<DOC>
[110 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:44986.wais]
S. Hrg. 110-607
CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FOR PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN FROM VIOLENCE AND
EXPLOITATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND DRUGS
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 16, 2008
__________
Serial No. J-110-85
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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44-986 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2008
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California JON KYL, Arizona
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN CORNYN, Texas
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Stephanie A. Middleton, Republican Staff Director
Nicholas A. Rossi, Republican Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Todd Hinnen, Chief Counsel
Walt Kuhn, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Delaware....................................................... 1
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from the State of
California, prepared statement................................. 100
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont,
prepared statement............................................. 113
Sessions, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama.... 5
WITNESSES
Collins, Michelle, Exploited Child Unit, National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, Alexandria, Virginia........... 25
Hillman, Randall I., Executive Director, Alabama District
Attorney's Association, Montgomery, Alabama.................... 23
Moses, Robert C., Lieutenant, High Technology Crimes Unit,
Delaware State Police, Dover, Delaware......................... 21
Scott, McGregor, U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of California,
Sacramento, California......................................... 7
Waters, Flint, Special Agent, Office of Criminal Investigation,
State of Wyoming Attorney General, Cheyenne, Wyoming........... 19
Weeks, Grier, Executive Director, National Association to Protect
Children, Asheville, North Carolina............................ 27
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Michelle Collins to questions submitted by Senators
Biden, Sessions and Coburn..................................... 41
Responses of Randy Hillman to questions submitted by Senator
Coburn......................................................... 54
Responses of Robert C. Moses to questions submitted by Senator
Coburn......................................................... 57
Responses of Flint Waters to questions submitted by Senator
Coburn......................................................... 61
Responses of Grier Weeks to questions submitted by Senator Coburn 65
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Boxer, Hon. Barbara, a U.S. Senator from the State of California,
prepared statement............................................. 75
Collins, Michelle, Exploited Child Unit, National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, Alexandria, Virginia, statement
and attachments................................................ 78
Go Daddy.com, Inc., Warren Adelman, President and Chief Operating
Officer, Scottsdale, Arizona, letter........................... 107
Hillman, Randall I., Executive Director, Alabama District
Attorney's Association, Montgomery, Alabama, statement......... 108
International Union of Police Associations, AFL-CIO, Dennis
Slocumb, Executive Vice President, Alexandria, Virginia, letter 112
Miami-Dade Police Department, Robert Parker, Director, Miami,
Florida, letter................................................ 115
Moses, Robert C., Lieutenant, High Technology Crimes Unit,
Delaware State Police, Dover, Delaware, statement.............. 116
National Association of Police Organizations, Inc., William J.
Johnson, Executive Director, Alexandria, Virginia, letter...... 122
National Sheriffs' Association, Craig Webre, President,
Alexandria, Virginia, letter................................... 123
Scott, McGregor, U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of California,
Sacramento, California, statement.............................. 124
USA Today:
Limited Funds Hinder Child Porn Fight, article............... 133
Software Tracks Child Porn Traffickers Online, article....... 135
U.S. Internet Service Provider Association, Christopher G. Bubb,
Chairman, Washington, D.C., letter............................. 138
Waters, Flint, Special Agent, Office of Criminal Investigation,
State of Wyoming Attorney General, Cheyenne, Wyoming, statement 139
Weeks, Grier, Executive Director, National Association to Protect
Children, Asheville, North Carolina, statement................. 145
CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FOR PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN FROM VIOLENCE AND
EXPLOITATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC
The Committee met, Pursuant to notice, at 2:07 p.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R.
Biden, Jr., presiding.
Present: Senator Sessions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., A U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Chairman Biden. The hearing will please come to order.
I apologize to our witnesses for the late start, and
probably a quick interruption. We are supposed to vote at 2:15.
The reason I was late, I was trying to find out whether that
vote was really going to go up at 2:15. I probably wasted more
time doing that than just coming here. But we're going to have
to at least--we'll probably only get in an opening statement at
this point in order to go vote and come back. So what I will
do, as soon as I make my opening statement, assuming the vote
goes off, with your permission, Senator, I'll take off and then
you do yours, and we'll try to save a couple minutes that way.
But I want to thank you all for coming here today. We're
here to discuss one of the government's most solemn
obligations--maybe the most solemn obligation--government has,
and that is to protect our children, and particularly protect
them from violence and exploitation.
We've taken many important steps here in Congress toward
protecting our children and I'm happy to say that my colleague
and I, and others, have been deeply involved in trying to
figure out how to make it safer for a long time.
But events, and technology, in this case, also have moved,
in many cases, more rapidly than we have been able to move. The
most important among the protections that we have created is
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Unbelievably, it was 24 years ago when Senator--God rest his
soul--Paul Simon and I worked to create the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children.
Our vision was that the center would become a 24-hour
resource for law enforcement and families and a national hope
for information on missing and exploited children. Needless to
say, the National Center has exceeded our vision, and the cyber
tip line has become an indispensable resource for law
enforcement. So, I'm anxious to hear--we're both anxious to
hear--from the National Center.
Just last year we passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection
Act, which creates a national sex offender registry system so
that concerned families and local law enforcement officials
know when a convicted sex offender moves into their
neighborhood or jurisdiction and are able to take appropriate
actions to protect the children in that area.
Despite these efforts, child pornography and exploitation
remains a growing and complex problem. According to recent
studies, online child pornography has increased by 1,500
percent just since 1997. There are over 10,000 child
pornography web sites worldwide, and child pornography has
become a $3 billion industry.
We are not talking about morphed images of adults posing as
under-aged teens, we are talking about sadistic, violent movies
depicting actual abuse. I say to my friend, I had an
opportunity which I almost wish I didn't have, to witness some
of this in my office just a little while ago, as one of our
witnesses brought in material to show me just what's going on.
I don't know about my colleague--as a former Federal prosecutor
he's prosecuted many cases--but lots of times we talk about
these concerns and I've never seen them.
I could not watch, quite frankly, the one depiction, which
if you go on the Internet, you'll see in a minute, on a
computer, someone under 8 years old. I just watched the very
beginning of it, before the abuse started and I couldn't watch
it. Then I said, well, give me a contrast. Show me someone who
is a teenager that's 14 or 15 years old. That was, in a sense,
standard pornography and you couldn't tell whether this young
woman was 14 or 16 or 18 or 20--at least I couldn't--but the
range of the pornography that's on these web sites is
astounding to me, and how easily it is to be accessed.
I am revealing an ignorance here. I'm revealing what I
think I know, like you Jeff, an awful lot about violent crime
in America, but this is an area that I didn't realize how
incredibly easily accessible it is with so many, many, many,
many different sites. Again, I want to make it clear. We're not
talking about morphed images or adults posing as under-aged
teens.
According to the 2006 study by the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 83 percent of arrested child
pornography possessors had images of children between the ages
of 6 and 12; 39 percent of the possessors had images of
children between 3 and 5. And I'm not just talking about an
image of a naked child, 3 to 5, in a provocative position. I'm
talking about sex acts being performed on a child 3 to 5 years
old. Not all of those were that. But 19 percent of the
possessors had images of infants and toddlers under the age of
3, and 21 percent depicted violence such as bondage, rape, or
torture.
The problem continues to grow. Last week, the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children handled its
580,000th--over half a million, 580,000th--reported child
exploitation. The Peer Precision Program that Special Agent
Waters will demonstrate later has identified over 600,000
individual computers in America, 600,000 computer serial
numbers connected to trafficking of child pornography over a
peer-to-peer witness, which all of our witnesses understand
what that means, but I'm not sure the vast majority of
Americans understand what that means and how easily accessible
this is.
Ladies and gentlemen, the bottom line is, we're not making
much of a dent in this problem. Due to lack of resources, we
are investigating less than 2 percent of the known cases of
child pornography trafficking. Again, we are only investigating
2 percent of the known child pornography traffickers.
Now, in fairness, because I bored down on this a little bit
earlier in my office, that 2 percent is of the 600,000, and
some of those folks in the 600,000 exchanged these files one
time. It may have been accidental. You don't know whether it
was real. As you narrow this down--and there are ways that I'm
going to be asking all the witnesses how we do it to figure out
who the really bad guys are--it gets to be considerably less
than that.
I asked in the office for them to show me the number of
people who have engaged in trading files in a 30-day period of
over 100 times, and I think the number was 1,500 or something.
So the thing I don't want people walking away from here today,
is that this is such an immense problem, it's not manageable,
such an immense problem we can't get our arms around it. We can
get our arms around the worst aspect of this if we provide the
resources for it.
Due to lack of resources, though, we've not been making the
progress that we should. What makes this even more inexcusable
is that when we do investigate these cases we have at least a
30 percent chance of rescuing a child from ongoing abuse.
That's the statistic. I'm going to ask that that statistic be
justified today, but that's the statistic that is pretty widely
accepted in the community.
Some studies show that there is likely even a greater
chance of finding a local victim. In other words, when they go
in and investigate, get a warrant, roughly 30-plus percent of
the time you may very well find a kid that you can identify and
physically rescue from that local issuing of that warrant and
going in and doing a search.
For example, a study of the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children found that 40 percent of child pornography
possessors were dual offenders who sexually victimize children
and possessed child pornography. Speaking for myself, they're
the people we really want to nail.
The study at the Department of Justice on Federal prisoners
found that 85 percent of child pornography possessors had
committed acts of sexual abuse against minors, including
everything from inappropriate touching to rape. As you'll hear
from Special Agent Waters, the Wyoming Attorney General's
Office has found that, based on the investigations that he's
conducted there, a local victim in at least one-third of each
of the cases they pursue is found.
Don't get me wrong. The witnesses that we are going to hear
from today and the thousands of Federal, State, and local
investigators and prosecutors are out there working tirelessly
to combat this problem. This is in no way to implicate the lack
of resolve on the part of Federal or State law enforcement
officers. But part of this is a learning curve. Part of this
is, things are changing rapidly. Part of this is a lack of
resources. So in my view, we've not dedicated enough Federal
agents to this problem and we've not provided enough support
for local law enforcement agencies in order for them to better
be able to do their job.
In addition to restoring cuts to the COPS program and the
Byrne Assistance Grants, we should pass the Combatting Child
Exploitation Act, which authorizes $1.05 billion over the next
8 years to help combat this growing problem.
Under this bill we will triple funding for local Internet
Crime Against Children Task Forces, to provide more resources
to the FBI, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, and
regional computer forensic labs.
Before I close, I'd like to show you how pervasive this
problem has become. I asked Mr. Waters to run a quick check of
all the computers that are currently, as we speak, trafficking
in child pornography, which has been scrolling on the screen
during my remarks. Now, Mr. Waters, if you would show us the
interactive map showing the illegal activity over the last 24
hours.
[Whereupon, the map was shown.]
Chairman Biden. Each one of those red dots--correct me if
I'm wrong, Mr. Waters--indicates a computer in the United
States of America that in fact is located in the jurisdiction
you see, that in the last 24 hours has engaged in the illegal
activity of transferring over the Internet, from one computer
to another, child pornography. As you can see, it is a
pervasive problem. It's right out in the open for any trained
officer to see. With enough resources, we could take action on
a lot of that.
Now, again, before I turn this over to Senator Sessions,
the one thing I always worry about, having dealt with, as my
colleague has, criminal justice issues for my entire career as
a Senator, is that we do not want to over-promise and we do not
want to in any way exaggerate the problem, and we don't want to
be in a position where what we're laying out there appears to
be beyond the capacity of anybody to deal with.
This does not mean that there's that many child abusers out
there, but it does mean it's a very fertile pond to fish in
order to find the people we most are concerned about, and that
is the people who are exploiting these children in the most
violent and vicious and ugly ways so that we can put them
behind bars, we can get them out of the system.
I now turn over the podium to my colleague, Senator
Sessions, who has done an incredible amount of work in this
area.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF ALABAMA
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
calling the hearing and for your excellent summary of the
situation we find ourselves in today.
We are really dealing with modern challenges to child
sexual exploitation and abuse. I am distressed by the dramatic
growth of the criminal networks that traffic in child
pornography over the Internet. I am also concerned by
statistics, as you've noted, that suggest that Federal, State,
and local law enforcement is overwhelmed by this rise in
exploitation. There is no doubt that the Federal Government has
an important role to play in combatting child exploitation,
which often involves interstate crimes, but many cases are
fundamentally State crimes and should remain so.
