[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHATTING ON-LINE: A DANGEROUS PROPOSITION FOR CHILDREN
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET
of the
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 13, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-102
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
__________
80-669 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2002
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
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------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
W.J. ``BILLY'' TAUZIN, Louisiana, Chairman
MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
JOE BARTON, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
FRED UPTON, Michigan EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida RALPH M. HALL, Texas
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
CHRISTOPHER COX, California FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina BART GORDON, Tennessee
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky PETER DEUTSCH, Florida
GREG GANSKE, Iowa BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
CHARLIE NORWOOD, Georgia ANNA G. ESHOO, California
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming BART STUPAK, Michigan
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico TOM SAWYER, Ohio
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland
CHARLES ``CHIP'' PICKERING, GENE GREEN, Texas
Mississippi KAREN McCARTHY, Missouri
VITO FOSSELLA, New York TED STRICKLAND, Ohio
ROY BLUNT, Missouri DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
TOM DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin
ED BRYANT, Tennessee BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
ROBERT L. EHRLICH, Jr., Maryland LOIS CAPPS, California
STEVE BUYER, Indiana MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
GEORGE RADANOVICH, California CHRISTOPHER JOHN, Louisiana
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire JANE HARMAN, California
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
MARY BONO, California
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
LEE TERRY, Nebraska
ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky
David V. Marventano, Staff Director
James D. Barnette, General Counsel
Reid P.F. Stuntz, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
______
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
FRED UPTON, Michigan, Chairman
MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JOE BARTON, Texas BART GORDON, Tennessee
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
Vice Chairman ANNA G. ESHOO, California
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
CHRISTOPHER COX, California GENE GREEN, Texas
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia KAREN McCARTHY, Missouri
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois BART STUPAK, Michigan
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
CHARLES ``CHIP'' PICKERING, JANE HARMAN, California
Mississippi RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
VITO FOSSELLA, New York SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
ROY BLUNT, Missouri TOM SAWYER, Ohio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan,
ROBERT L. EHRLICH, Jr., Maryland (Ex Officio)
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire
LEE TERRY, Nebraska
W.J. ``BILLY'' TAUZIN, Louisiana
(Ex Officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Testimony of:
Curtin, Caroline, Director, Integrity Assurance, AOL, Inc.... 26
Gregart, James J., Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney..... 14
Karraker, John, Kalamazoo, Michigan.......................... 12
Rodriguez, Ruben D., Director, Exploited Children Unit,
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children......... 19
Tarbox, Katherine, New Canaan, Connecticut................... 4
Tucker, Kathleen, Director, I-Safe America, Inc.............. 33
(iii)
CHATTING ON-LINE: A DANGEROUS PROPOSITION FOR CHILDREN
----------
MONDAY, MAY 13, 2002
House of Representatives,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet,
Oshtemo, MI.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in the
Kalamazoo Valley Community College M-Tec Facility in Oshtemo,
Michigan, Hon. Fred Upton (chairman) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Upton and Bass.
Staff present: Kelly Zerzan, majority counsel; Will
Nordwind, policy coordinator/counsel; Hollyn Kidd, legislative
clerk; and Brendan Kelsay, minority professional staff.
Mr. Upton. Good afternoon everyone. I want to welcome
everyone to KVCC's wonderful M-Tec facility for this field
hearing of the Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee
entitled Chatting On-Line: A Dangerous Proposition for
Children.
I want to pay particular thanks to Dr. Marilyn Schlack and
Bruce Koper for making sure that everything worked out terrific
in having us here today.
As the subcommittee chairman and parent of two young
children who use the Internet at home for both school, work and
fun, there are few issues that are more important than making
sure that our kids are protected on-line. I felt it was vitally
important to hold this hearing not in Washington DC, but in
Kalamazoo to help spread the word to the families of Southwest
Michigan that sadly we are not immune from the ugly underside
of chat rooms and that we can and must fight back against those
on-line sexual predators who seek to sneak into our homes via
the home computer and do harm to our kids.
When a person comes to your door and knocks on it, you can
teach your kids to look out the window or through the peephole
and see who it is before they decide whether or not to unlock
the door and let that individual in. You teach them never to
open the door to a stranger.
Also you can always teach your kids not to talk to
strangers outside in the street. But in this age of home
computers and the Internet, parents do not necessarily have
that luxury or security anymore. Pedophiles and sexual
predators have figured that out and they have made chat rooms
their latest stalking ground.
Alarmingly, national surveys suggest that 1 in 5, 20
percent, of young Internet users have received an unwanted
sexual solicitation via on-line chat rooms. In the Southwest
Michigan area alone, we have had a number of tragic examples.
A 21 year old college student has been accused of having
sex with three Richmond girls, a 14 year old and two 13 year
olds, whom he met on-line.
A 23 year old Oregon man pled guilty to crossing State
lines to have sex with a 13 year old girl from Kalamazoo; they
met in a chat room.
A 34 year old Brooklyn man, who claimed to be a 17 year old
boy, was sentenced last August for having sex with a 14 year
old girl from Michiwauke. They met on-line, traded photos of
each other, and had conversations about sex.
These are but a few examples of how evil sexual predators
are preying on our communities and we know there are many more.
Today we will hear from a number of witnesses including
Katie Tarbox, a young woman who has the courage to step forward
to tell her terrifying story of how, when she was in her early
teens, she was preyed upon by an adult who used a chat room to
take advantage of her. She is telling her story so that parents
and children in Southwest Michigan can learn lessons from her
experiences and hopefully avoid such dangers on-line.
She is to be commended for her courage and I know that this
is not easy for her.
We will also hear from John Karraker, father of a Kalamazoo
teenager, who was also preyed upon by an adult on-line. John is
stepping forward today to provide his perspective in hopes of
helping other fathers and mothers protect their kids.
He is not only a father, but also a Public Safety Officer
here in Kalamazoo. He knows that if it can happen in the house
of a Public Safety Officer, it can happen in any house.
He is testifying today solely in his capacity as a dad.
Given that he courageously puts his life on the line in the
service of our community every single day, it should come as no
surprise that he is using his off-duty time to be with us today
to help our community protect kids on-line.
Other witnesses include Mr. Jim Gregart, Kalamazoo County's
outstanding prosecuting attorney; Ruben Rodriguez of the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; Caroline
Curtin of America Online, which offers a number of parental
controls like kids-only chat rooms; and Kathleen Tucker of I-
SAFE, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating kids
about on-line safety.
I really want to thank all of our out-of-town witnesses for
traveling great distances to be with us today.
I have voted for and Congress has passed several laws in an
attempt to protect kids from some dangers on-line.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court recently struck down one of
those laws which banned virtual child pornography. Virtual
child pornography looks just like the real stuff, but it is
generated by a computer.
However, I am an original co-sponsor of a measure that
rewrites the law to pass constitutional muster in light of the
Court's ruling. I understand that the House will have this
legislation up on the House floor next week.
The Court's decision follows on the heels of the Court's
1997 decision to strike down those portions of the
Communications Decency Act which had made it illegal to send
pornography to children via the Internet. Still pending in the
courts is the Children's Internet Protection Act, which
requires schools and libraries that receive Federal funding to
employ Internet filtering software and have written Internet
safety policies to protect children from indecent material.
Let us hope for a comeback in the Courts.
But even those laws did not address the problem of
protecting kids from the dangers of chatting on-line. Getting
into one of those chat rooms is easier than getting on a bike,
but I would argue that it is much more dangerous.
I introduced a bill, which was recently approved by our
subcommittee, which would set up a child/family space on the
Internet known as dot-kids. Just like we have dot-com and dot-
org, we will have dot-kids. It will be in essence like a
children's section of the library, where parents could send
their kids to be safe on-line.
Chat rooms would be banned in the dot-kids space unless
they were specifically designed and operated to protect
children from harm, and the content in the chat room is both
suitable for children under 13 and not harmful to them.
I expect this Bill to be on the House floor for vote next
week as well.
However, even with all of these measures, the bottom line
is that there is no better protection from on-line dangers than
proper parental supervision. This means that we, as parents,
need to become better aware of the dangers and how to avoid
them. Then we must also teach our kids.
So today's hearing is designed to help us accomplish this
mission around the country, particularly here in Southwest
Michigan.
I also want to welcome a friend and dad, Congressman
Charlie Bass, to Kalamazoo. He is a member of this subcommittee
from New Hampshire. He has traveled a great distance to be with
us. He cares deeply about the issue.
With that, I recognize my friend and colleague, Mr. Bass.
Mr. Bass. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to
associate myself with your remarks which were right on mark.
This hearing is taking place here in Michigan, but it could
easily take place in any community anywhere in the country,
including anywhere in my district, anywhere where children can
have access to the Internet and communicate.
Like all communication issues, I have discovered that they
are so complex that there are never any clearly definable
issues or solutions. One has to examine First Amendment rights
and the ability to communicate. One has to look at the issues
of the fact that the Internet is really one of the greatest
technological inventions of the late 20th, early 21st century
which will probably keep America ahead for many, many decades
to come.
However, as my friend from Michigan here mentioned, there
are some very dark and unpleasant sides to this new technology,
most notably the issue that we are discussing here today.
It is my hope that we can discuss issues, such as whether
or not the criminal justice system is adequately prepared to be
responsive and to deal with what will undoubtedly be a growing
problem in society; what efforts are underway to teach and
prepare children to deal with chat rooms, especially children
that may not understand the implications of the types of
discussions and the motives of sexual predators when they get
in a chat room environment; and most importantly, the issue of
how communities and parents deal with children that are exposed
to this kind of environment.
I had the pleasure of having lunch with Katie before we
appeared here today, and she was kind enough to give me a copy
of her book to read, which I will. I believe in this book one
of the issues that is discussed is how she was ostracized by
her own community and her own friends and other parents after
this event occurred.
I know that is not strictly within the jurisdiction of this
subcommittee, but I think that it is something that all of us
need to think about carefully because we are not going to move
forward and deal with this issue until we, as society, are
willing to accept the fact that it can happen to anybody, in
Michigan or New Hampshire or anywhere else in the country.
And there may be policy solutions, but as Congressman Upton
said, it is parents, families, and communities that bear the
ultimate responsibility for solving and dealing with these
problems.
With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Upton. Thank you very much.
Our first witness is Ms. Katie Tarbox.
Katie, the time is yours.
STATEMENTS OF KATHERINE TARBOX, NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT;
ACCOMPANIED BY JOHN KARRAKER, KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN; JAMES J.
GREGART, KALAMAZOO COUNTY PROSECUTING ATTORNEY; RUBEN D.
RODRIGUEZ, DIRECTOR, EXPLOITED CHILDREN UNIT, NATIONAL CENTER
FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN; CAROLINE CURTIN, DIRECTOR,
INTEGRITY ASSURANCE, AOL, INC.; AND KATHLEEN TUCKER, DIRECTOR,
I-SAFE AMERICA, INC.
Ms. Tarbox. Thank you, Chairman Upton, for inviting me here
before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the
Internet, and thank you, Congressman Bass.
I am very pleased to be here today. I am only 20 years old
and I have to say that when I first began this fight, as I will
call it, in trying to help the education regarding Internet
dangers, this has always been one of my goals. I am happy to be
here encouraging legislation and whatnot. I believe it is the
right step and going in the right direction.
I have probably told my story now over 200 times. I go
around the country speaking and I have sometimes written it
out, but I always feel that the best way to tell my story is
just by telling it raw. People can read my written testimony,
but even though this happened 7 years ago, I want people to see
that there are raw emotions and that this did deeply affect me
and my family and my community.
I was thirteen years old when I first started using the
Internet. My family received the free CD-ROM of hours from
America Online, and back in 1995, there was not much press or
news regarding the Internet.
We knew that we were one of the first families in the
country to sign up for the Internet. I had some idea about what
a modem was, but I did not really understand what it was. I
just knew that it made some funny noises and that it could
connect me to millions of other people in the country.
My family thought that we were signing up for the Internet
to buy airplane tickets, and my sister was going to do a
college search. Perhaps we could shop, and, you know, we could
go into chat rooms.
I had learned about the Internet at school. We were doing
an Everglades project connected with CNN and we were connected
with other classrooms. The way that we had used the Internet
was that we would go into chat rooms to talk to other kids
about what they were doing.
So my introduction to the Internet was that this was a
place where you go on the computer, and you would meet people
and you would go into chat rooms. Quite honestly, I thought
that was all that America Online had to offer me because it was
the thing that was most boldly advertised when you would sign
on.
I started going into teen chat rooms. I did not use them
that much, maybe about an hour a day. I was a very active kid.
I was a high honors student. I was a national swimmer. I played
piano. I was in my select chorus at school, and one of the
things that the Internet offered me was that, while I was
pretty busy, if I could not call my friends at 11 o'clock at
night, I could go on the Internet and my parents thought that
it was a great thing. You know, I could go and talk to other
kids, maybe from Florida about swimming, or I could talk to
them about music.
At times I found it discouraging. There was a lot of heavy
sexual remarks, but I kept on signing on hoping, you know,
maybe there would be someone out there that I could talk to.
It was a September Sunday morning that I signed on and I
asked if anyone wanted to talk to a 13 year old female. I
immediately got a response from 23 year old Mark. And I sat at
my computer and I thought, ``Oh, no, I cannot talk to somebody
this old.''
I was hesitant to reply, but sitting there I thought,
``Well, this is never going to leave the Internet. It is never
going to go beyond this.''
And so I replied back. He started to ask me a few questions
about where I liked to shop and what bands I liked. And I
really liked Dave Matthews Band at the time and he had gone to
concerts. He could tell me about the lead guitarist; he could
tell me about the singers, he could tell me about the songs.
And we started to have conversations.
We talked about places we had both gone and I honestly
never thought that I would have anything in common with an
adult, but this had proved me wrong. In my 13 year old mind, I
thought, ``Wow, this is fate. I mean we have met on the
Internet. This connection, you know, is rare, and we have all
these things in common.''
And he was intelligent. And I think that was the thing that
most attracted me to him. At 13, you think that you are a
little bit more mature than the rest of your classmates at
school, or you think that you know it all, and so I was
definitely attracted to something like this.
I did not think of it as a romantic relationship, but I
wanted to see what could happen. I was not really sure. I did
not think that any 23 year old guy would have much of an
interest in a 13 year old girl.
Over the next couple of months, we began corresponding via
E-mail, the telephone. My parents did not know about this, and
I did not tell my friends. I thought that they would pass it
off as this is sexual. ``Katie, this is not a good idea. All he
wants you as, he just wants you for sex,'' and this clearly was
not.
We never once talked about sex or anything romantic really.
I thought he was a positive influence in my life. We actually
talked about politics. There was a Presidential election that
year, and we talked about the different campaigns, and he
really made me feel mature. He really made me feel like I was
someone special.
And at 13 when you are trying to deal with issues of
confidence and you are trying to find an identity, this made me
feel just, oh, so special.
He became my world; he became my best friend. He told me
that I was beautiful, told me I was smart; he told me all the
things that I thought I needed to hear at that age. And, yes, I
did hear this from my parents, but my parents are not an older
guy. And, a 13 year old girl, I think that anyone who has been
in that position can understand what kind of value you would
place on that type of attention.
He kept on pressuring me to meet him and I was always
hesitant. I did not know how that could happen. I was from
Connecticut; he was from California. And I did not expect that
I was going to invite him over to my house. I did not expect
that I was going to go to California.
While I did want to meet him, I just was not sure about
logistically how it would work out. He once again suggested
more meeting times. I tried to offer up that I was very busy,
and in fact that I was going to Texas the next week for a
national swim meet. He said, ``Well, why don't I come?''
And before I could say no, I said yes. I think it was my
emotional side taking over and just felt that I really did want
to meet him.
I was not sure what was going to happen. I did not know if
he would come to the swim meet and watch me. But nonetheless, I
did tell him where I was saying. And I was always so excited
about seeing him that I never really thought I am meeting an
older man off the Internet.
I flew to Dallas, Texas, with my swim team, and my mother
was a chaperon. And I was just so, so excited about seeing him.
I went to dinner. He was supposed to arrive about 7:30 and he
did not come. And I was a little disappointed that he was not
there, so I went to bed.
And then at 9:30 I got a call from him. I was staying with
my swim mate, and he said he was there. I had told this swim
mate, because she was a good friend of mine, about this
relationship, and she once again said, ``Oh, he just wants you
for sex.'' And that confirmed for me that, you know, I could
handle this relationship. I was mature, I was responsible, this
is different.
She held herself against the door and said, ``No, you are
not going to see him.''
And I said, ``No, I am.'' I told her the room number where
I would be going to and pushed her to the side.
I know the scariest part to all of this was that I never
thought that I was putting myself in a compromising situation.
I never thought that I could be killed or raped. I never
thought that Mark would be any other person than he said he
was. I was always telling the truth about who I was and you
trust so much.
You are told to trust adults. And I did not think that
anything dangerous could happen. I really felt like I knew this
person.
We had exchanged pictures, but his were from so far away
that, you know, I could not make out any distinguishing
features or details.
I knocked on the door and opened it up, and I immediately
saw an adult. I thought, ``Oh, my gosh, this is an adult,'' and
I became very uncomfortable.
I knew that he was an adult. I knew he was older. But over
the Internet you buildup so much fantasy that reality does not
have to be accepted. That was one of the things that I liked
about the Internet, was that nobody judged me on it because
they did not have reality right there.
He invited me into the room, and I felt uncomfortable. He
was trying to do anything he could to make me feel at ease. He
started to talk about his flight. He missed his connection, and
then he took me to the bathroom to show me that there was no
soap dish.
Then he tried to compliment things about my physical
appearance like my hair, anything he could do to make physical
contact. He sat me down. And it had been about a half and hour,
and I thought, ``Well, okay. I should say goodbye and, you
know, maybe we will meet tomorrow.''
