FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 23, 2008
CONTACT: Matt Mackowiak
Legislation Sen. Hutchison Supports to Protect Americans From Internet Predators Passes Senate
Bills Will Modernize Sex Offender Registry, Raise Public Awareness on Internet Dangers to Kids
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, today announced Senate passage of two bills she co-sponsored that will better protect Americans from online predators and promote safe Internet use among children.
“The Internet has opened up communication and made information more readily available to millions of Americans. But as this technology advances, dangers online also increase. It is important that all Americans be protected from sexual predators who seek victims on the Internet and that parents, and educators have the tools to shield children from inappropriate content,” said Sen. Hutchison.
The Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2007 (KIDS Act), S. 431, would expand on the successful efforts of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act by requiring convicted sex offenders to register email addresses, instant messaging screen names, or other identifiers used to communicate over the Internet. The bill also requires the Attorney General to maintain a system that allows commercial social networking sites to identify users who are listed in the National Sex Offender Registry.
The Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, S. 1965, takes a multi-pronged approach to keeping children safe from online dangers. The bill creates an Online Safety and Technology Working Group to evaluate activities promoting online safety, current parental control technology, blocking and filtering software, and age-appropriate labels for content. It appropriates $5 million per year for the next two years to create and fund a public awareness campaign led by the Federal Trade Commission. The measure would also require schools receiving funding from federal Universal Service to offer age-appropriate online behavior education. The goal of the education is to help school-aged children safely navigate social networking sites and chat rooms and to teach them how to respond to cyber-bullying.
Sen. Hutchison is a cosponsor of the Combating Child Exploitation Act (S. 1738) and the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Retroactivity Correction Act (S. 2632), which would each further bolster national efforts to protect our children from predators. Each of these bills awaits approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Hutchison has a long legislative record on protecting children. In 2003, Sen. Hutchison sponsored a bill signed into law to create the National AMBER Alert Network. Over the past four years it has resulted in the return of 230 children to their parents. In the current Congress she has introduced the Family Abduction Prevention Act to help prevent abductions of children by family members, which account for 78 percent of all abductions. The bill authorizes $500,000 in matching grants for fiscal year 2008 to help fund local law enforcement efforts to investigate and prosecute these cases and help states with costs associated with family abduction prevention.
Sen. Hutchison also cosponsored the Internet Safety Act, which was signed into law in 2006 when provisions of the bill were included in the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. This legislation cracks down on Internet child pornography and related behavior by creating new penalties targeted at those who produce or knowingly facilitate Internet child pornography; expanding penalties for existing child pornography, sex trafficking, and sexual abuse offenses; and increasing resources for prevention and prosecution of child sexual abuse.
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