Apr 11, 2008

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey was on Capitol Hill yesterday to meet with House appropriators, and he heard firsthand about a top priority in the war against child exploitation. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), a member of the subcommittee that controls the Department of Justice's purse strings, led the Attorney General through a series of questions about Wyoming's Operation Fairplay, one of the largest undercover operations in law enforcement history.

Ruppersberger reminded Mukasey that the Adam Walsh Act of 2006 directed him to "deploy technology" for tracking and combatting child exploitation, pointing out that the Wyoming system was the only such program operating in the U.S. He then asked Mukasey if he would commit full, continued support for the Wyoming system until such time as an equally powerful alternative was in place. Ruppersberger was responding to news that the Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention could cut support for the Wyoming system soon.

Mukasey responded that he would look into the matter and report back to Congress. He faces a Senate appropriations panel next week.

Apr 11, 2008

This morning's Congress Daily is reporting on questions being raised in the House and Senate about the Department of Justice plan to build a national child exploitation tracking system. Andrew Noyes reports that DOJ officials plan to "incorporate" the current Wyoming platform, which has seen unprecedented success, into a larger, multi-agency system that would run on the Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) network. Members of both the House and Senate, alarmed by faltering support for the Wyoming system at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, want assurances that the Attorney General will fully-support the critical nerve center during any transition process.

PROTECT supports the Department of Justice's efforts to build a national anti-child exploitation computer network in a law enforcement setting such as RISS. Any such network should fully-incorporate the existing Wyoming system, a shining example how state-driven solutions are critical to innovation and success.

Apr 11, 2008

PROTECT has issued a new white paper, "U.S. Anti-Child Exploitation System in Imminent Danger Unless Action Taken Now." The one-page document outlines law enforcement progress in building a national child exploitation tracking system and warns about a Department of Justice plan to pull the plug on that network. The stakes could not be higher: if DOJ's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is allowed to withdraw support for the system now it could do immediate and serious damage to U.S. ability to detect, investigate and prosecute child exploitation. It could also compromise countless ongoing investigations.

Update, 3/28/08:
Child Exploitation White Paper Update On Tuesday, PROTECT released a white paper, "U.S. Child Exploitation System in Imminent Danger Unless Action Taken Now." The paper discusses plans announced by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to withdraw support within months for a critical anti-child exploitation system. Since then, we've been asked by many where the Department of Justice might be headed with these changes... questions that call for clarification. Would OJJDP's plans be a disaster if implemented this year? Yes, they're a five-alarm fire. Could DOJ's larger vision of finding a home for sensitive law enforcement data from many agencies on the government's RISS network be an important step in the right direction? Absolutely.

Update 4/10/08:
Attorney General Michael Mukasey today told a Senate Appropriations committee that the Department of Justice will continue to fully support the Wyoming system, saying "not one child or one microchip" would fall between the cracks of any transition to the RISS system.

Apr 03, 2008

The priorities of both Congress and the Department of Justice will be heard today, when Attorney General Michael Mukasey testifies in Washington before the House Appropriations subcommittee on the Judiciary.

Jan 23, 2008

On the Day America honors the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., we remember the great civil rights leader's comments on what it really takes to win social change. "There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions," wrote King. "Nothing pains some people more than having to think." Dr. King lamented this state of affairs, as we do, calling for "the cultivation of the tough mind" and not just the "tender heart."

That's why PROTECT is so proud of our National Advisory Board, a toughminded braintrust dedicated to advancing the civil rights of children. And it's also why we're proud to welcome our newest member, rock and roll author, historian and radio host Dave Marsh. From his days as co-founder of CREEM magazine in 1969 to his gig these days as a host on Sirius Radio, Marsh is a legend in the world of music. Now he's is speaking out nationally about another passion, protecting children. Welcome Dave!

Read more about Dave Marsh and PROTECT's National Advisory Board here.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

Jan 19, 2008

A photograph of a powerful coal company executive dining in Monte Carlo with a state Supreme Court Chief Justice is causing controversy over the extent of corporate power in West Virginia. But there's a behind the scenes story from the PROTECT campaign archives that tells a very different story about the powerlessness of children. (Read full story here...)