So I sat down on the sofa, was ready to say goodbye, and
then he wanted to read my palm and tried to drag things out. I
allowed him to read my palm; he told me I was going to have a
rich and successful life. And then he looked away and he said,
``Katie, I have been thinking about you all day and I have been
thinking about doing this.''
He leaned over; he kissed me, groped me, and essentially I
was molested.
I always thought that if I would be in a situation where I
was receiving unwanted sexual advances that I would transform
into Wonder Woman or I would, you know, be this strong person,
especially because I come from a family of very strong women.
Watching the DARE videos in my class at school, I thought
those girls are so stupid. They should just fight back. But I
realized in that moment you become so confused.
I became completely numb and passive. I thought, ``Do I owe
this to him? Of course, he did not come all the way from
California just to have a talk.''
I was very disappointed in myself and overwhelmingly I felt
very dirty for what was happening. I felt that I had lost most
of my innocence in those 10 minutes or so.
There was a knock on the door, and I knew it was my mother.
It was one of those things. Of course, I did not tell my mother
about this relationship, but it was my gut telling me it was
her.
And it was her. She had gathered hotel police and security
and come up and gotten me. My friend, who I was staying with,
had told my mother. I felt very embarrassed and disappointed.
And while I did feel relieved that I was saved, the
feelings of disappointment and embarrassment dominated.
I was taken upstairs and I was interviewed by the police. I
wanted this all to go away. I did not want police interviewing
me and whatnot. So I knew that if I denied that anything sexual
had happened, this would go away.
So I said that I had met him over the Internet. We had met
there, but nothing had happened. Then they came back and said,
``We have been talking to him for about 10 minutes and his name
is not Mark, but it is really Frank Kufrovich. And he is not
23, but 41.''
They told me he was from California and that he was
actually a wealthy financial advisor from the area.
I thought to myself, ``Who in the hell had I been talking
to for all this time?'' And yet the feelings that I had for
Mark and this friendship that had progressed, I did not want to
admit to myself that he had been lying to me all this time. And
I felt very saddened by the fact that I was not going to be
able to talk to him anymore.
I went home. And the hardest part to all of this was going
home. Everyone thinks that it would probably be those 10
minutes in the hotel room, but no.
I come from a community where something like this would
probably be hidden. You probably would not talk about this; it
would probably be one of those skeletons in the closet. But
because this happened with my swim team there, it was all
known, and girls wanted to share these rumors.
So it went around my school that I was pregnant with his
child and that I had given myself an abortion with a coat
hanger in the bathroom, just horrible, horrible rumors. I was
at the top of the class and now to be labeled as a slut or, you
know, promiscuous, this was very difficult.
I did not talk about it. I lost all of my friends. Parents
in the town thought, ``Well, you know, she went to go meet him.
Of course she is asking for it.''
And parents were afraid that Frank would fly up from
California and hurt their children. So I became like the Lolita
of the town. I lost all my friends. It was a very alone and
empty period.
Ironically, I had lost my best friend already, who was
Mark, and then I lost all my other friends.
On top of that, I had parents who were trying to regularly
shuffle me to psychologists because they thought, ``Well, if
she is going to meet somebody off the Internet, then she must
be crazy.''
And you know, it kind of placated some of the parents in
town. Well, you know, they are sending her for help. You know,
let's hope that she is not crazy.
It became so bad, in fact, that I went away to boarding
school. I had to leave. I had to get a clean slate.
And we began the judicial process. We learned that we could
try Frank under the 1996 Communications Decency Act, but it was
the first case and it required a lot of time. While most kids
remember their adolescence making themselves up to get ready to
go to dances or preparing for dates or going to the movies with
friends, I remember cleaning the house getting ready for the
FBI to come. I remember taking a polygraph test. I remember
testifying for a grand jury.
I do not remember getting ready to go to the dance. It took
2 years to finally prosecute Mark and in that time, he first
pled not guilty and then eventually did. The FBI uncovered that
he had actually done this to several other girls, some using
the Internet. Some he had hired locals in his community that
worked with him at his office. And he had even done this to a
boy. He had downloaded images regularly of child pornography
that they traced through the Images Project.
It was very hard for me to admit that this person that I
knew could do this. I still longed for Mark, and I had to admit
that this was really Frank. So I felt a lot of guilt. I felt
that I was sending my friend to jail. Jail was a spot on the
Monopoly board that you could pay fifty bucks to get out of. We
could not do that with Frank.
I knew where he was going and I felt very, very guilty. In
fact, that guilt consumed me so much that one time I found
myself in the shower with all my clothes on. I did not even
know how I had gotten there.
I then went to a psychologist and a psychiatrist. I was
prescribed Buspar, which is an anti-anxiety prescription, and I
was throwing up all the time, almost daily. I had blood vessels
popping on my skin. And I was diagnosed with clinical
depression.
And I share this not to gross anyone out, but to share that
it was a really difficult time in my life and that it does go
on for quite some time.
Frank eventually pled guilty and was sentenced to 18 months
in jail. He has since been released. And I knew that that
really was not the answer when he was sentenced. I did not feel
that this was the end of it.
Immediately after his sentencing, I came home and I began
writing. I do believe that if it could happen to me, it could
happen to any one. And I wanted to share my story with other
girls across the country, which is why I wrote Katie.com.
Hopefully they can read my story and see, well, if it could
happen to Katie, it could happen to anyone.
Everyone wants to know what is different about me. What is
so special about me that I could have been a victim of the
Internet? Why me?
And they might want to blame the fact that my parents are
divorced so that I would be one of those alone and isolated
cases. Or they could think, ``Well, she was promiscuous. Maybe
she was looking for a boyfriend.''
I mean, we have to classify victims of sexual assault in
some way, it seems, as our society says. But the real fact is
that I was 13 and I was vulnerable. And pedophiles know this
and they prey upon it.
So I do think that there needs to be some kind of measure
or monitoring of the Internet because parents cannot be
everywhere. While some computers do have filtering software,
that is not on every computer.
As I travel the country, everyone thinks, ``Well, this is
never going to happen to my kid.'' and they will tell me how
intelligent they are, how special they are.
I could say the same, that I thought I was never going to
be a victim. I believe that if there were some type of
monitoring system in place and if there was more education back
in 1995, I do not think that I would have been a victim.
I do not think that I have anything to add because there
are so many experts from this field, and the best thing that I
could offer is my own story. So at this point I will close and
I thank you.
[The prepared statement of Katherine Tarbox follows:]
Prepared Statement of Katherine Tarbox
I was thirteen years old when I first started using the Internet.
My parents received a disk in the mail offering my family free hours of
America Online. This was 1995 and we didn't completely know what the
Internet would bring into our home. The news focused on how this would
help our lives; we could buy airplane tickets and my sister would be
able to do a complete college search. We didn't think there were any
potential dangers to having our computer plugged in with millions of
others. We were wrong.
I had used America Online once before at school with a project we
were working on through CNN and thousands of others schools to help
save the Everglades. We used the chat rooms to learn what other schools
had done. We only went into chat rooms, and I didn't know that the
Internet was meant to be resource tool and a communication tool. From
the beginning of my Internet use, I thought of it as a place to meet
people. I think I thought of the Internet the way an adult goes to a
bar, they go there to meet people.
When I first started using America Online in my house, I only went
into teen chat rooms. I found some to be overly sexual, but for the
most part I found people who I thought were teenagers. We would talk
about our common interests, which could be swimming, popular bands, or
movies. I didn't use it excessively, but found myself logging on about
an hour a day. This is far less than the average child spends online
today.
It was a September Sunday morning when I met a guy in a teen chat
room named Mark. I asked if anyone wanted to talk to a thirteen-year-
old girl from Connecticut, and he replied. I immediately found out that
he was twenty-three years old and from California. I sat there and
stared at my computer questioning if it was all right for me to talk to
a twenty-three year old man. At first, I said no; however, I then said
to myself ``this is only on the Internet, it can't hurt.'' I honestly
didn't think I would have much in common with an older man, nor could I
understand why he would have interest in talking to me. All this
intrigued and persuaded me to continue.
Mark asked what my favorite bands were. I answered, and then he
also said he liked them too. Not only did he like those bands, but also
he had been to concerts and could name his favorite songs. He then
asked me where I shopped. Ironically, he also shopped there. He could
also tell me styles that he had purchased there and products he
frequently bought. We then talked about places we had both traveled to,
and movies we had both seen. While the FBI may call this process
grooming, in my thirteen-year old mind this was fate.
At that age I didn't even know what a pedophile was. And though I
didn't know what a pedophile was, I instinctively knew that I couldn't
be a victim of one. I was a high-honors student, a national swimmer, a
very accomplished musician, and I came from a loving family. Our
society has labeled victims of sexual assault as being alone and
isolated, or promiscuous. I wasn't those things, and so I never thought
I could be talking to a pedophile. More importantly, the D.A.R.E.
classes that I had in school taught me that rapists are usually
uneducated and scary people. Mark was a very intelligent and caring
person. This translated for me that Mark couldn't be a pedophile.
We developed a friendship over a period of six months. It was
platonic, and I can't emphasize that enough. It wasn't sexual. We would
talk about politics, world issues, and a lot of pop culture. I could
tell him my concerns about school, friends and family. This led me to
believe that my friendship with Mark was beneficial in my life. I
believed he was a positive influence in my life. Mark told me the
things that I needed to hear at that age. He told me I was intelligent,
beautiful and mature. At thirteen, while trying to develop a sense of
identity, my confidence level is very low.
There was continuous pressure from Mark to have an in person
encounter. I wanted this, but didn't see how logistically it would work
out. He was from California and I was from Connecticut. I knew I
wouldn't go to California, and I didn't think it would be ok to have
him over to my house. I hadn't told my parents about this relationship,
because I didn't think they would understand the nature of it. I
thought they would dismiss it as something sexual, when it wasn't, and
force me to end it.
Mark kept on suggesting times that we could meet, and I told him
that I couldn't because I was going to Texas for a national swim meet.
Mark said he would come along with, and before I could say no, I said
yes. It was one week before the actual visit, and I was always in the
honeymoon excitement period of finally meeting him. This excitement
prevented me from rationalizing that I was going to meet an older man
from the Internet.
I traveled to Texas with my swim team and my mother. I stayed with
one of my close friends, and my mother was down the hall. The friend
that I was staying with was the only person I had told about my
relationship. As I suspected, she passed it off as a sexual
relationship. This reaffirmed that I was a little more mature than the
rest of my friends, and could handle this friendship with Mark.
At 9:30 Mark called my room and said he wanted to see me. I
immediately headed for the door. My friend, Kerry, insisted that I
didn't go and held herself against the door. I pushed her to the side,
told her the room number of Mark's hotel room and headed to the
elevator. I know the scariest part in all of this is that I never
thought I was putting myself in a dangerous situation. I never thought
I could be raped, or killed. I never thought Mark would be any other
person than who he said he was.
I knocked on the door and he opened it. We had exchanged pictures,
but his was taken from so far away that I couldn't make out any
distinguishing features. Standing at the door, I realized that this was
an adult. I knew he was an adult, but on the Internet a lot of fantasy
gets built up and you don't have to acknowledge reality.
I felt very uncomfortable to be with Mark. He sensed this and began
talking about the airport, soap dishes, my shoes, and other random
subjects. He bounced around on topics, hoping to put me at ease. While
there, I didn't know what was going to happen and I thought we would
continue to have conversations like we had had over the phone.
I had been there about thirty minutes, when Mark leaned over and
said, ``Katie, I have been thinking about you all day and thinking
about doing this.'' I knew what this was. He leaned in, kissed me, then
groped me, and touched other parts of my body. Essentially, in those
short fifteen minutes, I was molested.
I always thought that if I were in a position where I was receiving
unwanted sexual advances that I would be strong. Instead, in the
moment, I became passive. I was confused. I thought, ``Do I owe to
Mark? Of course he didn't come from California just to talk.'' I was
disappointed in myself and felt very dirty as a result of him touching
me.
There was a knock on the door, and my gut could tell it was my
mother. I knew how disappointed she was going to be, though I felt
relieved that I was going to be saved. I know if she didn't come, I
would have been raped that night. My friend had told my mother where I
had gone. My mom gathered hotel security and police and came to the
door.
The police questioned me and I told them briefly what had happened,
carefully leaving out what Mark had done physically. They came back and
said, ``Miss, we have been talking to him for ten minutes and you say
you have been talking to him for six months. His name is not Mark, but
it is really Frank Kufrovich. He is not twenty-three, but actually
forty-one. He is also a financial advisor from Los Angeles.'' As they
told me this, I thought, ``Who the hell had I been talking to?''
I realized that Frank could be doing this to anyone. At the same
time, I didn't want to admit that Frank had lied to me. It was very
hard for me to admit that Mark was a made up person, and that Frank was
sick pedophile. I came forward and my family pressed charges, because I
knew deep down it was the right thing to do. It was hard though, and I
felt like I was betraying a friend.
It took two years to prosecute him. In that time I lost all my
friends at school because parents and my classmates blamed this on me.
I eventually had to go away to a boarding school so that I could have a
clean slate. Frank hired private investigators, who came and
interviewed people in my town. I suffered from tremendous guilt, and I
was diagnosed as being clinically depressed. I was taking a very high
dose of Buspar, an anti-anxiety medication, which made me vomit almost
daily. I had blood vessels popping on my skin making a rash. I even
found myself in a shower with all my clothes on, not knowing how I had
gotten there. I remember my adolescence by the times I went to the FBI
for a polygraph test, or going to the psychologist. I don't remember
putting on make-up preparing for the school dance. I think about that
time as living hell.
Frank eventually pleaded guilty. He was charged under the 1996
Communications Decency Act with traveling interstate with the intent to
have sex with a minor and using interstate communication to persuade a
minor to have sex. Frank was sentenced to a mere eighteen months in
Federal prison. He was released in October of 1999, and will be off
probation by the end of this summer. The FBI found that Frank had raped
several girls, and even a boy. He also married a girl that he began
sleeping with when she was just thirteen years old.
I wrote about my experience in my book, Katie.com, because I wanted
girls to be empowered. While traveling around the country, speaking
about my experience with the Internet, the most common question I get
is ``What do you think was different about you that would make you a
victim?'' I am sure they want to blame the fact that my parents were
divorced, or use the excuse that my mother is a work-a-holic. These are
not the reasons why I became a victim. The answer is that I was
thirteen. Thirteen is a very vulnerable age, and it happened that I met
someone who told me the things that I needed to hear at that age. This
is especially true in today's society, where girls are told to live up
to very unrealistic expectations. Every person is thirteen at some
point, and every thirteen year old is vulnerable. Though their parents
may think they are safe while on the Internet, they are not.
There needs to be some type of regulation to control chat rooms on
the Internet. Unfortunately there are too many pedophiles out there,
and at the same time, there are many vulnerable teenagers using the
Internet. Some of them may not give out their address, or their real
name, but they give out other personal information, like their number
on the field hockey team and their school. This is enough for a person
to find them.
Children don't realize the consequences to Internet relationships.
I know this because I have communicated with thousands of girls through
my website. If they don't know the consequences they will learn them,
unfortunately, probably the same way I did. We need to step up and
protect children while they surf the Internet. The Internet is an
incredible tool, and should be used by all; however, it should be safe.
Mr. Upton. Thank you very much, Katie. It is a nightmare
that no family wants to experience, and we certainly appreciate
you sharing your experiences with us today. Thank you.
Our next witness is John Karraker.
John, welcome.
STATEMENT OF JOHN KARRAKER
Mr. Karraker. Thank you.
Chairman Upton and Congressman Bass, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today at this hearing entitled
``Chatting On-line: A Dangerous Proposition for Children.''
Katie, your compelling story makes me realize how lucky I am
and how lucky my family was. I appear today before you as a
private citizen representing myself and, more importantly, as a
father.
My oldest daughter was nearly a victim of a sexual
predator. I allowed her to engage in chat room conversations
and utilize the Internet when I was not home.
I found a phone message from somebody who sounded much
older than my 13 year old daughter asking her to call him. When
I questioned her about it, she denied having any knowledge of
who this person was.
Shortly afterwards, my ex-wife took a phone call in which
the subject mistook her for my daughter. When he refused to
answer her questions, she hung up on him.
My daughter, at this point, still refused to provide
details, but did admit to a long period of chatting with this
person on the Internet and how he had eventually asked her for
her number, which she did provide.
I checked the computer for information, but this was not
useful. She had deleted any information on identities from her
Instant Messenger after being confronted on the first phone
call.
I believe now that she was trying to protect him, and if I
had not disabled the Internet when I was not home and taken its
use away except for monitored homework, it would have
continued.
The experience my daughter had fortunately did not have a
tragic outcome, but I have to admit that it was more by luck
than by parental intervention. We tried to instill in my
daughter the possible dangers of meeting people on the
Internet. We tried to tell her about sexual predators who were
out there, people who would say anything to her to try to
establish trust with her.
Unfortunately, I then relied on the judgment of a young
girl to make appropriate decisions. The computer was in its own
room and I did not physically oversee its use.
Parents must educate themselves and their children with the
dangers of the Internet world. Monitoring must consist of more
than just reviewing histories on the Internet. Children quickly
learn how to delete histories and they will do it.
Reliance on for-profit ISPs will be useless. When I
contacted AOL, their attitude was they could care less. I tried
to ask them for assistance and they told me that there nothing
they could do.
Law enforcement was also of no use at that time. Neither
Federal nor local agencies would intervene as there was no
crime committed. Even as a police officer who knew some of the
type of individuals that exist in our society, I was lax. I
thought that I had done my job by warning her.
I have to admit that I also felt very frustrated that as a
police officer, I could not make the system work for me and get
somebody to take action.
I would just like to express my opinion on several things
that could and should happen. First of all, parents must
educate themselves and their children and monitor activity.
This is probably the most important piece.
ISPs must be held accountable for what happens on their
service.
Laws must be enacted that allow law enforcement agencies to
pursue potential predators.