Although the scope of the problem and the havoc it wreaks
in the lives of abused children and their parents is extremely
distressing, I am encouraged by the fact that in the past we
have addressed this crime successfully, and we can do so again.
I was a Federal prosecutor when President Reagan undertook
an aggressive effort on child pornography cases. It was one of
the most successful initiatives ever. It was greatly enhanced
by the Supreme Court's ruling at the time in New York v.
Ferber, that held that possession of child pornography is
effectively a crime, per se, which removed the prosecutor's
burden of establishing community standards and other
complexities of pornography cases.
So possession cases were, therefore, much easier to
prosecute. The Federal Government had only to show that the
defendant knowingly possessed a sexually explicit image of a
minor that had been shipped in interstate commerce. This was
before the real explosion of the Internet. Modern distribution
networks over the Internet present law enforcement with serious
challenges, as one pedophile trades in child abuse photographs
with another pedophile, all under the cover of sometimes
computer firewalls, sometimes sent through the mail once they
communicate with one another and identify one another. They
shift addresses repeatedly.
I would note that when we started, really Congress passed
the law, the child pornography law, and I'm sure you were
probably part of passing it. But what happened was, we
eliminated child pornography from almost any bookstore. You
could go in bookstores in America, in newsstands, and find this
kind of material. After the law passed, child pornography
disappeared. There were no more cases to make. But it went
underground, I think, is the situation.
So I am pleased to have Randy Hillman, the executive
director of the Alabama District Attorney's Association here
today to tell us what role his high-tech operation, the
National Computer Forensic Center in Hoover, Alabama, might
play in this critical effort, because it is an Internet-driven
problem today.
I commend Mr. Hillman for his dedication to improving the
technological skills of State and local law enforcement
officers, prosecutors, and judges, and I look forward to
hearing his testimony. I am also encouraged by technological
advances in the investigative techniques used in some child
pornography cases. These techniques allow law enforcement
officers to target arrests on the most serious distributors of
child pornography. This is an enormous development. I would
note, it was a State official that developed this technology,
Wyoming Special Agent Flint Waters, as you've indicated, Mr.
Chairman. It further highlights the frontline role that State
and local law enforcement must play in this effort.
I prosecuted a number of child pornography cases when I was
a U.S. Attorney, and in virtually every one--more than the one-
third, Senator--in virtually every case the defendant had a
history of actually molesting children. In fact, I remember one
of the cases. After a period of years, there appeared to be no
evidence of that, I was told. I said, why don't you inquire a
little further. I'm just curious. So we discovered that a
sister, 25 years before, had admitted that the defendant had
abused her, a younger sister. Recent statistics suggest that
about one-third of these cases involve abuse of children, but I
think it's bigger than that, really.
Important work has been done on the issue and I am proud to
have served on the Adam Walsh Conference Committee and to be
present at the White House when that important piece of
legislation was signed into law. That Act imposed tough
penalties for the most serious crimes against children, such as
sex trafficking of children and child prostitution. The Act
also made it harder for sexual predators to reach children on
the Internet by authorizing the regional Internet Crimes
Against Children Task Forces, which provide funding and
training to State and local law enforcement officers who combat
illegal exploitation crimes on the Internet.
So, in conclusion, I believe, Mr. Chairman, that you are
correct. We are facing a very real problem, that it is damaging
the lives of young children far more than we like to admit. As
we will hear today, I think we can all agree we need to give it
a higher priority in our law enforcement initiative.
Thank you.
Chairman Biden. Thank you very much, Senator.
We have about 4 minutes left in which to make this vote, to
go over and vote, which means we will be put in a recess in a
moment for about 10 to 12 minutes, is how long before we get
back. But let me just announce the order in which we'll
proceed.
Our first panel will be U.S. Attorney McGregor ``Greg''
Scott of the Eastern District of California. The second panel
will be Special Agent Flint Waters of the Wyoming Attorney
General's Office; Lieutenant Bob Moses, the High Technology
Crimes Unit of the Delaware State Police; Randy Hillman, who's
been mentioned earlier, of the Alabama District Attorney's
Association; Michelle Collins, who is from the National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children; and Grier Weeks, the
National Association to Protect Children. They will be on one
panel as well. So we have two panels here. First, when we come
back, we'll swear in the U.S. Attorney from the Eastern
District of California.
We're going to recess from somewhere between 8 to 12
minutes, as long as it takes to get there to vote and get back.
[Whereupon, at 2:28 p.m. the hearing was recessed.]
AFTER RECESS [2:47 p.m.]
Chairman Biden. The hearing will resume.
We appreciate the indulgence of the witnesses.
Our first witness, as I indicated, is the U.S. Attorney
from the Eastern District of California. He's served in the
post since 1993. He's a graduate of Santa Clara University--my
grandfather's university--in California and the Hastings
College of Law.
Prior to his appointment as U.S. Attorney, he served as the
District Attorney for Shasta County, California. Mr. Scott is a
Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Reserve, with 22
years service as an infantry officer. He commanded an infantry
company on the streets of Los Angeles during the riots of 1992,
and he's a graduate of the Command and General Staff College.
Mr. Scott, welcome. We appreciate your making the effort to
be here. The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF MCGREGOR SCOTT, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, EASTERN
DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Scott. Thank you very much, Chairman Biden and Ranking
Member Sessions. I want to thank you for this opportunity to
present the perspective of the Department of Justice on this
most vital issue, the protection of our children. I want to
thank you for convening this hearing today to bring light to
this very, very significant issue.
The Internet is one of the great advances of our age, an
unprecedented source of information and ideas. But the Internet
can also be a dark and sinister place, as those who mean our
children ill use the anonymity it provides to advance their
horrific objectives.
Let there be no doubt that these are not, to use the common
phrase, ``just pictures'', as the Senator eloquently set out in
his opening statement. Each photograph or video literally
represents the sexual assault of a child and nothing less. The
evidence grows every day of something we in law enforcement
have known intuitively for a long time: the odds are
overwhelming that a person who deals in child pornography is
also a child molester.
It is not my intent to speak of uncomfortable things, but
we need to be clear on what exactly it is that we're talking
about here today. Let me reference a few cases from my own
district to make this point. We prosecuted a main who live-
streamed onto the Internet for viewing by others a video of
himself masturbating over, and ejaculating onto, his 6-month-
old daughter.
We prosecuted a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia who
communicated via the Internet with what he thought was the
mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl. He traveled to this
country for the purpose of having sexual relations with that
little girl, but instead found police waiting for him because
that mother was instead an undercover officer.
We prosecuted a fourth grade teacher who regularly had his
daughter's friends over for sleepovers. He would drug the
girls, molest them, and record the events, which he kept on his
home computer.
Faced with this onslaught of crimes against our children,
the question becomes: what are we doing about it? In May of
2006, the Department of Justice launched Project Safe
Childhood, a nationwide effort to marshall all our resources--
Federal, State, local, and private sector--to protect our
children.
A great strength of Project Safe Childhood is that a broad
strategic vision has been set at the department level, with
each U.S. Attorney tasked to develop an operational plan, in
consultation with all our partners, as to what works best in
his or her district.
Let me be clear: our partnerships with State and local law
enforcement in general, and the Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Forces in particular, are the engines which drive
these operational plans.
Under Project Safe Childhood, we have two primary tasks: to
prosecute and to educate. We are doing very well in both these
areas. In the first full year of Project Safe Childhood,
Federal prosecutions increased by 28 percent. In addition, U.S.
Attorneys have sponsored scores of town hall meetings and
school forums, and the department has sponsored public safety
announcements all designed to arm parents and children with the
tools they need to guard against online predators. The bottom
line is that Project Safe Childhood provides a centralized
strategic aim and a decentralized operational component for the
department and all of our allies on this issue.
The Department of Justice fully welcomes an embraces the
work of our many partners. As a former county District
Attorney, it is my firm view that State and local law
enforcement are absolutely crucial partners for us. That is why
the department funds the Internet Crimes Against Children Task
Forces across the Nation. In the past 5 years, the number of
ICACs has been very nearly tripled, from 20 to 59. In fiscal
year 2007, the department increased the funding for ICACs from
nearly $15 million to $25 million. Today, more than 1,800 local
law enforcement agencies are members of, or affiliated with,
ICACs.
The Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity
Section is also critical, providing prosecution and computer
forensics assistance to the field. CEOS, as it is known,
provides technical assistance, legislative input, and
prosecutorial aid on issues and cases involving child
exploitation and they are an integral part of what we do.
Computer forensics and the capacity to deal with all of
these cases is also a very crucial issue. Nearly 2 years ago,
the Deputy Attorney General formed a Computer Forensics Backlog
Working Group within the department, and I served as the U.S.
Attorney's representative on that group. That group has worked
long and hard with the FBI to find better ways to deal with the
exploding caseload generated by Project Safe Childhood. Earlier
this year in February, the Deputy Attorney General announced a
series of steps the FBI will undertake to increase its computer
forensics capabilities for child exploitation cases.
In summary, the Department of Justice understands and fully
appreciates the significance of this issue. We now have in
place a strategic plan at the department level, with
operational plans in each district. We commend our allies for
what they do and embrace them as full partners in this fight.
We are grateful for the opportunity to work with you and your
staff on this issue. I thank you for this time and I'd be happy
to answer any questions that you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Scott appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Biden. Well, again, thank you for being here and
thank you for the good work that you have done.
You referenced Project Safe Childhood.
Mr. Scott. Yes, sir.
Chairman Biden. I don't dispute for a moment the fact that
prosecutions have increased over recent years, and I applaud
the department for that effort, especially as I still think you
are short-handed. The Attorney General keeps telling me you
don't need a lot more people, but I think you do. But that's an
ongoing little battle we have.
What I've been a little more concerned about is the notion
of what is the overall strategy for child exploitation
prevention across the administration, so I'd like to ask you a
couple of questions. If this goes beyond your brief, then I
understand, and just let me know, OK?
Mr. Scott. I appreciate that, Senator. Thank you.
Chairman Biden. Has there been any distribution of
resources made available by the Congress to the Justice
Department for hires of U.S. Attorneys because of the increased
workload in various jurisdictions, including your own?
Mr. Scott. Yes. In fact, in this present budget year there
are 45 new Assistant U.S. Attorney positions, which are full-
time employee positions, which will be allocated in the U.S.
Attorney's Offices, and that process is fully engaged right
now. It's essentially a competitive process, where each
district submits a proposal as to why that district should
receive a position. In addition to that, there were
approximately 30 positions, I believe, in last year's budget,
and perhaps the year before that, likewise, that were divvied
out to the U.S. Attorney's Office. So, approximately 75 over
the last two to 3 years have been allocated to the U.S.
Attorney's Offices.
Chairman Biden. Got you.
Now, can you tell me a little more about--Senator Sessions
and I, like you, have been doing this a long time.
Mr. Scott. Yes, sir.
Chairman Biden. Senator Sessions--I have a longer history,
he has a broader experience.
Senator Sessions. I had to work hard using the laws you
passed.
Chairman Biden. That is right.
Senator Sessions. As a matter of fact, when I was a U.S.
Attorney, this Senate passed some great laws that really
enhanced law enforcement. I'm glad that you have continued to
show that interest.
Chairman Biden. I am not being--and the Senator is not
implying this--either solicitous or in any way trying to
exaggerate the involvement, but let me just talk to you like
the three of us were in a room together, because we know the
area relatively well from slightly different perspectives, but
pretty broadly.
One of the things that happens when you're talking about
allocation of resources, intra- and interjurisdictional, is
there is competition. We get these great ideas up here about
how we're going to pass a piece of legislation, setting up task
forces, and we're going to have State, local, Federal officials
working together--and by the way, some of them work incredibly
well. But could you talk to us a little bit more about how many
additional resources, department-wide, have been allocated for
activities under the Project Safe Childhood? In other words,
how do you allocate those moneys? Talk to us about what you
focus on and who you cooperate with in the focus.
So in a way--excuse me for saying this--that your mom and
my mom--I'm sure your mom is as well, my mom is a very
intelligent woman and very well-informed--so that the average
person, our moms, could understand what we're talking about.
Not in Senate-speak or in Justice Department-speak. I mean,
talk to us about how you spend the money.
