[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 133 (Wednesday, December 6, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11331-S11335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. McCAIN:
  S. 4089. A bill to modernize and expand the reporting requirements 
relating to child pornography, to expand cooperation in combating child 
pornography, to require convicted sex offenders to register online 
identifiers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Stop the Online 
Exploitation of Our Children Act of 2006. This legislation would reduce 
the sexual exploitation of our children, and punish those who cause 
them physical and emotional harm through sex crimes.
  Twenty-two years ago, President Ronald Reagan inaugurated the opening 
of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, known as 
NCMEC. At a White House ceremony, he called on the center to ``wake up 
America and attack the crisis of child victimization.'' Today, thanks 
to the efforts of NCMEC and many others in the public and private 
sectors, America is more conscious of the dangers of child 
exploitation, but our children still face significant threats from 
those who see their innocence as an opportunity to do harm. The 
continuing victimization of our children is readily and all too 
painfully apparent in the resurgence of child pornography in our world.
  In recent years, technology has contributed to the greater 
distribution and availability, and, some believe, desire for child 
pornography. I say child pornography, but that label does not describe 
accurately what is at issue. As emphasized by a recent Department of 
Justice report, ``child pornography'' does not come close to describing 
these images, which are nothing short of recorded images of child 
sexual abuse. These images are, quite literally, digital evidence of 
violent sexual crimes perpetrated against the most vulnerable among us.
  Experts are also finding that the images of child sexual exploitation 
produced and distributed today involve younger and younger children. As 
emphasized by NCMEC, 83 percent of offenders surveyed in a recent study 
were caught with images of children younger than 12 years old. Thirty-
nine percent had images of children younger than 6. Almost 20 percent 
had images of children younger than 3. These are not normal criminals, 
and I cannot fathom the extent of the physical and emotional harm they 
cause their victims.
  The violence of the images continues to increase as well. Dr. Sharon 
Cooper, a nationally recognized expert on this subject, stated before a 
September Senate Commerce Committee hearing that the images often 
depict ``sadistic gross sexual assault and sodomy.'' This view was 
underscored by Mike Brown, the sheriff of Bedford County, VA, and the 
director of the Blue Ridge Thunder Internet Crimes Against Children 
Task Force, who also testified to his direct experience with 
increasingly violent and disturbing images of child sexual 
exploitation.
  The Federal Government has in place a system for online companies 
such as Internet service providers to report these images to NCMEC. The 
center is directed by law to relay that information to Federal and 
State law enforcement agencies. This reporting system has been 
successful, but it is in need of several vital improvements.
  The bill would enhance the current reporting system by expanding the 
range of companies obligated to report child pornography to NCMEC; 
stating specifically what information must be reported to the center; 
moving the reporting obligations into the Federal

[[Page S11335]]

criminal code; imposing higher penalties on companies that do not 
report child pornography to NCMEC in the manner required by law; and 
providing greater legal certainty around the child pornography 
reporting requirement.
  As suggested by NCMEC, the reporting of child pornography should be 
more widespread. To that end, the bill would expand and clarify the 
types of online companies that would be obligated to report child 
pornography to the center. Today, Federal law requires electronic 
communication service providers and providers of remote computing 
services to report child pornography they discover to NCMEC through the 
center's CyberTipline. However, what types of companies fall into each 
category is sometimes unclear. To better define and expand the types of 
online companies obligated to report child pornography, the legislation 
would require a broad range of online service providers--including Web 
hosting companies, domain name registrars, and social networking 
sites--to report child pornography to NCMEC.
  Another weakness in the current reporting system is that the law does 
not say exactly what information should be reported to NCMEC. This 
failure to set forth specific reporting requirements makes the current 
statute both difficult to comply with and tough to enforce, and this 
omission may have led to less effective prosecution of child 
pornographers. According to testimony submitted by the center to the 
Senate Commerce Committee, ``because there are no guidelines for the 
contents of these reports, some [companies] do not send customer 
information that allows NCMEC to identify a law enforcement 
jurisdiction. So potentially valuable investigative leads are left to 
sit in the CyberTipline database with no action taken.'' This is 
unacceptable.
  The bill would cure this problem by requiring that reporting 
companies convey to the center a defined set of information, which is 
in large part the information that is provided to NCMEC today by the 
Nation's leading Internet service providers. Among other things, the 
bill would require online service providers to report specific 
information about the individual involved in producing, distributing, 
or receiving child pornography such as that individual's e-mail 
address. In addition, it would require reporting companies to NCMEC 
geographic location of the involved individual such as the individual's 
physical address and the IP address from which the individual connected 
to the Internet.
  To ensure that law enforcement officials have better odds of 
prosecuting involved individuals, the bill would also require online 
service providers to preserve all data that they report to NCMEC for at 
least 180 days, and to not knowingly destroy any other information that 
they possess that relates to a child pornography incident reported to 
NCMEC.
  The legislation would help ensure greater compliance with the child 
pornography reporting requirements under Federal law by increasing 
threefold the penalties for knowing failure to report child pornography 
to NCMEC. It would also move the reporting requirement from title 42, 
which relates to the public's health and welfare, to title 18, our 
Federal Criminal Code. This is to underscore that a breach of the 
reporting obligations is a violation of criminal law. In addition, the 
act would eliminate the legal liability of online service providers for 
actions taken to comply with the child pornography reporting 
requirements.
  The bottom line is that this legislation should result in more 
thorough reporting of child pornography to NCMEC. I expect that more 
and better information provided to the center will lead to a greater 
number of prosecutions and enhanced protection of our children. As 
stated by NCMEC, with improvements to the reporting system there would 
be more reports that are actionable by law enforcement, which will lead 
to more prosecutions and convictions and, more importantly, to the 
rescue of more children.
  In addition to the provisions relating to child pornography, the bill 
also would ensure that sex offenders will register information relevant 
to their online activities on sex offender registries. Specifically, it 
would require sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses, as well 
as their instant messaging and chat room handles and any other online 
identifiers they use. If a sex offender failed to do so, he could be 
prosecuted, convicted, and thrown into jail for up to 10 years. The 
bill would also make the use of the Internet in the commission of a 
crime of child exploitation an aggravating factor that would add 10 
years to the offender's sentence.
  To help address the international nature of child pornography, the 
bill would permit NCMEC to share reports with foreign law enforcement 
agencies, subject to approval by the Department of Justice. In 
addition, the act would state the sense of Congress that the executive 
branch should make child pornography a priority when engaging in 
negotiations or talks with foreign countries.
  Finally, the act would authorize $20.3 million for our Nation's 
Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces. This increase of $5 
million above that currently requested by the Administration is 
recommended by NCMEC, Sheriff Brown, and others who believe that the 
additional amount would significantly improve the efforts of these 
teams of Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials dedicated 
to identifying and prosecuting those who use the Internet to prey upon 
our Nation's children.
  Mr. President, protecting our children is a top priority for Members 
of Congress, regardless of party affiliation. This legislation would 
help us achieve that goal. I look forward to working with my colleagues 
to debate and move this bill through the legislative process during the 
next Congress.
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