 

That is October 4th, 2007. During the month of August, 2007, that 

is where we found individuals trading—these are distributors of 

child pornography—around the United States. We have been tracking this for 36 months. The magnitude of this problem, our lowest 

estimate is that there are over 350,000 individuals trading these 

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images depicting rape and sexual abuse of children in the United 

States alone. That is 350,000 unique serial numbers. Of that, we 

can clearly calculate well over half a million people in the United 

States that we can track. 

The good news is we know how to find these predators. They are 

just a subpoena away from arrest and prosecution. In a recent case 

in the western United States, through our operations an offender 

was found to be trading child sexual abuse images on the peer-topeer networks. When he was identified, law enforcement found that 

he was a respiratory therapist at a children’s hospital. He admitted 

targeting the weak, the unconscious, children that were there on 

hospice care. When asked how many children he had victimized, he 

looked out at the falling snow and asked how many snowflakes are 

there. 

Chairman Conyers, Members of the Committee, the bad news is 

that while my task force and the ICAC network can tell you how 

to interdict tens of thousands of sexual predators tomorrow, the 

vast majority of these leads will never be investigated. In fact, less 

than 2 percent of these crimes we know about are investigated due 

to the sheer lack of resources. Most of these victims will not be rescued. 

I am here today to testify about what many of my law enforcement colleagues are not free to come here and tell you. We are 

overwhelmed, we are underfunded, and we are drowning in the 

tidal wave of tragedy. We don’t have the resources we need to save 

these children. Law enforcement’s efforts, to include the ICAC program, the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative, ICE’s Cyber 

Crimes Center, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are all desperately underfunded. From where I stand, these are human rights 

workers who need and deserve our support. The price we pay for 

coming up short will be measured in children lost. 

There are times in our line of work when you find yourself staring into the eyes of the children in these movies and apologizing. 

We apologize because we can’t find them. We can’t rescue them. 

There is just not enough people or resources to help. 

On behalf those victims, I thank you for doing everything in your 

power to help us fight this human rights crisis. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Waters follows:]

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ATTACHMENT


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Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. Ms. Collins? 

TESTIMONY OF MICHELLE COLLINS, DIRECTOR, EXPLOITED 

CHILD DIVISION, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN 

Ms. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the distinguished 

Members of Committee. As the Director of the Exploited Child Division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 

I welcome this opportunity to appear before you to discuss crimes 

against children on the Internet. 

The National Center 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. The National Center is a not-for-profit corporation mandated 

by Congress and working in partnership with the Department of 

Justice as the national resource center and clearinghouse on missing and exploited children. 

One of our programs is the CyberTipline. It acts as the 911 of 

the Internet. It serves as the national clearinghouse for investigative leads and tips regarding crimes against children on the Internet. Congress mandated that the National Center establish and operate the CyberTipline in its Justice Department appropriations 

legislation for fiscal year 1998. 

The CyberTipline operates in partnership with the FBI, with 

ICE, with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, with the U.S. Secret 

Service, the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, the nationwide Internet Crimes Against Children 

Task Forces, as well as all State and local law enforcement agencies here in the United States. 

Since the CyberTipline began operation, the National Center has 

received and processed more than 525,000 reports regarding child 

sexual exploitation, resulting in hundreds of arrests and prosecutions. These leads come from both the public as well as electronic 

service providers, which we call ESPs. They are mandated to report 

to the CyberTipline any images of apparent child pornography 

under section 13032 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. Reports are 

prioritized, processed, and then submitted to the appropriate law 

enforcement agency by our analysts. 

The FBI, ICE, and the Postal Inspection Service have real-time 

access to the leads, and all three agencies assign agents and analysts to our building. Rapid dissemination of CyberTipline reports 

is accomplished using Virtual Private Network connections. ESPs, 

the electronic service providers that are registered with the 

CyberTipline, use a secure Web site to upload images of apparent 

child pornography directly onto our server, which we then encrypt. 

The VPN is also used to transmit these images and the 

CyberTipline reports to the National ICAC task forces, which also 

have secure, encrypted connections into the CyberTipline. The majority of the CyberTipline leads are referred to the 46 federallyfunded ICAC task force agencies, one of the most effective initiatives in the fight against online child sexual victimization. 

It was Congress in 1997 that conceived the idea of creating specialized units to investigate these types of crimes. In the 10 years 

since then, the national ICAC program has become a model of sucVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jul 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\101707\38335.000 HJUD1 PsN: 38335
62

cessful Federal oversight of State and local programs, which 

though geographically diverse, are united by national standards 

with investigative policies and procedures. The national ICAC program complements the Federal agencies efforts as they work 

seamlessly in the fight against online victimization. 

The typical analysis of a report that we would receive from an 

electronic service provider begins with taking in whatever information that company provides to us, and then we try match it to other 

online activity. Conducting online searches is one method we use 

to try to connect a real person to their online identity. We use both 

publicly available search tools, as well as commercial search tools 

that are often given to the National Center at no cost. 

These searches often turn up information valuable to law enforcement, including whether or not the offender has legitimate access to a child, such as a school bus driver. Law enforcement will 

want to move quickly in cases where a child could be in imminent 

danger. Using the information we gather from the CyberTipline, 

law enforcement serves legal process, gathers evidence, and obtains 

probable cause to arrest of the perpetrator. 

In our experience, the child victims would have never told anyone about their abuse. Their perpetrator would have remained 

anonymous but for the CyberTipline, and despite what should have 

been the obvious clues to the true nature of the offender. 

Who are the children that we see in these images every day? Of 

the identified offenders in a one-year period 83 percent of them had 

images of children being sexually abused under the age of 12, 39 

percent had images of children under the age of 6, while 19 percent 

of the offenders had images of children being sexually abused 

under the age of 3 years old. 

Because of our role as a clearinghouse for online crimes against 

children and the reputation we have earned while assisting law enforcement, our analysts have seen more child pornography than 

any law enforcement agency in the world. This benefits our Child 

Victim Identification Program, a joint project with our Federal law 

enforcement partners and the ICAC task forces to identify children 

who are being actively abused, as well as assist with prosecution 

of these cases. 

At this point we know of at least 1,200 child victims who have 

been rescued. And thankfully, I can report to you that the child 

that you are viewing here has been rescued by law enforcement. 

Today we are working with leaders in the Internet industry to 

explore improvements, new approaches, and better ways to attack 

the problem. NCMEC urges the Committee to take a serious look 

at the dangers threatening our children, moving decisively to provide law enforcement with the tools that they need to identify and 

prosecute those who victimize our children. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Collins follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHELLE COLLINS

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee, as the Director of 

the Exploited Child Division 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 

63

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 under Section 5773 of Title 42 of the 

United States Code, which is attached. 

These include 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. 

One of our programs is 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. Congress mandated that NCMEC establish 

and operate the CyberTipline in its Justice Department appropriations legislation 

for fiscal year 1998, which is attached. The 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, the national Internet Crimes Against Children 

Task Force (ICAC) program, and 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.

Since the CyberTipline began operation, NCMEC has received and processed more 

than 525,000 leads, resulting in hundreds of arrests and successful prosecutions. 

These leads come from both the public and electronic service providers (ESP), which 

are mandated to report under Section 13032 of Title 18 of the United States Code. 

Reports are prioritized, processed and submitted 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 on-site at 

NCMEC and review the reports. We are not authorized to send CyberTipline reports 

to foreign law enforcement agencies. This is a real problem, considering the global 

nature of the Internet. 

Rapid dissemination of CyberTipline reports is accomplished through the use of 

Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections. ESPs that are registered with the 

CyberTipline use a VPN to upload images of apparent child pornography directly 

into our server. These images are encrypted for additional security. The VPN is also 

used to transmit images and CyberTipline reports to the national ICAC program, 

which also has a secure, encrypted connection to the NCMEC system. 

The majority of CyberTipline leads are referred to the 46 federally funded ICAC 

taskforce agencies, one of the most effective initiatives in the fight against online 

child victimization. It was Congress that, in 1997, conceived the idea of creating specialized units to investigate these crimes. In the 10 years since then, the national 

ICAC program has become a model of successful federal oversight of state and local 

programs which, though geographically diverse, are united by national standards of 

investigative policies and procedures. The national ICAC program complements the 

federal agencies’ efforts, as they work seamlessly in the fight against online child 

victimization. 

A typical analysis of an ESP report begins by taking whatever information is in 

the report and trying to match it to other online activity. Conducting online 

searches is one method we use to try to connect a real person to the online criminal 

conduct. We use both publicly-available search tools as well as commercial search 

tools that are given to us at no cost by our corporate partners. 

Because Congress intended the CyberTipline to augment rather than replace established law enforcement procedures, the information we provide is only the first 

step in the process. Our searches turn up information that is valuable to law enforcement, including whether the perpetrator has legitimate access to children—

such as a school bus driver. Law enforcement will want to move quickly in cases 

64

where children could be in imminent danger. Using the information we gather, law 

enforcement serves legal process, gathers evidence, and obtains probable cause to 

arrest the perpetrator. 

An obstacle to this process is that 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. 

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. 

In the cases we have seen, the child victims would have never told anyone about 

their abuse, and their perpetrators would have remained anonymous but for the 

CyberTipline and vigorous law enforcement investigation. 

Who are the children in the images we see every day? Of the identified offenders 

in a one-year period, 83% had images of children younger than 12 years old, 39% 

had images of children younger than 6 years old, and 19% had images of children 

younger than 3 years old. 

Because of our role as a clearinghouse for online crimes against children, and the 

reputation we’ve earned for assistance to law enforcement, our analysts see more 

child pornography than any law enforcement agency in the world. This benefits our 

Child Victim Identification Program, a joint project with our federal law enforcement partners and the national ICAC task force program, whose mission is two-fold: 

(1) to help prosecutors get convictions by proving that a real child is depicted in 

child pornography images; and (2) to rescue the children. To date we have records 

relating to almost 1200 identified child victims. 