Finally, law enforcement agencies must be provided funding
for equipment, training, and manpower. I can tell you as a
police officer on the street that we do not have the knowledge
that we need to have to take enforcement action or to recognize
what the problem is.
This problem is not going to go away, but it is only going
to become larger.
Thank you for your opportunity to address you.
[The prepared statement of John Karraker follows:]
Prepared Statement of John Karraker
Congressman Upton and other Members of the Subcommittee, thank you
for the opportunity to testify today at this hearing entitled: Chatting
On-line: A Dangerous Proposition for Children.
I appear before you as a private citizen representing myself and,
more importantly, as a father.
My oldest daughter was nearly the victim of a sexual predator. I
allowed her to engage in chat room conversations and utilize the
Internet when I was not home. I found a phone message from somebody
that sounded much older than my 13 year-old daughter asking her to call
him. When I questioned her about it she denied having any knowledge of
who the person was. Shortly afterwards my ex-wife took a phone call in
which he mistook her for my daughter. When he refused to answer her
questions she hung up.
My daughter as this point still refused to provide details but did
admit to a long period of chatting with this person on the Internet and
how he'd eventually asked for her number, which she provided.
Checking the computer for information was not useful, as she'd
deleted any information on identities from her instant messenger after
being confronted on the first phone call. I believe now that she was
trying to protect him and if I'd not disabled the Internet when I
wasn't home and taken it's use away except for monitored homework, it
would of continued.
The experience my daughter experienced fortunately did not have a
tragic outcome, but that was more by luck than parental intervention.
We tried to instill the possible dangers of meeting people on the
Internet with my daughter. We tried to warn her of sexual predators who
would say anything to lure her into meeting them. I told her they would
try to establish bonds with her to make her trust them. Unfortunately I
then relied on the judgment of a young girl to make appropriate
decisions. The computer was in it's own room and I did not physically
oversee its use.
Parents must educate themselves and than their children with the
dangers in the Internet world. Monitoring must consist of more than
just reviewing histories of Internet use. Children quickly learn how to
delete histories and will do it.
Reliance on for profit ISPs will also be useless. When I contacted
AOL their attitude was they could care less.
Law enforcement was also of no use. At that time neither local nor
federal agencies would intervene when no crime had yet happened.
Even as a police officer who knew of some of the types of
individuals that exist in our society I was lax. I thought I'd done my
job in warning her. I also felt very frustrated that even as a police
officer, I could not get anybody to take action.
In my opinion several things must happen:
Parents must educate themselves and their children and monitor
activity.
ISPs must be held accountable for what happens on their
service.
Laws must be enacted that allows law enforcement agencies to
pursue potential predators.
Law enforcement agencies must be provided funding for
equipment, training and manpower. This problem is not going to
go away but only become larger.
Mr. Upton. Thank you very much, John.
Our next witness is a prosecutor in Kalamazoo County, Jim
Gregart.
STATEMENT OF JIM GREGART
Mr. Gregart. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Bass, my name is Jim
Gregart. Believe it or not, I am the ``Ponytail Prosecutor''
for Kalamazoo County.
I have been in criminal justice for over 40 years. At the
beginning of my career, I would have thought this day of me
testifying about computers and something called the Internet
would have been as much lunacy as thinking of putting a man on
the moon, but my, don't things move quickly?
When first asked if I had anything to add to this hearing,
I told Congressman Upton and staff, ``Well, sure. We have cases
in Kalamazoo. There are not as many as large metropolitan
areas, but we have some.''
And then I asked my staff to bring together all the closed
and open files and found out that we had more than I had
thought. In a variety of different ways, the computer and
technology have become part of America's criminal justice
system.
So in order to get an average fact pattern, I went through
the cases we had. And then last Thursday at exactly 4:45 p.m.,
one more walked into my office. One of my team leaders said,
``I understand you are going to testify next week.'' And then
he handed me the charges he had just authorized against
Kalamazoo's latest cyber predator.
This kind of crime emanating, having its origins in chat
rooms is not a widely reported phenomena, and yet it is
occurring much more than we would like to admit, I believe, in
America, somewhat like the status of domestic violence many
years ago. There was a proliferation of it, but our polite
society kept it below the genteel surface of public
acknowledgement.
Today there are many, many, many, many children being
subjected to sexual assaults emanating originally from a
contact made in an Internet chat room. Most of those instances
are not being reported to the authorities for a variety of
reasons, many of those articulated well by Katie.
By the way, not only are you a survivor. You are a winner.
You do not have to worry about your future. You are going to do
exceptionally well.
But here is the latest one from Kalamazoo. A 34 year old
Kalamazoo County resident posing in an Internet chat room as a
17 year old high school student begins a relationship with a 14
year old high school freshman from another county in Western
Michigan. Over a period of time, it results in a meeting, a
personal meeting, and ultimately a sexual relationship of a 34
year old adult male with a 14 year old female.
That particular defendant now faces up to 35 years in a
Michigan prison upon conviction. And we intend to convict the
defendant.
I grew up with the parental admonition of ``do not talk to
strangers.'' Most of us did. Do not talk to strangers, and yet
everyday in this Nation, in this state, and in this Middle
American, quasi-agrarian community of Southwest Michigan, we
have parents who repeatedly let their children talk to
strangers.
As John indicated, and I reinforce and validate, parents
have to learn technology. I am a dinosaur. I am not hard-wired
like young people today. I tried to stave off the tsunami of
computer technology beyond my professional career. And then 1
day I was just swamped. Technology came over the gunnels of my
personal ship. So I had to learn technology.
I have and I am now an information junkie on the Internet.
Wow, it is a sad day when somebody like me starts learning
about technology.
Nevertheless, a lot of parents today intentionally remain
removed. They will buy a computer. They will sign up for
Internet service, and they will trust that their children will
only use it for legitimate, educational purposes. Perhaps they,
too, as I once thought, think that they are too old to learn
about technology.
Well, not taking the time to learn about technology is to
do the equivalent of putting their children untrained,
immature, behind the wheel of an automobile because that is the
potential harm that can result. Nobody today in their right
mind would think about letting their child without any kind of
training, without any kind of experience, without any kind of
guidelines, at the age of 12 or 13 get behind the wheel of a
car and just take off wherever.
Well, that is what happens when you get on the Internet. It
is a cyber-playground; you can go anywhere in the world. You
are a mouse-click from Europe. You are a key stroke from the
Pacific Rim countries or you are a nanosecond from an adult
pedophile predator.
And they are lurking out there, believe me. Who would think
that this is not Silicon Valley? This is not a big major
metropolitan are. This is Kalamazoo; this is Southwest
Michigan.
But they are here. They are here, and they are not all down
the street opening a car door and saying, ``Hey, little girl,
want to see a puppy?'' or ``hey, want some candy?'' That is old
kind of traditional view of someone who is trying to snare a
child into his lair.
Instead, they are not in cars on our streets. They are not
walking around our playgrounds. Instead, they are in your own
child's bedroom, if that is where you happen to keep a personal
computer, or they are in your family room or they are in your
den because they come to you almost close enough to touch your
child via the Internet.
I remember how proud I was in the early 1990's taking my
two children to a seminar about the Internet because in the
early 1990's it was truly an emerging technology. After we got
our PC and we signed up with AOL, I remember them sitting at
the table and saying, ``Guess who I talked to last night?
Somebody in South Africa, somebody in Japan, somebody in
countries all over the world.''
I thought, ``This is terrific. What a cultural opportunity
and education.''
And like a dolt, John, you and I share. I guess this is
True Confessions time. I never thought in the early 1990's
about what could happen.
There are hundreds and thousands of parents today, who have
not yet realized the potential risk that their children are at.
Katie's folks know; John knows; I know. Hopefully the majority
of people in this room know. But yet there are hundreds and
thousands of parents who still today let their kids get behind
the wheel of a Ferrari at the age of 13 or let them talk to the
stranger who opens the Internet door in the chat room and
become inveigled.
Kids at 13 and 14 are vulnerable. Let's admit it. Katie,
you well articulated the vulnerabilities of an average
youngster in America today.
Are there lessons to be learned? Yep, from the old, grained
prosecutor in Kalamazoo.
No. 1, parents/custodians have to learn at least a modicum
about technology, computers, and the Internet. You cannot
blindly and blithely raise children without having some
awareness of the benefits and the harms that are out there.
Children, themselves, ought to be given some sort of
training as to the appropriate use of the Internet and chat
rooms.
Third, a matter of sensitivity, and that is called
monitoring. There are a variety of ways to monitor a child's
use of chat rooms. Some of them are rather explicit and
express. And then there are others that are more shall we say I
will choose the word ``secretive,'' clandestine?
In one recent case in Kalamazoo County, I have here the
instant messaging printouts that a parent took off of his
child's computer. This relates to a charge of sexual assault
against an adult male preying upon a young juvenile.
But there are software programs available where parents can
not just monitor keyboard strokes and track that, but even
instant messaging now.
So if I can say one thing to parents, ``do not let your
children talk to strangers, not just in the playground or out
on the street, but in your own home.''
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Jim Gregart follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jim Gregart, Kalamazoo County Prosecuting
Attorney
I'm Jim Gregart, the elected Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney.
Don't let my ponytail fool you. I'm a law & order former police officer
from Detroit and have been a prosecutor in Kalamazoo for the past 32
years. I first began my career in criminal justice just two years after
the Detroit Lions last won an NFL championship. That fact alone gives
you some idea of my professional longevity and the vast changes I've
experienced in the nature of crime in America.
As a criminal justice college student in the 1950's, the idea of me
someday testifying before a Congressional Subcommittee on something
called ``Internet Computer Crime'' would have been equally screwy as
putting a man on the moon. Nevertheless, today my job requires that I
both regularly use and understand a complicated technology that was
only ``science fiction'' a mere 15 years ago.
When Congressman Upton asked me to testify at today's hearing, I
had my staff pull our closed and pending files on computer crimes. To
be honest, there weren't that many. You see, . . . the Prosecutor or
District Attorney usually sees a criminal case only when the police
first have a crime reported to them and then only when they're able to
uncover sufficient admissible evidence to support a provable offense.
The lack of victim reporting is the first impediment to the successful
prosecution of adults who use Internet chat-rooms to prey upon
children.
All reasonable people acknowledge that this type of crime occurs in
America. But, the reporting of it to law enforcement officials can be
likened to an iceberg, i.e. we only see a small portion of a much
larger mass which lurks beneath the genteel surface of millions of
legitimate Internet communications. Untold numbers of chat-room
initiated sexual assaults of children are not reported to the police
because either (1) the actual child victim chooses not to disclose the
offense, or (2) parents or guardians are unaware that the offense
occurred, or (3) the Constitutional right of a criminal defendant to
confront and cross-examine their accuser in a public trial sometimes
acts as a subtle deterrent to reporting the crime.
It takes genuine courage for a victim and their family to do what's
right; even though it may be difficult and personally embarrassing. I'm
aware of cases in my jurisdiction where victims and their families have
chosen not to cooperate with law enforcement investigators. Thus, their
alleged assailants have never been brought to justice.
However, that was not the decision made by one West Michigan child
and her family only last week. This 14 year old high school student and
her family are cooperating with local law enforcement officials.
Because of their cooperation, this child's 34 year old Kalamazoo sexual
assailant now stands charged with a violation of Michigan's law
prohibiting the Use of Internet Communications to Commit a Crime and
two (2) additional Counts of Criminal Sexual Assault. Upon conviction,
this pedophilic cyber-predator will face up to 35 years in a Michigan
prison.
To some folks, Southwest Michigan may seem far removed from the
threat posed to children by adult Internet chat room predators.
However, nothing could be further from the reality of today's
technologically shrinking world. Anyone sitting at a computer in
Kalamazoo is merely a mouse-click away from anywhere in the world. Any
child could be merely a keystroke and nanosecond removed from the chat
room babble of a masquerading adult bent on predatory sexual assault.
In my community, we've had adults travel from other states to sexually
assault local children whom they've first encountered and deceptively
cajoled via Internet chat rooms.
Last week's case, however, is uniquely Michigan. The defendant
lives in Kalamazoo county while the 14 year old victim resides in
another West Michigan community. Late last year, the chat-room
phenomena brought them together in cyberspace. This 34 year old adult
identified himself to the victim as a 17 year old high school senior.
The victim, however, readily identified herself to the defendant as
only being a 14 year old high school freshman. Over a period of time,
their keyboard communications transmuted into a personal meeting and,
ultimately, repeated acts of sexual assault. Fortunately, this young
girl has the personal courage and strong support of her family. They
evidence a determination to pursue justice.
Since this criminal prosecution is currently pending in our local
courts, I'm not at liberty to publically provide details of the
offense. That would be prejudicial to the defendant's Constitutional
right to a fair trial. However, I can tell you that, with a court
ordered Search Warrant, we've seized the defendant's computer and
allied records. The police now have a list of approximately 20
additional female names that they've starting checking. Right now, we
have no idea of the ages of these females. But, we will soon find out.
Are there lessons to be learned from this most recent and other
similar cases in ``middle America''? Yes, . . . and, the first one is
to recognize and acknowledge that crimes like this can and are
happening everywhere in this Nation; even in a quasi-agrarian area like
Southwest Michigan.
Secondly, parents and guardians can no longer blithely ignore the
tidal wave of technology which has engulfed our society. Not too long
ago, I honestly thought I could stave-off learning about computers
until my life expectancy and net worth simultaneously arrived at
``zero''. Boy, was I ever wrong! And today, any person responsible for
the well-being of a child would also be wrong to not educate themselves
about both the promise and perils of computers and the Internet.
When the automobile was first invented, it changed the world much
for the better. However, when driven recklessly by young people, that
same automobile can become an instrument of peril and death. Most
adults would not place their child behind the wheel of this potentially
dangerous machine without first providing adequate education, training
and constant monitoring of their child's driving performance. Well,
computers and the Internet hold the same promise for both positive and
negative outcomes for children.
When used properly, the Internet and chat rooms can be a wonderful
experience for children. But, without adequate preliminary education,
safeguards and monitoring, they can become the equivalent of putting an
untrained youngster behind the wheel of a Ferrari and hoping for the
best. In today's world, the technological speed of a computer chip
almost seems to be rivaling that of a Ferrari. The reckless use of a
motor vehicle can hurt a child. That same reckless and uncontrolled use
of the Internet and chat rooms can likewise place children at risk of
physical and emotional harm.
When I was a child, I remember my parents repeatedly telling me,
``Don't talk to strangers''. That was good advice back then and I gave
my own children that same constant admonishment. My kids are now in
their mid-twenties. But, as I look back to their teen-age years, I'm
chagrined to admit that I knowingly permitted them to violate my own
warnings. As a matter of fact, back then, I was ignorantly pleased when
they told me about their new young cyber-friends in far away countries
who they met via Internet chat rooms. Fortunately for everyone, my
children benefitted immensely from their early exposure to foreign kids
and cultures. For them, it was a meaningful educational experience.
However, ten years ago, it was also a risk of harm that I didn't fully
comprehend or appreciate.
Today in America, parents continue to warn their children about the
dangers of ``talking to strangers''. What many parents don't yet fully
understand is that those same ``strangers'' are not just on public
streets or parks. Today, the ``strangers'' to be feared may also lurk
in your own family room or child's bedroom. They live behind the
innocent facade of a computer screen and talk to your children in chat
rooms on the Internet. In an earlier time, they were the same
``strangers'' who parents feared would lure their child into their
grasp with promises of candy or a puppy.
Now, those very same ``strangers'' use the anonymous cover of an
alias Internet identity to disguise themselves as children. They now
use a keyboard to probe for the emotional vulnerabilities of
unsuspecting youth. They're the same predators of yesteryear who now
use Internet chat rooms in lieu of an open car door and an offer of
candy or a lost puppy. The challenge for today's parents is to insure
that children ``don't talk to strangers'' both outside and inside their
own homes via unfettered, unmonitored Internet and chat room access.
Thank you.
Mr. Upton. Thank you very much, Jim.
Ruben Rodriguez, thank you so much for coming out from
Washington today.
STATEMENT OF RUBEN D. RODRIGUEZ
Mr. Rodriguez. It was my pleasure, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bass.
I have written out a bunch of the things that I wanted to
talk about. But listening to Katie's story, I have had the
pleasure of appearing with Katie before, and I echo the earlier
comments that she is a very brave young lady and we hope to
work with her in the future, absolutely.
Let me tell you a little bit about the National Center. The
National Center has been in creation since 1984. While
everybody knew for many, many years that the center was the
clearinghouse for missing children, nobody really knew about
the other resources and the other issues that we have dealt
with, and that obviously was the issue of the exploitation of
children.
Before coming to the National Center 12 years ago, I spent
20 years in law enforcement in Washington, DC, working with
traditional crimes. And only when I started at the National
Center did I really ever work on children-related issues, more
so in 1997 when I took over the unit, and I started seeing the
problems that are out there on the Internet.
When I was in law enforcement back in the 1970's and
1980's--I am dating myself now--there was no such thing as the
Internet and computers. We were still using typewriters and
word processors for computers, and most people did not even
know to spell the Internet, other than use it, and that was in
law enforcement.
And I thought that we were cutting-edge in Washington.
Since I was able to work on data bases, it was very helpful.
But then the Internet was another world that we knew nothing
about.
When I started at the Center, still the Internet was not an
issue. The National Center's Web site did not go into
production until 1995 anyway or 1996. In 1997 we developed the
Exploited Child Unit. And in 1998 we developed the Cyber
Tipline to allow the public to report incidents of child sexual
exploitation.
In the first year of operations, we had over 17,000
reports. Today we have over 71,000 reports; 1600 of those have
to do with chat.
Now, it does not seem like a large number when you say 1600
compared to 71,000, but when you look at the history of these
individuals in these cases, most of these cases go unreported
because parents, like John said, become aware of it and they
say, ``Well, we have stopped it. So we can take care of it. It
is not a problem. We have already reported it to the on-line
service provider. We have, you know, put in software to stop
access to the Internet and block access to the Internet. The
problem is solved.''