Mr. Scott. And just so I can be clear, Senator, that is in
terms of my own district, how we leverage the resources that we
have?
Chairman Biden. Yes. Or if you know, speaking for the
department, how the department is allocating these resources.
Maybe that is not your--although you're representing the
department, that may be beyond your brief, and I would ask for
the department, in writing, to tell me, of all the Project Safe
Childhood dollars, how have they allocated them? That tells us
what the priorities are, what you think the best investment of
the dollar is in terms of dealing with making children safer.
But maybe you can talk to me about your district.
Mr. Scott. Well, I'll try to touch on--
Chairman Biden. Either way.
Mr. Scott. I can speak in very general terms about the
department. I cannot give you line-for-line dollar amounts, but
I can tell you sort of general subjects.
Chairman Biden. Right.
Mr. Scott. The FBI clearly has a cyber division and has
some focused resources on this. They have a stand-alone unit
right outside of the District here in Northern Virginia that
works on these issues, so that's part of it. Another part is,
within the department, the grant program, through OJJDP,
allocates money to State and locals. Within the department, the
department ponied up, I think, in excess of $11 million out of
its own pocket last year for more money to create 13 additional
ICAC task forces around the Nation, to include a second one in
my district in Fresno. We already had one in Sacramento.
So in addition to that, I know that the Deputy Attorney
General's Office has staff folks who are working from sort of
an overview perspective on this thing. So that's the
department. I can tell you that Immigration & Customs
Enforcement also works on this issue. The Postal Service also
works on this issue.
So how we make it work back in Sacramento, California, we
have co-located under one roof the FBI cyber division, the ICAC
that we have, and then there's a third entity, which is a
State-funded high-tech task force which also works on these
cases. So we've got all those folks under one roof working
collaboratively together.
And then we have within my office a dedicated Project Safe
Childhood coordinator, but a number of other Assistant U.S.
Attorneys who also handle a certain number of those cases each
year. That, in a general sense, is how we're allocated in terms
of going after this thing.
Chairman Biden. I yield to my colleague.
Senator Sessions. Just a few quick questions, if you know
the answer to this. We're seeing a lot more indications of
child abuse and child pornography on the Internet. Do you think
that's because we're more adept at identifying it and they're
using the Internet more, or do you think for some reason
there's more abuse and more abusers out there, and is there any
science to back that up?
Mr. Scott. I'm going to rely on what I see rather than any
scientific studies that I've read in trying to answer that
question, Senator. I think common sense tells me that, with the
proliferation of child pornography that's taken place over the
last 10 or 15 years, those who view this stuff have sort of
grown and they've reached the level of where it's not enough.
This picture, while last year it was enough for them to reach
satisfaction, this year it's not, so it's got to be something
even more egregious to create the instincts and desires that
are generated by child pornography.
I think that's a big part of the problem, is that it's so
widespread now within these particular areas and among these
particular groups of people that there's a constant demand for
more and a constant demand for more egregious pictures and
videos. I think that's the problem.
Senator Sessions. To carry through, that would indicate
that the more people have access to more and more violent and
exacerbated cases of child abuse on the Internet the more
likely they are to abuse children themselves. Is there any
study on that, to your knowledge? I know there's a connection.
I've seen the connection. I know that the average person is not
interested in seeing child pornography. It's a certain mental
problem that causes people to be attracted to that. Do you know
the answer to that, if you know? Maybe some of our other
panelists would.
Mr. Scott. I'll approach that from two perspectives. One is
the study that Senator Biden referenced, which was done by the
Board of Prisons, by Dr. Hernandez down at Buttner, which
determined that something like 85 or 87 percent of those
incarcerated for pornography possession only--in other words,
no physical crime, just possession of child pornography--
admitted having molested children, and on average the number
was--
Senator Sessions. We've been using the number of one-third,
and that is 85 percent, which is more consistent with my
personal experience, which was anecdotal, I'll admit.
Mr. Scott. Yes. So beyond that study, what I would
reference is looking at the cases that we are handling, that we
are processing that we see. I'm hesitant to put a percentage
number to it, but it's an overwhelming percentage of those
cases that involve some kind molestation. And a very typical
case for us to prosecute is one that starts out as a sexual
assault or child molestation investigation by a sheriff's
department or a D.A.'s office, and they'll do a search warrant
and search the suspect's home computer, and guess what? There's
child pornography on the home computer. That is a common
pattern that we see on a regular basis.
Senator Sessions. Now, you discussed, in response to
Senator Biden's questions about the difficulties of the
entities involved in task forces. I agree with Senator Biden
that they can be fabulously effective. When you co-locate,
where they are all together at one time, they can just bring to
bear all kinds of capabilities that would not exist otherwise
and be highly successful.
Though we want as much involvement from local police as we
can, explain to us why a local policeman, through
jurisdictional and State lines, has difficulties prosecuting
effectively, many times, these kind of cases.
Mr. Scott. That's a great question. It's due to the very
nature of the Internet itself. We may have one suspect in
Fresno, we may have another in Reading. There may be one in
Montgomery. I mean, literally, because of the Internet there
are no limitations on jurisdictional issues because you push a
button and that image can go anywhere in the world in an
instant. So what we are able to bring, it's really--
Senator Sessions. Well, first of all, the police officer in
Sacramento can't issue a subpoena for a computer in Montgomery,
Alabama.
Mr. Scott. Yes. So that's why I think these task forces are
so highly effective, is that you've got the manpower and the
commitment and the horsepower from the locals, combined with
the Federal jurisdictional resources, to get a search warrant
to go look at several computers across the country
simultaneously under the Federal authority, and then to have
the Federal prosecutorial aspect as well where we can prosecute
people from all over the country--all over the world, for that
matter--if we have venue in our district, which, with the
Internet, is not a very difficult thing to come up with these
days.
Senator Sessions. And when you have a local prosecutor in
California, a State prosecutor, they have difficulty issuing
subpoenas to people in Montgomery or other places, but the
Federal Government can do that quite readily. So, there is an
important role for the Federal Government in these cases.
Thank you.
Chairman Biden. With your permission, I'd like to pursue
two other points off of what the Senator said. One of the
things that I've been thinking of, as one of the authors of
this legislation where we're trying to increase the money
available, is that I had met with one of the State Attorneys
General who told me about Mr. Waters out in Wyoming.
His unit out there has developed--which we're going to hear
a little bit about--the software to be able to identify by,
literally, the click of a mouse--I watched it--all the
transactions taking place where they are trading pornographic
files, children's pornographic files.
I asked him, for example, to click up Delaware, asked him
to click up Pennsylvania, asked him to click up--I forget where
else. In Pennsylvania, just in the last 30 days, there is one
person. I guess I'm not supposed to say where. We don't know
exactly where this person lives, but we know the town he lives
in, the zip code, if you will. You can go--as you know better
than I do--with an identification, to Comcast, if it's Comcast,
and you can get the name and address of that person. It lists
all the files that he has transferred. I think the number was
2,700 in the last 30 days.
I asked him to go to Delaware and list every bit of trading
on this particular Internet site that took place in the State
of Delaware. There were 40 individuals, 40 computers that
traded material. The most frequently traded was, I think, 48
times in 30 days. There are roughly 40 who have done it 10 or
more times.
I asked what the experience has been in Wyoming, and the
studies that I have read and my staff has made available to me,
and there seems to be the ability, without being able to
scientifically prove it, that just through simple common sense
if you identify someone who is trading large numbers of these
files, you can read the title of the files. I actually viewed
parts of several of them. It is pretty easy to pick out the
person engaged in either transmitting or downloading violent
scenes of rape and molestation of people under the age of 8
years of age. A lot of this material, the title will tell you.
It's basically: watch the rape of an 8-year-old. I'm being a
little--but we're going to show some of this, I think. We may
or may not. I don't know whether it violates anybody's rights.
I guess you'll tell me when we do it.
So it seems to me there ought to be a protocol that can be
done at a Federal level or at a local level that would really
enhance the training tools available to local law enforcement
officers who would be able to identify and narrow down, just by
looking at what was traded, what was transmitted, and you'll be
able to get a pretty good picture of the person who you want to
get the warrant for.
Once you get a warrant, even before you execute the
warrant, you're able to immediately--now you have the name of
an individual off that ID number and you're able to, from that,
quickly check whether they have a criminal record, quickly
check whether they're employed working with children, quickly
determine whether or not they have been convicted of child
molestation and the like. It seems to me, you could, through an
office like yours or a State Attorney General's Office
essentially assign one person to train to just go through the
files and identify the highest value targets, because I know
the ability to go out and look at 600,000 computers is just not
within the realm.
I mean, just to put this in perspective, I asked the FBI--
one of the reasons I asked you about the allocation of
resources--and they responded to me on July 11 of--that can't
be right. It must be 2007. It says 2008. We haven't hit July
11, 2008. The FBI indicated they had 32 agents dedicated to
innocent images, meaning what we're talking about, a unit that
specializes in this area, and a total of 260 agents that have
worked these cases.
Now, by contrast, white collar crime, they have 2,342
agents working white collar crime cases; health care fraud,
430; organized crime--I'm not making a value judgment here, but
it's just to put it in perspective--720 agents; gang-related
crimes, 435 agents; and 260 for this area.
So one of the problems I think we have are resources, the
available resources that the FBI has available to them, and in
turn you have available to you, knowing you're not FBI.
At the same time, they estimated that there were at least
25,000 suspects that they knew of who had engaged in commercial
child pornography trafficking in the last 5 years. So the point
I'm trying to make is--which you already know--the universe is
large, the number of people, notwithstanding the fact we do a
good job, allocated at a Federal level to that large universe
is relatively small.
So in addition to us--I realize this is more of a
statement, but it ends in a question, believe it or not--
providing Federal resources, and in turn local resources
through task forces, I was thinking maybe--and this is a
question I'm going to ask, and I'm going to ask my friend later
if maybe he'd consider joining me--I think we should be also
talking about something equivalent to the COPS bill or the
local prosecutors' legislation we've done where States can
apply directly for resources to deal with what is able to be
done.
In the jurisdiction of Delaware, for example, the Attorney
General can identify--because we have no State prosecutor, we
have no local prosecutors--40 cases, 40 individuals, you can
see what they've traded in, all illegal, on the Internet, that
where they've traded in a 30-day period more than 20 times,
putting them in a category that is fairly highly suspect, and
then decide within that category, you don't need a warrant in
Alabama. I'm told that, as I mentioned in my statement, a
significant number of victims are found in the local--the
local--execution of these warrants.
So what I'm trying to get at is this. Would you view it as
a help or a hindrance as a Federal prosecutor if, in fact, the
local D.A. in your jurisdiction--I guess it's a D.A. in
California--had additional resources in his or her account,
meaning personnel and training, to be able to go after those
individuals that are high-value targets that are located within
their city limits, their town limits, et cetera? Do you
understand what I'm trying to drive at here? What would help
you the most?
Mr. Scott. Yes. I think, first of all, Mr. Waters is to be
commended for the program. It is something that all the ICACs
in the country are using. It's a terrific resource and we're
going to make sure we maintain that as it transfers to the RISK
program.
But to directly answer the question with respect to the
local prosecutors, I think the question that has to be asked
about that is, what is the local State law with respect to
these crimes? By way of example in California, until very
recently it was a misdemeanor. We couldn't get a felony. That's
now been changed by State-wide proposition because nothing
could be advanced through the State legislature.
But it really depends on what that local State law is,
because as a result of that California law, we became the only
game in town in terms of pursuing a felony and imprisonment for
the most egregious of offenders. So I believe in Delaware it's
a misdemeanor as well, from what I read last night somewhere.
But that is the fundamental problem there, is you don't want to
load up a local D.A.'s office if they don't have the tools to
effectively go after the real egregious offenders.
Thank you. I have no further questions.
Senator Sessions. So you have now another 45 AUSAs totaling
75, which is almost one full-time position per U.S. Attorney
Office. Frankly, would you not say, in those 32 FTEs, full-time
equivalent, working on these cases, it seems to me the balance
needs to be, the shift needs to be toward the FBI and the
investigators, unless you're using an awful lot of State and
local investigators because really you should have more
investigators than prosecutors on most types of cases.
How would you evaluate the balance between Federal
investigators and Federal prosecutors?