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. The 

CyberTipline is a tool used by law enforcement to apprehend those who use the 

Internet to victimize children. 

Today, NCMEC is working with leaders in the Internet industry 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. 

NCMEC urges the Committee to take a serious look at the dangers threatening 

our children today, and to move decisively to provide law enforcement with the tools 

they need to identify and prosecute those who target our children. 

Now is the time to act. 

Thank you.

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. Mr. Weeks? 

TESTIMONY OF GRIER WEEKS, PROTECT, INC. 

Mr. WEEKS. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Forbes, and distinguished Members, thank you for having us. I am Grier Weeks, 

Executive Director of the National Association to Protect Children. 

We are a grassroots organization that is active in the States and 

now in Washington on this Federal issue. 

I am going to depart from my remarks. Just to be brief here, I 

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ently not hearing year after year at these hearings, and that is a 

frank assessment of the state of readiness of law enforcement at 

the Federal, State, and local level. Let me begin by reviewing what 

we know about the magnitude of this crisis. 

First, we know that there are hundreds of thousands of individuals within the U.S. Right now actively engaged in these crimes, 

hundreds of thousands. The Department of Justice has testified before Congress to this. And as you have heard from Agent Waters, 

this is a matter of fact. 

Second, we know that these individuals are responsible for hundreds of thousands of child victims in the United States. Everything we know about the rate of victimization, the number of victims tells us that if there are a half a million people out there trafficking in child pornography, that you are talking about hundreds 

of thousands of child victims. 

Third, we know that these hundreds of thousands of perpetrators 

are committing millions of crimes. That is important, because the 

volume of crimes is the best indicator we have of what is essentially a market demand, a crushing market demand for more and 

more product, which can only be provided by the rape and torture 

of more children. 

The most important thing, perhaps, that we know is we can prevent this. This is entirely unnecessary. Because of the innovative 

law enforcement techniques that Agent Waters has talked about, 

the FBI is engaged in, we know where these guys are. And there 

is no reason in the world why these children should continue to 

suffer because we won’t get up and go get them. 

Only a token of these cases, as you have heard today, are ever 

investigated. According to the FBI, in the 61⁄2-year period between 

fiscal year 2001 and mid-2007, the number of suspects identified 

and arrested by the FBI for online child exploitation crimes was 

5,048. The ICAC program, comprised of 46 task forces nationwide, 

reports just over 2,000 arrests in fiscal year 2006. We don’t have 

reliable numbers on ICE and Postal, but they would be considerably smaller. 

All of this, though, is no fault of these heroes that are out there 

on the front lines doing this work. And I want to emphasize that 

clearly. As of July 11th, the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative, based in Calverton, had just 32 staff, including 13 agents. 

Now, in previous congressional testimony, the FBI and Department 

of Justice have emphasized essentially the full-time equivalents, 

but I think it is important that this Committee understands the 

very inadequate, grossly inadequate size of this unit itself. 

The Innocent Images congressional appropriation last year was $10 million. That is less than half of what HUD gave to Jersey 

City, New Jersey, for housing and community development. In fiscal year 2006, the budget for the entire ICAC task force program, 

which is a tremendous success, was 141⁄2 million. After years of administration neglect and mounting congressional scrutiny, the Department of Justice has finally increased that by $11 million, but 

we are talking about a quarter of one bridge in Alaska, the Bridge 

to Nowhere. 

Law enforcement also suffers from a critical lack of forensic resources at every level. In your States and at the Federal level we 

66

hear again and again people waiting 8 months to get a hard drive 

analyzed. How is this possible? How in a country where you can’t 

go a single night without hearing about sex offenders, you have got 

TV shows about sex offenders, how is it possible that we can have 

a flourishing criminal marketplace in children that goes on with 

impunity? 

Let me take a stab at that, and I will conclude with our insight 

into why this has been allowed to happen. In 1996, the World Wide 

Web really took off. That was the year that the public became 

aware of it and started to use the World Wide Web. That was also 

the year that Megan’s Law was passed, which is a good piece of 

legislation. But I want to point out that Megan’s Law, which imposed a form of citizen supervision on released sex offenders, became essentially the whole paradigm for how this country thinks 

about child sexual abuse. It became the way we talked about it, the 

way we legislated about it, and it was popular because it was 

cheap, it was irresistible to the media, and it was popular. 

As that decade wore on and we talked consistently about registered sex offenders, child pornography exploded. Children became 

a commodity in an underground economy, and law enforcement 

continued to fall farther and farther behind. Law enforcement was 

not given the personnel, the equipment, the training, the forensic 

labs, or any of the other support they needed to go find these kids 

and rescue them. Year after year we heard unbelievable rhetoric. 

The Administration talked tough, but refused to support law enforcement. Year after year they refused to even shoot straight with 

Congress about what the resources really were and what they 

needed. 

It got so bad that finally last year Congressman Joe Barton from 

Texas practically begged the Department of Justice to tell them 

what they needed from Congress. It was apparently useless. By the 

end of the Megan’s law decade, America ended up with an enormous surplus of rhetoric about sex offenders and a severe deficit 

of resources to do anything about them. We were spending millions 

hunting for sex offenders who failed to register their addresses, 

while ignoring legions of new sexual predators whose locations we 

do know. We were doing the things that cost the least and sound 

the toughest, while neglecting the things that cost real money and 

could save the most lives. 

Now the 110th Congress has the opportunity to do what the 

109th Congress and this Administration did not: Fight back, pay 

what it costs, disrupt this market, and go get these children. You 

have the opportunity to show America and 50 State legislatures a 

little less talk and a lot more action. You can launch the toughest 

offensive against child sexual predators this Nation has ever seen. 

It will also be the largest child abuse prevention campaign in history, and I will just add that millions of American taxpayers from 

all walks of life will be behind you 100 percent. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weeks follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GRIER WEEKS

Chairman Conyers, Ranking member Smith, distinguished members, thank you 

for the opportunity to testify today. I am Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children, or PROTECT. PROTECT was established in 

67

1Testimony of Alice S. Fisher, U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, May 3, 2006

2 Correspondence between Flint Waters, Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and 

PROTECT 3Testimony of Raul Roldan, U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, May 3, 2006

4 ‘‘Child Pornography Possessor Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings from the National Juvenile Online Victimization Survey, University of New Hampshire Crimes Against Children Research Center / National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2005; Testimony 

of Andres Hernandez, U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, September 26, 2006 5Testimony of Flint Waters, U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, April 6, 2006

6 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimate 

2002 as a grassroots membership association that works to promote legislation with 

one exclusive aim: child protection. We work primarily in state legislatures to win 

stronger laws for child protection, and last year helped secure greater funding for 

law enforcement to combat child exploitation in California, Tennessee and North 

Carolina. For the past two years, we have done extensive research into the magnitude of the problem nationally and what law enforcement at all levels of government needs to combat this crisis. 

You are hearing today from some of the foremost experts on child exploitation in 

the United States. When it comes to data on the nature, scale and magnitude of 

child pornography trafficking, there is not even a close second to ICAC Agent Flint 

Waters. In the FBI’s Arnold Bell, you have a seasoned veteran who has spent years 

at the very center of national and international anti-child exploitation law enforcement efforts. 

I will confine my testimony, therefore, to the one set of facts that Congress urgently needs but has not been given during previous legislative hearings on this 

subject: a frank assessment of the state of readiness of our federal, state and local 

law enforcement agencies to combat this epidemic. 

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PREDATORS ARE AT LARGE

Let me begin by reviewing what we know about the magnitude of this crisis. 

First, we know that there are hundreds of thousands of individuals within the 

United States who are actively engaged in child pornography crimes. Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher gave this testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2006.1 Agent Flint Waters, the primary architect of the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) information-sharing network and the one person who has compiled the most data on trafficking, estimates there are at least 

350,000 such criminal offenders within the U.S.2

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHILD VICTIMS

Second, we also know these individuals are responsible for hundreds of thousands 

of child victims, whether of child pornography production or other forms of direct 

sexual assault. FBI Cyber Crimes Division Chief Raul Roldan gave this testimony 

to Congress in 2006.3 Both research and anecdotal evidence tell us that a majority 

of those arrested for so-called ‘‘simple possession’’ of child pornography are known 

to have sexually assaulted children or attempted to.4 Most of these children are 

preyed upon not by strangers, but by adults in their own daily circle of trust. Child 

pornography in the U.S. is largely a home-grown, cottage industry. 

MILLIONS OF CRIMES, A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR MARKET

The third important fact we know is that these hundreds of thousands of individuals commit millions of crimes each year.5 This distinction between offenders and 

crimes is not an academic one, because the volume of crimes being committed is our 

best indicator of the crushing market demand for new ‘‘product.’’ This is a market 

estimated to range in the billions of dollars annually,6 although it also thrives on 

barter. This demand drives the rape and torture of more American children every 

day. 

WE CAN PREVENT THIS

Finally, perhaps the most important thing we know is that we can prevent this. 

Thanks to the innovative high tech investigations of the ICACs and federal agencies, law enforcement can now locate tens of thousands of the predators referred to 

by Ms. Fisher, Mr. Roldan and Agent Waters. In one recent 30-day period, the ICAC 

Data Network gathered evidence on individuals trafficking in child pornography 

68

7 Information provided to Sen. Joseph Biden by ICAC Data Network, October, 2007

8 A law enforcement panel testifying before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee 

on April 6, 2006 discussed the triaging of child exploitation cases. 9FBI letter to Sen. Joseph Biden, July 11, 2007

10Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice 11FBI letter to Sen. Joseph Biden, July 11, 2007 12 ‘‘HUD Announces $12.7 Million for Affordable Housing and Community Development in Jersey City, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development news release April 20, 2006 13 ‘‘2007 Budget Highlights,’’ U.S. Department of Justice 14Despite much controversy over this project in Washington, progress continues using federal 

funding. See the Gravina Access Project website at http://dot.alaska.gov/gravina/

from nearly 50,000 unique locations.7 These criminals are now caught in a web of 

their own making. 