Of course, not knowing the predator or the sexual molester
or cyber pedophile, whatever you want to call it, these
individuals do not do this once. They have been out there for
years. They have been sitting there doing this via mail, on the
playgrounds, and now they have this medium, this anonymous
medium, to communicate among themselves and also go into
predicated areas to find children.
I use the analogy of if you want to go to buy meat, you go
to a meat market. When you want to go find children on the
Internet, you go to areas where children congregate.
These individuals are experts in the seduction of children.
They spend hours and days sitting on the computer. Katie
mentioned that this individual knew everything about music
groups, songs, name albums. And this is what they do for a
living.
If I am looking for a 15 year old child on the Internet, I
am going to learn what are the interests of these individuals.
What is the interest? How can I get to them? How can I get
close to them?
They will spend days and hours. What most people do not
realize about chat is that it is a one dominion environment.
You can have simultaneous conversations with dozens of people
at the same time, different levels of seduction. They do not
mind spending months, weeks, and years going after kids because
there are so many of them out there that they do not mind
investing the time and the effort. All they have to do is hit
one and they have dealt with their fantasies. They have taken
it beyond that.
Mechanism of chat is made to order for these individuals.
Direct text communications: you have a captive audience. A
child is looking at a computer screen and so you have their
full-time attention. And you can manipulate, build trust
relationships, as Katie mentioned. They want to be your friends
because the ultimate conclusion for them is sexual motivation.
They want to go meet this child.
Most individuals enjoy just the fantasy of it.
Unfortunately, there is an all-too-large group that want to go
beyond that and actually meet the children.
The numbers are growing. Federal law enforcement officers,
State and local law enforcement agencies are getting funding to
do these programs. It is not enough. Not so much for the
Federal entities, but the State and local law enforcement
officers, as he mentioned earlier.
Your victim is local. Your law enforcement agencies are
local. You have over 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the
United States. You have three major law enforcement agencies:
the FBI, U.S. Customs, and the U.S. Postal Inspection that work
child pornography related issues, traveler cases, whatever.
But it is your State and local law enforcement agencies
that have the areas where the suspect lives and where the child
resides. So I would obviously encourage the use of Federal
funding to go into those initiatives.
I am privileged to belong to the Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Force's Board of Directors. Thirty regional sites
throughout the United States are working this issue. Michigan
has an I-Tec task force that is very proactive.
I would like to see many of those throughout the United
States to help State and local law enforcement agencies, to
train them. It is not really investigation they are involved
in. They are also involved in outreach to the community.
There are several programs that work effectively throughout
the United States. And I would like to see more funding going
into those initiatives.
I can sit here and spit out numbers, and it does make some
sense when you are looking at the totality of the problem. But
we are just touching the tip of the iceberg. The problem is
much bigger than most of us realize.
There was a study done by the FBI in North Carolina at a
rehabilitation hospital, where they talked to offenders who had
molested children. And the first time they talked to the
offenders, they admitted to doing 4 or 5 children. They were
talking to, I think, 30 offenders.
When the study was over, they averaged that each one of
these offenders were doing at least 300 children before they
were apprehended. So the problem is getting bigger.
As the Internet fueled this, it has allowed access. These
individuals used to go to the playgrounds, used to look at
children, follow them, stalk them. Now they have a medium where
they can do it without any risk to themselves.
The risk is when they actually go to meet the child. In
many cases, as I mentioned earlier, fantasy is sufficient for
them. Unfortunately, there are those who take the fantasy
beyond that. They use child pornography to lower inhibitions of
the child. It is not so bad. The child is smiling. Different
levels of undress. All of that is used by chat. You can append
images and add information, URL information.
It is a community where kids are curious. They go out there
and put themselves in harm's way unfortunately, and because of
their curiosity, they are very trusting, as Katie mentioned.
They are somewhat flattered when an individual pays attention
to them, when they tell them, ``Yeah, I am just a little bit
older than you. I am 18, 19, 23,'' when unfortunately the
gentleman is 45 or 50 years old.
We see it all too often. At the National Center we see this
information coming on in avalanches now. I say the first time
that we started this, we had 17,000 reports. In less than 4
years, we have 71,000, and we are just touching the tip of the
iceberg.
The ISPs have come to the table because they were
forwarding information to us on not only child pornography, but
also on unsolicited E-mails and chat complaints which is great
for us. Of course, it is making my work load much higher and
hard, but, again, that is our job.
I could go on and on, but I just wanted to agree with many
of the things that were said here before me: effective
prosecution, funding for law enforcement, and outreach programs
for children and parents.
The first line of defense is the home. The analogy again is
when you want to teach a child how to drive, you do not throw
them a set of keys and say, ``Have at it.'' You sit with them,
teach them the rules of the road. You praise them when they do
well and correct them when do wrong.
People do not think of the Internet and the computer as the
same. It is. You turn on the computer and you let the world
into your home.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ruben D. Rodriguez follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ruben D. Rodriguez Jr., Director, Exploited Child
Unit, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
SUMMARY
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am pleased to appear
before this subcommittee today to express my views on the potential
dangers of unsupervised online chatting by our nation's youth. As a way
of introduction, I have been involved with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children and the issue of missing and exploited
children since my retirement from the Metropolitan Police Department of
Washington, D.C. in 1990. In 1997 I was made the Director of the
Exploited Child Unit. One of the mandates of this unit was the creation
and development of an online reporting mechanism for the public to
report incidents of child sexual exploitation. To date we have received
over 71,000 reports, 1,600 of those reports are attributed to the use
of chat to entice, seduce and exploit children.
While this medium has offered great opportunities for children and
adults alike to conduct research, communicate, meet and chat with new
friends throughout the world, unfortunately in certain instances it has
also become a vehicle for those who prey on the unsuspecting.
Oftentimes, criminals misuse new technology before law enforcement
acquires the tools and expertise to counter such uses.
The 2000 Census reports that 9 out of 10 school age children, ages
6-17 years of age have access to a computer. In addition, 4 in 5
households with access to the Internet had one or more members using
the Internet (44 million households). Recent figures put the current
number of children online to an estimated 10.5 million. The usage time
by teens between 16-17 years old illustrates that 32% of these youth
spend 5 or more hours online per week.
We at the National Center's Exploited Child Unit are aware of
serious incidents where children who communicate in web-based Chat
Rooms, IRC or Instant Messaging with individuals who they believe are
peers or friends, who eventually turn out to be individuals who are not
who they say they are. All too frequently, we see children traveling or
meeting these individuals and find out all too late that they have put
themselves in harm's way.
I have been asked on numerous occasions by the media and parents,
``what can one do to safeguard our children?'' and I have always
believed that it starts in the home. Law enforcement and organizations
like the National Center's CyberTipline only get involved when it is
too late. We believe that a comprehensive education program should be
instituted in the home to address these issues. In this respect the
National Center has created NetSmartz, which is the Center's proactive,
educational approach to fighting online predators. The materials
developed by the NetSmartz Workshop are designed to be a proactive,
educational approach to helping children build self-confidence in order
to better handle and protect themselves in all types of situations.
THE DANGERS TO CHILDREN ONLINE
Many parents have a false sense of security regarding the risks to
their children in cyberspace. They feel that their children are at
home, often in their own rooms, doing something positive and useful for
their future. Many parents have little knowledge about computers and
what their children are doing online, and feel that there is little
risk. Similarly, many children view cyberspace as a variation on their
computer or video games. As a result, they may not view encounters with
people online with the sense of caution or skepticism that they apply
to meeting strangers in the ``real'' world. Further, chat is one of the
most popular pastimes of children online. Numbers are hard to come by,
however on American Online, over 100,000 people chat simultaneously in
over 20,000 chat rooms.1 Teenagers, especially, enjoy the
anonymity and experimentation chat rooms provide. This, combined with a
lack of guidance by parents and the grooming and seduction by a sexual
predator, may lead to a child's victimization online.
Just as teenagers enjoy the anonymity offered to them through chat,
pedophiles also use this avenue to their advantage. Pedophiles
organizations were one of the first criminal groups to exploit Internet
technology. The computer has provided pedophiles with ``an ideal means
of filling [their] needs for validation, organization, and pornography
[as well as] finding potential new victims.'' 2 3
Types of Risks to Children in IRC
Online Enticement of Children for Sexual Acts: By the year 2002,
more than 45 million children will be online.3 For sexual
predators, this makes the Internet the largest existing playground and
the fastest way to meet potential victims. Beginning with the
``harmless exchange'' of personal information, sexual predators
empathize with the child's frustrations with puberty and parents and
engage him or her in sexually explicit conversations. The predator may
send adult and child pornography to lower the child's inhibitions and
eventually arrange a face-to-face meeting for sexual purposes.
Therefore, chat rooms often become distorted playgrounds for these
predators. They can pose as someone else, approach children with
seductive offers, and eventually violate a child's privacy and
security. As of May 1999, the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children (NCMEC) has been involved in approximately 599 ``traveler''
cases in which a child left home or was targeted by an adult to leave
home via the Internet. As of May 2002 the National Center received of
over 1,600 cases involving Chat and Chat Rooms.
Distribution of Child Pornography and Pedophile Materials: The
number of pedophiles and child molesters using the Internet is unknown,
but the IRC, in particular, is an ideal medium for numerous pedophile
activities:
Distribution of Child Pornography: According to some police estimates,
as many as 80,000 child pornography files are traded online
every week.4 Pedowatch also reports that
approximately 1,500 people join the preteen erotica trading
channels on IRC's Undernet everyday.5 The IRC
provides a fast, easy, effective and discrete method to trade
images of child pornography.
Exchange of Pedophile Materials: The IRC provides pedophiles the
opportunity to engage in discussions regarding their sexual
deviance and exchange pedophile information in a relatively
anonymous forum. This only serves to assist them to validate
and rationalize their behavior. Also, it has been hypothesized
(although not scientifically proven) that the easy access to
child pornography images and increased ability to locate those
individuals who have similar interests in children may
contribute to an individual with latent tendencies to act out
and sexually victimize a child.
How does the IRC facilitate the victimization of children?
Lack of monitoring: Operators of IRC servers do not maintain any
type of logs of what occurs on the channels of their servers. Unless
turned on by users through their client software, whatever is said in a
channel is lost after an individual logs off of the server.
Channels can be easily created: Channels can be instantly created
and can be invite only requiring a password to enter. Since there is no
governing body of the IRC, it is easy to establish private chat
channels for the exchange of images, pedophile materials and private
one-on-one conversations.
Nicknames can be easily changed: Once in IRC, it is extremely easy
to create a channel. Unlike chat rooms through online service providers
(which have unique and traceable screen names assigned to them), an IRC
user can instantaneously change their nickname and re-enter the chat
room as someone else. This makes identifying and tracking IRC users
more difficult.
Jurisdictional Questions: The IRC is a global medium with no
governing body. This, coupled with the ability for a user to download
free client software, makes it extremely difficult to regulate.
However, individuals within a channel can be held accountable for
criminal actions.
Direct Client-to-Client Connection: One of the most useful features
of IRC for pedophiles is the ability to send and receive files outside
the IRC network. This feature, called Direct Client to Client (DCC), is
the most secure form of communication available on IRC. Messages and
files sent via DCC are sent by a direct connection (not part of the IRC
network) between two individuals; therefore, they are difficult to
track unless you are one of the recipients of the message or file.
Law Enforcement Response to Date
The IRC presents unique challenges to law enforcement to protect
children from sexual predators. Although it is possible to trace the
identities of those using IRC for illegal purposes, evaporation of
electronic audit trails, the use of encryption and steganography, and
the ease with which predators can avoid detection through fake cyber
identities and other computer tricks are challenges law enforcement
face every day. In addition, most law enforcement is ill prepared to
address computer-related crimes due to lack of training and necessary
equipment (e.g., an Internet connection). In most countries, law
enforcement is playing catch up to an exploding epidemic of computer
crime.
Recognizing the need for resources to combat Internet crimes
against children, the United States government has taken an active role
in assisting federal and local law enforcement. In 1995, the Federal
Bureau of Investigations (FBI) created the Innocent Images Task Force
to conduct and coordinate online undercover investigations on cases in
which individuals use computers to lure children into illicit sexual
relationships, and to investigate those individuals who produce,
manufacture and distribute child pornography. Through March 31, 2002
Innocent Images has opened 7,067 cases, has filed 1,811 Information/
Indictments, and has 1,850 convictions. The United States Customs
Service also plays a crucial role in investigating child pornography
trafficking and pedophile organization cases. They were the first
federal law enforcement agency to initiate a comprehensive computer
child pornography case. During fiscal years of 1998 through 2001, the
United States Customs Service investigations produced 874 convictions.
In 1998, the United States Congress provided the Department of
Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention over
two million dollars to create ten Internet Crimes Against Children Task
Forces on the local or state level. The ICAC Task Force Program
``encourages communities to develop regional multi-disciplinary, multi-
jurisdictional task forces to prevent, interdict, and investigate
sexual exploitation offenses against children by offenders using online
technology.'' 6 The ICAC Task Force Project has a current
financial commitment of over $7,000,000. The Project currently includes
30 Regional Task Forces and over 45 satellite programs, throughout the
United States.
What Can Hotlines Do?
Hotlines can play a vital role in protecting children in cyberspace
through a strategy of prevention/awareness resources, training and
technical assistance to law enforcement and working closely with the
online industry.
To provide a reporting mechanism for the public to report incidents
of child sexual exploitation: On March 9, 1998, key public and private
sector leaders joined with NCMEC to launch the new CyberTipline,
www.cybertipline.com. The Tipline was created for parents to report
incidents of suspicious or illegal Internet activity, including the
distribution of child pornography online or situations involving the
online enticement of children for sexual exploitation. Seven days per
week, 24 hours per day, NCMEC is fully staffed to handle leads, and
then distribute those leads to the appropriate law enforcement
agencies.
Effective that day, the FBI's Innocent Images Task Force, the
Crimes Against Children Unit at FBI Headquarters, the US Customs
Service CyberSmuggling Unit, and the US Postal Inspection Service have
immediate access to all data received on the CyberTipline via the web.
Thus, these primary federal law enforcement agencies are immediately
able to receive, access and review all CyberTipline leads.
The CyberTipline is also uniquely positioned to gather important
data on these types of Internet crimes against children. It is the hope
of NCMEC to be able to conduct in-depth analysis of trends and patterns
in these types of cases in the near future.
To prevent child victimization in cyberspace through aggressive
prevention/education and outreach programs directed toward parents and
children: NCMEC is seeking to reach into millions of homes and
classrooms with positive, common sense rules for Internet safety.
Through two publications, Child Safety on the Information Highway and
Teen Safety on the Information Highway, NCMEC's message for parents
focuses upon strong parental involvement in their children's lives,
increasing parental knowledge and awareness about computers and the
Internet, and the importance of parent-child communication.
Likewise, NCMEC is reaching out to children with basic rules for
safety on the information highway, including cautions not to give out
personal information online, and not to meet someone they encounter
online. A cornerstone of this effort is the National Center's
``NetSmartz'' initiative. The program goals are to: enhance a child's
ability to avoid victimization, reduce the feelings of guilt and blame
that are often associated with victimization, encourage children to
report victimization to a trusted adult, support and enhance community
education efforts and to increase communications between adults and
children about online safety.
To advocate help for parents through the development of technology
tools and access controls: NCMEC supports efforts to provide help for
parents through blocking software and access control tools like
SurfWatch, Net Nanny, and similar products, enabling parents to limit
areas of the Internet to which their children have access. While such
tools should not be viewed as substitutes for basic parenting, nor do
they prevent adult predators from going to where the children are on
the Internet to seek their victims, nonetheless they are useful tools
for parents to provide an extra layer of protection for their children.
To target and educate those who are most at risk: Parents and
teachers are often surprised to learn that young children are not the
most common victims of abduction and sexual assault. In fact, twelve to
seventeen year old teenagers (especially girls) are the most victimized
segment of the United States population.7 A review of NCMEC
data also shows that in 72% of the missing child cases involving the
Internet, the victim was 15 years of age or older. In 83% of these
cases, the victim has been female. As a result, the Know the Rules
Campaign was launched in March 1998 as a national public service
campaign targeted to girls ages 11-17. The educational messages in this
campaign convey strength and are designed to leave girls with a sense
of empowerment.
To promote a national campaign of aggressive enforcement: NCMEC
feels that the most important element of its Cyberspace Strategy is
aggressive enforcement by federal, state and local law enforcement,
directed against those who misuse the Internet for criminal purposes.
Oftentimes, criminals misuse new technology before law enforcement
acquires the tools and expertise to counter such uses. To assist law
enforcement, NCMEC is involved in the two courses specifically
targeting Internet crimes against children.
Protecting Children Online Investigator's Course: This 4\1/2\
day course is held monthly across the United States, and was
designed to enhance law enforcement's ability to investigate
Internet crimes against children. Topics covered include:
recognizing and identifying computer crimes against children,
orientation to computer technology, conducting the
investigation, legal issues, case preparation and follow-up,
and resources and prevention.
Protecting Children Online Unit Commander's Course: This 2\1/
2\ day course is held monthly at NCMEC headquarters in
Arlington, VA. The purpose of this training program is to
provide law enforcement unit commanders with an understanding
of the key management issues for the effective investigation,
prosecution, intervention, and prevention of computer crimes
against children.
To establish relationships and work closely with the online
industry: One of the exciting elements of this initiative is that the
online industry is a strong partner. Leading companies including
America Online, Microsoft, CompuServe, AT&T, NetCom, the Interactive
Services Association, and others are providing financial support and
have committed to promote the CyberTipline through their subscribers
and supporters.
The following are examples of some of the public/private
initiatives involving NCMEC:
On February 10, 1998 NCMEC joined with SurfWatch, maker of the
first Internet filtering product, in a partnership to provide
leads to NCMEC and its CyberTipline. SurfWatch is creating an
online capability on its website for its users and customers to
report child pornography or child exploitation directly to
NCMEC and its CyberTipline. We are hopeful that other companies
will follow this example, helping NCMEC promote the
CyberTipline and provide the most direct linkage for users, so
that when they encounter inappropriate or questionable
material, they can easily and immediately link with NCMEC's
CyberTipline and provide their information.
