[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 45 (Thursday, March 20, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK FOLEY

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 19, 2003

  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker. I rise today to talk about a very disturbing 
issue to all Americans--child pornography. As co-chair of the 
Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, I have been 
working for years with my colleagues, the National Center for Missing 
and Exploited Children, the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Customs 
Service, to eliminate child pornography from the Internet.
  Child pornography was a worldwide industry that was all but 
eradicated in the 1980's. Unfortunately it has resurfaced with a 
vengeance thanks to computer technology and the Internet--thus 
requiring those who fight this crime to come up with new ways and seek 
new allies in our war to save our children. I am pleased to report that 
Visa U.S.A. (Visa), one of the world's largest credit card companies, 
has recently begun a program to try to stave off this ever-rising tide 
of child smut.
  Visa's program is designed to put a stranglehold on this growing 
illegal industry by going after the one thing that keeps it going--
money. The way Visa's program works and what it does is pretty amazing, 
so I'd like to share it with you.
  Using sophisticated technical and forensic software tools, they 
identify sites that advertise that they accept Visa for payment. In 
fact, Visa's system monitors up to one million Web pages every day. 
Merchants dealing in child pornography are then reported back to Visa. 
Tests are conducted to determine who the merchant is and who owns the 
website and to trace the transaction trail. What this means is that 
child pornographers will no longer be able to hide by moving from site 
to site, because they will be found if they post Visa as their payment 
method. Visa acceptance privileges are terminated and finally--and I 
like this part the best--Visa and law enforcement officials throughout 
the world work together to either establish or support criminal 
investigations.
  The results of Visa's monitoring system represent an invaluable 
intelligence contribution to the FBI's Innocent Images Program, a 
multi-agency investigative initiative to combat the proliferation of 
child pornography and exploitation over the Internet. I can tell you 
that the Innocent Images Program has been highly successful in 
identifying and investigating the people involved in this predatory 
crime. And when the FBI gets this level of cooperation from industry, 
the program becomes even more efficient and effective.
  Such cooperation is encouraging and provides a fine example to our 
friends in private industry of how they can play a role in partnership 
with government and law enforcement agencies. While we here in Congress 
must continue to work for legislation that will take away avenues for 
the merchants who traffic in this abhorrent trade, we must actively 
seek out new partnerships with the private sector to find additional 
ways to drive child pornography from the Internet and to protect the 
interests of children worldwide.

                          ____________________