ONLY A TOKEN PERCENTAGE INTERDICTED

If there were hundreds of thousands of active bank robbers at large in the United 

States, we might declare a national state of emergency. But these are just children. 

Only token number of these crimes will ever be investigated. Law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local level are overwhelmed and are triaging.8

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the six and a half year period 

between FY 2001 and mid-2007, ‘‘the number of suspects identified and arrested by 

the FBI for online child exploitation’’ crimes was 5,048.9 The ICAC program, comprised of 46 task forces nationwide, reports just over 2,000 arrests nationwide in FY 

’06.10 We do not know of reliable numbers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, but they would be smaller than either 

the FBI’s or the ICAC networks. 

LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES STARVED FOR FUNDING

All of this is no fault of the heroes who work at the FBI, ICE, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the ICAC Network. 

As of July 11th, the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative, based in Calverton, Maryland, had just 32 staff, including 13 agents. Previous Congressional testimony by the Bureau has emphasized the total number of full-time equivalents assigned to child exploitation cases agency-wide, which is around 260.11 But it is important that Congress understands the grossly inadequate size of this unit itself. The Innocent Images Congressional appropriation in FY ’06 was $10 million. 

That’s less than the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave to 

Jersey City, New Jersey last year for housing and community development.12 The 

FBI supplemented this with approximately $23 million in discretionary funds. 

In FY ’06, the budget for the entire Internet Crimes Against Children task force program, which has been tremendously successful, was $14.5 million.13 After years 

of administration neglect and mounting Congressional scrutiny, the Department of 

Justice finally doubled funding for this program in 2007. However, funding for this 

bridge to safety for children is still less than one-fourth the federal investment in 

Alaska’s infamous ‘‘Bridge to Nowhere’’ (Gravina Island project).14

Law enforcement also suffers from a critical lack of computer forensic resources. 

No FBI lab is dedicated to crimes against children, and agents at all levels of government report typical wait times for forensic work of around 8 months. This bottleneck not only limits prosecution, but it often leaves victims in danger while authorities wait for evidence. 

TIME FOR A CHANGE OF POLICY IN WASHINGTON

How is any of this possible? How—in a nation where not a single night goes by 

without a television show or newscast on the topic of ‘‘sex offenders’’—can a flourishing criminal marketplace prey on American children with such impunity? I will 

conclude by offering our insight into this question. 

It was just 1996, eleven years ago, that the world wide web took off, facilitating 

what would become a vast new online marketplace for child exploitation. Nineteen 

ninety-six was also the same year that Megan’s Law was enacted, facilitating a decade of public awareness about child sexual abuse. 

Megan’s Law—which imposed a form of citizen supervision on released sex offenders—was enormously popular, far cheaper than intensive surveillance and control 

by parole or probation officers, and irresistible to the news media. It quickly became 

a virtual paradigm for how America would think about, talk about and legislate 

about child sexual abuse. And although ‘‘registration’’ was a surprisingly weak response to the problem, it was the wellspring for a decade-long flood of often-partisan 

‘‘get tough’’ rhetoric. 

69

15 U.S. Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, May 3, 2006

Meanwhile, as the decade wore on, child pornography trafficking exploded exponentially. Children became a commodity in a new underground economy, and law 

enforcement began to fall farther behind. Those on the front lines were not given 

the basic personnel, equipment, training, forensic labs or other support they needed 

to protect American children. 

Year after year, the administration talked tough, but refused to support law enforcement, even in the face of an unfolding domestic human rights catastrophe. Year 

after year, the administration failed to even shoot straight with Congress about the 

magnitude of the problem law enforcement was seeing and to ask for meaningful 

budget increases. Finally, in 2006, Rep. Joe Barton practically begged the Department of Justice in a public hearing to ask Congress for more help combating child 

exploitation, to no avail.15

By the end of the Megan’s Law decade, America ended up with an enormous surplus of rhetoric about sex offenders and a severe deficit of resources to do anything 

about them. We were spending millions hunting for ex-offenders who failed to register their addresses, while ignoring legions of new sexual predators whose locations 

we know. We were doing the things that cost the least and sound the toughest, 

while neglecting the things that cost real money and could save the most lives. 

Now, the 110th Congress has the opportunity to do what the 109th, and this administration, did not: Fight back. Pay what it costs. Disrupt this market. Go get 

these children. 

You have the opportunity to show how America, and 50 state legislatures, a little 

less talk and a lot more action. You can launch the toughest offensive against child 

sexual predators this nation has ever seen, as well as the largest child abuse prevention campaign in history. Millions of American taxpayers from all walks of life 

will be behind you 100 percent.

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Weeks. Mr. Ryan? 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN RYAN, GENERAL COUNSEL, AOL 

Mr. RYAN. AOL thanks Chairman Scott, Ranking Member 

Forbes, and the distinguished Members of this Committee for the 

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the issue of online child protection. AOL strongly supports the efforts of this Committee, and shares the goal of protecting children’s experience online and safeguarding online users from predators. 

My name is John Ryan, Chief Counsel at AOL, where I oversee 

our efforts to assist law enforcement and keep criminal activity off 

our networks. Prior to joining AOL, I was a prosecutor in New 

York, where I investigated and prosecuted numerous high-tech 

crimes, including crimes against children. I am a founding member 

of the Electronic Crimes Task Force in New York, which has been 

used as a model for cooperation between law enforcement and industry in the prosecution of electronic crimes. 

The story that I believe needs to be told today is the extraordinary work that we and other online companies have done to protect children online. Those include technology solutions that provide children with safe areas and provide parents with tools to 

guard and monitor their children’s activities, provide law enforcement with tools and assistance needed to investigate and prosecute 

Internet-related crimes, our educational efforts to empower parents 

and children, and our ongoing work with others in the Internet 

community to develop best practices and solutions. For AOL these 

efforts make good business sense but, more importantly, are the 

right thing to do. 

A decade ago, AOL pioneered the concept of parental controls, to 

give parents powerful tools to enable them to set and enforce safety 

rules for their children’s online activities. With AOL’s still indusVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jul 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\101707\38335.000 HJUD1 PsN: 38335
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try-leading products, parents can now set time limits for online activity, decide whether their children can e-mail and IM, and if so, 

with whom, choose the Web sites and products they can access, and 

even get a report on their child’s online activities, essentially report 

card on where they have been and what they have done. 

These amazing capabilities have been recognized in a recent 

landmark decision in the COPA matter. The Federal District Court 

in Philadelphia recognized that AOL’s parental controls blocked 

over 98 percent of sexually explicit Web sites, and that 87 percent 

of parents found them easy to use. 

Now AOL has made their parental controls free of charge, even 

to non-AOL users. AOL also offers other tools, such as a visible and 

convenient ‘‘notify AOL’’ button, for members to report unacceptable or illegal behavior to teams of trained professionals who work 

closely with law enforcement. 

Finally, AOL produces and provides alternative Web programming for children and teens so that they can have a positive Internet experience. Collectively, these are extraordinary tools provided 

by our industry to parents to protect their children. 

In 1999, Congress passed important legislation that required 

service providers to report apparent images of child pornography to 

the National Center. This legislation actually reflected a practice 

that AOL had undertaken several years prior, enabling AOL to 

begin immediate compliance. To improve reporting further, 

theindustry developed a broader sound practices document that encourages referral of offending images and other valuable information to NCMEC in order to ensure that law enforcement has sufficient basis for a quick follow-up. 

In 2006, AOL and other leading service providers submitted 

nearly 30,000 reports related to child pornography and 

endangerment. Those are 30,000 child pornography cases that likely would have gone unnoticed. 

We also respond effectively to law enforcement inquiries. This 

past August, Pennsylvania law enforcement told us they urgently 

needed to find the location of a child molester who was abusing two 

children and broadcasting video of the abuse in real-time. Working 

with law enforcement, AOL was able to provide the police with the 

location, and the police caught the molester in the act and rescued 

the children. 

AOL’s efforts do not simply stop at reporting evidence of crimes. 

AOL has a team of highly trained and dedicated professionals, including former prosecutors, who assist on tens of thousands of 

cases per year. We have a 24-hour dedicated law enforcement hotline to respond to law enforcement requests in a timely basis. 

Since 1995, we also offer pretrial litigation support, as well as 

fact and expert witness testimony in criminal cases involving 

records obtained from AOL. 

The important message is while there are ways to enhance these 

processes even further, the underlying framework for reporting 

crimes, preserving evidence, and cooperating with law enforcement 

are strong and effective. The processes that Congress and industry 

put in place really do work. 

We also continue to innovate. AOL implemented extremely effective technologies to identify, detect, and remove child pornography 

71

images from any transmission within our network. In addition to 

the detection, we collect them and forward them onto the National 

Center, and then work with law enforcement for ultimate prosecution. 

We were the first provider to work online with the AMBER Alert 

program, and we now use that same technology to alert campuses 

on safety issues after the tragedy at Virginia Tech. We also recently instituted with the National Center a dedicated area where 

they can set up a space, since they have been designated as the 

Emergency Child Locator Center, in light of the tragedy at Katrina. 

So our work is ongoing, and we look forward to working with this 

Committee to develop further strategies. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ryan follows:]

72

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN RYAN


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Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. Ms. Banker. 

TESTIMONY OF ELIZABETH BANKER,

ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL, YAHOO 

Ms. BANKER. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Forbes, and 

Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be 

here today to talk about how we can all work together on the very 

important issue of child online safety. 