America Online began a program with NCMEC called ``Kid
Patrol,'' through which NCMEC can take images and breaking
information directly to AOL users. It is our vision that this
effort will become a kind of two-way communication vehicle
using cyberspace.
Similarly, Lycos, the search engine, has joined with NCMEC to
leverage the Internet for child safety, taking images and
information to Lycos' users, and making it easier for users to
get to NCMEC.
Thank you for the opportunity to express on concerns. As always, I
hope you will view NCMEC as a resource. We stand ready to assist in any
possible way.
Endnotes
\1\ L. Gibbons Paul, Family PC, February 16, 1999, www.zdnet.com
\2\ K. Lanning, Use of Computers in the Sexual Exploitation of
Children, 1999.
\3\ BIND/VP's Emerging Technologies Research Group and Grunwald
Associates
\4\ ZDNet, 11/19/97
\5\ Pedowatch, Pedophilia on the Internet, pedowatch.org
\6\ Federal Register: May 7, 1999 (Volume 64, Number 88), Page
24855-24860
\7\ Bureau of Justice Statistics Sourcebook of Criminal Justice
Statistics--1996. Washington, D.C.: Office of Justice Programs, U. S.
Department of Justice, pages 210-11.
WHAT IS CHAT?
Chat refers to an Internet application that allows two or more
people to carry on a text ``conversation.''
Chat is available through: Commercial Internet service; IRC
(Internet Relay Chat); and Web-based Chat Service, i.e. Yahoo Chat,
etc.
Internet Relay Chat: Internet ``chat'' function that enables two or
more people to carry on a text ``conversation.'' IRC networks are
comprised of servers around the world linked to each other. User needs
IRC software on their computer to use IRC. User selects a network,
server and channel. A ``real-time'' chat screen opens, allowing typed
conversation between people on the same channel.
Instant Messaging or IM: Software is installed on you computer.
When you run the software and connect to the Internet you are ``logged
on'' to the service. This gives the service the ability to notify
others you are online. You are given the ability to see when selected
people are online. You can then exchange real-time, or ``instant''
messages.
Instant Messaging Software and Users: ICQ--73 Million Users; AOL--
65.5 Million Users; MSN--2.8 Million Users; Tribal Voice Pow Wow--10
Million Users; Yahoo Messenger--Undisclosed; Prodigy Instant
Messaging--Undisclosed (PC Week 10/11/99)
Mr. Upton. Thank you, Ruben.
Ms. Curtin has also come out from Washington today.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF CAROLINE CURTIN
Ms. Curtin. Thank you, Chairman Upton and Congressman Bass,
for having me here today to testify on issues relating to child
safety in the on-line environment.
I just wanted to take a minute to thank Katie, in
particular, for sharing your experience and your courage and
your hope. It gives me a renewed vigor and effort in going back
to AOL. I will certainly share your story with my colleagues,
the people that work on these issues day in and day out.
We know how important they are, but hearing your story
renews that and reemphasizes it. So thank you.
As Director of Children's Policy for AOL, I am responsible
for coordinating child safety and privacy protections across
the AOL properties, as well as educating parents about on-line
safety and the importance of parental involvement.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to describe AOL's
efforts to educate our members about on-line safety, the tools
and resources that we provide for our members, such as our
easy-to-use parental controls, as well as our ongoing
partnership with law enforcement and other stakeholders to help
keep the on-line environment safe for children.
AOL has played a significant role in the development of the
on-line media, and we have always shared a special appreciation
of its enormous potential to benefit society, especially
children.
Learning how to explore and understand the on-line world is
an essential skill for our children in today's wired world, but
we all agree that kids need and deserve special protection in
this new medium. AOL recognizes that parents must have the
ability to ensure to that their children can enjoy a rewarding
and safe interactive experience on line. It has, therefore,
been our challenge to craft rules of the road for children's
on-line safety, enabling parents to protect their children
while at the same time helping them to take advantage of the
wonders of the on-line environment.
By promoting major public education campaigns and closely
cooperating with elected officials and government agencies on
outreach and enforcement efforts, we have tried to offer
strong, proactive leadership in every area of children's safety
on line.
Clearly no wall, no technology, no corporate initiative can
ever take the place of an educated and involved parent. We have
heard that from earlier testimony and I cannot emphasize it
enough. This is why we have dedicated significant energy to
providing AOL parents with the most useful information, content
tools, and safety tips to help protect their kids, as well as a
list of resources available for both families on AOL and the
rest of the Internet.
By doing so, we have tried to empower parents so they can
ensure that their children's on-line experiences are the best
they can be.
AOL has been a leader in organizing industry efforts to
educate consumers about on-line safety and is committed to
continuing this leadership role. Among these efforts, AOL was a
leading corporate host of the America Links Up national public
education campaign, designed to give parents information to
help their children have a safe, educational, and rewarding
experience on line.
In addition, AOL created and distributed a special video
for kids called Safe Surfin' that features on-line safety tips
that are presented by some of the younger generation's favorite
celebrities. The video was developed in partnership with the
National School Boards Association and has been introduced into
schools across the country.
AOL was also a key partner in forming a GetNetWise.org Web
site, a resource designed to provide consumers with
comprehensive on-line safety information that includes guidance
from some of the major industry leaders.
Finally, AOL works closely with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children to support its mission of
recovering missing children and to combat on-line exploitation
of children.
Since July 1997, AOL and NCMEC have maintained an on line
program called ``Kid Patrol'' which helps locate abducted and
missing children. AOL also helped to launch NCMEC's Cyber
Tipline.
In addition, AOL has developed a training video and a
nationwide service of hands-on training seminars for law
enforcement officers to teach their agencies how best to adapt
traditional investigation and enforcement techniques to the on-
line environment in order to effectively pursue and prevent
cyber crime. We believe this type of cooperation with law
enforcement and investigative organizations is critical to
supporting AOL's on-line safety mission.
In addition to our leadership in industry efforts to
educate families about on-line safety, AOL devotes significant
time, energy, and resources to developing tools for parents to
protect their kids on line. AOL's parental controls are the
foundation of our child protection package and a key offering
of our subscription service.
While providing kids with entertaining and educational
experiences has always been an important mission for AOL, we
strongly feel that it also our responsibility to help parents
manage their children's on-line experiences. AOL's parental
controls put the power in the hands of parents, enabling them
to make informed decisions about their kids' on-line activities
by selecting the appropriate level of participation for each
child.
Parents also have the ability to customize additional
features, such as chat, E-mail, instant messaging, based on
their children's on-line savvy, age, and maturity level. AOL's
parental controls are server-based technology. This delivery
mechanism means that the controls follow the child's screen
names or E-mail address. So no matter where a child signs onto
America Online, their parental controls will stay with them.
In 1998, we changed our registration process on AOL to
require parents when creating a screen name to actually select
one of four parental controls categories. The four choices are
kids only, young teen, mature teen, or general access. Only
master screen names can actually create a new screen name. That
is the first screen name that signs up with the AOL service.
When creating a separate screen name for their child,
parents can make the decision of what is right for their
particular child. A kids only setting, which we recommend for
children 12 and under, and there you will see actually those
are the four choices that a parent is given just after creating
a screen name.
If you select a kids only setting, this will limit access
on line to the kids only channel, which has been specially
created for children 12 and under. This child will receive a
customized welcome screen when they sign on to AOL and it will
have content that is specifically created for kids, both by AOL
and by our kids' partners such as Nickelodeon.
A child using a kids only screen name can only access age-
appropriate content on AOL and the rest of the Web. They
interact in kids' chat rooms and message boards that are fully
monitored by background-checked employees, who have been
specially trained to work in these chat rooms and on the
message boards.
In addition, by default, kids only screen names cannot
instant message or visit any Web site that has not been
approved as age appropriate. A parent could decide to turn
instant messaging on if they so decided.
A young teen category, which is recommended for ages 13 to
15, provides more freedom than a kids only screen name, but
does not provide full access to mature content and interactive
features. Young teen screen names can access most AOL content
and can visit Web sites that have been approved as age
appropriate as well.
Young teens may communicate with others through E-mail and
in a range of message board and chat areas, including our Teen
Channel Chats and message boards, which again are monitored by
background-checked and trained employees.
A mature teen setting, which is recommended for teens 16 to
17, allows older teens more freedom, but still a protected
experience.
Each of these category settings has a pre-selected defaults
for different features such as chat, E-mail, instant messaging,
and Internet access. A parent, however, can choose to customize
any of these defaults within a category to ensure the
experience best matches his or her child.
So, for example, you could put your child on a kids only
screen name, but you could choose a mature teen Web experience
or you could decide that you do not want your child to chat at
all, even though you selected kids only. You could decide to
block all AOL chat rooms even if they were monitored.
We continue to evolve our parental controls to meet
consumer needs for safe, easy-to-use tools. In response to
consumer request, we introduced our latest feature, the Online
Timer, in the spring of 2000. This feature actually allows
parents to determine how long and when their children can be on
line and was among our most highly requested features.
We have found that education of our members is an ongoing
process. As new consumers come on line every day and as our
existing customers' lives evolve, their parental controls needs
may change as well. AOL members spend an average of 76 minutes
on line per usage per day; so we have ample opportunity to
remind parents about their choices and about on-line safety.
We believe that every family should periodically review
this new information, check their child's parental control
settings, make sure they know their children's on-line friends,
and update this information as appropriate as their child grows
older and more mature.
We reach our members through several key vehicles on line.
We have an area called Neighborhood Watch and parental
controls, of course. These are our two on-line safety
information areas. These areas are always available and they
are promoted at a very high level to the members. In fact, the
welcome screen has a button for parental controls.
We use keywords on AOL. We try to make them logical, such
``child safety,'' ``parental controls,'' ``Note to Parents,''
and ``help.'' These areas have lots of information and FAQs
about how to make sure the child's experience is safe on line.
In our kids areas, our Kids Only Channel, and our Teens
Channel, we have on-line safety tips designed for kids and
teens. They are integrated into the experience. In fact, both
children and teens must pass through these safety reminders
before they may enter into a chat or a message board area.
Every time they go in, they see the safety tips.
We also ask that our monitors in these areas remind kids if
they see a child or a teen giving out personal information. The
monitors have the tool to hide that in the chat. They also have
the ability to gag a child or a teen or someone who is acting
out in a chat room so that they are silenced or that they are
actually evicted from the chat room.
In the kids help area we have on-line safety tips, and we
remind kids day in and day out not to give out their home
address, not to give out their telephone number, or any other
identifying information.
We also have a special button called ``Tell AOL'' that is
in the chat rooms. With one click a child or teen can notify us
if they have a problem. Even though these chats and message
boards are monitored, if they are in an instant message
conversation, they can just go to keyword ``Tell AOL.'' These
reports now go into a special queue so that the member services
representatives at AOL know that it is coming from a kids area
or they know it is coming from a teens area and they can
respond hopefully even quicker than they would in an ordinary
circumstance.
To briefly summarize, AOL's commitment to families and
child safety includes three elements: educating consumers about
on-line safety; providing great age-appropriate content for
young audiences; and offering parents easy-to-use, flexible
tools to customize their child's on-line experience.
Finally, it bears repeating that at the end of the day,
there is no substitute for parental involvement. Raising
consumer awareness about parental controls, choices, and on-
line safety is a collaborative effort. AOL believes that the
industry and we have made great strides in this arena and are
on the right path and continue to do so.
We look forward to working closely with you on this
important issue.
Thank you again for this opportunity and I would be happy
to answer any questions later.
[The prepared statement of Caroline Curtin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Caroline Curtin, Director, Children's Policy,
America Online, Inc.
Chairman Upton and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to testify before you today on issues relating to child
safety in the online environment. As Director of Children's Policy for
AOL, I am responsible for coordinating child safety and privacy
protections across the AOL Inc. properties, as well as educating
parents about online safety and the importance of parental involvement.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to describe AOL's efforts to
educate our members about online safety, the tools and resources we
provide for our members--such as our easy-to-use, powerful Parental
Controls--as well as our ongoing partnership with law enforcement and
other stakeholders to help keep the online environment safe for
children.
AOL has played a significant role in the development of the online
medium and we have always shared a special appreciation of its enormous
potential to benefit society especially children. Learning how to
explore and understand the online world is an essential skill for our
children in today's wired world, but we all agree that kids need and
deserve special protection in this new medium. AOL recognizes that
parents must have the ability to ensure that their children can enjoy a
rewarding and safe interactive experience online. It has therefore been
our challenge to craft rules of the road for children's online safety,
enabling parents to protect their children while at the same time
helping them take advantage of the wonders of the online environment.
By promoting major public education campaigns and closely
cooperating with elected officials and government agencies on outreach
and enforcement efforts, we have tried to offer strong proactive
leadership in every area of children's safety online. In some ways even
more important than those efforts, however, has been our commitment to
providing our member families with the resources and tools they need to
make informed decisions. No law, no technology, no corporate initiative
can ever take the place of an educated and involved parent when it
comes to their children's online safety. That's why we've dedicated
significant energy to providing AOL parents with the most useful
information, content, tools and safety tips to help protect their
children, as well as a list of the resources available for families
both on AOL and the Internet. By doing so, we've tried to empower
parents so they can ensure that their children's online experience is
the best it can be.
INDUSTRY EFFORTS TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC
We have always believed that the industry must lead the charge in
giving parents the tools they need to protect their children online.
AOL has been a leader in organizing industry efforts to educate
consumers about online safety and is committed to continuing this
leadership role.
Among those efforts, AOL was a leading corporate host of the
America Links Up national public education campaign, designed to give
parents information to help their children have a safe, educational and
rewarding experience online.
In addition, AOL created and distributed a special video for kids--
called Safe Surfin'--that features online safety tips presented by some
of the younger generation's favorite celebrities. This video was
developed in partnership with the National School Boards Association
and has been introduced into schools across the country.
Furthermore, AOL, in conjunction with the American Library
Association, launched the Internet Driver's Ed program. This program is
a traveling Internet education and safety class for children and
parents, hosted in children's museums and other prominent venues in
major cities nationwide.
AOL was also a key partner in forming the GetNetWise.org website--a
resource designed to provide consumers with comprehensive online safety
information that includes guidance from some of the major industry
leaders, such as AOL.com, the AOL subscription service, and Netscape.
Finally, AOL works closely with the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children (NCMEC) to support its mission of recovering missing
children and to combat online exploitation of children. Since July
1997, AOL and NCMEC have maintained an online program called ``Kid
Patrol'' which helps locate abducted and missing children. AOL also
helped to launch NCMEC's Cyber Tipline and has participated in an
ongoing partnership to operate this service. In addition, AOL has
helped develop a training video and a nationwide service of hands-on
training seminars for law enforcement officers to teach their agencies
how best to adapt traditional investigation and enforcement techniques
to the online environment in order to effectively pursue and prevent
cybercrime. We believe this type of cooperation with law enforcement
and investigative organizations is critical to supporting AOL's online
safety mission.
TOOLS AND RESOURCES FOR AOL MEMBERS
In addition to our leadership in industry efforts to educate
families about online safety, AOL devotes significant resources to
developing tools and resources for our own members to protect their
children in the online environment.
a. AOL's Parental Controls
AOL's Parental Controls are the foundation of our child protection
package and a key offering of our subscription service. While providing
kids with entertaining and educational experiences has always been an
important mission for AOL, we strongly feel that it is also our
responsibility to help parents manage their child's online experiences.
AOL's Parental Controls put the power in the hands of parents, enabling
them to make informed decisions about their kids' online activities by
selecting the appropriate level of participation for each child.
Parents also have the ability to customize additional features such as
chat, e-mail and Internet access based on their children's online savvy
and maturity.
AOL's Parental Controls are a serverbased technology. This delivery
mechanism allows us to provide the most secure experience to our
members because the Parental Controls settings are actually attached to
the child's individual screen name. No matter where that child signs
online from home, school or a friend's house, the Parental Controls
follow with the child's screen name.
In 1998, we changed our registration process to require parents to
set Parental Controls for each screen name upon screen name creation.
When we integrated Parental Controls into the Create A Screen Name
process; we saw a dramatic increase in adoption as a result. There are
up to 7 screen names available on one AOL account, enabling even larger
families to give each child in the household his or her own screen name
with customized Parental Control settings. Only ``Master'' screen names
controlled by the parents can create a new screen name or set or change
Parental Control settings.
When creating a separate screen name for their child, parents are
given the opportunity to choose one of three different standard age
``category'' settings: Kids Only, Young Teens, or Mature Teens.
A Kids Only setting (recommended for 12 and under) restricts
children to the Kids Only Channel, which has been specially created and
programmed for children 12 and under. The child also receives a
customized Welcome Screen. A child using a Kids Only screen name can
access ageappropriate content on AOL and the Web and interact with
others online through email and in special supervised kids' message
boards and chat areas, but is blocked from taking part in general
audience chat rooms and message boards on AOL, sending or receiving
Instant Messages and visiting any Web site that has not been approved
as ageappropriate.
A Young Teen (recommended for ages 13 15) category provides more
freedom than a Kids Only screen name, but does not provide full access
to more mature content and interactive features. The Teens also receive
a customized Welcome Screen. Young Teen screen names can access most
AOL content, and can visit Web sites that have been approved as age
appropriate. They may communicate with others online through email and
in a range of message board and chat areas, Including Teen chats and
message boards that are monitored by background employees. Teens are
restricted, however, from accessing newsgroups, visiting inappropriate
Web sites, or taking part in private chat rooms.
A Mature Teen (recommended for ages 1617) setting allows older
teens the most freedom of any of the Parental Controls categories.
Mature Teen screen names can access all content on AOL and the Web
except sites that have been classified for an adult (18 plus) audience.