Jan 17, 2008

The London Telegraph reports that British government officials are proposing a new way of talking about terrorists. "Ministers have dropped the term war on terror and will refer to jihadis as criminals..." says the paper. "We are already working closely with Internet companies to take action against paedophiles," says Jaqui Smith, British Home Secretary. "I believe we should also take action against those who groom vulnerable people for the purposes of violent extremism."

Of course, the new strategy is based on a less than perfect analogy. An anti-terrorist campaign based on the way the British, and American, governments attack predatory pedophiles (in particular the hundreds of thousands who are active in online child exploitation networks) might not be such a good idea. It would mean outsourcing critical intelligence operations to the private sector, investigating just 1-2% of all known leads and failing to mount search and rescue operations for thousands of identifiable terrorist hostages. But it might have one tangible benefit: terrorism budgets could be shrunk to, say, the size of half an Alaskan bridge, and instead of law enforcement resources, terrorists could be fought by a coalition of charities, television shows, tough-talking political charlatans and do-it-yourself Internet sleuths. A better idea might be treating predatory pedophiles like terrorists, a strategy more grounded in reality.

Jan 16, 2008

MySpace, the giant social networking website that encourages children to share personal information about themselves with the world, held a high-profile press conference on Monday with Attorneys General from 49 states. The officials announced that MySpace has agreed to take voluntary steps to make kids safer on their site, issuing a "Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Sites Safety." The announcement was seen as a preemptive step to head off legal action by the Attorneys General. Texas A.G. Greg Abbott was the sole holdout, saying he did not want to endorse "inadequate safety measures."

Internet safety experts have already raised serious questions about the proposal. While it will clearly lead to some safety improvements, it features a partial, mixed bag of safety measures that companies like MySpace have long known would protect young users, but have not put in place. Many key elements of the plan rely on minors -- as well as sexual predators -- to tell the truth about their age and identity.

Jan 15, 2008

Authorities in Washington, D.C. found the bodies of four children last week, after social workers missed numerous chances to protect them from clear danger. Mayor Adrian Fenty calls the City's failure "egregious" and says the City will conduct an "audit" of 307 cases the social services agency closed out in 2007, reports the Washington Post.

The bodies of four girls, ranging in age from 5-17, were found in a house by officers serving an eviction notice. Police have charged their mother with murdering the children, apparently believing they were possessed by demons. "During repeated contacts with city agencies," says the Post, there were warning signs that the family was in deep trouble." Fenty acknowledged Friday, the paper says, that "the case was closed because the family did not have a fixed address -- the opposite of what should have happened."

The Mayor's audit of closed child protection cases will certainly uncover more children in urgent need of protection. In all 50 states children remain in danger because of a pervasive lack of transparency and accountability in child protection and court systems. Nationally, much-needed attention has been given to wrongly-accused death row prisoners, through "innocence projects." Yet, rarely do public servants care enough to take a second look at children whose fate is determined by family courts and child protection agencies. They need an "innocence project" too.

Jan 11, 2008

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called a special session of the California legislature yesterday to deal with a $3.3 billion budget shortfall, but there was one piece of bright news for children. Buried in the State's massive budget for 2008-2009 is $1 million in continuing state funding for California's four Internet Crimes Against Children task forces. PROTECT fought for the funding last year with our California partners, securing the first-ever state support for the ICACs and doubling California's fledgling efforts to combat child pornography trafficking and online crimes against children.

The 2006 victory was the result of efforts by PROTECT, Crime Victims United of California and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). The coalition worked with child safety champion Sen. Jim Battin, a well-known budget hawk who originally introduced legislation asking for $20 million for the ICACs. After legislative leaders opposed putting Battin's funding in their budget, PROTECT national advisory board member and film actor David Keith met with the Governor privately. Schwarzenegger delivered on his promise to send lawmakers a last-minute amendment to his budget, doubling the size of the ICAC task forces.

"This is much bigger than a $1 million dollar victory," said Alison Arngrim, PROTECT's California Chair. "Last year, we had to scream bloody murder to get emergency funding, just so that these agents could do their jobs, and continue to rescue children from child pornographers.

"But now, the Governor has made the Battin funding permanent. So anyone who wants to go backwards and take that funding away will have to go on the record as actually cutting programs to find and arrest people who rape children and sell the pictures!

"Good luck with that. And wait till next year, when we show the legislature how many children the ICAC task forces saved and tell them how much money we'd like now."