Mr. Scott. Well, I think quite honestly, in my experience
the FBI does not have enough investigators dedicated to this
particular area. And I'll be very candid with you, this is an
issue that we've raised with the FBI on a regular basis in the
context of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee and
elsewhere. As a result of that shortage of FBI agents, we are
essentially completely dependent on State and local law
enforcement to do the investigative legwork for us on these
cases. In my own district, ICE has been terrific. I don't mean
to be critical of the FBI in my own district because they're
working hard and they're bringing good cases.
Senator Sessions. What kind of jurisdiction does ICE have?
Mr. Scott. Essentially the same as the FBI in this
particular area.
Senator Sessions. That includes Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms and Customs?
Mr. Scott. Immigration & Customs Enforcement.
Senator Sessions. Right.
Mr. Scott. So the ability to get search warrants, grand
jury subpoenas, conduct search warrants across State lines or
district lines rests with ICE as well. But you make an
excellent point, Senator, which is that in all my years as a
prosecutor, the number of investigators is supposed to
outnumber the number of prosecutors. That's kind of a general
formula, because you're always going to have more
investigations going than you're going to have prosecutions at
any given moment in time. There is a disparity in terms of the
FBI resources that are allocated to this directly and the
number of AUSAs and local prosecutors who are working on it.
Which again brings me back to my fundamental point, which is
that we love the locals when it comes to these kinds of
investigations.
Senator Sessions. Well, really it is the locals that are
working on protecting individual children in their communities.
With regard to that, on a fundamental Federal, State law and
the Constitution as you understand it, isn't it true that if
there is a local production, if there's a local child abuse,
there may not even be a Federal crime chargeable?
Mr. Scott. Well, that's exactly right, unless it's a
military installation or an Indian reservation. There is no
original Federal criminal jurisdiction for child molestation
cases. At least in my State, the original jurisdiction rests
with the local District Attorney's Office for physical acts of
molestation of children.
Senator Sessions. So a lot of people don't realize, if
someone shoots somebody in Sacramento, or let's say, to be
safe, picks up a local rock and kills them, that's not a
Federal crime and cannot be prosecuted in Federal court unless
it's related to civil rights or some Federal connection.
Mr. Scott. In the absence of Federal land. If it's on a
prison ground or--
Senator Sessions. I guess what I'm saying is, you need the
local people. These task forces, to me, are the way to
coordinate. Is there any kind of registry--Senator Biden, I
think you touched on it--where, within every police department
in America, people can be designated officers with expertise in
this area, so if you had a lead in California that ran to
Tennessee in Knoxville, you could check the registry, and
here's an experienced investigator who is committed to these
kinds of things in Knoxville, Tennessee. Is that something
that's in place now? If not, do we need it?
Mr. Scott. No. That is, again, one of the beauties of the
ICACs, is that they all talk to each other. So an officer who
works in my ICAC in Sacramento, if they discover a lead in
Knoxville, Tennessee--
Senator Sessions. What percentage of--ICAC is what? What is
that?
Mr. Scott. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
Senator Sessions. But they may not have one in Knoxville.
Mr. Scott. We have pretty much covered the country at this
point.
Senator Sessions. Oh, really?
Mr. Scott. We've got 59 up and running. Every State has at
least one. It's something that we're going to look to continue
to grow. This really, as I said in my statement, is the engine
that is driving the train on these investigations. So you have
that at least indirect communication link between the ICACs.
Above and beyond that, we've got the Federal component too, so
you may have an FBI agent in Sacramento who can call to an FBI
agent in Knoxville and say, we've got this lead.
Senator Sessions. But I've found they're not always so
interested.
Mr. Scott. Yes, sir.
Senator Sessions. Would you admit that based on your
experience?
Mr. Scott. Well, I have to say--
Senator Sessions. An FBI agent has got his own child case
there, and now somebody wants him to drop what he's doing and
do something else and take up this case. It's not, oftentimes,
as intensely important to him as to the person who asked him to
do it.
Mr. Scott. Well, I think that's a product of human nature.
We like to deal with what's right in front of us as opposed to
what maybe someone is calling us about.
Senator Sessions. Let me quickly ask you this. You talk
about, the ICAC task forces have trained over 10,000 officers
in 2005, 15,000 in 2006, and 20,000 law enforcement officers in
2007 that were trained.
I'd like to understand a little about, what kind of
training is this? Is this a one-day conference, a week-long
conference? Is it hands on with computers and technology or is
it briefing on the basic overall law, and so forth?
Mr. Scott. Training can really span the spectrum of all the
things you just described. There are one-day trainings, there
are multiple day trainings. Much of it is focused on the
concept of learning how to build and bring a case for Federal
prosecution, because we've got a deputy sheriff who hasn't
necessarily ever done that before, how we go about procuring
Federal search warrants, grand jury subpoenas. So, a
familiarization process with the Federal prosecution component
is part of it.
Mr. Waters, I'm sure, will be able to answer that question
in much greater detail than I can right now, representing the
ICACs, but it really does cover the spectrum of how we bring
these cases. There's no one-size-fits-all in terms of the
potential things that you've sent out.
Senator Sessions. I would just say that if you're going to
empower and really get the full benefit of State and local law
enforcement, you would agree that training is very valuable,
would you not? And No. 2, would you agree that it is a very
appropriate Federal role? In other words, rather than trying to
put Federal agents all over the country and prosecuting these
cases directly and investigating them directly, if we can
empower the local people to do that as part of their duties,
that's more consistent with our Federal framework than the
other way around.
Mr. Scott. I agree wholeheartedly with that observation.
Just by way of example, on May 1 in Sacramento, May 2 in
Fresno, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
is providing training for our local law enforcement officers on
this exact issue. Mr. Craig Hill is coming out. We're going to
have approximately 100 agents in each location, and it really
is an example, again, of the complete partnership of Project
Safe Childhood, where we're doing this under that umbrella and
utilizing the resources that are given to us by the National
Center.
Senator Sessions. And of course, sometimes, like Mr.
Hillman or Mr. Waters, they can train Federal agents in how to
do it.
Mr. Scott. Absolutely. No question about it. Many times,
some of the very best investigators that we have in my district
are deputy sheriffs, and these guys are terrific at what they
do and we can all learn from those kind of people.
Senator Sessions. And they do participate and they train.
They are trainers at these conferences.
Mr. Scott. Absolutely.
Senator Sessions. It's not just Federal people.
Mr. Scott. Yes, sir. It's not top down exclusively.
Chairman Biden. I had to check. In Delaware, trafficking is
2 to 25 years, and simple possession is zero to 2. But you're
right. Across the Nation, generally the Federal penalties are
stronger and stiffer than State penalties, on balance, across
the country, and even in Delaware, on simple possession.
But thank you very much. I'm sure we're going to want to
talk to you again, or at least correspond with you, as this
legislation wends its way through the process here and as we
learn more.
Thank you very, very much.
Mr. Scott. Thank you again, Senator, for convening this
hearing. I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Chairman Biden. Thank you.
Now, our next panel. Our first witness will be Special
Agent Flint Waters, who's been referenced a number of times
here, the lead agent in Wyoming's Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Force. He's widely recognized as a national
expert in this area of investigating online exploitation. He's
received numerous awards, including the 2006 Attorney General's
Special Commendation Award, and the 2006 National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children Law Enforcement Leadership
Award. He teaches throughout the Nation and abroad, and is
responsible for the creation of the largest Internet undercover
operation in law enforcement history and we look forward to
hearing from him in a moment.
Next, is Lieutenant Robert Moses. He is the Unit Commander
of the Delaware State Policy High Technology Crimes Unit.
Lieutenant Moses has been employed as a police officer since
1981 and has been a detective since 1986. Lieutenant Moses is
instrumental in the formation of the High Technology Crime Unit
which was formed in 2001. He's received hundreds of hours in
network and computer forensic training and he's recognized as a
certified forensic computer examiner by the International
Association of Computer Investigative Specialists.
I understand from the Attorney General of Delaware, who I
just happen to speak to from time to time, that Mr. Moses is
the unquestioned leader in our State, and an indispensable part
of the team of how to move on this.
Mr. Hillman, again who's been referenced, is the executive
director of the Alabama District Attorney's Association and the
State Office of Prosecution Services, a position that he has
held since 2002. Prior to this, he was Chief Assistant D.A. for
the Shelby County District Attorney's Office, the 18th Judicial
Circuit. I thank him again for being here.
Michelle Collins is the executive director of Exploited
Children's Services at the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children. She directly oversees the cyber tip line,
and she spearheaded the creation of the Child Victim
Identification program and has worked with programmers to
create the Child Recognition Identification system.
Ms. Collins is an unquestioned national leader in this
field and she travels domestically and internationally to
educate law enforcement officers and policymakers in the many
aspects of online exploitation in how to come up with critical
techniques to help identify these victims. She also has her
B.A. in psychology from George Mason and her Master's in
criminology from the University of Maryland. We welcome her as
well.
And last, but not least, is Grier Weeks. Mr. Weeks is the
executive director of the National Association to Protect
Children, PROTECT, which we've referenced here, a pro-child,
anti-crime grassroots organization with members in 50 States.
In 2006, he was among the founders of PROTECT. Since that time
he's led the organization's effort to pass legislation and
change child protection policy in 10 States. He frequently
writes and speaks on child exploitation policy and has
testified on this subject before the U.S. House of
Representatives Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Commerce
Committees. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
We welcome you all. I would invite each of the witnesses,
based upon the order in which they are called, to testify.
The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF SPECIAL AGENT FLINT WATERS, OFFICE OF CRIMINAL
INVESTIGATION, STATE OF WYOMING ATTORNEY GENERAL, CHEYENNE,
WYOMING
Special Agent Waters. Chairman Biden, Ranking Member
Sessions, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you
today on the subject of violence and exploitation against
children.
I am Flint Waters, Special Agent with the Wyoming State
Division of Criminal Investigation. Robert Leesonby, Bill
Wiltzy, and myself have been working recently on a system that
I built 2 years ago to provide law enforcement with the ability
to work these cases and investigate these details throughout
the world.
I'm here today, first, as a frontline investigator, as an
officer who is pursuing these cases, serving the warrants,
arresting the offenders, and rescuing children, and I see these
challenges firsthand. Our system, known as Operation Fair Play,
is a comprehensive infrastructure that gives law enforcement
the tools they need to leverage the latest technologies to
identify those who track and prey on children.
Through this system we are able to provide solutions that
assist in peer-to-peer investigations, web site investigations,
chat room, and mobile telephone undercover operations. I want
to emphasize at the start the importance of responding to this
problem with a multi-pronged attack. The National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, through its cyber tip hotline,
is serving the critical task of receiving 911 calls for help
from citizens and Internet service providers. Having someone
there to respond to these reports of suspected criminal
activity is essential if we hope to make use of this valuable
resource.
Of course, it is also essential that law enforcement, to
include State and local investigators, Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Forces, the FBI, Homeland Security, and the U.S.
Postal Inspection Service be ready not only to respond to these
public reports, but to aggressively man a proactive attack as
well. We cannot carry this fight without both a defense and an
offense.
I'd like to share with you a bit of the material that we
see every day. One of the most frequently seen movies being
distributed now is of a toddler on a changing table. The video
zooms in on the child's diaper as the child is being sexually
penetrated by an unknown male. We're seeing the rape of more
and more very young children, and in fact we're now seeing
cases where the criminals are activating webcams, molesting
their children, while participants out on the Internet watch
and instruct them what to do. We rescued a Wyoming child in a
case exactly like this.
We are also seeing modifications to the movies and the
images. Offenders are compiling the material in an online
instruction manual that trains each other how to rape children
and how to make it more difficult to detect and more difficult
to find during forensic examination. If you want to see how
much we can do, consider some of the children that we've
already rescued. In San Diego, our system resulted in the
arrest of a respiratory therapist at Children's Hospital.
This offender was molesting children that were in his care,
often hospice care. He targeted, often, the non-verbal,
representing the most defenseless and most helpless children he
could find. This is not the type of person that is going to
show up a neat dateline. This is an individual who already has
legitimate access to children. He's using these horrific movies
that he finds on the Internet to normalize his intentions to
continue to victimize one child after another.
Using these systems, we were able to find an offender in
Ohio who had been seen over 800 times trading child pornography
by law enforcement. This monster would film himself--
Chairman Biden. Excuse me, sir. When you say ``they have
been seen'', you mean, by Internet traffic, been seen.