They can locate others and communicate online through Instant
Messaging, all chat areas, email, private messaging and AOL's Member
Directory.
Each of these category settings has a preselected set of
``defaults'' for different features such as chat, email, Instant
Messages and Internet access. A parent can choose to customize any of
these defaults within a category to ensure the experience best matches
his or her child so even on a Kids Only screen name (our most
conservative), a parent may choose to further limit access to email to
an ``approved'' list, or, alternately, may decide that the child is
mature enough to participate in Instant Message conversations. A parent
may choose to modify their child's access to content (Web, newsgroups,
file downloads) or way to communicate with others online (e-mail,
Instant messages, chat). For example, if you don't want your child to
chat, you can customize Parental Controls and block all AOL Chat or you
can choose only monitored AOL Chat.
We continue to evolve our Parental Controls to meet consumer needs
for safe, easy-to-use tools. In response to consumer request, we
introduced our latest feature, the Online Timer, in the spring of 2000.
This feature allows parents to determine how long and when their
children can be online, and was among our most highly requested
features.
b. Educational Tools and Member Outreach
We have found that education of our members is an ongoing process.
As new consumers come online every day and as our existing customers'
lives evolve, their parental controls needs may change as well. AOL
members spend an average of 76 minutes online per usage day (Source:
Media Metrix March 2002) so we have ample opportunity to remind parents
about their choices, and about online safety. This is important not
only for new members to our service, but for existing parents as well.
We believe that every family should periodically review new
information, check their child's Parental Controls settings and update
them as appropriate for that child's age and maturity. Also important,
we have worked to quickly and effectively notify our members of
significant news and developments in the area of children's safety,
like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or new Parental
Controls offerings that may impact their family's online safety
decisions.
We reach our members through several key vehicles online.
Neighborhood Watch and Parental Controls are our central ``online
safety'' information areas. These areas are always available online to
our members through easy-to-find mechanisms including:
1. Keywords: We use logical ``keywords'' such as ``child safety,''
``Parental Controls,'' ``safety,'' ``Note to Parents,'' and
``help'' to lead our members to online education areas about
child safety and privacy. Online safety for kids is a topic in
our AOL Help AZ area. And we educate our newer members about
keyword use early on, through Welcome Screen promotion of our
Member Benefits Area.
2. Prominent Placement: Parental Controls is an icon on the Welcome
Screen of our service which every member passes through each
and every time they sign online. Additionally, Parental
Controls are integrated into our Create A Screen Name process.
3. Kids Only & Teens Channels Reminders: Both our Kids Only Channel,
directed to children 12 and under, and our Teens Channel,
created for younger teens 13 to 15, have online safety tips
integrated into the experience. In fact, kids and teens must
pass through these safety reminders before entering interactive
chat and message board areas. In the ``Kids Help'' area, AOL's
``Online Safety Tips'' remind children not to give out their
home address or other identifying information to anyone online
and to notify AOL and their parents if they encounter anybody
that make that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe. There
is a special ``Tell AOL'' feature that children can use to
alert AOL of any such concerns.
An essential part of AOL's commitment to families, of course, is to
provide great content for children. The AOL Service reaches over 3
million children ages 211 (Source: Media Metrics, March 2002). For
almost 10 years now, AOL's Kids Only Channel has been delivering fun,
engaging and educational programming to children 12 and under. In
addition, all Kids Only chat rooms and message boards are monitored by
background checked and specially trained AOL employees. And Yahoo!
Internet Life Magazine's 2001 awarded the Kids Only Channel the ``Best
Kids Community'' for ``kid-friendly games, chat and homework helpers.''
CONCLUSION
To briefly summarize, AOL's commitment to families and child safety
includes three key elements: Educating consumers about online child
safety, including our collaborative efforts with other companies in the
industry; providing great age appropriate content for young audiences;
and offering parents easy-to-use, flexible tools to customize their
children's online experience.
We are constantly enhancing our offerings to families and work
closely with others in the industry to finetune our technological tools
so that they are the most up to date and effective. Filtering, rating
and labeling technologies are essential parts of the toolkit that can
be used to protect children on the Internet.
Finally, it bears repeating that there is no substitute for
parental involvement online. Raising consumer awareness about parental
controls, choices and child online safety is a collaborative effort.
AOL believes that the industry and we have made great strides in this
arena and are on the right path to continue doing so. We look forward
to working closely with you on this important issue.
Thank you again for this opportunity; I would be happy to answer
any questions that you may have.
Mr. Upton. Thank you very much.
Kathleen Tucker.
STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN TUCKER
Ms. Tucker. Thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Kathleen Tucker.
Thank you, Chairman Upton, for inviting me to testify today
on behalf of I-SAFE America, a nonprofit Internet safety
education foundation, and on behalf of our children who are at
risk of predation upon on the Internet.
Predatory acts against children are among the most heinous
of crimes that are perpetrated within our society today. With
the technological advancement in Web tools that allow even the
youngest of our children access to the Internet, a universal
paradigm shift has occurred in the methods and means that are
available to child predators as they stalk their prey. And as
such, we need a universal paradigm shift to occur in the
preventative tactics that we employ in an effort to keep our
children safe.
I have had the opportunity to listen today to all of the
other people who have testified before me, and I believe that
the testimony that I offer will be complementary to that. I
agree that parental supervision is key. I agree that law
enforcement and the judicial process is key.
We also must be able to bring education as a tool, as a
method of empowerment to those kids much in the same way that,
as you spoke before, you do not just hand them the keys to the
car and tell them to go drive. We do not hand them the keys to
the information and access on the Internet.
Parents provide education and also we send them to school,
where they are provided with education on driver's ed. or on
gun safety, and then they are handed the tools with which to
pursue those interests.
Chat rooms are among one of those technological
advancements. Chat rooms, in and of themselves, are not
inherently good or evil. They are electronically enabled
methods for communication.
Unfortunately, one participant may use that method of
communication to gain information about another participant for
purposes of exploitation or entrapment.
There is no one solution for protecting our children. We
need a well-balanced approach that attacks the child predation
problem from a multiplicity of angles: education, economics,
legal, and technical.
With respect to the value of education within this
equation, I refer to a recently published study by the National
Research Council and the committee to study tools on protecting
kids against pornography and other inappropriate Internet
content.
This study noted that an essential element for protecting
children from inappropriate material on the Internet, and one
largely ignored in this present debate, is the promotion of
social and educational strategies that teach children--excuse
me for just a moment.
Mr. Upton. Thank you, again, to the Mattawon folks for
coming. Thank you.
Ms. Tucker. Thank you, Chairman Upton, for that short
break.
Mr. Upton. They have got buses to catch.
Ms. Tucker. I understand.
Mr. Upton. It is great that they could be here.
Ms. Tucker. I thought I would give us all just a moment to
let them file out and then I can continue.
Thank you again.
With respect to the value of education within this
equation, I refer to this study. An essential element of
protecting children from inappropriate material on the Internet
and one largely ignored in the present debate are social and
educational strategies that teach children to make wise choices
and to take control of their on-line experience: who they meet,
to whom they talk, where they go, what they do, and what they
do.
Children need to acquire skills that will allow them to
evaluate independently the information and images that they are
viewing. By improving children's information and media
literacy, they are better able to critically analyze those
messages and images that they see and to be able to interpret
underlying messages.
Children should be educated in Internet safety much as they
are taught about their physical safety. This might include
teaching them how sexual predators and hate group recruiters
approach these young people on line.
They need to be able to recognize jargon that signals
inappropriate material and whether to provide personal
information.
To guide parents, public service announcements and media
campaigns can help educate them about the nature and the extent
of the dangers of the Internet and the need for safety
measures. Many of our parents, many of the children's parents
are not technically informed. They also need to be educated.
Just as our previous witnesses before have stated that they
provide education with AOL on line, our parent here who has
come forward to say that parents should be involved with their
children, absolutely, and we need to get those educational
messages out to the parents as well.
In conclusion, the value of empowering our children with
the knowledge and critical thinking skills that they need to be
able to independently assess the everyday situations that they
will encounter while on line alone, without parents'
supervision, they must have these through education. The
children themselves must be able to effectively protect
themselves against cyber predators. They must be able to
recognize potentially harmful and inappropriate actions, to
actively disengage from negative behaviors and compromising
situations, and to seek help when they are threatened.
These lessons are learned. Education and empowerment are
key.
Chairman Upton and Congressman Bass and other Members of
Congress, you face a daunting task in initiating protective
measures for our children, and you are to be applauded in this
effort.
In I-SAFE America, we do offer our education programs and
our outreach campaigns as one tool to be used with the many
other tools that are available as you craft your solution.
Thank you for your concern, and thank you for your
attention.
[The prepared statement of Kathleen Tucker follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kathleen Tucker, Director, Curriculum Development
& Implementation, I-Safe America, Inc.
Thank you, Chairman Upton, for inviting me to testify before the
House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet at the
hearing entitled Chatting On-Line: A Dangerous Proposition for
Children. As you requested, my testimony will focus on the dangers of
Internet chat rooms to children and ways to educate parents and
children about how to avoid such dangers.
Predatory acts against our children are among the most heinous of
crimes perpetrated within our society. Historically, communities as a
collective take deliberate and specific actions to protect their
children in an effort to prevent these heinous acts. These protective
actions include: education--teaching children to be wary of strangers,
to recognize and avoid dangerous situations, to cry for help when they
feel threatened; parental supervision--participation by parents in
children's activities and the monitoring of the child's friends;
preventative tactics--adult supervision at events when children are
away from home; physical barriers--locking the doors at home, barring
uninvited persons from access to schools and special events, keeping
objectionable (pornographic) material in physical locations out of the
reach of children; and, law enforcement intervention--prevention
programs for students and the determent, apprehension, detention, and
incarceration of persons known to prey upon our children.
With the technological advancements in web tools that allow even
the youngest of children access to the Internet, a universal, paradigm
shift has occurred in the methods and means available to child
predators in pursuit of their prey; and, as such, a universal, paradigm
shift must occur in the preventative tactics that we employ in our
efforts to protect our children against these predators.
The content of my testimony today will address the ramifications of
this universal shift, the dangers faced by our children as they explore
the wonders of the Internet and as they interact in online Chat Rooms,
the role of education and the need to empower our children in order to
minimize the number of predatory acts predicated against them, and the
criticality of a well-balanced approach that attacks the child-
predation problem from a multiplicity of angles: education (children,
parents, & the community), law enforcement, legal, and technical.
Let me begin by addressing specific examples of how dramatically
the protective actions that have been employed historically have been
impacted by this technologically-enabled, Internet-driven, paradigm
shift.
1) Education. Parents teach children to be wary of strangers on the
street, in public places, and at the front door; but now, the strangers
that these children meet--are not on the street--they are in
cyberspace. And, to the detriment of the parents, many of their
children are more ``Net'' savvy than either parent. This inequality of
knowledge hinders parents in their abilities to address cyber safety
issues and to properly instruct their children about the dangers of
meeting strangers online.
Historically, when parents taught their children to recognize and
avoid dangerous situations, those situations were based on tangible,
physical elements within their community. Now, danger lies in an
amorphous cyber-world cloaked in the allusion of anonymity.
2) Parental Supervision. Many of our children's activities have
dramatically shifted from participatory activities (easily supervised
by a parent and often enjoyable to watch) to solitary activities--
engaged through the computer keyboard or joystick--that do not lend
themselves to easy supervision nor enjoyment by a non-participant (such
as a parent). Children may spend hours playing solitary games online,
or they may play in tandem with their cyber friends, or they may even
play with total strangers they connect with online in an Internet
gaming community.
The Internet--and more specifically the advent of the Chat Room--
has broadened a child's ability to meet other people and acquire
``friends.'' Historically, children made friends at school, through
family acquaintances, and from participating in community
organizations. A child is no longer confined to the local community
from which to socialize and gain friends; literally, cyberspace
eliminates all geographical barriers and frees a child to roam the
world in search of that one, special ``friend.'' Predators are also
free to roam.
The degree of difficulty for parents to monitor--or to simply
meet--their child's friends has increased tremendously.
3) Preventative Tactics. A commonly employed tactic for protecting
our children is to provide an adult chaperone as our children explore
outside of their community. Now, children explore the wonders of the
world by transporting themselves through cyberspace. They can travel to
the brightest, most intellectual domains of the universe and,
conversely, they may travel to the darkest, most detestable realms of
the human imagination; and, they travel this world alone, without the
care and protection of a chaperone.
4) Physical Barriers. Historically, parents routinely lock their
doors at home each night to keep intruders out; schools monitor persons
who enter the campus; and objectionable (pornographic) material is
distributed from adult-only sections in local businesses. Presently,
parents continue to lock their doors, but, their children inadvertently
invite the pedophile into their bedrooms through a chat room
conversation or via email. Gone are the days when predators have to
search for unlocked doors or open windows. Gone to are the days with
the child predator had to troll the schools or neighborhood playground
to find a child that is isolated, or lonely, or bored; all the predator
has to do now is to troll the Internet. There are innumerable,
vulnerable children who are isolated, and lonely, and bored who
constantly search the Internet for other children with whom they can
make friends and chat. As these children search the web for friends so
too the predator searches the web for prey. The predator will find the
child, the child will find a ``friend,' and the outcome will be
devastating.
The effectiveness of currently employed physical barriers has been
severely compromised. Predators lure and seduce their victims from
within the privacy of the victim's own home. Pornography intrudes into
a person's private email and appears on the screen when a child
inadvertently selects a pornographic website while conducting research
for a homework assignment. Predators, pornographers, pedophiles,
operate in a world that is no longer constrained by physical
limitations or geographical barriers; they stalk their prey through
cyberspace and routinely visit their prey as invited, virtual guests
into the home of their next victim.
5) Law Enforcement Intervention. As Internet use continues to grow,
so will the number of cyber criminals. These criminals are sexual
predators, pornographers, hackers, and thieves. They target and then
victimize innocent people--especially our youth and our elderly--via
this electronic highway. Crimes vary from theft of credit card
information or personal identities to solicitation of sexual acts,
stalking, hacking, and trafficking in child pornography. Many of the
crimes are new (computer hacking for example) while other crimes, such
as child predation, have haunted law enforcement officers for
centuries. Regardless of the nature of the crime, the criminal's method
of attack--via the Internet--is relatively new; the Internet has
changed the rules of the game. Given that the methods and means
employed by predators in their victimization of our children have
changed, so must the tools and techniques employed by law enforcement
in the pursuit and apprehension of these predators. Law enforcement
must be allowed to leverage the same technological advances that the
criminal element uses. Without these advanced tools--law enforcement is
handicapped. And, given that the methods and means employed by
predators have changed, new community prevention programs that are
taught by law enforcement must be developed to inform and advise our
citizenry of new protective measures.
The ramifications of this universal, paradigm shift are staggering.
If taken as a whole they can be overwhelming, perhaps paralyzing; but--
if ignored--the ramifications will be devastating to our youth. To
approach any entity of this magnitude and to effect change it is
advisable to search for a common element, theme, or component against
which a focused solution may be enjoined.
One common and persistent theme, that has tentacles into every
aspect of the aforementioned points, is the chat room.
Today, I will focus on the dangers that unsuspecting children and
youth may face while engaged within a chat room and the subsequent
dangers they may face as a result of their activities in a chat room.
This focus, this perspective, is for the purpose of this testimony only
and is not intended to discount any of the benefits that may be gained
through dialog among participants within a chat room nor is it intended
to discount the benefits that can be gained through the healthy
exchange of ideas and information. Chat rooms are not inherently good
or evil; they are electronically-enabled methods of communication that,
unfortunately, can be used by one participant to gain information about
another participant for purposes of exploitation or entrapment.
As defined in The American Heritage' Dictionary of the
English Language, Fourth Edition, Copyright
2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company, a chat room is: ``A site on a
computer network where online conversations are held in real time by a
number of users.''
How does this seemingly innocuous entity, a chat room, play a
major, insidious role in the entrapment and exploitation of our youth?
Let's explore the answer to this question by overlaying the
influence of the chat room on our new cyber paradigm. A chat room is a
smorgasbord; it is: a town centre--a meeting place for debate; a coffee
shop--a place for chat and banter; a celebrity hangout--where people
can chat with their favorite musician or star; a club--where like-
minded persons discuss common interests; a playground--where kids hang
out with their friends; and, an unprecedented opportunity--where
persons from anywhere in the world can gravitate to meet new
``friends,'' exchange ideas, and communicate.
Children participate in chat rooms every day so that they exchange
ideas and information, they can hang out with their ``friends'' and
they can actively search for new friends. Last week, as I taught an
Internet Safety class to a group of 6th graders, I posed the question:
``Do any of you have a cyber friend that you met online that you never
knew before?'' Several of the students raised their hands. I asked one
young girl to tell the class about her ``friend.'' She said that she
was bored and lonely so she went online into several chat rooms
specifically looking to find a friend. She said that she found one and
they quickly discovered that they had a lot in common. I asked her what
they chat about. She replied: ``Everything.'' She said they talk about
family, sisters, brothers, parents, pets, school, where they live . . .
Literally, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. I
asked her how she could trust a stranger with so much information. She
said that she doesn't feel like this is a stranger, this is her friend,
and she ``knows'' that her friend is a child--not an adult--because her
friend ``knows too much about things my age--and there's no way that my
friend is an adult pretending to be a kid--it's just not possible.''
This child is a cyber-savvy pedophile's dream-come-true.
The paradigm and the chat room:
1) Education. Parents teach their children to be wary of strangers;
but, children don't view their online ``friends'' in the same
way as they view a stranger on the street. They haven't made
the tangible association between their physical world and the
cyber world. In their own mind they envision what they believe
their friend ``looks'' like, and no child is going to envision
their cyber friend as old or threatening.
2) Education. Children are taught to recognize and avoid dangerous
situations. They recognize places within their physical
community as potentially dangerous but have not learned to
recognize the potential for danger within the chat room.