I am pleased to tell you in my 8 years at Yahoo I have seen significant improvement in the user control tools, educational resources, and enforcement systems to protect children. Unfortunately, as you have heard today, despite these efforts, criminals 

persist. 

It is essential that both industry and government fulfill their 

unique roles in promoting online safety. Yahoo’s commitment to 

fostering a safe environment begins with our own products and 

services. Our approach focuses on four key areas. 

First, building safer online spaces. We offer a safe site for kids, 

and tools such as safe search, parental controls, and privacy preferences that allow users to decide what information to share and 

with whom to communicate. 

Tools alone are not enough. We also educate users. This year we 

launched Yahoo Safely, an educational site on the do’s and don’ts 

of online safety. More recently, Yahoo Mash joined with i-SAFE on 

a safety video for teens. 

Second, reporting and appropriate content. Yahoo encourages 

users to report violations through prominent report abuse links, 

and works with partners such as the Internet Watch Foundation, 

who report child abuse URLs. To promptly report child pornography to NCMEC, we invested in systems to forward the information needed for successful law enforcement referrals. 

Third, detecting and deterring child pornography. We have a 

multi-faceted approach, combining technology, user and third-party 

reports, and human review. We also partner to develop new tools, 

including supporting a technology coalition to build better solutions. 

Partnerships are the fourth aspect of our strategy. Yahoo works 

with groups like i-SAFE and NCMEC to promote online safety. On 

Friday, Yahoo and the California Technology Assistance Project 

will host a summit on Internet ethics and safety. Yahoo’s partnership with law enforcement is a key element in our efforts. Our compliance team is available to law enforcement 24-7 for emergencies. 

We have created a guide for law enforcement outlining our procedures, and we regularly participate in training, including ICAC 

conferences. Recently we partnered with State attorneys general to 

conduct training in Nebraska, New York, Texas, New Jersey, and 

Colorado. 

Yahoo is committed to protecting children, yet there is more to 

be done. Critical functions, such as prosecuting and sentencing offenders can only be performed by government. There are four areas 

where the public-private partnership can be enhanced by congressional action: safety education, law enforcement tools, government 

supervision of sex offenders, and resources. These are discussed at 

length in my written testimony. I would like to highlight a few. 

80

The child pornography reporting statute should be revised to 

clarify the data NCMEC needs to refer reports to law enforcement. 

Providers should also be given immunity for transferring illegal images to NCMEC. After these improvements, this should become the 

single national standard to ensure coordination among Federal, 

State, and local authorities. 

We also encourage the Committee to ensure preservation requests are part of the referral process. Preservation authority is a 

powerful tool that helps ensure future availability of data. This targeted approach avoids many of the pitfalls associated with broader 

proposals. Thus, we support provisions in the Rescue Online Services Act just introduced by Representatives Christopher Carney 

and Steve Chabot. Also, a bill introduced by Representative Nick 

Lampson would allow States to use critical investigative techniques 

in child exploitation cases. 

To address concerns about sex offenders, we recommend the 

Committee give additional resources, training, and legal authority 

to those best equipped to determine how to minimize the risk, the 

judges who sentence offenders and the parole and probation officers 

who oversee them. This could be done by expanding guidance for 

judges on restricting Internet use by offenders and by providing 

monitoring tools and training to parole and probation officers. We 

are concerned that approaches that do not leverage law enforcement to set and enforce restrictions could have unintended consequences, including ensnaring innocent Internet users. 

There are two final areas that support the legislative changes I 

have outlined, training and funding. There are several bills notable 

for making the necessary investments to protect children. Bills introduced by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Representative Bobby Scott both include funds for law enforcement 

training. A bill introduced by Ranking Member Lamar Smith has 

resources for Innocent Images, and a bill introduced by Representatives Chabot and Lampson has funds for ICACs. We are hopeful to 

see this strategic funding, as well as appropriations for the Adam 

Walsh Act. 

Yahoo is pleased to be among the witnesses at this hearing to 

take decisive action to fight child exploitation. We look forward to 

working with the Committee on legislation Yahoo can eagerly support to advance this goal. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Banker follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH BANKER


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Mr. SCOTT. Thank you very much. I would like to thank all of 

our witnesses. We will now have rounds of questions, and I will 

recognize myself first for questions for 5 minutes. 

First, just very briefly, Mr. Ryan and Ms. Banker, do you have 

any difficulty complying with the laws that require you to report 

images? Is there any logistical problem in doing that? 

Mr. RYAN. With respect to AOL, no, Chairman Scott. That has 

been our practice for over 7 years. Even prior to the legislation, we 

were doing that on a voluntary basis. So we were very comfortable 

with that practice. We do call upon this Committee for the opportunity, though, to clarify and grant immunity in the transmission 

of those images so it minimizes any open issues that may be raised. 

Clearly, the Department of Justice understands and endorses the 

practice. But it would give, I think, greater assurance to those ISPs 

who still may be on the sidelines to get them to pony up and get 

engaged in the process as well. 

Mr. SCOTT. And what do you need immunity for? Is that to protect you against any liability that could occur because of the transmission, violation of privacy or something like that? 

Mr. RYAN. That is correct, because we as private citizens do not 

have any nonlegislative immunity to possess those images during 

the time which they are conveyed to NCMEC or to law enforcement. 

Ms. BANKER. I would just like to add that the current reporting 

statute does not specify that the image should be part of the report, 

and we think that both clarity as to what should go into a report 

to NCMEC, saying that it should include the image, as well as then 

making sure that the appropriate immunities are in place for the 

transfer of the image would greatly improve the quality of the reports that NCMEC receives. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. You don’t need—I thought you were looking for 

immunity for violation of people’s privacy, if you take somebody’s 

property if it wasn’t in fact illegal activity and you would expose 

their privacy or something like that. That is not—you would want 

immunity from that, but you are talking about immunity because 

you, during that period of time, actually have possession of the material. Okay. 

Mr. Waters indicated that we don’t have the resources. Mr. 

Weeks has indicated that the number of prosecutions compared to 

the number of cases we know about is somewhat modest. Now Mr. 

Mason, you indicated hundreds of thousands of leads and only 42 

open cases. Did I hear you right? 

Mr. MASON. No, sir. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. How many cases—how many possible investigations? I thought you said hundreds of thousands of possible investigations. 

Mr. MASON. No, sir, I didn’t say that. We have approximately 

2,600 current cases open. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. How much more money would you need to pursue the cases that Mr. Weeks and Mr. Waters have indicated are 

cases where you have live leads, and but for resources, because of 

lack of resources you can’t pursue them? 

Mr. MASON. That would be an answer I would have to come back 

to the Committee with. It would be hard to answer now. It is tantaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jul 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00107 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\101707\38335.000 HJUD1 PsN: 38335
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mount, in some respects, to trying to catch everybody going 58 

miles an hour in a 55-mile an hour speed zone. The number of people out there engaged in this activity is absolutely staggering. So 

at this moment in time I wouldn’t be able to give you a figure that 

would allow us to cover all of the people out there engaged in this 

kind of activity. 

Mr. SCOTT. I suspect that you might have—I mean the difference 

between going 58, if the going 58 caused the kinds of damage that 

is being caused here, I think you might get the resources to catch 

everybody going 58. 

Mr. MASON. I agree, and I certainly didn’t mean to compare the 

consequences of those two acts. 

Mr. SCOTT. So if you could give us some resource numbers. 

Mr. Waters, what kind of numbers should we be hearing in 

terms of resources? 

Mr. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, from the perspective where Wyoming is concerned right now, we are bringing in roughly 35 to 40 

new offenders that we identify in our State each month. And I can 

handle with my seven agents, counting myself, we can handle right 

at seven to 10 cases a month. If we tripled our funding we may be 

able to get a start on trying to keep up with just what is coming 

in, not the growth. We are seeing it escalate each month. So at the 

current state, I think tripling our efforts would be——

Mr. SCOTT. I would ask you and Mr. Weeks, do you need any new 

laws or just need resources? 

Mr. WATERS. From our perspective, Project Safe Childhood and 

the push with the U.S. Attorney’s office to prosecute these cases 

has given us amazing coverage in getting the offenders that we do 

catch brought before the judge and put in jail. So right now our 

laws are working fairly well. Other folks have spoken about other 

issues that we are not yet facing in Wyoming. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Weeks? 

Mr. WEEKS. Mr. Chairman, there are laws that would be very 

helpful. I know that they do need some help with some of these 

data retention issues. But honestly, I don’t think the answer is 

more laws at this point. I think the answer is more resources. Because as long as they can’t even begin to pursue what they—the 

predators that they see now on their screens, it is almost a moot 

point. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. I recognize my colleague from Virginia, 

the Ranking Member, Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you for 

taking time to be with us today. 

Ms. Banker, we heard the testimony from Alicia a little bit earlier, and she had to leave before we could ask her any questions. 

And just before I ask you one, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask 

unanimous consent to put in an article from the New Jersey StarLedger dated Sunday, August 14th, 2005, outlining Alicia’s testimony and her situation. 

Mr. SCOTT. Without objection, so ordered. 

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Mr. FORBES. Also I would just like to mention for the record that 

the Ranking Member Smith has been on the Floor dealing with 

FISA today, and that is why he hasn’t been here because he would 

have loved to have heard all of his testimony 

Mr. SCOTT. I think that is where the Chairman is, too. 

Mr. FORBES. Ms. Banker, first of all, you deserve some questions. 

You all deserve some questions because, in Alicia’s situation, it was 

your company that actually happened to locate the individual that 

had kidnapped her and taken her in; is that correct? 

Ms. BANKER. That is correct. 

Mr. FORBES. Were you General Counsel at that time? 

Ms. BANKER. I did oversee our law enforcement combined function at that time. 

Mr. FORBES. One of the things that we heard in there when we 

talked about immunity was when, prior to the PATRIOT Act, 

which gave you immunity in that particular situation, that many 

of the providers were reluctant to give that kind of information for 

fear of lawsuits that would come down on them even if a life was 

at stake. 

