U.S. House set to expand investigations of child pornography

WASHINGTON – Alarmed by child exploitation via the Internet, the House is expected to overwhelmingly pass a billion-dollar bill today to dramatically expand investigations of computer-generated pornography.

South Florida U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the bill’s sponsor and the mother of three young children, said more than half a million people are trafficking in child pornography, but only 2 percent of them are under investigation because of limited resources.

Her bill, which has drawn little opposition, would authorize spending $1.05 billion over eight years to hire hundreds of federal and state investigators and establish a special counsel’s office in the Justice Department. Much of the money would be distributed as grants to state and local police agencies to crack down on cyber-porn.

“Maybe it’s the children who can be the catalyst for the change we need in America,” Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, told the House.

She and others depicted the bill as a sign the Democratic majority is addressing the needs of children and families. Republicans supported the bill, but one critic grumbled that Democrats had bypassed the usual process to prevent the House from considering amendments.

“It is sad to see that our children’s safety is being sacrificed for the benefit of a quick press hit,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “While the bill has some good provisions, much more could have been done.”

The bill revives a cause once led by disgraced former congressman Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, who abruptly resigned just before last year’s elections. Foley’s fulminations against child porn became the epitome of hypocrisy when the world learned he had been sending e-mail to House pages and interns full of sexual references and overly familiar questions.

Before his fall from grace, Foley pushed a bill through Congress strengthening penalties for child predators, and he had proposed other legislation to curb pornographic child modeling.

But when Foley self-destructed, the cause lay fallow for a time.

Wasserman Schultz took it up this session, backed by parent groups and advocates for missing and exploited children.

The House-passed bill would:

Establish a grant program as part of an Internet Crimes Against Children task force that would funnel funds to local agencies to investigate cyber-crime.

Authorize funds for hiring 250 new FBI, customs, immigration and postal agents dedicated to investigating child-exploitation cases.

Authorize $7 million per year to the Regional Computer Forensic Labs to support child-exploitation investigations.

Democratic Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Barbara Boxer of California have introduced a companion bill, which the Senate is expected to pass with bipartisan support early next year

Copyright 2007