3) Parental Supervision & Preventative Tactics. Children rarely
``travel'' with their parents or a chaperone to many of the
chat rooms where they hang out. Without education to raise
their awareness and to empower them to recognize the danger of
being alone in a room full of strangers, these children are at
risk for exploitation. In July 2000, The Journal of the
American Medical Association, in cooperation with a survey that
was conducted by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes
Against Children Research Center, published a ``Call to Action
Report'' in which it reported that girls, older teens, troubled
youth, frequent Internet users, chat room participants and
those who communicate with strangers online are at the greatest
risk. The study also confirmed that children often don't
understand the risks associated with talking to strangers
online (David Finkelhor, Director of the University of New
Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center).
4) Physical Barriers. Chat rooms eliminate the physical and
geographical barriers that used to provide a modicum of
protection to our children from the predatory elements of our
society. Pedophiles now roam the world, without limitations, in
pursuit of their next victim. A case in point is the recent
seduction of a 13 year-old girl in Katy, Texas who was lured
from her home by a 34 year-old pedophile--who she met in a chat
room--to his apartment in Tacoma, Washington. This sexual
predator allegedly exchanged pornography with his victim over
the Internet, arranged transportation to take her from Katy, TX
to Tacoma, WA, and raped her over a five day period of time.
5) Law Enforcement Intervention. Chat rooms pose special challenges for
law enforcement as well. These hunting grounds for child
predators are now the patrol beats for specialized officers in
pursuit of these criminals. Technology has wrought dramatic
change for both the offender and the officer.
Up to this point in my testimony, I have provided insight into the
incredible, paradigm shift that has occurred in our society and how
this new paradigm directly affects the safety of our children. To
exemplify the critical points, I mapped the ramifications of this
paradigm shift to a common element in cyberspace: the chat room. The
remainder of my testimony will focus on potential solutions that we as
a society may embrace in an effort to combat the clear and present
dangers that our children face as they explore the farthest reaches of
cyberspace, as they interact, virtually, with persons throughout the
world, and as they evolve as ``Net'' citizens.
As Judith F. Krug, Director of the American Library Association's
Office for Intellectual Freedom, stated in her testimony before the
COPA Commission on August 3, 2000: ``The children of today will be Net
citizens for the rest of their lives. They need to be taught the skills
to cope in the virtual world just as they are taught skills to cope in
the physical world. Children should be educated in appropriate
increments and appropriate settings on how to avoid inappropriate
Internet content, to report illegal or unsafe behavior and to engage in
safe interaction online. Children who are not taught these skills are
not only in danger as children in a virtual world, they also will grow
into young adults, college students and an American workforce who are
not capable of avoiding online fraud, Internet addictions and online
stalking.''
Our children now live in two diverse worlds: their physical world
and the world of cyberspace. As such, they essentially live in two
cultures that often conflict. To date, many of the lessons learned in
the physical world don't seem relevant in cyberspace as these children
reach out to strangers as friends. This paradigm shift demands new,
innovative educational programs for our children, their parents, and
the community. It is essential that children, as they travel their
world of cyberspace alone, be provided with the knowledge they need: to
independently recognize and avoid dangerous situations online; to
actively engage learned, proactive techniques to more safely interact
with strangers online; to critically appraise situations in which they
find themselves; and, to react appropriately when they find themselves
in uncomfortable, compromising, or threatening situations.
According to a press release on May 2, 2002 published by the
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, Division on Engineering and Physical
Sciences Computer Science and Telecommunications Board and the
INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE, Board on Children, Youth, and Families regarding
the findings of the Committee to Study Tools and Strategies for
Protecting Kids from Pornography and Their Applicability to Other
Inappropriate Internet Content (chaired by Richard Thornburgh):
An essential element of protecting children from
inappropriate material on the Internet--and one largely ignored
in the present debate--is the promotion of social and
educational strategies that teach children to make wise choices
about using the Internet and to take control of their online
experiences: where they go, what they see, to whom they talk,
and what they do.
Children also need to acquire skills that will allow them to
evaluate independently the information and images they are
viewing. By improving children's ``information and media
literacy,'' they are better able to critically assess material,
recognize underlying messages, and locate the information they
seek.
Children should be educated in Internet safety much as they
are taught about their physical safety, the report says. This
might include teaching them how sexual predators and hate-group
recruiters typically approach young people online, how to
recognize jargon that signals inappropriate material, and
whether to provide personal information. To guide adults,
public service announcements and media campaigns could help
educate them about the nature and extent of dangers on the
Internet and the need for safety measures.
Education is a critical and essential component in combating the
threat of child predation via the Internet; but, it is only one element
of the solution. To stem the online predation of our children, it is
essential that a multiplicity of elements be collectively engaged as
part of an overarching solution: education (children, parents, & the
community), law enforcement, legal, and technical.
According to the National Academies' National Research Council
report noted previously (this report is available in its entirety
online at www.nap.edu/books/0309082749/html): No single approach--
technical, legal, economic, or educational--will be sufficient to
protect children from online pornography. I believe this statement can
be extended to include all aspects of predatory acts perpetrated
against children online. The report goes on to describe the need for
social and educational strategies, technology-based tools, and legal
and regulatory approaches that can be mixed and adapted to fit
different communities' circumstances.
There are many technology-based tools that are currently employed
in an effort to protect children from exposure to offensive or
pornographic material online. These tools include filtering and the
blocking of websites that may potentially contain offensive materials.
A heated debate surrounds the use of filtering and the
constitutionality of these and other similar tools. With respect to my
testimony and the use of technology to provide increased safety, I will
recognize that filtering is one of a set of tools available and I will
focus my testimony on a different technology-based tool that may
potentially prove to be a powerful enabler to the managers of chat
rooms for attaining ``best effort'' policies and procedures for
protecting children who frequent their chat rooms: digital
certificates.
Currently, both businesses and governmental agencies have begun to
embrace digital certificate technology as an electronic means for
identifying participants in transactions that occur online. They
leverage this technology as a method for verifying and authenticating a
person's electronic identity. The simplest way to view a digital
certificate is as an electronic ID card. However, digital certificate
technology is far from simple; but, given that the intent of this
testimony is to identify and express how technology can be used, rather
than to define the intricacies of the technology, I will refer to
digital certificate technology in the simplest terms possible for the
reader to understand. For anyone interested in garnering a more in-
depth view of digital certificates and digital signatures you may want
to visit the American Bar Association, Section of Science and
Technology, Information Security Committee website to review the
document Digital Signature Guidelines Tutorial (www.abanet.org/scitech/
ec/isc/dsg-tutorial.html).
Digital certificates are issued by a certification authority. A
certification authority can issue various levels of digital
certificates that are dependent upon the amount of authentication that
is required to ensure that the person who is applying for the digital
certificate is in fact the person that he or she claims to be. In other
words, to obtain a digital certificate a person must present proof of
identity and the ``level'' of the certificate obtained depends upon the
amount of proof required.
Example: Acme Certification Authority
Level 1 certificate--any photo ID required
Level 2 certificate--government issued photo ID required
Level 3 certificate--government issued photo ID required plus passport
or birth certificate
Level 4 certificate--all requirements of Level 3 plus a background
check
Level 5 certificate--DNA
How could digital certificate technology increase the safety of
children who frequent a particular chat room?
A public- or private-sector chat room provider could engage digital
certificate technology as a means for permitting or denying access to
any given chat room. Conceivably, a chat room provider could institute
a policy that only children under the age of 13 are allowed to
participate in a particular chat room. The intent of this policy is to
provide a safer online environment by making their ``best effort'' at
excluding adults and potential pedophiles from the chat room. To
enforce the ``under the age of 13'' policy, the chat provider would
require all participants to login using a Level 3 digital certificate.
Through the use of the digital certificate and the chat provider's
policy of restricting access, the children participating in this chat
room have a lessened degree of risk than those children that
participate in unrestricted chat rooms.
This technology exists. We currently use it to execute online
financial transactions. Businesses use this technology to protect their
monetary assets; perhaps, we should explore how it can be used to
protect our most precious asset: our children.
Protecting our children is at the very heart of this hearing. Thank
you, Chairman Upton, for inviting me to testify before the Subcommittee
on Telecommunications and the Internet. In my testimony, today, I
addressed the paradigm shift that has occurred within our society due
the advancements in web technologies and the advent of chat rooms;
exposed the dangers our children face online and the difficulties faced
by parents in protecting our children; touched upon one technological
approach for increasing the abilities of chat room providers to create
safer chat room environments; and, most importantly addressed the
importance of education in protecting our children from falling victim
to online predators.
In conclusion, there is no one solution for protecting our
children. However, the value of empowering our children--through
education--with the knowledge and critical-thinking skills that they
need to be able to independently assess the every-day situations they
will encounter while online cannot be overstressed. Children must be
able to effectively protect themselves from cyber predators, to
recognize potentially harmful or inappropriate actions, to actively
disengage from negative behaviors or compromising situations, and to
seek help when threatened. These lessons are learned. Education and
empowerment are key.
Mr. Upton. Thank you all. I know Charlie and I have a
number of questions, and as I said before we started, I want to
make this more of a dialog than a formal give-and-take,
courtroom type scene.
You know, as I think about this, obviously I think first as
a dad. I have got a 10 year old and a 14 year old. I also serve
on the Education Committee, and like Charlie, I probably visit
schools virtually every week, all different levels, from
college like here at KBCC to elementary school.
And one of the things that I have been doing over the last
6, 8 months, particularly as my role as chairman of the
Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee, has been focusing
on elementary school students, knowing that I have got one that
is ten, and just looking at the changes in technology that he
has gone through versus where my daughter was 4 years ago. And
it is just an incredible change.
I know two devices connected to the Internet today, talking
about the explosive growth. One hundred and fifty million
devices today are connected to the Internet. By 2006, it will
be a billion devices worldwide connected to the Internet. So
they will be in our cars, on our wrists, in our offices, our
homes, you name it.
And with that comes that double edged sword, and with the
growth of technology, the dangers, the nightmares that are out
there: Katie's story, John's story, Jim's story about what is
happening here in Kalamazoo.
But when you tie that to what Ruben indicated, usually
perhaps as many as 30, 100 children before you get a
conviction? Three hundred children per molester is about the
average.
I mean, I think of this gentleman this week that you are
going to be pressing charges against, a 34 year old. And just
think how many families.
Mr. Gregart. We have 20 additional names of females that
were seized from his computer that we are following up on now.
Mr. Upton. That is just a pretty scary feeling.
Charlie.
Mr. Bass. We have heard some interesting stories and some
possible solutions. As a Member of Congress, I would like to
know exactly what recommendations you have or suggestions for
action that we might take on the policy level. I have not heard
anybody discuss that.
Mr. Upton. I have just one idea first, and then I want to
hear the response.
You know, I wear two hats, sit both on the Education
Committee, as well as on the Energy and Commerce Committee. As
we look at education legislation, you know, my brother is a
teacher, and we visit schools. It is so hard often to get
parents involved to oversee exactly what is happening.
You cannot legislate parental involvement. I know that, but
I wonder what incentives we might be able to do working with
our school boards, our schools at every level to make sure that
parents, in fact, get a daily dose of the dangers that are out
there to try and make sure that they're engaged, looking over
their kids' shoulders.
Do you have AOL?
Mr. Bass. Me? No.
Ms. Curtin. We can provide you with a disk.
Mr. Upton. Yes. I think you can get them at the A&P.
Ms. Curtin. That is reassuring.
Mr. Bass. Again, Mr. Chairman, if I can reiterate though,
we make policy, and this is a very serious and interesting
problem, but precisely what suggestions do people have for us,
policymakers?
If you were to draft a bill, what would it say?
Mr. Gregart. If Congress were to recognize that this is a
public safety issue similar to automobile collisions and the
mandate for airbags and crash worthy vehicles, the issue is:
how far does the Federal Government want to put its hand into
technology and manufacturing?
But I probably would have found it helpful if there were a
CD not just offering AOL for the first 1,000 hours when I
bought my new computer, but a CD that was clearly marked as
educational material prefatory to allowing children access to
the Internet or bundle it with the software for the different
programs that come with a new computer.
What do I have now, AOL 7.0? Is it 7.0? Well, it started
off with AOL 0, I think.
And every time AOL has upgraded, I have gotten the next
version. So I probably miss a lot of the new things, but when
you open a new computer, if you had just a singular CD, which
costs how much to burn? Not excessive, but it was clearly
marked as a condition precedent for you signing onto AOL or any
other ISP, just like airbags in automobiles.
Ms. Tarbox. I like to tell this story because it does not
take too long and because I think it relates well.
I personally never thought I was going to be a victim of
AIDS, and I had a speaker come to my school, and she was from
the town next to me, and she was with her boyfriend, and he was
cheating on her, and he gave her AIDS. She goes to Harvard, and
I could see myself, and I could relate.
And through that story I realized I am just as much a
victim. I mean I could be just as much at risk as any other
person.
I think the problem is that people think if they start
chatting with somebody on the Internet that their case is
different. They are not the case like they just heard from
mine. And people need to realize the dangers.
And I think the best way to do that is to go out and
educate. And I know that the government is mandating when the
government provides funding for computers for schools. They
should provide funding for education. Children need not to be
told statistics that are going to go in one ear and out the
other. They need to be told stories that they can relate to.
And I think education is so key because the education is
going to go with that child wherever they go, and while I think
it is important that we do monitor chat rooms and whatnot, that
is only going to be limited to that computer. If we give them
education and the tools to be empowered on the Internet, that
is going to go with them everywhere.
So I think there needs to be funding for or laws that
require if you are going to give them a computer in the school,
then they need to know how to use it. And those dangers are out
there, and there are consequences to them.
Mr. Upton. Before we jump over here, let me just say, too,
as I talk to my kids and students at school, peer-to-peer
discussions are the very best in terms of trying to influence
or trying to get your message across. And that is why, Katie, I
think your story relates so well, you know, to everybody in
this community, and that is why I wanted a public hearing here
to help identify problems and, you know, get those stories
across so that everyone here can hear exactly that.
And perhaps from this there will be a lot of families that
will sit down here tonight when they watch the news or read the
paper or listen to the radio, conversations from the students
who were here a little bit earlier, and they will just say,
``Boy, did you hear what I learned today?''
And that will open up a whole new chapter in that family's
house and neighborhood and help try to spread that message.
Ms. Tucker. In the education formats that we found most
effective are when we do present real life stories much like
Katie's, and what is important is that the children are not
just frightened. You know, you do not just give them horror
stories, but you give them examples, and you allow them to be
able to work with those examples in peer groups in the room and
come back with ways that they can empower themselves to protect
themselves or to recognize what those dangers were.
I listened to a young girl the other day, which scared me
to death. I was teaching in a sixth grade class, and I asked
all of the kids if they were involved in chat rooms, and most
of all of the hands go up.
And I said, ``Have you ever met a cyber friend that you
never knew before?''
And this little sixth grade girl raises her hand, and I
call on her, and I said, ``Well, what do you talk about?''
And she says, ``Well, everything.''
And I said, ``Well, why did you meet this friend in the
first place?''
She said, ``Because I was lonely.''
And I said, ``Now, when you talk about everything, what
does that mean?''
She says, ``Oh, my family, my school, my sisters, my
brothers, our pets, where we live, what we do, what we like.''
And I said, ``And you trust this person?''
And she says, ``Oh, yes, I trust this person. I know it is
not an adult because this person knows too much about what a
sixth grader likes. No adult could ever know that.''
So what we do in these classrooms, of course, is provide
examples, you know, like Katie's of how they do know or this
gentleman who testified today about his daughter, you know,
trusting this person.
And we let them realize what a true friend is, what trust
should be, and then we provide these examples so they can
understand the difference and make critical decisions because
they are going to make those decisions in lieu of parental
supervision also. And I do not discount parental supervision
whatsoever. I agree that there are many tactics that we need,
and that is one of them.
Mr. Upton. Caroline, before you answer, I would like you
just to comment on the steps. You talked about you are able to
monitor somebody's chat. Describe exactly how that works and
some of the things that you have found in addition to
responding to the same topic.
Ms. Curtin. Oh, certainly. Well, basically in our kids only
area on AOL, it is literally impossible to open a kids' chat
room or go into a kids' chat room unless a host or a monitor
has officially opened the chat room. The chat rooms are not
open 24-seven. They are on a schedule. There is always a
monitor who is identified as the monitor in the chat room, and
he or she is not only there to help insure that it is a safe
interaction, but also that the conversation remains relatively
age appropriate.
One thing that we did a year ago or so because the chat
room dialogs were getting a little bit rambunctious, to keep it
PG so to speak, was we instituted a stop sign before the
interactive areas. I mean it is literally a red stop sign, and
we say to kids and teens, you know, ``Keep it clean. Do not
give out your person information. We want everybody to have a
great experience, and just FYI, if you do not, we will be
sending a letter or an E-mail to your parent.''
That worked really well, and what happens is if three E-
mails go to the parent, we literally scramble the parent's
password on AOL so that they cannot sign onto AOL without first
calling in and speaking to a member services representative of
AOL about what has transpired, about our guidelines in our kids
and teens areas and the importance of on-line safety.
So that as proven to be very effective, but I think what we
are hearing over and over again is kind of a three-pronged
approach, a simple equation, so to speak, for on-line safety:
one being empowerment both for parents having the resources and
the tools and the education, and for kids to know what to do,
what to look out for.
Two, education, baking it into the curriculum of the school
that has Internet access; really reaching out to the kids,
telling them real life stories.
I would agree. I was at a middle school a few weeks ago,
and I made the mistake of having a quiz, and I handed out AOL
tee shirts, you know, if the kids answered the quiz correctly,
and they went crazy, and I could barely get them back. I could
barely get their attention back, but what stopped them was a
real life story of a man that worked for a computer associate
firm, and it was an on-line stalking case, and the room went
silent. And that is what caught their attention, and then their
hands went up, and they really wanted to know what to do to
stay safe.
And then the third is enforcement. And we fully support
greater resources, greater education, stiffer penalties for
pedophiles. So I think it really is those three Es in a
nutshell.