Special Agent Waters. That's correct, Senator.
He would film himself tricking them into drinking juice,
and film as he raped the children. Numerous children were
rescued because this predator traded child pornography on the
Internet. Intervening on behalf of these children is more than
working in chat rooms, web sites, or peer-to-peer, it's about
placing law enforcement in every possible forum where the
offenders are leveraging technology to victimize children, and
we can do more.
We can't blame peer-to-peer systems or chat rooms or social
networking sites. We are a society of technological advance.
Sadly, there are a few that leverage those advances to hurt
children. Blaming this problem on peer-to-peer innovation is
like blaming the Internet highway system when someone chooses
to transport drugs on it.
What we have to do is scale our law enforcement,
prosecutorial, and judicial resources to ensure that we as a
society are prepared to respond to the challenges and can move
along and keep up with the innovation. We need to ensure that
the national computer forensic capacity can retrieve and
present the evidence of these computers, projects like the FBI
Forensics Labs, as well as partner solutions like the National
Computer Forensic Institute in Alabama.
To better understand how many offenders we could
investigate, I'd like to show just some small details. In 2008
alone, we've seen over 1,400 IP addresses that have been found
by law enforcement over 100 times. Imagine how many offenders--
Chairman Biden. Could you explain that? Again, when you
told me that the first time--maybe I'm just a little slower
than most--but I wasn't exactly sure what you meant. At the top
it says, ``USA PA 2,792''. What does that mean?
Special Agent Waters. That means that law enforcement,
while downloading child pornography, saw an individual in
Pennsylvania who was offering to trade this material over 2,700
times since January 1st.
Chairman Biden. So they were able to get, because of the
number, an identification number that person had to have in
order to be online, whether it's through Comcast or whatever
mechanism, they were able to go on and see that someone with a
certain number had traded, 2,792 times, child pornography. Is
that what this means?
Special Agent Waters. Yes, Senator. He appeared as a source
to us for child pornography that number of times. Yes, sir.
Chairman Biden. OK.
Special Agent Waters. I would like to be clear, I am not
saying that law enforcement isn't doing enough with what they
have. I'm saying that there's so much more they could do if
they had the resources.
Senators, I would ask you to picture the pile of work you
leave waiting at the end of your day. Now imagine that in your
in-box are hundreds of leads, and as you leave the office to go
home, you're walking away potentially from dozens of children
that are waiting to be rescued, and each of these children must
wonder if anybody cares.
Please forgive the offensive nature of what I'm speaking
about here today. I describe these despicable crimes to you
because I hope you never have to see them. I want you to hear
about the crimes being perpetrated on American children because
I know you have some of the greatest power to intervene, and we
can do more.
Thank you very much for your time, and I will be available
to answer any questions that you ask of me.
Chairman Biden. During the question period I'm going to ask
you to put up on the screen, if you're able, an example of one
of those folks and how you can tell by looking at that file
what kind of material they're trading in.
Special Agent Waters. Yes, Senator.
Chairman Biden. Is that possible?
Special Agent Waters. I will show the file names that are
very egregious. Of course, we won't show the images.
Chairman Biden. No, I didn't mean the images.
Special Agent Waters. Yes, sir.
Chairman Biden. All right. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Special Agent Waters appears as
a submission for the record.]
Chairman Biden. Lieutenant Moses, welcome.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT ROBERT C. MOSES, HIGH TECHNOLOGY CRIMES
UNIT, DELAWARE STATE POLICE, DOVER, DELAWARE
Lieutenant Moses. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, Chairman
Biden, Ranking Member Sessions. My name is Lieutenant Robert
Moses, and I am the officer in charge of the Delaware State
Police High Technology Crimes Unit and the Delaware Child
Predator Task Force. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss
the most successful law enforcement program, the Internet
Crimes Against Children Task Force.
I am particularly honored to be here with you and some of
my peers in law enforcement. The dedication, knowledge, and
skills of officers around the Nation, along with Federal
funding, have helped to make the ICAC program such a success in
Delaware and across the country. In particular, Flint Waters of
the Wyoming ICAC has led the charge in his efforts against
child sexual exploitation. His vision and technical skills have
provided law enforcement officer agencies worldwide with
Operation Fair Play.
Operation Fair Play software allows law enforcement to
proactively identify criminals who possess and distribute child
pornography. By using the Wyoming ICAC software, we will have a
profound effect on the safety of our children by saving them
from the physical and psychological trauma of sexual abuse.
To be clear, possessors of child pornography are predators,
but moreover, research has shown that at least 30 percent of
all these individuals who possess child pornography have had
sexual contact with a child as well. We see these cases in
Delaware all the time. Once instance involved a father of an
18-month-old boy who videotaped himself sodomizing his baby. We
have encountered a child therapist who counsels children with
sexual disorders abusing his clients and downloading child
pornography. You have just heard a sampling, but even that
cannot prepare you for the shocking nature of the violent,
degrading pornography we see every day in our investigation.
In a process known as ``grooming'', predators use graphic
material to lower the inhibitions of the children they are
attempting to seduce. The predators use the same material in an
effort to arouse the children or demonstrate the desired sexual
acts. It cannot be forgotten that each time a graphic image
moves on the Internet, the child in the photograph is being
revictimized.
Investigators must not only deal with the complicated
technical, legal, and jurisdictional issues when the Internet
and computers are involved, but we also need highly trained and
equipped individuals to conduct the forensic examinations of
electronic media seized.
The forensic examiner provides the evidence necessary for
the prosecution of online sexual exploitation and
investigation, and also develops other investigative leads
pointing to the identity of other victims or other suspects.
In particular, the Delaware ICAC received three cyber tips
from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
regarding an individual who sent child pornography imagines via
e-mail. The investigation revealed that the sender of the e-
mail was Paul Fillman of Georgetown, Delaware. A forensic
examination revealed images and videos of sexually abusive
images of children, as well as nearly 3,000 online chat
conversations between Fillman and other individuals. These
chats were discussions of their desires to have sex with
children as young as 18 months old. As a result of our
investigation, nine suspects were turned over to the U.S.
Attorney's Office for prosecution, and five children were
rescued.
There are many success stories, but the lack of skilled
computer forensic examiners, equipment, and lab facilities
create a burden on law enforcement because it prevents the
timely investigation and prosecution of electronic crime. In
Delaware, we now have the Child Predator Task Force that
streamlines the efforts of Federal, State, and local law
enforcement agencies to proactively go after possessors of
child pornography. The task force was initially formed as the
Delaware Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in 2007 as
a partnership between the Delaware State Police, the Delaware
Department of Justice, and the U.S. Attorney's Office.
After receiving Federal ICAC grant funding last October,
the task force secured additional training and equipment that
is used by prosecutors and investigators who now work side by
side in task force headquarters. The demands for fighting back
against online sexual exploitations are intensive and will
continue to increase dramatically as technology evolves.
With continued Federal funding and support from the
Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, we will continue
to navigate the fast-changing terrain in an effort to outpace
those who use the computer and the Internet to victimize our
children. Thank you.
Chairman Biden. Thank you very much. I appreciate it,
Lieutenant.
[The prepared statement of Lieutenant Moses appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Biden. Mr. Hillman, welcome.
STATEMENT OF RANDY HILLMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALABAMA
DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S ASSOCIATION, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
Mr. Hillman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Sessions. My
name is Randy Hillman. I am the executive director of the
Alabama District Attorney's Association and the Office of
Prosecution Services in Alabama. I have spent the last 20 years
of my life in this field and there is no profession, in my
judgment, that is any more important than what we are doing. It
is an honor and a privilege to appear before this committee
today to talk about a subject that is so vital to what we do
every day, and hopefully what we discuss here will make a
difference for victims in years to come.
While the Internet has been a great advancement and has
made our world a much smaller place, it is not without its dark
side. Those who would exploit our children, including child
predators and child pornographers who were once relegated to
back rooms and alleys to engage in their conduct, now with an
Internet connection and a few clicks of a mouse they have an
open window into our children's bedrooms.
Our research has indicated that State and local law
enforcement in this country will handle well over 90 percent of
the numbers of cases that are going through the criminal
justice system in a year, probably in excess of 95 percent, and
probably even higher than that.
State and local law enforcement and prosecutors are the
emergency room doctors of the criminal justice system. We are
on the front lines of fighting this fight and fighting child
predators and molesters every day. In the past 50 years, there
have been basically two watershed events that have occurred in
the criminal justice system: the first is the advent of the
science of DNA, and the next is digital evidence and digital
storage devices. While DNA is relevant in many investigations
and it is critical to those investigations, the numbers of
cases that we're seeing that involve digital evidence far, far
outweighs what we see with DNA.
State and local law enforcement and prosecutors are trained
and skilled in investigating robbery cases, murders, rapes, and
other similar crimes. Yet, too often when a call comes in to
the local police department and says that a child is being
cyber stalked for purposes of sex or what have you, we are at a
loss. We don't have a clue what to do with those cases. While
some larger law enforcement departments have available
resources to handle them, other agencies are simply caught
short.
Simply put, we know about blood and bullets but we are
sorely lacking in our ability to deal with megabytes and
megapixels. The most glaring disconnect in all of this is the
lack of training for State and local law enforcement. That is
due to basically two factors: the first is the availability of
that training, and second, and just as important, is the cost
of that training. That is the Achilles' heel of State and local
law enforcement training all across the spectrum of crimes that
we deal with. We frankly just do not have the money to train.
In this case, with these types of crimes, we do not have the
availability of training.
What we are asking this committee and you all to do, is
help leverage State and local law enforcement as a tool. Make
us your army out there, watching, prosecuting, pushing, and
investigating these predators. The National Computer Forensics
Institute, which Senator Sessions referenced earlier, was
created as a solution to the lack of this cyber crime training
for law enforcement, prosecutors, and trial judges throughout
the United States.
This training facility was conceived, developed, and will
soon begin implementation of curricula driven from a law
enforcement perspective. The methods employed there are time-
tested and proven in countless courts across this Nation.
Purposefully it is not from academia and it is not merely a
theoretical exercise, but it is designed to maximize our
ability to catch and incarcerate cyber criminals and child
molesters.
The NCFI is a partnership between Federal, State, and local
governments who recognize the huge void in this area and join
together to solve the problem. This partnership includes the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Secret Service,
the State of Alabama, the Alabama District Attorney's
Association, and the city of Hoover, Alabama. It is
approximately 90 percent complete and will begin training State
and local law enforcement, prosecutors, and trial judges May
19, 2008, about a month from now.
Once complete, we will have the ability to train nearly
1,700 students per year in all facets of digital evidence, from
first responders, to network intrusion, to the true forensic
examinations. Most importantly for today's hearing, the NCFI
will equip State and local law enforcement officers to
effectively investigate child pornography cases. The NCFI will
teach law enforcement to use the most advanced law enforcement
technology, including the technique that was so aptly presented
to you a few minutes ago by Flint Waters.
In addition to classroom and hands-on instruction, we will
have students practice courtroom skills using the in-house
``Smart Courtroom'' that we have placed at that facility. This
training will be provided at absolutely no cost to any of the
trainees, and many of those trainees will leave there with
equipment, and software, and hardware to do what we've just
trained them to do. Again, that is the impediment that we get
when we do this training with State and local law enforcement.
When they go home, they do not have the ability to do what we
have trained them to do and we are taking care of that through
this center.
Because the NCFI was designed by law enforcement for law
enforcement, because we have a brand-new state-of-the-art
facility that was designed exclusively for this kind of
training, because this training is free of charge to all
participants, and because this is our sole function, this is
all we do, I am convinced that the NCFI is one of the best
tools this Nation has to fill this training gap.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, you are truly in
a unique position here. You are able to impact the lives of
those children who cannot help themselves.
They are our most precious asset, and at the same time
they're the most vulnerable. I would humbly ask, on behalf of
all law enforcement, Federal, State, that you give us the
training and the tools we so desperately need to see that our
children are safe from those that would harm them.
Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Biden. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hillman appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Biden. Ms. Collins, welcome.
STATEMENT OF MICHELLE COLLINS, EXPLOITED CHILD UNIT, NATIONAL
CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
Ms. Collins. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and distinguished
members of the subcommittee, I welcome this opportunity to
appear before you to discuss child sexual exploitation. To
begin with though, our president at the National Center, Ernie
Allen, is unable to attend today. He sends his sincere regrets.
