[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 175 (Tuesday, November 13, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H13589-H13591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            KIDS ACT OF 2007

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 719) to require convicted sex offenders to register online 
identifiers, and for other purposes, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                                H.R. 719

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Keeping the Internet Devoid 
     of Sexual Predators Act of 2007'' or the ``KIDS Act of 
     2007''.

     SEC. 2. ADDITIONAL AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS FOR 
                   SUPERVISION OF INTERNET ACCESS BY SEX OFFENDERS 
                   CONVICTED UNDER FEDERAL LAW.

       In addition to any other sums authorized to be appropriated 
     for the purposes of supervising persons on probation and 
     pretrial release in connection with convictions for Federal 
     offenses, there are authorized to be appropriated $5,000,000 
     for each fiscal years 2008 through 2013 for any or all of the 
     following purposes:
       (1) To evaluate computer internet filtering, monitoring and 
     other programs and devices that are designed to filter access 
     to certain web sites, permit monitoring of the use by persons 
     under supervision of internet, and related purposes.
       (2) To purchase those programs and devices determined 
     through that evaluation to be the best for those purposes.
       (3) To train probation officers in the use of those 
     programs and devices.
       (4) To train probation officers in the supervision of sex 
     offenders.
       (5) To hire probation officers and other personnel as 
     required to supervise convicted sex offenders effectively.

     SEC. 3. DISCRETIONARY CONDITION OF PROBATION AND SUPERVISED 
                   RELEASE FOR SEX OFFENDERS.

       (a) Probation.--Section 3563(b) of title 18, United States 
     Code, is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (22), by striking ``or'';
       (2) by striking the period at the end of paragraph (23) and 
     inserting ``; or'' and
       (3) by inserting after paragraph (23) the following:
       ``(24) if required to register under the Sex Offender 
     Registration and Notification Act--
       ``(A) obtain access to the Internet only from computers 
     approved by the probation officer;
       ``(B) consent and fully cooperate with periodic 
     examinations of the computers by the probation officer, 
     including the retrieval and copying of all data from those 
     computers and removal of the computer equipment for a 
     reasonable period of time for the purpose of conducting a 
     more thorough inspection;
       ``(C) consent and fully cooperate with the installation on 
     the computers any hardware or software filtering systems 
     designated by the probation officer that restrict the 
     defendant's access to classes of web sites designated by the 
     officer as to which, under the circumstances of the offense, 
     access should be restricted;
       ``(D) consent and fully cooperate with the installation on 
     the computers of monitoring systems or hardware that permit 
     the probation officer to monitor the defendant's computer use 
     to assure compliance with the law, conditions of probation, 
     and to protect public safety; and
       ``(E) take no steps to disable or evade the filtering or 
     monitoring programs or devices.''.
       (b) Supervised Release.--Section 3583(d) of title 18, 
     United States Code, is amended by striking ``any condition 
     set forth as a discretionary condition of probation in 
     section 3563(b)(1) through (b)(10) and (b)(12) through 
     (b)(20)'' and inserting ``a condition set forth in section 
     3563(b), other than that described in paragraph (11) of that 
     section''.

     SEC. 4. DIRECTION TO SENTENCING COMMISSION.

       The United States Sentencing Commission, pursuant to its 
     authority under section 994 of title 28, United States Code, 
     and in accordance with this section, shall review and, if 
     appropriate amend the Federal sentencing guidelines 
     (including its policy statements) applicable to persons 
     convicted of sex offenses involving children in circumstances 
     where the offense is committed or facilitated by the use of 
     the Internet, and--
       (1) a misrepresentation is made over the Internet as to the 
     age of the offender; or
       (2) there is a failure of the offender to reveal the 
     offender's status as a sex offender.

     SEC. 5. MODIFICATION OF MINIMUM STANDARDS REQUIRED FOR 
                   ELECTRONIC MONITORING UNITS USED IN SEXUAL 
                   OFFENDER MONITORING PILOT PROGRAM.

       (a) In General.--Subparagraph (C) of section 621(a)(1) of 
     the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (42 
     U.S.C. 16981(a)(1)) is amended to read as follows:
       ``(C) Minimum standards.--The electronic monitoring units 
     used in the pilot program shall at a minimum--
       ``(i) provide a tracking device for each offender that 
     contains a central processing unit with global positioning 
     system; and
       ``(ii) permit continuous monitoring of offenders 24 hours a 
     day.''.
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) 
     shall apply to grants provided on or after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 6. FINANCIAL FACILITATION OF ACCESS TO CHILD 
                   PORNOGRAPHY.

