Wasserman Schultz hails child-porn crackdown

By William Gibson

The U.S. Marshals Service is launching a nationwide child-pornography investigation targeting the 500 most dangerous sex offenders, Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Monday.

South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz — who sponsored legislation to intensify and pay for this kind of enforcement — praised the Justice Department’s implementation of the law passed by Congress in 2008.

The announcement came with a progress report to Congress that indicates child pornography via the Internet is more widespread than previously known.

“Just three years ago, we believed that child pornography was being traded over approximately 500,000 unique IP addresses in the U.S,” Wasserman Schultz said at a press conference in Alexandria, Va. “Thanks to this report, we now know that number is more than 20 times our original estimate.”

Her bill – sponsored in the Senate by then-Sen. Joe Biden – authorized spending up to $1.05 billion over eight years to hire hundreds of federal and state investigators.

Wasserman Schultz – who noted that she is the mother of three young children — took up the cause as part of her legislative priority of looking after the needs of young people.

She took the lead on this issue after former South Florida Congressman Mark Foley abruptly resigned in 2006. Foley pushed through legislation to toughen penalties for child pornography, but he left Congress in disgrace when the world learned he had sent e-mail to House pages full of sexual references and overly familiar questions.

Holder said his department will create a national database to allow federal, state, tribal, local and international law enforcers to share information and engage in undercover operations. The department also created 38 assistant U.S. attorney positions to focus on child-exploitation cases.

As part of its public-outreach, the Justice Department is re-launching ProjectSafeChildhood.gov, a website that provides information about enforcement efforts