He is currently out of the country meeting with financial
leaders to discuss different ways and efforts to eradicate
commercial child pornography.
Ernie has also asked me, on behalf of himself as well as
the National Center's Board of Directors, former Chairman
Robbie Calloway who is currently with me, to publicly express
our sincere thank you to you for your central role in the
creation of the National Center 24 years ago and your
leadership with children.
Chairman Biden. Who is that important guy sitting next to
Robbie?
Ms. Collins. There you go. Manus Cooney.
Chairman Biden. Manus Cooney used to run this committee for
a long time. Manus, it is great to see you. You are a first-
rate guy. Glad to see you here.
Mr. Cooney. Had a few hours in this room.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Biden. Thank you.
Ms. Collins. Well, as you know, the National Center is a
not-for-profit corporation mandated by Congress, working in
partnership with the Department of Justice. For 24 years, the
National Center has worked under a congressional and statutory
mandate to conduct specific operational functions, including
our various programs to fight child sexual exploitation.
The National Center is attacking the problem of child
sexual exploitation in several ways. One, we are fighting
commercial child pornography on the Internet through mobilizing
financial companies and have seen the use of credit cards to
purchase child pornography virtually eliminate.
We are fighting non-commercial child pornography on the
Internet by working with industry leaders to develop new
technology tools to disrupt the traffic. With the hub of a
national background screening pilot that has identified
individuals with criminal histories who are seeking to
volunteer in positions that would give them access to children,
we support the U.S. Marshals and State and local law
enforcement in an effort to track down the estimated 100,000
missing sex offenders.
Our longest running program to date is the cyber tip line
to fight the exploitation of children. Mandated by Congress,
the cyber tip line is operating in partnership with the FBI,
ICE, the Postal Inspection Service, the ICAC task forces, U.S.
Secret Service, and CIOS at the Justice Department, as well as
with local and State law enforcement agencies. We are receiving
reports regarding seven types of crime against children online,
including child pornography and enticement against children.
The reports are being made both by members of the public,
as well as electronic service providers who are required by law
to report apparent child pornography to the cyber tip line. Our
analysts will then evaluate the content and related
information, determine the geographic location of the apparent
criminal act, and then provide all of that information to law
enforcement for appropriate investigation.
Also, our reports are triaged so any child that's in
imminent danger would get first priority. The FBI, ICE, and
Postal Inspection Service all assign agents and analysts to
work at the National Center. In the 10 years since we began the
cyber tip line we've received over 580,000 reports regarding
child sexual exploitation. Electronic service providers, in
fact, have reported more than 5 million images of child abuse
to the National Center.
In addition, law enforcement has submitted more than 13
million images and videos of child pornography in the last 5
years alone to the Victim Identification Program. Our analysts
there are working to help prosecutors secure convictions, as
well as help law enforcement identify children that are
currently being abused and need to be rescued. Last week alone
in that effort, we reviewed more than 166,000 images and videos
of child pornography.
Because of our role working in these programs we have an
unparalleled depth of knowledge regarding various ways across
the platforms on the Internet that children are being
victimized. Each of the platforms online, whether it be the
World Wide Web, e-mail, news groups, peer-to-peer, provide
different ways for individuals to exploit children, whether it
allows them to directly communicate with a child or it allows
them to discretely trade these types of files online.
The 18 million images that the National Center has reviewed
actually came from a variety of these platforms. At the back of
my written testimony I've actually included several success
stories across the country regarding ways that law enforcement
has worked cases that children have been victimized in a
variety of the platforms.
Because of the diversity within the Internet, law
enforcement uses a variety of tools and techniques to try to
detect and investigate the range of crimes against children,
from enticement of children on social networking sites to
distribution of child pornography by the web, e-mail, and peer-
to-peer networks. Law enforcement is actively engaged in the
technology in these investigations every day using similar
tools and techniques across State, local, and Federal levels.
After 10 years of working at the National Center and
working with law enforcement who investigate these types of
cases, I am pleased to say that law enforcement at all levels
are working more closely than ever before on these important
investigations and the level of cooperation really is
unprecedented and has led to the rescue of thousands of
children.
The cyber tip line is a major source of leads for law
enforcement. It streamlines the process from detection to
conviction. The process increases the efficiency of law
enforcement and maximizes their limited resources. I cannot
over-emphasize the need for increased funding for all law
enforcement programs on the local, State, and Federal level.
Despite the progress that has been made in the fight
against child sexual exploitation, it is well accepted that
there are simply more of these potential cases than there are
trained law enforcement officers to investigate them. But I can
assure you that any additional resources to build capacity
across the country will lead to more prosecutions and rescue
more children, and that is what we are all working toward.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Biden. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Collins appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Biden. Mr. Weeks?
STATEMENT OF GRIER WEEKS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION TO PROTECT CHILDREN, ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA
Mr. Weeks. Senator Biden, thank you very much for allowing
us to be here and for driving this train.
I want to correct one thing: PROTECT was founded in 2002.
That was our mistake. We've got probably the most broad
spectrum of people that I've ever seen, all who just come
around one issue, which is protecting children.
One of the things that we do at the State level is work
with legislatures to get the State resources to leverage the
Federal dollars you are considering here today. In the last
year, we've gotten money from States to essentially match or
complement the Federal investment in California, Tennessee, and
Virginia.
It is new ground, because essentially what we're doing is
explaining to the States how this Federal task force program
has worked, and is saying to them, now it's your turn to step
up to the plate. It will make all the difference in the world.
I want to add one thing here that I didn't put in my
written testimony. In listening to the way people have
discussed this today, I want to suggest one way of looking at
this that I think is critical. This is not just yet one more
rotten thing we do to kids. I think a lot of people, the
tendency would be to walk away and say, I thought I'd heard it
all, you wouldn't believe what I heard today. This is actually
the linchpin. This is enormously important historically, the
technology that we now have in our reach, and I'll explain why.
These are not just unbelievable movies and pictures, these
are crime scene recordings. They are the proof--the proof--of
massive child sexual abuse. These will lead us to the rescues
and to the children. If you think about it, you might flip the
question around that was asked many times today: how many
possessors are abusers? What I would suggest is you ask: how
many abusers are possessors? Because if you look at it at the
local level, with all the legions of cases that are languishing
in Child Protective Services or in the courts and nobody can
prove it and the poor kid just can't get resolution, how many
of those guys have child pornography? Instead of that fragile
kid on the witness stand, you've got a hard drive. So, this is
how we're going to get them.
I also want to say that the maps that we've seen today are
not just graphics of Internet activity. They're not just maps
to show us where the perpetrators are, these are child rescue
maps. Those dots represent kids that desperately need us to
come to those doors. Law enforcement is now providing you with
the information that can lead authorities very predictably to
tens of thousands of locations within the U.S. where children
are waiting. I hope that Agent Waters will have a chance,
privately or in this hearing, to explain how they are able to
prioritize and target with a real high likelihood of finding
actual victims, and that is revolutionary.
The reason why these are rescue maps is because, while
every single one of these people--or the vast majority of
them--are contributing to a black market in child exploitation,
as we heard today, a lot of them are also sexual preying on
children in their communities. The ramifications of this are
clear. We now have, for the first time in American history, the
ability to interdict and stop these crimes against children on
a massive scale.
In the interest of time, I just want to touch on a few key
points that I think it's important for the Committee to
understand well. The first is, as you know as the author of
this bill, the number-one issue is resources. With this kind of
onslaught, the other things we can do are important. We need
better State laws, we need better regulation of industry, but
if we don't have the cops to go do anything about it, it's not
going to get us very far. So the resources really are the key
thing.
I think it's also important the Committee know that the FBI
Innocent Images Unit--and this is one example of one of these
law enforcement prongs in this attack, but a very important
one--operates with essentially the same congressional funding
that HUD gave Rhode Island for homeless assistance. It is a
cause dear to me, but we're talking about the size of a mid-
sized real estate office, basically. They have 32 people, but
of those, there's 13 agents and 6 analysts. They can't come up
here, or they don't come up here and tell you: help, the house
is burning down. That's critical.
To make things worse, as it came out in the House hearings,
what little they do have has been diverted to a large extent by
the FBI. They essentially acknowledged in the House hearing in
October that they had sent about $4 million of their little
budget over to the Internet Crimes Complaint Center. Under some
embarrassing circumstances, they said they wouldn't do that any
more. I think the point here is, that unit needs a huge
increase in resources whether the brass likes it or not, and
they need the accountability that's in your bill to make sure
that they spend it the right way.
I quickly want to touch on two other things. One critical
issue that is looming here that's of the utmost importance as a
policy matter is the future of the Wyoming-based network, which
is essentially the only deconfliction system in the country.
The Department of Justice has announced that it's planning to
do this project where they move a lot of this stuff to the RIAS
network. We think that that is actually a very good goal long
term.
It needs to be done very carefully and hand in hand with
what's on the ground already out there in Wyoming. We've heard
along the way some concerning talk about maybe privatizing or
outsourcing this, whether it's to a university--that was
discussed for months in the system, sort of--or to a private
entity. We would strongly oppose that. We think this is
critical law enforcement information that needs to stay with
law enforcement. I would encourage the Committee to closely
watch DOJ as that goes forward in how that is handled.
I would like to close, Senator, with a brief statement,
just a few sentences, that the Surviving Parents Coalition
asked us to share with you. You know them very well. These are
Americans who have paid unthinkable prices for the wisdom that
they've gotten, and by all rights might never talk about child
pornography. It seems like a little counterintuitive even in
this country that they would be focused on this, but they are
because they understand, again, the strategic importance of
this issue.
Ed Smart asked me to read this to you. They say: ``As
parents of missing and exploited children, we doubt there will
be a more effective way of helping children than the ICAC task
force program. More children will be rescued and saved from
living nightmares than in any other effort that has been made.
Enabling this team with the proper funding and the most
effective tools will change the only 2 percent investigated.
When we look at the thousands of programs currently in effect,
none of them can compare to the possibilities of the ICACs in
dollars spent for lives rescued.''
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weeks appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Biden. Thank you all very, very much. Again,
having been involved for a long time in drafting legislation
dealing with violent crimes of all sorts, one of the most
important things to do, I think, is to lay out accurately,
without exaggeration--and none of you have exaggerated--the
nature of the problem we're attempting to solve, as well as
laying out for the public at large just how heinous this is, to
be able to generate the necessary controlled outrage for people
to prioritize, where is the most important place to place the
resources of this country, which are limited.
So one of the things I did, and I hope at some point I will
get--I would ask Mr. Waters to come back with some of you and
maybe gather up a number of my colleagues in a closed room.
Some of this is so offensive, it is so violative of the
conscience and the sensibilities of most Americans, that
although it's real, it is not salacious in the sense that it's
designed to in any way arouse an interest, but it is somewhat
as sickening. But I don't think people--I think the examples
that you gave, Bob, about what happened down in Seaford, having
a father doing what he was doing, I mean, I think people find
it so, so beyond the realm that it's almost unbelievable.
So what I'd like to ask you to do, if I may, Flint--and
I'll rely on your judgment here--and it would be very hard,
fortunately, for the cameras to pick up exactly the titles, but
if you would do what you did for me and bring up--it doesn't
have to be the most egregious offender in terms of the total
number. Bring up--first of all, explain for the record ``peer-
to-peer'', what that means. I know the vast majority of
Americans do, but a lot don't know what that means. Speak to me
for a second about what you said to me which really struck a
chord with me. You said, it used to be this all was a
commercial transaction. I asked you, what is made by this?
There's no money changing hands in this area.
So while we focus on commercialization of child
pornography, which is important to do, my impression is, within
the next 5 years, there's really no need. If you own a
computer, all you've got to do is go on these peer-to-peer
networks and you'll find the most graphic and outrageous
movies. I mean, some of these movies are how long?
Special Agent Waters. Twenty, thirty minutes.
Chairman Biden. Twenty, thirty minutes. So it's not like
you've got to go to a commercial outlet or a vendor who is
selling child pornography in the same way that pornography is
able to be sold legally for adults over the counter and on
networks, et cetera.