       (a) Offense.--Chapter 95 of title 18, United States Code, 
     is amended by adding at the end the following:

     ``Sec. 1960A. Financial facilitation of access to child 
       pornography

       ``Whoever knowingly conducts, or attempts or conspires to 
     conduct, a financial transaction (as defined in section 
     1956(c)) in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, 
     knowing that such transaction will facilitate access to, or 
     possession of, child pornography (as defined in Section 2256) 
     shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 
     20 years, or both.''.
       (b) Amendment to Table of Sections.--The table of sections 
     at the beginning of

[[Page H13590]]

     chapter 95 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by 
     adding at the end the following new item:

``1960A. Financial facilitation of access to child pornography .''.

     SEC. 7. CHANGE IN DEFINITION OF MONETARY INSTRUMENTS FOR 
                   MONEY LAUNDERING AND OTHER OFFENSES.

       Section 1956(c)(5) of title 18, United States Code, is 
     amended--
       (1) by striking ``or'' at the end of clause (i); and
       (2) by inserting ``, (iii) electronic or digital 
     currencies, and the corresponding monetary value of any 
     associated account, or (iv) stored value cards or similar 
     devices'' after ``delivery''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan.


                             General Leave

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Members of the House, H.R. 719, the KIDS Act, addresses the problems 
of convicted sex offenders infiltrating the Internet to contact and 
prey on minors.
  You've heard about this problem before under the measure that has 
just passed the House. We are all familiar with the problem. There is 
not a parent who is not concerned that through the Internet a sex 
offender may attempt to contact a child for criminal, vicious sex 
purposes.
  The KIDS Act addresses this problem in three ways: It authorizes 
funding for the Federal Probation and Pretrial Office to enhance the 
agency's ability to monitor the computer use by convicted Federal sex 
offenders. In particular, it authorizes funding to evaluate and 
purchase Internet filtering and monitoring systems to better enable 
probation officers to monitor the computer use of sex offenders. This 
is very important. This should help ensure that if an offender violates 
the terms of release as to Internet use, the violation will be 
discovered so the offender's release can be promptly revoked.
  The next thing we do here is codify the current practice of some 
sentencing judges by specifically authorizing a court to require as a 
condition of probation that a convicted sex offender cooperate with the 
installation of Internet filtering and monitoring systems.
  Finally, the bill directs the Sentencing Commission to consider 
increased penalties for sex crimes committed over the Internet where 
the defendant lied about his age or concealed identity as a sex 
offender.
  This measure before us now adds a new criminal provision to reach 
those who set up ``virtual money systems'' to facilitate the 
trafficking of child pornography over the Internet. There's no simple 
way of keeping the Internet out of the hands of those who would use it 
for these and other sinister purposes. Nonetheless, the KIDS Act goes a 
long way toward addressing the problem of Internet sex predation by 
enhancing supervision of convicted sex offenders and increasing 
penalties for these crimes.
  I can't imagine anyone in this House on either side of the aisle not 
supporting a measure such as this.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, recently we were all shocked to learn that over 20,000 
registered sex offenders were on commercial social networking sites. In 
response to press attention, the social networking sites removed the 
sex offenders from these sites.
  H.R. 719, as introduced, included an important provision requiring 
that sex offenders update their registration information to include 
their electronic mail addresses, instant messaging addresses, and other 
similar Internet identifiers used by the sex offender.
  In addition, H.R. 719 included a mechanism to permit social 
networking sites to check sex offender registries to prevent sex 
offenders from accessing the social networking site.
  Finally, H.R. 719 included on introduction a new criminal prohibition 
on misrepresentation of age by a person designed to lure children into 
sexual activity.
  Unfortunately, H.R. 719 has been stripped of all of these important 
provisions. It's my hope that my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle will work with us to address these important provisions in the 
future. The gap in our laws must be filled so that children on social 
networking sites do not have to fear sex predators joining their circle 
of so-called friends.
  I wish to commend my colleagues for including in this legislation a 
critical provision to prohibit the financial facilitation of child 
pornography. Originally proposed by our ranking member, Lamar Smith, at 
the beginning of the year, this criminal penalty is vitally important 
for prosecuting an emerging tool used by child pornographers to prey on 
children anonymously: virtual money systems. Unlike credit card 
companies, which require merchants and customers to provide personal 
information such as name, address, and Social Security number, virtual 
money is essentially anonymous. Subscribers provide fictitious personal 
information, or no personal information, and no credit card or Social 
Security number is required, making them virtually untraceable.
  The key to combating the commercial child pornography industry is to 
cut it off at its source: money. Virtual money is now the payment 
method of choice. It is imperative that our law enforcement tools keep 
pace with changing technologies.
  H.R. 719 also includes a technical correction to the Adam Walsh Act 
to expand the eligibility for participation in a child safety grant 
program. And I want to particularly thank Congressman Forbes, the 
ranking member of the Crime Subcommittee, for introducing legislation 
that would have accomplished this technical correction.
  I commend my colleague from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) for his 
dedication to protecting children and for working with us on this 
legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1645