Is that accurate? 

Ms. BANKER. I think that most providers in the face of a situation where a child is in danger would make the decision to provide 

the information. But it greatly eased our ability to do so when that 

was included as a specific legal exception. 

Mr. FORBES. Did you ever have to make that determination as 

General Counsel prior to that time? 

Ms. BANKER. I did. 

Mr. FORBES. Did you authorize it to be released always, or was 

it a concern to you that they might have lawsuits that come up? 

Ms. BANKER. I don’t think our primary concern was lawsuits. I 

think the company has always tried to do the right thing in terms 

of protecting our users’ privacy interests. 

Mr. FORBES. So you are suggesting that the fact that you may 

be sued later on was not a part of the—one of the components that 

you would take into advising what actions that the company would 

take? 

Ms. BANKER. It certainly is something that goes into the formula. 

But having been the person on the other end of the phone, when 

law enforcement calls and says that a child is missing, I can tell 

you that you feel a very strong responsibility to act in the best interest of public safety. And while we certainly always adhere to our 

terms of service and our privacy policy and Federal laws on these 

issues, we do our best to balance those. 

Mr. FORBES. I just can’t imagine that general counsel wouldn’t 

at least take that into account, and certainly in the article that I 

just had admitted to the record, it seems like a lot of other providers said that that was a major concern to them and that they 

were glad that they had that act. 

That allowed them to be able to do that. 

Mr. Rothenberg, let me go to you and ask you, what challenges 

do prosecutors face in receiving adequate sentences against child 

pornographers? We heard about the need for money. We know that. 

You know, every single group that comes before us needs more 

113

money. It is not that you don’t. We don’t disagree with you about 

that. But we always know that we need more money. 

What challenges do you face other than financial in receiving 

adequate sentences against child pornographers? 

Mr. ROTHENBERG. We do in fact have a problem with that, as I 

pointed out, and I go into it in a little more detail in my written 

statement. 

We have faced slightly higher than 26 percent non-government 

sponsored downward departure rate by judges in child pornography 

possession cases. That is twice the rate for other crimes in the last 

few years since the sentencing guidelines became advisory under 

the Supreme Court opinion in U.S. v. Booker. 

Mr. FORBES. That was 29 percent. 

Mr. ROTHENBERG. 26 percent. So a little more than one-fourth of 

these cases we believe reflect the erroneous view that the possession of child pornography isn’t such a bad crime, and as I said, possession drives demand. And it is a victimization of the child and 

needs to be punished sufficiently. 

Mr. FORBES. You are saying, even when you have the resources 

and get it to a conviction, that you are having some problems with 

some judges giving sentences. 

Mr. Mason, what additional tools do you need to stop the flow 

of money to offenders that are involved in child pornography and 

the exploitation industry? And I know that you had difficulties because of the use of virtual money on that. 

Can you tell us if there are any additional tools that you need 

in that? 

Mr. MASON. They use a lot of different methodologies to move 

around, and I am not sure right now, I am not prepared to give 

an answer regarding that specific problem as to what we would 

need to further curb this problem. 

The devices they use, citizens use to buy goods and other things 

off of the Internet, and I certainly wouldn’t want to preclude that 

activity. 

So I would—I am not prepared at this moment to speak to what 

we would need specifically in terms of legislation to tamp down 

that particular problem. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. [presiding.] Do you yield back? 

Mr. FORBES. One of the reasons that we hate this format is we 

have seven witnesses in here. We can’t ever adequately ask a question. We would like to pick your brain on more of these issues. 

Hopefully, we will get to a time where we can talk and get your 

testimony in a more advantageous situation. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The point of the gentleman is well taken, and we 

also have written questions. 

I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questions. 

I want to commend Ms. Banker and Mr. Ryan, Yahoo and AOL 

for the wonderful steps that they have taken to—taken to try to 

help keep children safe online. 

You mentioned your work with the National Center for Missing 

and Exploited Children to create a database for automatic identification and removal of known child pornography images. 

Is there anything that Congress can do to help make that a reality? 

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Ms. BANKER. We think there is something that could be done, 

and one of those things is that there is information that the National Center has about the attributes of images, and as we work, 

as companies, to develop new technologies with the goal of doing 

a better job of detecting and removing these types of illegal images 

from our networks, we think there may be a need to find out more 

information about the nature of those images in order to make our 

screening technology more intelligent about those issues. And that 

is a provision that we would like to see additional authority given 

to the National Center to allow them to share that information 

with us. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Can you also talk a little bit about some of the 

emerging issues in the area of child safety? 

Ms. BANKER. One of the big issues that we see coming up for 

teens in terms of online safety is cyber bullying. And we have been 

working online and off line to address that issue, including the 

summit, I mentioned, on Friday on cyber safety is going to address 

cyber bullying as part of that; and it is focused to educate or to 

help them understand what types of issues their students will be 

facing. 

We are also sponsoring the i-SAFE curriculum in middle schools 

in Sunnyvale, California, where we are headquartered, so that 

teens will learn about cyber bullying and how to address it in their 

day-to-day lives. 

We also noted that you have addressed cyber bullying in your 

education bill, and we are very glad to see resources being allocated for that important issue. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. It strikes me, and we have heard very compelling 

testimony from all of the panels today, but it strikes me that there 

are the three tools of law enforcement, which are prevention, enforcement and punishment. 

What has been discussed today has been the enforcement and 

punishment, and it was said in the earlier panels, the first line of 

defense is their parents. But I really believe the first line of defense for children is themselves, and being knowledgeable about 

what to do if they are online and they are getting improper contact 

or messages that make them uncomfortable. And I know there are 

a number of programs that are aimed towards trying to teach children about online safety, and perhaps that aspect of it doesn’t get 

a lot of attention, although really it should because children need 

to be educated about what to look for when they are online. 

Mr. Weeks, I am painfully aware of the fact there is a lack of 

resources that have been dedicated towards prosecuting these online predators. And that seems to be an overriding theme among 

all of the panelists that, really, if Congress were serious about this, 

we would stop spewing rhetoric and do things where we take into 

account their real costs and are really going to be effective; and I 

really have to commend you for being tough and speaking the 

truth. 

I mean, speaking truth to power is often the first thing that 

needs to happen in order to chang attitudes, and unfortunately, up 

here, oftentimes the easy or least costly solutions are what people 

grasp for so that they can say, well, we have done something about 

this. 

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You did mention, though, in addition to needing more resources 

and funding for enforcement, that there are perhaps other things 

that Congress can do as well to help prosecute these predators. 

Could you just mention, in as much time as is left, some of those 

things that Congress can do to help? 

Mr. WEEKS. Well, I think there has been a number of bills suggested today that are very good and will help law enforcement and 

help us do this. 

I would add one thing that I think would have a tremendous impact, and that is simply accountability. I think that in communities 

small and large across the country, nobody in terms of prosecutors, 

really, is held accountable. We understand the concept of holding 

judges accountable. We know what we are seeing when we see a 

judge that sits at the bench and looks at child pornography and 

then gives probation. But it is not the judges 99 percent of the time 

who makes those decisions. It is the prosecutors. Most of these 

cases never get—they are plea bargained before they ever get to a 

judge. 

So accountability in terms of—call it sunshine. If this country—

if our citizens knew who took this seriously and who didn’t, I think 

people would change their behavior overnight. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. 

My time has expired. 

I will recognize the gentleman from Florida for 5 minutes of 

questions. 

Mr. KELLER. For me, the bottom line is online predators must be 

captured, prosecuted and locked away. No question. Since we are 

limited to 5 minutes, I am going to limit my questions to the narrow issue of grooming. And that is a behavior that occurs when 

Internet child predators lie about their age to entice their victims. 

For example, earlier today, Alicia testified, ‘‘I chatted for months 

with Christeen, a beautiful red-haired 14-year old girl who just understood me all too well. Christeen was really a middle-aged pervert named John. Somehow in this process, this grooming of me 

had changed me, had destroyed my ability to reason.’’

A few months ago, the Florida legislature passed the Cyber 

Crimes Against Children Act and became the only State in the Nation with a law specifically targeting grooming; 49 out of 50 States 

have no such law on the books, and the Federal Government has 

no such law on the books. 

Let me begin with Mr. Waters. 

What is your experience in dealing with this behavior that we 

are hearing about called grooming? 

Mr. WATERS. Thank you, sir. 

We do get a lot of reactive calls where we have children in our 

State that have been contacted by individuals. 

Frequently, we have trouble coming up with chargeable actions 

if the individuals have not yet started specifically addressing the 

sexual activity they are looking for with the child or they haven’t 

arranged the meeting. 

Mr. KELLER. Is there—is it a common phenomenon for these online predators for them to misrepresent their age to give young 

teenagers a false sense of security? 

Mr. WATERS. It is. 

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Mr. KELLER. Let me ask you, Ms. Collins, and I know your national center collects a wide variety of data. Do you see this as a 

problem? 

Ms. COLLINS. Absolutely—the problem of online grooming. And 

we also accept reports of enticement. In fact, we have had a 300 

percent, approximately 300 percent increase in just the last year 

with reports coming in from the public regarding enticement. 

It is a big problem. The children, boys and girls in their teen 

years, are especially vulnerable, particularly girls between the ages 

of 13 and 15. 

The offenders who are targeting them know exactly what they 

need to do in order to work their way into the child’s life, much 

like they did with—like they did with Alicia. 

We see them being deceptive about their age, certainly about 

their motives. But also they are not only lying about their age, and 

they are simply playing upon the emotional vulnerability on the 

child and trying to work in that way. 

Mr. KELLER. Mr. Mason, over at the FBI, do you see this issue 

of this grooming taking place with the child predators lying about 

their age to make the victims feel more comfortable and give them 

more information. 