Mr. Upton. Kathleen.
Ms. Tucker. I had a question along the lines of your chat
rooms. Can you guarantee that a participant in a chat room is a
child?
Ms. Curtin. No, we cannot. There is no way for us to know
that definitively without asking for someone to come and meet
us in a brick and mortar setting really. But that is why we
have the monitors there. That is why they are trained.
They are trained to look for people that might be acting as
if they are children, asking inappropriate questions. We do say
that the kids and teens chat rooms are attended for kids and
teens.
In addition, if a parent wants to use our tools, they can
really fine tune the chat experience. They can also block
instant messaging entirely. They can block E-mail.
If they do not want to do that, they can create an allow
list of kids' friends, family members that they do feel
comfortable with their children talking to and limit it that
way.
Mr. Upton. If you do an allow list and Johnny down the
street is on there, but Johnny has got another friend, is he
able to pull in somebody else or not?
Ms. Curtin. He is not.
Mr. Upton. It will just be a strict one.
Ms. Curtin. It is a strict allowance, yes.
And we also have instant messaging controls for kids or any
user on AOL so that if someone is bothering them, they do not
want to talk to someone anymore, they can put that person on
their black list. They can also make themselves invisible so
that the other person cannot have them on their buddy list and
see that they are on line.
Ms. Tucker. And the reason that I ask those questions, have
you considered digital certificates?
Ms. Curtin. We have looked at digital certificates. I think
there have been great advancements in technology across the
board, but we have not seen digital certificates take off to
the point where we have reached critical mass so that they will
really be effective, but we are hoping that they get there.
Ms. Tucker. We are going to pose this just as a thought for
you as you move forward. One other technical possibility for a
solution is the use of digital certificates, and for those who
are not familiar with digital certificates, I am going to say
it very simply. They are electronic ID cards, and you get these
by going to a certification authority who has different levels,
but allows you to perhaps show a photo ID or even a birth
certificate.
If we think out of the box a little bit and we were to
think about in the future issuing digital certificates for
children who were at school because those certificates would be
guaranteed and the fact that a child attending a school has
presented a birth certificate, you know, is identifiable, and
perhaps we were to use those digital certificates within chat
rooms, perhaps your dot-kids domain, it may be able to help to
protect the area from predators.
Mr. Upton. John had a comment.
Mr. Karraker. We are talking a lot about AOL. We need to
recognize there are hundreds of Internet service providers, and
we are not addressing the industry as a whole. It sounds like
AOL has changed a lot of what they do since I last dealt with
them, but I really think there should be some industry
standards of what should be done by the industry on the
Internet as far as monitoring chat rooms and what have you.
But we also need to look at I do not hear a lot of
conversation about instant messaging that says AOL's, IM,
Microsoft, Yahoo. All of the rules are downloadable, free,
instant messages services that nobody monitors.
A child can come home to an empty computer, go on line with
whatever service you may be using, download AOL as an example,
have all of the IM they want to do while I am not home. Before
I get home they can delete that whole thing, and I never even
know they have been on the computer.
I am not the technical expert to talk about it, but really
it needs to be addressed within the industry with oversight to
develop some type of controls on this type of stuff.
We can talk all about chat room controls, but we are only
addressing a small part of the problem.
Mr. Upton. But, you know, as Charlie asked the question of
what can we do as legislators to help, we work with the
Department of Commerce and other different agencies. I wonder
if there might be some code that could be established, Good
Housekeeping Seal type of thing, that Internet service
providers if they follow that course would be able to achieve
that particular distinction as a help, whether looking first at
the industry, trying to establish a code that has got some
teeth in it.
We both worked very hard to establish dot-kids with ICANN,
you know, like we have dot-org and dot-com; have a dot-kids.
The national folks, you know, a day late, a dollar short, too
late. And that is why we went to a different little version of
that so that it is actually dot-kids-dot-U.S., under the
auspices of the Department of Commerce set up through the
private sector.
And my sense is that that will take off, particularly as
parents learn about those sites and tell their 10 or 11 or 12
year old that they are welcome to get on the Internet, but it
had darn well better be a dot-kids site and a lot of different
groups then funnel in as part of that exercise.
Ruben, did you want to comment on that?
Mr. Rodriguez. And I agree with John that we have been
talking about the industry in general, but one of the things we
have not talked about is the IRC, very unregulated, global
medium. You access it through your ISP on the Internet.
Thousands and thousands of chat room and channels are open for
communications.
Many of these cases that do occur do not occur in the
environment of AOL. Some of the cases we have talked about here
did, but the majority of cases are happening on IRC where you
do not have monitoring. You have no controls.
Somebody creates a channel. Communications are done. If you
got into IRC right now and you type in ``sex,'' you will
probably get about 1,100 conversations going on right now in
different chat rooms going in communications. That is where the
pedophiles are. That is where the kids are going to look
because the controls are not there.
You are also talking about what can Congress do. Well,
Congress has been doing a lot. I mean, give yourselves some
credit here. You funded initiatives like the school resource
officers training program that is similar to the DARE program,
where you are empowering and educating law enforcement officers
to go into the schools and talk about this.
And as they did with drugs with the DARE program, now they
are talking about Internet safety issues.
I do agree with you that when you talk to the focus groups
about kids, who will kids listen to? They will listen to their
peers. We are currently doing a program called Net Smart, a
proactive interaction between our Web site, chat rooms, and
whatever, with kids.
Kids will listen to kids. We ask them, you know, if we were
going to sell this idea to you, who would you listen to. Would
you listen to the Michael Jordans of the world or anybody else?
They said, no, because they are getting paid, and we know
they are making high dollars, but we will listen to kids, not
demeaning Katie, but kids that have done this, that it has
happened to them.
Katie is probably one of the older people now in this
group, but I mean people that have experienced it. War stories.
And I do agree. The public can relate it to war stories, as
policemen used to call it. Tell us a story and that way it will
relate it to us. Do not give us the technical jargon or
whatever, but tell us, you know, how will it affect us. What
will it do to us or whatever?
So Congress has been putting laws into effect to help this,
and they have been empowering law enforcement officers'
educational programs.
I made the mistake about a year ago going to a PTR seminar
where in the State of Virginia I did a presentation. And after
the presentation, I had 33 invitations within about 2 weeks to
go present in these schools, and there is no way one individual
can do that.
Educating those that are at the local level, as I said it
before, and I might sound like a broken record; educating those
resources that you have at the local level, your law
enforcement resources, your continued relations law enforcement
resources to outreach to the public, to go into the schools.
At one time we thought about educating teachers, but in
defense of teachers, they have so many responsibilities they
have to deal with now. You have to bring people from the
outside to be able to talk about these things, and I think the
people that are there doing the outreach, the education are the
law enforcement officers going into the schools at the local
level. That I think are where the resources need to be Ms.
Curtin. Just to respond to the comment about instant messaging
programs and there being certain other ISPs besides AOL, we
agree. We do not want to be alone in this. You know, it needs
to be an industry-wide effort clearly, and there has to be
strong collaboration.
I mean no one person, no one company can do it on its own,
and with respect to AIM, that is our free instant messaging
service. We do not recommend that for children. We, in fact,
have an age screening mechanism on AIM so that birth date and
year is required. It is not allowed for children 12 and under.
That is not foolproof if a child decides to fudge his or
her age.
Mr. Upton. Foolproof in my house.
Ms. Curtin. Good. There are ways to get around it, of
course, as there are anything. I do not think that we are ever
going to, you know, be able to block or shut down all of the
instant messaging programs. I think it gets back to education,
again, and how kids and teens can be equipped when they are
using these mechanisms because the fact is that is how kids and
teens communicate these days, and that is just the reality of
it.
So we do have tools on AIM even for blocking people, for
actually notifying us if there is a problem. You can warn
someone on AIM, and if you are communicating with them, you can
actually see how many warnings does this person have, which is
an early indication that maybe it is not such a good person to
be talking to.
We also have something that we call a knock-knock feature
on AIM. So if you are on AOL and someone instant messages you
from AIM, a box comes up and says, ``Would you like to accept
this instant message?'' It is not just all of a sudden you are
talking to Horselover at AOL.
So there are protections in place, but it is also a free
service. So we do not have as much leverage as we do on the
subscription service, where we know who the subscriber is and
we have their address and we have their credit card number. If
we get a report, we can really do something about it.
Mr. Upton. Katie.
Ms. Tarbox. Just to get back to the documents because I
think that is probably a large reason why we are here today, I
agree with all that we have been talking about. I do not feel
that there is one solution.
But when I first heard about the dot-kids bill, I was kind
of hesitant because I thought, you know, this is not the
answer. They need to do something more.
But then as I started to think about it, and I am lucky
enough to be able to take courses at the Edinburgh Public
Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia, and anyone who knows media communication, these
are probably some of the leading professors and researchers.
And speaking with my professor, who is a specialist
actually in the Internet safety for kids and other Internet
related issues, and I think that it is important that this
legislation outlines that the content on these Web sites,
specifically dot-kids, is going to be appropriate because this
will be most children's introduction to the Internet.
Most parents will probably put on their Internet filtering
software and allow it to be just in the dot-kids area, and so,
therefore, I think it is important that the legislation clearly
lays out, you know, what kind of Web sites are going to be
allowed and so that kids learn that the Internet is for
information, for doing homework, for communicating with people
that they already know, and looking at it like that, and not
having the introduction like I had where it is like a bar. You
go to meet people.
Mr. Upton. That is exactly what the intent is on the dot-
kids, to do exactly what you just described, and it is going to
be the introduction, and they will learn a whole number of
skills, and as they mature, they can still stay on it. They
will obviously be able to select other sites as well.
I want to come back, Caroline, just to ask: how hard is it
for folks to somehow disengage?
My 10 year old is very responsible, a proud dad. He is not
going to do that.
Or he will lose a lot of privileges. But how hard is it for
someone to go around and, in essence, hack into the sites that
you have otherwise thought you have blocked off from your son
or daughter?
Ms. Curtin. On AOL it is very difficult, and that is
because it is a server based technology. So that as I
referenced earlier literally the screen name for your child is
attached to the parental controls. So as we do see more and
more devices, palms, and blackberries and AOL TV and all of
these different ways that you can access the medium from home
or away from home, no matter where you are, if you as a parent
have applied parental controls to that screen name, they will
always be in effect.
But no system is perfect. Let me say that. No system is 100
percent infallible 100 percent of the time, but these are
pretty close.
Mr. Upton. Jim?
Mr. Gregart. By lack of fallibility, do you mean that if I
were to buy a new account as an adult with a credit card and
then sign up my fictitious children with parental controls
attached to them, then that you would not know that if I went
in under one of the names of my disguised, alias, fictitious
children that, in fact, I was not a 60 year old?
Ms. Curtin. We would not know that. When a parent or anyone
creates a screen name, we do not ask how old is the person you
are creating this screen name for Mr. Gregart. So you would
know what age level I had set it at. So there would be sort of
a predisposition that, you know, Goofy Jimmy or whatever my key
name is----
Ms. Curtin. Actually we would know on the back end, but
let's say that you went into one of our kids only chat rooms or
the teens chat rooms and you had a parentally controlled screen
name. We would not know that just on the surface of things, and
no one else would either.
And one of the things that we have tried to do is really
make sure that in our kids environment, our kids channel and
our teens channel, it does not matter if you are on a
parentally controlled screen name or not. We have the same
policies for safety and content in place because not every
parent is going to choose to apply parental controls.
Mr. Upton. But if somehow you went to the digital ID and
then it got some universal acceptance, then, in fact, Crazy
Jimmy would not be able to get his password, right?
Ms. Curtin. That is correct.
Mr. Bass. You can prosecute under Michigan law, and this is
technically within the jurisdiction of this subcommittee, but
are there any Federal initiatives that you think ought to be
undertaken in the area of criminal justice?
Mr. Upton. And as you answer that question, you 34 year old
that you are going to proceed with charges from last week, I
think you indicated that assuming that he is convicted, he is
eligible for up to 35 years.
Katie's story, interstate, I mean, all of these different
things, 18 months. I mean, did the laws change? Did they just
have bad prosecutors? What is the deal?
Mr. Gregart. Well, Michigan's law is rather new. It
provides 20 years for using the Internet to commit a felony,
and that can be consecutive to the underlying felony, which in
our case would be 15 years. So you get in Michigan what is
called stat time or consecutive. In other words, you do the 15,
and then it is up to the judge's discretion to put 20 on top of
that.
That is pretty severe, and I support it.
Ms. Tarbox. In my case he was sentenced in 1998. So there
were no precedents about other sentencings. It was a Federal
law, and part of the problem is, as I have spoken to other
district attorneys or U.S. attorneys, in Frank's case, he was a
very wealthy, put together man, and if you meet him, if he came
in here, he is very charismatic, and a lot of judges look at
these people and think he cannot be that bad, and they have
given rather light sentencing, especially because there is a
stereotype to what they think pedophiles should be.
I am not a law expert, but you know, from what I have
spoken to and other sentencings that I have seen, I mean,
somebody got a longer sentencing for not returning library
books in Florida than, you know, Frank did for what he has
done.
So it is a little crazy, and I think the answer is not, you
know--Frank could have been sentenced up to 20 years. The judge
did not choose to do so. It is not the legislation's fault. It
is the judge's fault.
So we need to communicate that this is really a serious
crime, and I Do not think that we have made that step. We need
to let people know how detrimental it is.
I know victims of sexual assaults who have had this happen,
you know, 5 years ago and are still dealing with it. I feel
like I am in a very lucky position. I had parents who could
afford the best counseling for me, you know, taking me to the
best specialists.
This is not the case for every victim, and so I think a lot
of things need to be stepped up, but unfortunately I do not
think it is related to this.
Mr. Upton. Go ahead, Kathy.
Ms. Tucker. Along the same lines of laws, and so I will
direct this to those of you who are currently in law
enforcement, when children are first approached on line and you
see that contact beginning, such as in the case, and I do
apologize. I cannot pronounce your last name.
Mr. Gregart. Me?
Ms. Tucker. No.
Mr. Karraker. Karraker.
Ms. Tucker. Thank you.
Mr. Karraker. John.
Mr. Upton. John.
Ms. Tucker. Oh, John? I an deal with that.
In John's case, where he notified, you know, law
enforcement that this was going on and there was not anything
to be done because there was not a crime, should we not as a
Nation look at the total picture and try to put into place some
policies that could prevent these acts before they occur rather
than always having to deal with after the fact?
Mr. Upton. And how do these tips ever get passed along to
the police authorities when they are able to identify, John?
Mr. Karraker. Part of what I was trying to stress with
mine, there was no crime that had occurred, but there was the
possibility that if law enforcement would have been trained and
would have been equipped to deal with it, they could have been
notified of the incident. They could have run that case to the
point where if he would have committed a crime, that he could
have been arrested for it.
And that is the type of education that needs to occur with
law enforcement, and also the funding has to be made available
to law enforcement.
Mr. Upton. Ruben?
Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Chairman, I mentioned that earlier. In
John's case, for the law enforcement officer to say there is
nothing we can do about it because a crime did not occur, we
have heard that all too often. These cases start out somewhere.
Law enforcement officers, if they did not have the
resources locally for John or whatever, law enforcement will
work these cases. That is how it starts, you know.
Answering your question where did these tips go, when they
come to us, we do a lot of validation on the Internet. We have
14 analysts that look at this stuff, peruse the stuff, build
probable cause, if you would, to send that information on to
law enforcement agencies.
In John's case, I mean, we get these kind of complaints all
the time. My child received this. I intercepted that, or
whatever.
We give it to law enforcement. They proactively go out
there to work undercover operations, assume the child's
identity and say, ``Okay. I am now 13 year old little Johnny,''
and you know, start talking. This individual starts sending him
child pornography, gets into the grooming process, and you
know, he comes to visit her, and he meets this 250 pound burly
police officer waiting for him when he gets off of the bus.
So it is being worked. John is perfectly correct. There is
a handful of law enforcement officers throughout the United
States that work these kind of cases. As I mentioned, the
Internet task forces right now, that is 30 independent law
enforcement agencies or task forces throughout the country. We
need more of those individuals.
We do training for law enforcement out there. The National
Center funds these programs to do protecting children on line.
AOL is involved in it from the ISP, educating law enforcement
officers, how to conduct these investigations.
We have a unit commander course. We bring in the
lieutenants and sergeants who work these cases to tell them,
you know, these are the issues you are going to have to be
dealing with, you know, the policies, the procedures, or the
laws or whatever. And we want to do more and more of those
nationwide.
We have standing room only in these courses that we do, but
we are not touching as many as we need to talk. I mean, I think
the last count was over 800,000 law enforcement officers in the
United States. You are talking several hundred individuals who
can do these kind of cases.
So there are resources out there. They just have to be
expanded.
Mr. Upton. Well, I want to thank all of you. I want to
particularly thank staff. It is never easy, I know, for those
of you who came long ways from both ends of the country. Your
testimony has been particularly helpful.
This is an issue for not only every state, but certainly
every community, every neighborhood, every family, and as we
see the great positives of the Internet continue to grow, we
have got to be ever so cognizant of some folks wanting to take
advantage of a system for their own evil means.
Jim?
Mr. Gregart. Congressman, I think we would be remiss if we
only focused on children in this area. Just for all of the
adults in the room, I would like to urge you not to respond to
the former Nigerian Finance Minister who has E-mailed you
asking you for your personal savings and checking account
number so that he can transfer $17 million into that account, a
classic example, and we have adults across this Nation who are
providing their life savings to people they do not know. So you
can imagine the problem we have with impressionable children.
Mr. Upton. That is exactly right.
Okay. I want to thank all of you. It has been terrific, and
I just want to say, too, for the press that is here, we will do
a little press availability down here for any specific
questions you have for the next 15 or 20 minutes. If everyone
assembles down here, we will make sure everybody is available
for whatever questions you might pose.
Thank you. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:57 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]