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  First of all, I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Goodlatte) for the hard work that he has put in on this measure. We 
appreciate the cooperation that we've had in the course of this. And of 
course we yield to no one in recognizing him as the Congress' foremost 
expert on the Internet, and thus his being involved in this kind of 
legislation for quite a few years.
  Earlier versions of this bill required registration of online 
identifiers of sex offenders. And as the gentleman knows, a sex 
offender can change his user name and IP address in about two seconds, 
so we didn't feel that was particularly helpful. We thought monitoring 
sex offenders before they ever got on the Internet was a better way to 
go, and we're glad that we've been able to reach some closure with him 
on that subject.
  Now, on the criminal provisions, I want to tactfully suggest that 
we've got a better way here in this bill, and I think most of the 
lawyers and those who followed this shall agree with us. There is no 
point in overburdening prosecutors. What we've done with reference to 
criminal provisions is that the practice of grooming, where sex 
predators lie about their age on the Internet to entice minors into 
sexual activity, obviously is horrific and widespread, but the other 
approach would have required prosecutors to prove a new and separate 
offense in order to get a higher sentence for offenses involving 
grooming. We didn't think that would be the better way to proceed.
  Under the minority approach, a prosecutor would have had to prove all 
the elements of this new crime beyond a reasonable doubt. This is, I 
think, unnecessary and probably a very high burden to reach, given that 
there exists in criminal law a law against enticement that covers 
grooming activity. And so the approach we finally settled on directs 
the sentencing commission to provide tougher sentences for predatory 
behavior that involves grooming.

[[Page H13591]]

And you don't get the chairman of this committee talking about tougher 
sentencing on very many things around here; this is one that I can 
support without qualification.
  So what we've done is deal with a serious problem of grooming and get 
to the same place as other approaches that have been suggested to us in 
what we believe, from a criminal justice point of view, is far more 
efficient. And with the new provisions that would fight financial 
facilitation of child pornography, we think we've got a bill. And we 
thank Mr. Pomeroy for helping us get there.
  And with that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time I have no further speakers 
remaining on this legislation, so I would yield back the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I have the final closing speaker, Mr. 
Pomeroy, to whom I will yield the balance of our time.
  Mr. POMEROY. I thank my friend, the chairman, for yielding.
  I want to begin by acknowledging the work Paul Gillmor put into this 
legislation. He and I were the original cosponsors. He was a colleague 
with whom I worked on a variety of initiatives trying to keep our 
children safe against those who would prey upon them through the 
Internet. We miss Paul, but his efforts and his work continue with this 
legislation.
  I agree with the words of the chairman in the facet of this bill 
relating to grooming, and I think stiffening the sentences for those 
convicted of engaging in deceptive behavior relative to lying about 
their age to incur the trust of minors with whom they're interacting on 
the Internet, making that an item that would bring them longer prison 
time when convicted is a positive clarification to this bill, probably 
better than the original bill.
  There is a feature of the bill that was left out, that I'm quite 
disappointed at, and work is going to need to continue on this one, and 
that is, helping these Internet sites keep sexual predators off in the 
first place.
  We have a number of provisions in our code dealing with what's 
required of high-risk sexual predators, and I believe it would be 
appropriate to have a voluntary registry where their names would be 
required to be on file, and social networking sites could keep them off 
of their site.
  I want to especially commend the efforts of MySpace, one of the most 
popular sites out there, for the extraordinary efforts they've gone to 
to identify sex predators and keep them off the site; 29,000 are 
blocked from participating on the MySpace domain because of their 
efforts, and I think the Federal Government ought to do more to help 
them. That's work in progress. A lot of bills that come to the floor 
aren't perfect, at least at this iteration in the legislative process, 
so this is an aspect of this bill I want to continue to work on.
  There are a couple of other things that I think are very useful, and 
that is the authorization of funds to step up the supervision of the 
Internet activities of high-risk sexual predators, as well as the 
portion that criminalizes financial facilitation of child pornography. 
If there is a banker making a buck by basically facilitating the credit 
card transactions on child pornography over the Internet, that is not 
an acceptable business practice. It is so not acceptable that we are 
criminalizing it, and I hope they get that message loud and clear.
  We've worked a lot with the Judiciary Committee on this bill. I think 
the chairman's comments about higher sentences aren't something that he 
is often willing to put in a code. I think that he has been fair-minded 
in this, and I look forward to continuing to work with him as we get 
this legislation where it needs to be.
  Thank you. This is a positive bill. I urge Members to vote for it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 719, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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