Mr. MASON. Yes, sir. We do. 

Mr. KELLER. What is it about this behavior that makes child 

predators think they have to lie about their age? Why does it benefit them, from your investigative point of view? 

Mr. ATWOOD. They want to make themselves like the victim, and 

age is a common factor that they can have with the victim. So they 

certainly use that as a ploy to get children to speak to them. 

And, unfortunately, as Mr. Weeks said, there is—that sometimes 

at the beginning stage, if you intervene at that stage, there is not 

much legally that you can do with somebody who is molding them 

out to be a 16-year old who happens to be a 37-year old. 

Mr. KELLER. Would you agree, if there was a law on the books 

making that a crime to misrepresent their age, that would make 

it easier then to prosecute them and gather information from the 

perpetrators? 

Mr. MASON. I would agree with that. 

Mr. KELLER. And over at Department of Justice, Mr. Rothenberg, 

do you have any opinion on whether that would make it easier to 

do the investigation and prosecution if there was a law on the 

books making it a crime to engage in the misrepresenting of age 

through grooming? 

Mr. ROTHENBERG. I think it is—certainly we would be happy to 

look at it. 

Right now, without language in front of me, it would be difficult 

for me to express an opinion, but we are happy to work with you 

on that and take a look at your—any proposals you would have. 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you. 

Ms. Collins, I had an experience earlier this week. I opened an 

office to help catch child predators in Orlando, and he cited some 

specifics from your organization, National Center for Exploited 

Children. 

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He said there are 77 million kids that use the Internet daily, and 

one out of seven kids between the ages of 10 and 17 are sexually 

solicited online. 

Does that sound correct based on your data? 

Ms. COLLINS. That is the newest data that——

Mr. KELLER. Where is that trending? 

Ms. COLLINS. The original research was conducted in 2001, and 

at that time, it was one in five children had admitted that they had 

been sexually solicited online. The good news is it is not saying one 

in seven. We are hoping that that may have something to do with 

the prevention work that has been done by countless agencies. 

The unfortunate reality, though, is even though the number appears to have been going down in terms of the solicitation, the aggressive solicitations have not changed at all. That would be those 

solicitors that were trying to reach a child by mail, by phone or in 

person, and those have held steady since 5 years earlier, as well 

as the unfortunate fact that many of these children, more than half 

of them, never tell an adult, a trusted adult, when those things 

happen to them. 

So those are the areas we need to continue working on. 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you. My time has expired. 

I yield back. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I would now like to recognize the gentlewoman 

from Florida, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. My questions will primarily be for Mr. 

Mason. 

Mr. Mason, Arnold Bell is the chief of your Images Unit. Can you 

tell me why he isn’t here to testify? 

Mr. MASON. He is here. He is sitting behind me, but I was asked 

to testify. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I believe Mr. Bell was actually invited 

to do the testifying. Was there a substitution made in the Justice 

Department? 

Mr. MASON. Not in the Justice Department. But in the FBI. I 

only received notification that I was going to be testifying here 

today. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Bell is the person with the most 

in-depth knowledge about the FBI Innocent Images Unit; isn’t he? 

Mr. MASON. That is correct. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I was personally disappointed that he 

was not sitting here at the table because we would want the person 

with the in-depth knowledge to be the one who answers the questions. 

Can you get back to me why the switch was made? Because I 

know it didn’t come from the Committee on the Judiciary. 

Mr. MASON. I can do that. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Who is James Finch? 

Mr. MASON. He is the director of our Cyber Division. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are aware, aren’t you, that Senator Biden, Joe Biden, wrote a letter to FBI Director Robert 

Mueller asking him specific and detailed questions about the FBI 

Innocent Images Unit; aren’t you? 

Mr. MASON. Yes, I am. 

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And Mr. Finch has responded to Mr. 

Biden. Have you seen the letter? 

Mr. MASON. I didn’t see the letter, but I know he did respond to 

the letter. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I prepared a copy of the letter to submit it for the record. 

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You know then, Mr. Mason, that in 

Mr. Finch’s letter, he stated that the Innocent Images Unit currently has 32 staff members, including 13 investigators; is that correct? 

Mr. MASON. That is correct. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Do you know how large the unit was 

in 2006? 

Mr. MASON. I do not. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Was it smaller or bigger or about the 

same? 

Mr. MASON. It was larger. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I think the number was closer to 40. 

So the number of the agents actually has shrunk since Congressman Barton, when he chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee, since his hearings last year, the number of investigators 

was actually less this year than it was last year; correct? 

Mr. MASON. In the Innocent Images Unit, yes. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The total budget for that unit is about $30 million? 

Mr. MASON. No, ma’am. Are you talking annually? 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I am. 

Mr. MASON. No, it is not $30 million. If you are talking about ap- propriated money, it is around—it is closer to $6 million. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. But total funds is $30 million? 

Mr. MASON. I am not sure what you are making reference to. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What I am making reference to is Mr. 

Finch also stated in his letter to Senator Biden that approximately 

$3.8 million was transferred from Innocent Images to IC3, which 

is the Internet Crimes Complaint Center. 

Mr. MASON. That is correct. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What is IC3? 

Mr. MASON. It is a location we have in West Virginia where we 

collect Internet complaints, Internet crime complaints. It is a place 

to aggregate it because the average Internet fraud amounts to 

about $75, so we were looking for a way to aggregate all of those 

complaints to find out when in fact we had a problem. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. They investigate fraud and white collar crime; correct? 

Mr. MASON. That is correct. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Why is so much of Innocent Images 

being sent to an agency that has nothing to do with child protection? 

Mr. WEEKS. Well, in fact, it does, and in fact over a thousand 

complaints last year came in to IC3 through the Internet Crime 

Complaint Center. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Child protection complaints came into 

IC3? 

Mr. MASON. No. Complaints of suspected child molestation. And 

so the fact of the matter is, the average American doesn’t understand necessarily that it is for white collar crime only. They only 

know it is an Internet Crime Complaint Center, and they make 

calls of all natures, of all natures to the Internet, to IC3. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. But the majority of the resources 

should be with the Innocent Images program and not diverted to 

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an agency that is dedicated to white collar crime and Internet 

fraud; wouldn’t you agree? 

Mr. MASON. That didn’t just go to IC3. It went to that and to our 

Cyber Fusion Center. It was split between the two. We see that as 

a force multiplier, so we do not see it as a diversion away—against 

Crimes Against Children but rather as yet another type of force 

multiplier that helps us to identify even more perpetrators of 

crimes against children. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are aware that we are investigating less than 2 percent of the activity? 

Mr. MASON. I am. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Particularly because you compared 

the activities to speeders in your comments earlier. 

Mr. MASON. Only as a scope issue. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I think it was an unfortunate analogy, 

which you acknowledged. 

Has your department, your division, or any entity in the Department of Justice asked for more money in the President’s budget request to come back to cyber crime? 

Mr. MASON. We have not asked for more money, but we have indicated in 2008 that none of the money for Innocent Images will 

be diverted anywhere else. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is comforting. It would be good 

if the U.S. Department of Justice refocused their priorities on making sure that we up the percentage of crimes that we can, against 

children, that we can investigate beyond 2 percent. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time has expired. 

If there is sufficient interest, if there are other Members who 

would like an additional 5 minutes for questions, since there are 

so few of us remaining. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I don’t need 5 minutes, but I would 

like to ask Mr. Weeks one question. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Without objection, the gentlewoman would be 

granted 2 additional minutes. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. 

You talked about a need for accountability. How does a special 

counsel at the Department of Justice who would be dedicated to coordinating all of the activity do what you were describing in terms 

of achieving that accountability? This would be a special counsel at 

the Department of Justice for child exploitation. 

Mr. WEEKS. My personal opinion is that, rather than a special 

counsel, we probably need a czar. If there is anything stronger than 

a czar, we need that. 

There are so many efforts going on right now within the Department of Justice. Just within the Department of Justice, you have 

got the ICAC program. You have got the FBI. You have got to 

CEOS, the Child Exploitation Obscenity Section. You have got 

Project Safe Childhood. You have got the U.S. Attorneys program. 

There is an urgent need for coordination, planning. And with 

that will come inevitably some elimination of duplicated efforts. 

I don’t think anybody up here would believe for a second that we 

have to worry right now about waste or lack of efficiency because 

these folks are doing incredible work with very little money. 

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But the point is a special counsel would enable the Department 

of Justice to do exactly what you have been calling for, which is 

to refocus this effort and do it in a deliberate and efficient way. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. At this time, I would recognize Mr. Forbes for 5 

minutes of questioning. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

It is always interesting to me when we talk about accountability, 

we held a hearing down in Louisiana. We found out 12 percent of 

the people arrested ever actually went to jail. Part of that was 

judges, and part of it was prosecutors. 

And the difference that Mr. Weeks didn’t point out is, when you 

have judges, you have a record there that you can look at, a transcript, and you compare the sentence to the record. 

When you are dealing with prosecutors, you don’t have that 

record. You can’t disclose whether witnesses were willing to testify, 

whether there were evidentiary problems, all of which prosecutors 

have to take into play. 

Mr. Rothenberg, we know that the Justice Department’s proposed crime bill included a provision to include a mandatory minimum for possession of child pornography. 

Will you explain why that is needed? 

Mr. ROTHENBERG. We believe, and we have seen in the attitude 

of a number of judges, child porn is not treated as seriously as it 

should be. As I said and as other witnesses have said, the demand 

for child pornography is what drives all of these crimes against 

children and especially over the Internet. In fact, even the young 

lady, Alicia, who testified earlier today so movingly commented 

that the man who kidnapped her, took photos and shared them 

with his friends, obviously, those people were participating in the 

victimization of her even though they were, so to speak, only looking at photos. 

