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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 27, 2007
CONTACT: Geoff Embler or Matt Mackowiak
Sen. Hutchison’s Legislation to Protect Children from Internet Predators Passes Senate Committee
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), chairman of Senate Republican Policy Committee, co-sponsored legislation to protect children from Internet predators that was passed today by the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
“Educating our children about Internet safety must be a national priority,” Sen. Hutchison said. “This legislation will protect children, better inform parents about online dangers, and create tools to shield children from predators and inappropriate content.”
The Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, S. 1965, will:
· Raise public awareness about the dangers confronted by children using the Internet. It appropriates $5 million per year for the next two years to create and fund a public awareness campaign within the Federal Trade Commission.
· Direct the U.S. Department of Commerce to create an Online Safety and Technology working group. This group will bring together businesses, public interest groups, and government officials to evaluate current activities promoting online safety, current parental control technology, blocking and filtering software, and age-appropriate labels for content. The group will also study current industry practices regarding the identification and reporting of transmission containing child pornography.
· Increase fines on providers of electronic communication or remote computing services who fail to report violations of child pornography laws.
· Require any school or library participating in the federal Universal Service program that receives funding to demonstrate that part of its Internet safety policy is educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyber bullying awareness and response.
Sen. Hutchison has a long legislative record on protecting children. Sen. Hutchison sponsored a bill signed into law in 2003 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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