So I was impressed with how widespread this peer-to-peer
trading is. If you could briefly--and I'll not ask any more
questions. I'll yield to my colleague. Briefly explain what you
mean by peer-to-peer. Distinguish between that and traditional
commercial transactions to acquire child pornography. Then give
an example of how, without any intrusion, because this is being
done out in the open, in effect. This is a transaction that's
occurring out in the open.
You don't have to, other than have the software capability,
of being able to figure out how to narrow it down. So if you'd
go through a little explanation of what you would do if you
went on a peer-to-peer network and said, you know, the little
ID box, what do you want? I mean, do a little bit of that for
us, and then how you can identify people who have engage in
certain kinds of trafficking to give you an insight into how
much of a predator they are.
Special Agent Waters. Thank you, Senator. The peer-to-peer
networks, by themselves, are actually a very impressive
computer design that allows people to share files on a wide
scale with a high volume of trading. It is unfortunate that
there are some that are using it to exchange these images of
child pornography. The way the system is set up, whatever
material you wish to trade, be it legal material, maybe you
have a small band and you're sharing your music, you can make
that collection available by downloading peer-to-peer
applications, put all your music in that shared folder, and
allow other people on the network to get it very quickly.
It transfers that very fast from one computer directly to
the collection of another computer in their home. It's referred
to as peer-to-peer because the structure of the system is set
so that after finding the other sources of the material I don't
have to communicate with any centralized server. I can just
talk from my computer to theirs and get their collection.
Now, unfortunately in this area where we're working we're
finding the folks whose collections consist of movies depicting
the rape of children. We can go on very quickly by downloading
various peer-to-peer applications. We can enter in a search
term consistent with the type of criminal conduct we're
investigating. Once we launch that search term, we are
presented with a menu on our screen of all the types of child
pornography that's available at that moment and we can look
through the names and pick whatever it is of interest to that
person.
Now, in our case we're working on the material where the
crimes are very egregious, the children are very young, high
levels of violence. We'll pick those files for download, and in
a matter of seconds we start receiving those movies onto our
computer. In addition to the transfer of the movie, we can
see--
Chairman Biden. Do you know where those movies are coming
from?
Special Agent Waters. Yes, we do, Senator.
Chairman Biden. That's the critical point.
Special Agent Waters. We can see--in our software we can
actually display it as a map, but we can see the IP address of
origin where this transfer is taking place.
Chairman Biden. What is an ``IP address of origin''? What
does that mean?
Special Agent Waters. An IP address is just, in essence,
the Internet phone number. It's the method that the computers
use to find each other. It's normally not viewable--
Chairman Biden. And are you able, through that IP address,
to determine the actual person who owns that, that has that
number? How do you do that?
Special Agent Waters. In many cases we can by submitting a
court process to a service provider and asking them who has the
IP number.
Chairman Biden. Give me an idea of a service provider.
Special Agent Waters. Perhaps, well, you mentioned Comcast.
We have many that we work with. We can send them a subpoena. We
give them the address and we give them the time: we saw a crime
at this precise moment; can they tell us what subscriber had
it? It's not necessarily the suspect, but it tells us the
physical location to start and then from there we track it back
to their collection.
Chairman Biden. OK. Now, give us a little demonstration.
Special Agent Waters. I pulled out a list, just a random
sampling of file names from an individual. Without giving up
too much investigative detail and allowing these individuals to
hide, I can display these files names to the screen. I would
warn folks, now, that this is very egregious material,
extremely offensive. I'll put it up briefly.
Chairman Biden. It's like a film, like ``Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid'', only it has ``Raping of a Three-Year-Old''
kind of title, right?
Special Agent Waters. That's correct, Senator.
Chairman Biden. So I don't need you to make it any clearer
for the television. My point is, the verbiage we see on that
screen are literally the titles of each of the files that have
been downloaded and transferred to someone else's computer. Is
that correct?
Special Agent Waters. That is correct, Senator.
Chairman Biden. And so there are probably, what, 30, 40,
50? How many? I can't read them from here, and don't want to
read them.
Special Agent Waters. I cut out maybe 20 out of just one
suspect's collection.
Chairman Biden. Right. So that if you went into that and
you saw that what was being traded by that suspect or acquired
by that suspect were things that related to violent behavior,
the rape of a 3-year-old--I mean, I read what you had in my
office. I mean, they're graphic descriptions--
Special Agent Waters. Yes, sir.
Chairman Biden.--of what the video will contain. So you
would be able to, an investigator, looking at that file you can
easily access--you don't need a court order, you don't need
anything to access what is sitting out there on the Internet,
right?
Special Agent Waters. That's correct. We can download it
like any member of the public.
Chairman Biden. Like any member of the public, as if you
were the one seeking the file, like you were in the peer-to-
peer network and they could download it to you, right?
Special Agent Waters. That's correct, sir.
Chairman Biden. And so you can look at those titles and
then you can actually look at it. You can click on, because it
doesn't cost anything.
Special Agent Waters. Right.
Chairman Biden. You can click on and actually view what
that particular file has in it. Correct?
Special Agent Waters. That's correct.
Chairman Biden. And you're able to, if you had the time and
unlimited resources, determine whether or not, on a repeated
basis, multiple times, the person whose computer was acquiring
this material had watched ``Fifty Different Ways to Rape a
Three-Year-Old Child'', or a 7-year-old child, or whatever.
Correct?
Special Agent Waters. From our subsequent investigation,
that's correct.
Chairman Biden. Yes. So there is a way. What Jeff and I
were talking about--excuse us for being so colloquial here, but
one of the disadvantages, but advantages, of having only a
couple of members here at the time is it can be more
conversational.
What we were talking about is--excuse me for referencing it
this way, Jeff--Senator Sessions said, we can get our arms
around this. We can handle this. This is doable. It's not like
this problem is so gigantic and so out of our ability to deal
with it. People just go, oh, God, it's so big, we just can't
deal with it. You could literally, based upon a set of
criteria, if you had unlimited resources, narrow down the field
of people who are the most likely to be the most violent and
deviant people in this whole field of child pornography,
couldn't you?
Special Agent Waters. Well, anecdotally we've been able to
narrow it down and catch--
Chairman Biden. Because it's not scientifically tested.
Special Agent Waters. Right.
Chairman Biden. But if a guy or woman is downloading
pornography that has traditional sexual activity between a
young woman who you don't know whether is 14 or 19, but is
outrageously pornographic, that's one thing. If you have
another thing of someone being tied down, beaten and raped
repeatedly and someone filming it, or a father saying, this is
my daughter, watch me rape my daughter who happens to be 6
years old, you're likely dealing with a more pernicious element
of society. That's all I mean. Right?
Special Agent Waters. Yes, sir.
Chairman Biden. And you can, by looking at the files, get a
pretty good--you can increase the probability, at least
anecdotally, that you're going to focus on and target on the
most egregious offenders out there.
Special Agent Waters. Yes, sir. That's correct.
Chairman Biden. Now, the reason I mention this, and I'm
going to stop, years ago one of the sort of criminology
epiphanies I had as a young Senator was a study done in the
early 1980's in the California prison system, showing that 6
percent of the criminals behind bars in California committed
over 50 percent of the violent crimes that were committed in
that State over a certain period of time. Career criminals
commit significantly more crimes than the occasional guy. The
career criminal pool is relatively small.
So what we're trying to do--and I'll hush--is take limited
resources and target them where you get the single biggest bang
for the buck. I would like to prosecute every single person
who, other than accidentally, found themselves being a purveyor
of child pornography.
As you said--give me the example of the young woman you
said who just haunted you, whose face you would see repeatedly,
and how many tens of thousands of people across the world--you
showed me a worldwide map where that one digital image of this
young woman being repeatedly molested was literally--you showed
me day by day, like a virus, how the image of that act against
her was disseminated worldwide. Talk about that just for a
second.
Special Agent Waters. Yes, Senator. Because we are able to
track by hash value the files as they're being traded, or the
digital signature of the files, we looked at the image from one
child, one little girl, a toddler, who had been horribly abused
and we tracked where law enforcement was given the opportunity
to receive that file, or that series of files on that little
girl. We found over a million instances where law enforcement
was presented the chance to get just her victimization, and it
was all over the world.
Chairman Biden. Explain what you mean by ``law
enforcement'', because people misunderstand that. It's making
it sound like that this image went straight to the precinct
headquarters and said, by the way, this is happening. What you
mean by ``presented'', you mean it was repeated over a million
times on the Internet that you could track, you could see it
being punched up a million times, figuratively speaking.
Explain.
Special Agent Waters. Yes, sir. Undercover police officers
working in the peer-to-peer environment were presented
opportunities to download those movies, so we tracked the
origin, where they were presented that opportunity from. It
traveled all over the world. It was unbelievable, the
saturation. To look at the map of her victimization and realize
that that's the world that she has to grow up in, she's got
to--
Chairman Biden. Even if she's rescued, even if she's taken
out of that circumstance, for the rest of her life there's a
file out there where millions of people have looked at and
watched her graphically being abused. Is that correct?
Special Agent Waters. That's correct, Senator.
Chairman Biden. And last, give me the example, because it's
important for people to know, I think, of the young woman whose
brother identified--explain to me how--you point out it's hard
sometimes to go back and identify that young girl and actually
``free'' her from her circumstance.
Special Agent Waters. Yes, sir.
Chairman Biden. You can pick up the people. You don't know,
of the million people who had that file, who originated that
file so you don't know who the rapist is in that case. But
explain to me, explain for the record the case you told me
about, the young brother in the library and what happened.
Special Agent Waters. We have had investigations, and one
in particular, where we watched this little girl grow up. In
our forensic examinations over a period of several months, we
would start seeing her picture change. We would see new images
of her victimization. And this little girl would look at the
camera and we would look into her eyes as we were running these
forensics, and it started to haunt us.
We saw her grow up, so much so that over the years I would
find myself apologizing to the pictures of this child that no
one had found her. It was actually the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children that contacted us and let us
know that, in her case, she had been rescued because a family
member had come across her picture while being on the Internet
and had confronted, and disclosure was made. I don't want to
give--
Chairman Biden. But it was the brother, correct?
Special Agent Waters. Yes, sir, it was.
Chairman Biden. It's amazing. It's amazing. I just wish
there was some way we could--there's no way to sanitize this
ugliness, but I wish there was some way that would shock the
conscience of America just to see so much of this going on. I
don't think we'd have trouble getting the resources if they had
a clear notion of what it meant.
At any rate, I've taken much too much time, Jeff. I'm
sorry. The floor is yours, and the panel is yours.
Senator Sessions. No, no. Thank you for your leadership and
expression of concern. I have developed that same philosophy
about crime. There's just not that many people who will murder
somebody, not that many people who will rape somebody, and I'm
sure even a less number of people that will--I don't know
whether it's any less, but there's only a certain number of
people that will molest a young child. They can be targeted.
Unfortunately, psychologists have told me that, if you're
really honest about it, treatment is not very helpful.
Discipline, arrest, punishment, incarceration are the only
thing we know that work. Would you agree with that, Ms. Collins
and Mr. Weeks, that we have not come forward with an effective
treatment or cure for these activities?
Ms. Collins. I have not, as of yet, heard of a cure. I know
that there's a lot of research and professionals who treat sex
offenders. It was referenced earlier, at the Buttner Federal
Correctional Center down in, I believe, North Carolina, they
are also working with sexual predators who are arrested for
child pornography-related crimes. I agree that when an offender
is put in jail, at least there you have the guarantee that
they're not going to be able to victimize another child for
whatever amount of time that they're going to be incarcerated.
Senator Sessions. I don't know if we have any numbers. Has
anyone attempted to ascertain any number of people in the
United States who are pedophiles, who have these kind of
tendencies and have taken these kind of actions? Do any of you
all know?
[No response].
Senator Sessions. Well, I think it is clear, and I think
Senator Biden is correct, that if we are more sophisticated and
more effective in utilizing existing resources and additional
resources, including utilizing the technological breakthroughs
that you've made, Mr. Waters, and Randy, that you've worked on,
I know, we can more effectively reduce the number of people who
are abusing children in America. We can actually bring that
number down. Would you agree, Mr. Waters?
Special Agent Waters. Absolutely, Senator. Absolutely.
Senator Sessions. Lieutenant Moses, would you?
Lieutenant Moses. Yes, sir.
Senator Sessions. Randy?