And we do have a problem, as my testimony states, in slightly 

more than one-quarter of all child pornography offenses, the guidelines—the judges are not following the guidelines that would apply 

to these offenders who possess child pornography, and we believe 

that by establishing a 2-year mandatory minimum, we will be establishing at least a floor that anybody who possesses child pornography will go to jail for 2 years, and we believe that would send 

a signal to the judges, first of all. 

It would also send a signal, express ours and Congress’s opinion 

about the severity of the crime, and it would be very useful for the 

prosecutor to have. 

There have been cases where an offender in Chicago who was a 

drug offender, and he had been sentenced to home confinement. 

And he spent his time downloading hundreds of images of children 

being sexually assaulted. And the judge at the district court level 

sentenced him to 1 day of prison (and supervised release) but 1 day 

in prison. 

We appealed that, and it was reversed in a very eloquent opinion 

by Judge Posner in the Seventh Circuit. 

But that is the attitude some judges have. And by establishing 

a mandatory minimum, we can prevent that. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Ryan, I want to compliment AOL for retention 

of records, and I want to ask you, what is the process for AOL to 

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retain subscriber records and then provide these records to law enforcement via subpoena? How long does AOL contain those records, 

and how cumbersome, and is it necessary to retain them any 

longer? 

Mr. RYAN. We found our existing retention scheme for our 

records has been very effective in our partnership with law enforcement coupled with the active use of the preservation requests. We 

received over 2,000 preservation requests last year, and recently, 

we tallied over 80 percent from the States that are actively engaged, primarily the ICAC task forces that issued preservation requests followed up with further legal process, typically search warrants. 

That signifies to us that that is an active investigation leading 

to prosecution. And the fact that we have testified in a number of 

those cases has demonstrated that that tool is extremely effective. 

Retention can be misleading because there are no uniform standards of what records are kept among various companies. 

That is due to the different architecture of various networks and 

the various business models. 

So we have found that works effectively for AOL. That may not 

be as effective for one of our colleagues. 

So we focus on what works best and most effectively for us, and 

we think the key is an active partnership with law enforcement because this data, no matter how long it is kept, these are real-time 

cases, the response has to be typically within 24 to 48 hours to get 

to the bottom of the case. 

So staffing is actually—we find more critical than the availability 

of records. 

Mr. FORBES. Ms. Collins, will you submit for the record how—

just an explanation for us of how NIC networks with ISPs, the financial institutions, law enforcement agencies to investigate child 

pornography sites, and what additional resources we need to get 

the job done? 

Ms. COLLINS. Approximately 40 percent of the reports we receive 

each week actually come from the service providers. Law enforcement really loves the reports that we get from companies such as 

AOL, Yahoo and so forth, and the companies have been very good 

about complying with the Federal law mandating that they report 

child pornography. 

Unfortunately, in order for them to make a tip to the CyberTip 

line, they need to make a report with us so we know who the person is. There is no mandate that the companies actually register 

with us. The contents of reports, when we have a new ISP calling—

actually, I have staff right now in San Jose, California, registering 

new ISPs at a conference out there. We have registered about 18 

out there alone. We have to convince them of what they should be 

reporting. We have to kind of call upon their good nature in trying 

to do the right thing in order to get the appropriate content. 

Companies such as Yahoo and AOL have been wonderful, but we 

have been working with them for many years. It would be very useful to have an established content of reports to be provided in a 

cyber tip line as well as some overarching maintenance of records 

and retention. 

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But law enforcement, we are making hundreds of referrals every 

week. They are not able to get to these reports in a few days. 

So we ask that possibly the electronic service provider have more 

consistency in how long they maintain this data to provide to law 

enforcement with the legal process that they need. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Mr. Keller is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KELLER. Let me go back to you, Ms. Collins, on behalf of the 

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

If there are parents and teachers as well as teenagers watching 

your testimony today, do you have any tips or proactive steps to 

protect against child predators that you can direct them to, maybe 

a Web site link about, these are the five things that every parent 

or teacher should know? 

Ms. COLLINS. I think that it goes to something that you stated 

earlier about the child, whether it be the child as the first or the 

last line of defense for themselves. 

I think that there are remarkable programs out there of online 

safety. We used to have many of these tips listed on our Web site 

at cybertipline.com, but we really need to be able or to empower 

these children to be able to recognize the warning signs. And I 

think that it is also important for parents to, when they hear the 

topic of Internet predation, to be able to keep some perspective of 

it that not every child is of equal risk of being approached by a 

predator, but there are some significant risks of encountering a bad 

person. That may be chatting with people they don’t know online, 

talking about sexually explicit topics, sending photographs online. 

All of these will raise the risk of a child of finding somebody who 

wants to perpetrate against them. 

Mr. FORBES. And those tips can be find on cybertipline.com? 

Ms. COLLINS. I would also like to recommend that they go to our 

Web site, which is netsmarts411.org. They can ask any question 

that they wish, and our analysts will respond in a very clear cut 

English nontechnological answer of what it is, whether they want 

to know how to delete a MySpace page; how do I make my child’s 

social networking page private? They can get the answers from 

that group. 

Mr. KELLER. I am going to start with you on my next question 

that is the issue of recidivism. For those listening, a fancy way of 

saying people get out of jail and do it again. 

Do you have any statistics when it comes to sex crimes, child molesters, what the recidivism rate is? 

Ms. COLLINS. I do not have those numbers for you. 

Mr. KELLER. If anybody has any recidivism statistics, if you can 

raise your hand, I will call on you. 

Mr. Weeks. 

Mr. WEEKS. I will offer this. We deal with this issue in a lot of 

the State legislatures where we are working on legislation. Today 

we heard some pretty outrageous statistics about low recidivism 

rates for sex offenders. 

We have always told our volunteers and our people that you will 

never win that fight. 

Mr. KELLER. Do you have a recidivism——

Mr. WEEKS. There was one in Canada that was done recently 

that was very good. Essentially, you have this problem, though. 

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Mr. KELLER. I just need the number because I have other questions. 

The reason that is a significant question, we have heard that it 

is two-pronged, prevention and enforcement. And if you could talk 

about a kid who is engaged in shoplifting or vandalism, I would totally agree with it. But I think some of these people can’t be fixed, 

frankly. And I think looking them up is the only way to go. 

So, in Florida, we have something called the Jimmy Ryce Act 

that, after their term is over, we still keep them civilly confined, 

and thank God we do, because they are going to do it again; and 

that is why this issue of recidivism is really key to look at because 

some of these folks are just messed up and are unfixable through 

any form of rehab. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield? 

We also passed the Federal version of the Jimmy Ryce Act and 

the Adam Walsh Act as well. I am hopeful, and you were strongly 

supportive of it, and my good friend from Florida, I am really hopeful that other States will take the urging that Congress made in 

passing that and adopt their own civil confinement laws. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. ROTHENBERG. I wanted to reassure the Congresswoman that 

the Bureau of Prisons is enforcing the authority that you gave us 

last year. We have certified several dozen defendants who are currently incarcerated for civil confinement. And it has been challenged, and we are defending our authority to do that very vigorously. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, if you are about to adjourn, can I ask the indulgence of the Committee and ask unanimous consent for 2 of my 3 additional minutes? 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I will recognize myself for 5 minutes and then 

yield to the gentlewoman from Florida. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Collins, can you tell me on the CyberTip line leads, how 

many of those does NCMEC send out to the ICACs each year? 

Ms. COLLINS. Last year, received about 76,000 leads through the 

CyberTip line. I do not have that number for you. I can get that 

to you when I get back. I have that at my office. I can submit that 

to you. 

But the vast majority of the leads that we do send out to local, 

State and Federal law enforcement, I would say approximately 70, 

75 percent are going to the ICAC task force. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Is it thousands? 

Ms. COLLINS. Absolutely. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. How many leads does, Mr. Waters, 

does the ICAC send out? 

Mr. WATERS. We set up the system so that each State can query 

those dynamically and query those, pull those leads directly. Wyoming, being the State with the lowest population, has roughly 

2,000 leads a year, and it runs the gamut from there. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So if Wyoming has the smallest population and arguably the smallest number of leads, this is hundreds 

of thousands of leads we could be dealing with. 

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Is there any difference between the kind of referrals coming from 

the NCMEC and those coming from the ICAC data, that network, 

that either of you are familiar with? 

Ms. COLLINS. Sure. The reports we are receiving is a combination 

of what is coming in from electronic service providers as what is 

coming in from the public. 

It can be a parent who said that they found that their child is 

communicating with a stranger online. It could be somebody who 

encountered child pornography online. 

Agent Waters can correct me if I am wrong, but primarily, the 

ICAC data network is providing information out to law enforcement regarding individuals using peer-to-peer technology to trade 

images and videos of child pornography. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Waters, did you want to answer? 

Mr. WATERS. That is the primary distinction. 

One of the advantages that we have from those individuals that 

we can triage that data so that we can categorize threat levels. Not 

only do we see who is trading, but we see the volume and the time 

frame they are trading, the level of sadomasochism against the 

child. So we can select the best image. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So your process is just more formalized and scientific as opposed to more informal referral? 

Mr. WATERS. Well, because we know where we are going to be 

looking at the beginning of each day, we know how to look. But the 

CyberTip line is receiving information from all types of folks that 

come across this material. So it runs the gamut of what they run 

into. 

Ms. COLLINS. It really does run the gamut. We have over 20 analysts in our CyberTip line that have a tremendous amount of value 

before we refer these leads up to law enforcement. 

Because we get so many leads from the ISPs and from the electronic service providers that provide us with the images, we need 

to rely very closely on our relationship with the ICAC task forces 

because we are not a law enforcement agency that can mail CDs 

of child pornography. So we allow law enforcement to secure 

encrypted access into our system. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. 

The issues of misuse of the Internet for the commission of sex 

crimes against children is one of the—is one of manifest importance for every American, and it is a difficult problem for which 

there is not one easy solution. 

Nonetheless, I want to commend all of our witnesses for their 

commitment to addressing this problem. We have heard some very 

good ideas today that hopefully will give Congress guidance as we 

proceed to move forward in trying to tackle this very difficult issue. 

Without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to submit any additional written questions for our analysts which we will 

forward to you and ask that you answer as promptly as you can 

so that they can be made part of the record. 

And without objection, the record will remain open for 5 legislative days for the submission of any other additional materials. 

And with that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:30 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LAMAR SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE

JUDICIARY

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The hearing today is on an important topic—protecting our children from sexual 

exploitation on the Internet. 

We all agree that we must protect America’s children from sex offenders. We also 

agree that law enforcement agencies need additional resources to bring child predators to justice. 

Resources, however, are not enough. If Congress is serious about combating this 

heinous crime, then we must provide law enforcement personnel with the tools 

needed to stop sexual attacks on children that are broadcast over the Internet. 

Sexual predators use the same Internet technology that has revolutionized our 

way of life to stalk our children. Our criminal laws must keep pace with our technology. 

The FBI estimates that as many as 50,000 child predators are online at any time 

searching for their next victim. 

Today, one in five American children between the ages of 10 and 17 will be sexually solicited online during their lifetime. 

Just last year, Congress enacted the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety 

Act, which included new tools to go after sexual predators on the Internet. Yet, 

within months, sex offenders found a new virtual playground—social networking 

websites. 

These websites, mostly used by college and high school students to communicate 

with friends, are now being used by pedophiles to lure unsuspecting children. 

Typically, convicted child sex offenders are prohibited from any contact with children. Social networking sites can unwittingly provide the perfect cloak of anonymity 

to get around this restriction. Congress must stop child predators from using these 

sites. 

First, we should require sex offenders to report all email addresses. 

Second, law enforcement agents need immediate access to Internet subscriber information. Before law enforcement officials can shut down a child pornography site, 

they must first identify the operator and users of the site. 

Unfortunately, many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) keep these records for as 

little as 24 to 72 hours or less. This short retention period may prevent law enforcement officials from catching these pedophiles. The failure of the ISPs to maintain 

these essential records can mean the difference between life and death for a child. 

Law enforcement officials have discovered websites depicting the live sexual assault of young children as it is happening. Child pornography consists of more than 

pictures of children in suggestive poses. It is also the real-time rape, abuse and molestation of innocent children. 

Some ISPs retain subscriber information for up to 90 days. Some do not retain 

such information for any significant time period. Record retention will help law enforcement officials rescue children who are being abused in real-time. 

In a perfect world, cooperation between law enforcement agencies and the ISPs 

would not require a mandate from Congress. 

I hope that a solution can be reached without Congress intervening. I am, however, committed to resolving this issue through a legislative proposal, if necessary. 

Another important tool to combat the child pornography industry is to cut it off 

at its source—money. In recent years, Internet child pornography has evolved from 

peer-to-peer sharing among pedophiles to a global commercial enterprise worth billions of dollars annually. 

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Website operators offer ‘‘subscriptions’’ to known child pornography sites that can 

be purchased using a major credit card or through an emerging tool known as virtual money. 

Virtual money, unlike traditional credit cards, is essentially anonymous. It is now 

the payment method of choice for Internet child pornography. Subscribers can provide fictitious personal information (or no personal information). No credit card or 

Social Security number is required making them virtually untraceable. 

Virtual money presents yet another loophole of anonymity for sex offenders. It 

leaves law enforcement little hope of identifying these predators. I am committed 

to closing this loophole. 

I welcome our witnesses and thank you for joining us today. I yield back the balance of my time. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE

fSHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this very important hearing on ‘‘Sex 

Crimes and the Internet.’’ When crimes are needlessly being perpetrated against 

citizens of this country, we as Members of this body have a duty to use whatever 

measures necessary to curtail such criminal behavior and ensure that we provide 

the most effective measures possible to be implemented and enforced to ensure the 

safety of all members of this society. 

I am pleased to welcome our witnesses who have gathered here today to give us 

guidance and insights in our efforts to create innovative solutions at the federal 

level that will address the incredible challenges that we face in our attempt to curtail sex crimes against children on the internet: Honorable Earl Pomeroy, Representative from North Dakota; the Honorable Marilyn Musgrave, Representative, 

4th District of Colorado; The Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Representative 

20th District of Florida; the Honorable Nick Lampson, Representative, 22nd District 

of Texas; the Honorable Christopher Carney, Representative, 10th District of Pennsylvania; the Honorable Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Representative, 5th District of 

Washington. 

I also welcome our second panel of witnesses: Mr. Michael Mason; Mr. Flint Waters; Mr. John Ryan; Mr. Grier Weeks; Mr. Laurence Rothenberg; Mr. Michelle Collins; and Mr. Elizabeth Banker. I hope that your testimony here today will prove 

fruitful in guiding this Committee to craft creative and effective legislation to help 

eliminate such intolerable acts perpetrated against innocent children. 

Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this hearing is to discuss issues and strategies to 

combat the use of the internet to facilitate the commission of sex crimes against 

children. It is an opportunity for our witnesses to discuss several pending Congressional legislative proposals, alternative approaches to stemming sex crimes against 

children over the internet, and give guidance to this Committee as to what may be 

the most efficient and effective means to eliminate sex crimes against our children 

via the internet. 

Mr. Chairman, there are a number of categories of crimes involving sexual exploitation of children and minors that are committed through the use of the internet. 

They include: the use of the internet to disseminate images of child pornography 

and sexual exploitation of children; the use of the internet by adult sexual predators 

to infiltrate ‘‘chat rooms’’ and other social networking sites in order to identify underage persons for purposes of arranging sexual encounters with minors. 

Unfortunately, the internet provides a market for the distribution of child pornography and other images of sexual exploitation of children. According to a 2006 report by The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), its 

Cyber Tipline received reports about 62,265 incidents of child pornography, 1087 

cases of child prostitution, 564 cases of child sex tourism, 2,145 incidents of child 

sexual molestation, and 6,334 cases of online enticement for sexual acts. In 2006, 

child pornography was estimated to be a $20 billion industry. 

Even more disturbing is the statistical evidence that demonstrates a correlation 

between the possession of child pornography and child molestation. According to the 

Director of the Sex Offender Treatment Program, Butner Federal Correctional Institution, who testified in 2006 as to his findings related to the treatment of 155 child 

pornography offenders, both groups of Internet child pornography offenders treated 

in the SOTP included a significant proportion (i.e., 80% to 85%) of offenders who 

perpetrated contact sexual crimes. The Director found that: at the time of sentencing, 115 (74%) subjects had no documented hands-on victims; forty (26%) had 

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known histories of abusing a child via a hands-on sexual act; the number of victims 

known at the time of sentencing by the 155 subjects was 75; following treatment, 

the inmates disclosed perpetrating contact sexual crimes against another 1,702 victims; and eighty-five percent of the inmates were in fact contact sexual offenders, 

compared to only 26 percent known at the time of sentencing. 

Mr. Chairman, there is also evidence that not only does child pornography inherently involve the commission of sex crimes against children, but predators, on occasion, affirmatively use child pornography as part of their process of ‘‘grooming’’ minors to engage in sexual relations. The Unit Chief for the FBI’s Crimes Against 

Children Unit testified in hearings held before this Committee in 2002, that child 

pornography is used by molesters to:

1. Demonstrate sex acts to children. Offenders commonly use pornography to 

teach or five instructions to naive children about how to [engage in various 

sex acts];

2. Lower the sexual inhibitions of children. Some children naturally fear sexual 

activities. Some offenders show pictures of other children engaging in sexual 

activities to overcome these fears, indicating to their intended victims that 

it is all right [sic] to have sex with an adult because lots of other boys and 

girls do the same thing.

3. Desensitize children to sex. Offenders commonly show child pornography to 

their intended victims to expose them to sexual acts before they are naturally curious about such activities.

4. Sexually arouse children. Offenders commonly use pornographic images of 

other children to arouse victims, particularly those in adolescence.

Another problem has arisen in connection with sexual predators’ accessing various 

commercial ‘‘social networking’’ web sites. These sites, such as ‘‘My Space’’ or 

‘‘Facebook’’ establish on-line ‘‘communities’’ based on common interests or affiliations. Individuals can post personal information about themselves and their interests, and form on-line relationships with others arising from such common interests. 

Unfortunately, these ‘‘on-line communities’’ have provided opportunities for on-line 

predators to locate and identify targets for sexual exploitation. 

For example, a study funded by Congress through a grant to the National Center 

for Missing and Exploited Children found that of 1,500 youths surveyed about their 

internet activity: 1 in 7 received sexual solicitations; 1 in 3 had been exposed to unwanted sexual material; 1 in 11 had been harassed; 1 in 3 communicated with someone they did not know in person; and approximately 1 in 9 formed close relationships with someone they met online. 

We must eliminate predators who prey on and commit crimes against children as 

well as the vehicles they use to commit such crimes. We need to continue to seek 

solutions that will put in place effective guidelines for combating, preventing and 

eliminating sex crimes on the internet against children in all corners of the United 

States. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today in our attempt to gain 

some guidance on this very serious matter. 

PREPARED

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time. 

STATEMENT OF THE H

fONORABLE STEVE COHEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

The growth of the Internet has created vast opportunities for increased 

connectivity among ordinary people all around the world. Unfortunately, while most 

of this rise in connectivity has been for the better, the Internet’s growth has also 

opened the door to the facilitation of sex crimes against children, whether through 

the online dissemination of child pornography images or the use of online chat 

rooms and social networking sites by sexual predators to lure minors. I look forward 

to considering our witnesses’ proposed solutions to this problem. 

f

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF HEMANSHU NIGAM, CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER, FOX

INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND MYSPACE


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