Mr. Hillman. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Sessions. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Weeks. I think not only can we do that, but we can
measure it, we can count our success. We've spent billions of
dollars in this country on prevention and awareness campaigns
and we had no idea what the impact was. Can I also say,
Senator, you raised a point earlier that I really wanted to
agree with. You asked the question of whether it would be
helpful to have sort of a registry of officers who were trained
in this. I think that's an extremely important thing, because
we see at the local level, even good-sized, fairly
sophisticated police departments who are very sort of insecure
about what in the world to do with a lead like this. You really
need a contact in those places. The ICACs at this point are
just little skeleton crews out there. They can't do all this
themselves.
Senator Sessions. Well, I love the FBI and have great
respect for them. But the way I read their report, the U.S.
Attorney's analysis, they've got 32 people in the entire FBI
who are experts and know how to handle this; 260 have worked on
a case at one point in their life. That means they may have
helped the expert execute a search warrant. So, I'm not
impressed. We do need more people like Mr. Waters, like
Lieutenant Moses, who are full-time, have studied these issues.
If you know what you're doing you can be a lot more
effective. Wouldn't you agree, Lieutenant Moses? If you have
some specialty in it and all the search warrant rules, the
defenses that will come up, the legal statutes and penalties,
the expertise you gain after doing a number of these cases is
very, very valuable.
Lieutenant Moses. On-the-job experience is the best. I
mean, that's the way you learn, out there on the street, doing
it every day, investigating these type of crimes.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Waters, you mentioned the National
Computer Forensic Science Institute as a potential solution.
Mr. Hillman has talked about it. But centers where people could
come for some rather significant and intensive training
throughout this whole area of prosecutions, in your opinion,
would be helpful for the country?
Special Agent Waters. Yes, I believe they'd be extremely
helpful, not only in recovering the evidence so that we can
prosecute that offender, but so that we will recover his
collection and possibly find victims that we didn't previously
know about by recovering those digital photos and movies.
Senator Sessions. Well, in my experience in the prosecuting
of child pornography, we often did find victims. Is that your
experience?
Special Agent Waters. Yes, it is.
Senator Sessions. What about you?
Lieutenant Moses. Yes, sir, it is.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Hillman?
Mr. Hillman. Yes, sir.
Senator Sessions. Any of the others want to comment on
that?
[No response].
Senator Sessions. In other words, some people say, so we've
got some bad pictures, even bad pictures of children. Why is
that important? Because Buttner said that 85 percent of the
people they have in the jail--that's the Federal jail that has
psychological expertise in handling people--have admitted to
abusing children. I suppose some of them didn't admit it that
did it, so we're talking about probably 90 percent or more.
It's just not the normal person who collects child abusive
pornography. This is a small but very dangerous group that we
need to focus on.
Mr. Hillman, what are some of the things you train on and
are doing and expect to train on when you're fully operational
for an average police detective that may come there to be
trained? How can you help that person do their job better?
Mr. Hillman. Thank you, Senator. We have, for State and
local law enforcements, there are basically three curricula
that we have set up. The entry-level curricula, which is
probably the most bodies that we will handle through the
center, is designed for the front-line investigator. It is that
guy who will be out working these cases or starting these
investigations. This curriculum will literally take a
computer--we start them from the ground up and we work them up
in their capacity and their knowledge of digital evidence.
They physically take a computer and take it apart and they
learn about each part as it is being torn down, and then they
put it back together. Then you go from that into a more
intense, here's what it does and how it does, and when it does
store information, here's how you reach and grab it, or here's
how to unplug, or when to unplug, a computer. Here's what you
advise local law enforcement. You use those individuals who go
through this basic training to them be a train-the-trainer
type.
Senator Sessions. Back in their department.
Mr. Hillman. Yes, sir. They will be instructed on all sorts
of investigation techniques. And then the next level of
training was a network intrusion training, which I think will
last around 4 weeks, which also deals with a lot of the things
that Mr. Waters is dealing with. Then the ultimate training
there--
Senator Sessions. You will train them in the techniques
that Mr. Waters has perfected?
Mr. Hillman. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And the last level of
training is a 5-week course that is intense. It is the true
forensic capability where you can take a machine, download what
is in it--or image the hard drive in the case of these types of
investigations--break it down, decide where the computer has
been, what it's been doing, who's been doing it, and then you
produce a report and then be available to testify to the
District Attorney or in the courtroom.
Senator Sessions. And qualify as an expert?
Mr. Hillman. Yes, sir. Absolutely.
Senator Sessions. Well, that's good.
Mr. Waters, you established a standard method for local
officers to get a search warrant. Still, Mr. Hillman, there are
things you have to do. You're a prosecutor. You can't just go
and peruse everybody's computer. You train the officers in what
is legal and established and approved and how to get warrants
when they need a warrant, do you not?
Mr. Hillman. Yes, sir. Absolutely. And then the second
level is, we train the prosecutors to help the investigators
get the search warrants and navigate those through the system,
and we will train the judges who will receive the search
warrant to sign off on it. We have had that happen more than I
care to admit, where judges will refuse to sign a search
warrant because they don't understand what they're seeing in
the search warrant.
Senator Sessions. They don't understand what the current
law is and they don't understand computers well enough to apply
the law to the event.
Mr. Hillman. Yes, sir.
Senator Sessions. It makes them nervous. It would make me
nervous.
Mr. Waters, so you have developed some models for search
warrants. I've got to tell you, I am sure that is a critical
step in this process. Is it? Briefly, how does it work?
Special Agent Waters. Yes, Senator, it is critical that we
get the search warrants put together. In a lot of ways we have
developed the models from hard knocks. We take them before our
State and Federal judges and we find out where we've messed up,
and they make it clear and we make it right next time. We have,
over the course of these 3 years, put together warrants now
that are extremely solid. I don't know of any cases where
they've been overturned, and mostly it's just because of
learning from the bench.
Senator Sessions. Well, that's really important. There is
no way a little group in Washington or somewhere can review
everybody's search warrants. You've just got to train people in
the local areas, and most metropolitan areas and mid-sized
cities need somebody, would you all agree, that has expertise
in these investigations. Mr. Weeks?
Mr. Weeks. Senator, I have often thought that if a police
department doesn't know what to do with a hard drive, they
don't know how to investigate child sexual abuse these days. I
absolutely agree with you.
Senator Sessions. All right. Well, I'm proud of the
forensic center that they put up and they developed at Hoover.
Mr. Hillman really was the driving force in the State District
Attorneys, which is a little unusual, you know, Senator Biden.
Chairman Biden. Not in Alabama. You and Hal Heflin get
everything down there.
Senator Sessions. Well, no. I mean, they've got private
investment, they've got the--
Chairman Biden. I know. I think it's a great--
Senator Sessions. And they've asked us for some help. But
what I liked about it was, this was--on their own they came up
with this conception of training people and it just drives home
that, in modern-day investigations, even financial
investigations and a lot of other crimes, but particularly
child pornography, you have got to understand how the computer
works, what he law is with regard to search warrants, how to
access it, and how to present that evidence in court so a jury
can understand what is happening and feel comfortable finding
the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I am sure that is
not easy to do.
Thank you. I like this panel. I think it's valuable. I'm
actually getting a little encouraged that maybe there are some
things we can do to go after this group, this small but very
damaging group that's causing this kind of problem.
Chairman Biden. Well, thank you, Senator. I do thank the
panel. I can assure you, this is only the first in a series of
hearings we are going to be having on this. My experience,
again, is you've got to keep banging at this. You just can't
have a hearing and walk away from it.
I want to--not for the record now, but the National Center
has been such a gigantic resources, as Mr. Calloway has been
kind enough to say. I've been very proud. It's one of the
proudest achievements that I've been associated with. But what
I want to do is, in another fora, talk with you all about one
of the things that I and Mr. Cooney, having been the Minority
Counsel for so long and become my personal friend over I don't
know how many years, knows that I really think, Senator, that
the need for hard, not drives, but data, the need for
scientific studies relating to some of the questions we had. I
wanted to talk with the National Center. It's been a repository
of a lot of this Federal money to help us do that very
successfully.
I think we have to bring in the National Science
Foundation, I think we have to bring in some experts who are
the leading psychiatrists and psychologists in the world, I
think we have to bring in and begin to accumulate a body of
academic--not weight, but while we are moving forward--studies
in your chosen profession, Ms. Collins, from psychologists,
psychiatrists, and criminologists so that we have a better
sense of a number of the questions that have been raised here.
This has really been, in a sense, a bootstrap operation. I
mean, locally, whether it's what you're doing, Randy, down in
Alabama, or what--look what we're talking about. We're talking
about a State with a population smaller than Delaware, Wyoming,
having an investigator who's put together a program that the
whole country is looking at. So what I don't want to do is get
at cross purposes with my friends at the National Center, so
I'm going to need your advice.
If you were able to, any one of you, have a pen up here to
write the laws, what additional information--I'm not asking you
now--and sources of information would you be seeking? What
other areas of expertise would you be trying to bring in to
deal with this issue and identify the profile of these people
beyond anecdotal and experiential evidence that you know from
being in the field? So it's not part of my legislation now, but
I want to talk about that.
I'd also like to tell you all, I'd like to talk about, and
I'm really anxious to talk to my colleague here, how we can
sort of walk and chew gum at the same time. We can have--for
example, in our bill there's over a billion dollars over 8
years, $60 million a year for these ICACs, to expand them.
But I also think there needs to be a uniquely local
component as well to be able to have a system whereby, like the
COPS bill, where the local District Attorney, the local
Attorney General can make an application based on a set of
criteria that he or she needs, one or two investigative
personnel who have been trained, have the money to train them,
and then have, just like we did in the COPS bill, a standard by
which they have to report back to main Justice in an office
that they have investigated X, Y and Z and how they've done it.
So, we need a protocol. I want to talk to you guys about
that. That in no way diminishes the pride that the Senator, I,
and others have in the legislation we're introducing. But I
think maybe we have to go beyond this as well. I mean, I'm
anxious to talk to you all about that.
I'd like to introduce for the record, now, support letters
for S. 1738 from the National Sheriffs, the National
Association of Police Organizations, Miami-Dade, International
Union of Police Associations, Go-Daddy.com, United States
Internet Service Provider Association, and statements from
three of our colleagues, both the Senators from California and
the Senator from Vermont and chairman of the full Committee,
Senator Leahy, as well as two articles by Woody Kotch of USA
Today that I think are pretty explanatory for the public at
large.
I would conclude by saying that one of the things I was
impressed with, and I know you are, Senator, but I really am
impressed with local law enforcement when you give them the
tools and you give them some help. I was saying to my trainer
today in my conference room, I said, you know, I can how in
Delaware, how in Wyoming, and how in Montana, in relatively
small States where there are not nearly as many dots, that we
could have the resources to get a handle on it.
But in the big States like Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas,
New York, et cetera, it must be so much harder. He said,
Florida is doing a remarkable job. Florida has--and it's one of
the things I'm going to want to hold a hearing on as well--
almost totally, locally, breaking down the State in a way that
their local prosecutors are coordinating with one another, had
made some really, really significant progress in this area.
What is Florida, the fourth-largest State in the Union? I
don't know what it is. I don't want to insult it by making it
higher or lower than it is. But there's well over 10 million
people there. So, that is the next piece I want to explore with
you all. You've been incredibly generous with your time.
And as my mom--who is probably watching this hearing. She
watches everything. She's 90 years old and lives with me, and
as she would say, she's sharp as a tack--would say, you're all
doing God's work here. This is really, really important stuff.
To paraphrase old Hubert Humphrey, who I had the honor to serve
with, he said, the measure of the civility of a society is how
well they treat the youngest among us and the oldest among us.
I mean, God, if we can't do better and learn with what is now,
as you said sir--you can put it up on the screen, you can
quantify it. You don't need a search warrant. You can quantify
just how heinous and how frequent and how widespread this is.
So I thank you all very, very much. I count on your
willingness to continue to help and educate the Committee, and
I mean educate it. I mean in the literal sense, it's been an
education for me today. I promise you we will stay with this.
With that, again, thank you, particularly those who have
made the longest travel to get here. Lieutenant, you can ride
home on the Metro with me.
[Laughter.]
Thank you all very much. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:41 p.m. the Committee was adjourned.]
[Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follow.]
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