Child Pornography: Systemic Problem Or Parental Failure?

Child Sex as Internet Fare, Through Eyes Of A Victim

As a former social worker for the Department of Social Services in Massachusetts, I have been watching this story carefully. While it is true that there are some sick, perverse folks out there, the case of Justin Berry was not a result of merely an opportunistic victimization of Justin at 13, nor a mere failure of our society to systemically deal with pedophiles--both of which are true and contributory factors--but an utter failure of the parents to protect their child. Indeed, Justin Berry testified that his own father exploted his participation in the child porn industry by setting up a business based on Justin's contacts.

But statistically, most child molestations are a failure of parents to protect their children. Statistically, most child molestations occur as a result of contact with a family member, friend of the family, priest or minister, babysitter or coach... Someone that has gained the trust of the child and the family, then betrays that trust in a heinous sexual act. The parents have often not really done their homework when it comes to these molesters. When it comes to a parish priest or minister, they have assumed that these folks are trustworthy. The same is true of coaches, teachers, scout leaders, etc. The parents drop the children off and do not keep close tabs on their children.

In the case of children being contacted via e-mail, on-line chat, web sites, or instant messaging, here again I see a failure of the parents. Children are being allowed to use the Internet and all of its tools without adequate supervision. While most parents would not allow their children--especially children under the age of 15--to talk to strangers they meet by chance on the street without some sort of supervision, they allow their children to do just that by engaging in online communication. We cannot blame the children... they are the innocent victims. We can blame the pedophiles, but we should have been aware that pedophiles are always trolling for a "catch." So, while we should hold the pedophiles 100% responsible for their behaviors, we should also hold the parents responsible for their parts in the process.

Children should not be allowed to be unsupervised while engaging in dangerous activities. Going to the mall can be dangerous... and most parents restrict how and when and with whom their children can go to the mall. Playing in a busy street is dangerous... and most parents take precautions to prevent their children from that risk. Talking to strangers is dangerous... and most parents teach their children not to do so, and monitor where there children tavel and what they do... So why do parents seem to forget these fundamentals when it comes to the Internet?

What happened to Justin Berry--and what happens to a lot of children just like Justin--is a terrible thing. We need to take some reasonable steps to help prevent it if we can. We also need to make such crimes punishable by longer sentences and mandatory medical and psychiatric care. We also need to educate our children that stranger-danger exists in all the ways we communicate as human beings. But most of all, we need to educate parents about what they need to be doing to protect their--OUR--children.

The sexual exploitation of children on the Internet is a $20 billion industry that continues to expand in the United States and abroad, overwhelming attempts by the authorities to curb its growth, witnesses said at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.

The witnesses, who testified at a hearing of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, part of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said that sexual predators were preying on victims as young as 18 months by using instant messaging and Web cameras to meet, lure and digitally stalk children and to share pornography.

Internet technologies have the capacity to drive a wedge between children and their families, they said.

"Online predators befriend adolescents," said Dr. Sharon Cooper, a pediatrician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was one of the witnesses. "They become closer to them than some family members are."

Dr. Cooper compared the new forms of online exploitation, which involve constant surveillance of subjects, to security cameras in convenience stores. "We're seeing real-time sexual exploitation of children." She cautioned that predators were using online child pornography not just for sexual gratification, but as "a plan for action."

The lead witness at the hearings was Justin Berry, who was molested as a teenager by people he had met online, and then went on to run a pornographic Web site for five years, featuring images of himself.

Mr. Berry was the subject of a front-page article in The New York Times in December by an investigative reporter, Kurt Eichenwald. The article detailed Mr. Berry's experiences and his efforts to assist in the prosecution of some of the 1,500 people who had paid him to perform on camera.

Mr. Eichenwald spent six months on the investigation and was subpoenaed to testify before the committee. He sat alongside Mr. Berry, 19, who delivered his remarks in a measured tone to the committee.

"There are hundreds of kids in the United States alone who are right now wrapped up in this horror," Mr. Berry said in his testimony. "Within each of your Congressional districts, I guarantee there are children who have used their Webcams to appear naked online, and I guarantee you there are also children in your district on the Internet right now being contacted and seduced by online sexual predators."

Child exploitation investigators in the Justice Department came under fire from lawmakers at the hearings, who questioned whether officials had responded too slowly to leads provided by Mr. Berry. These included clients' names and credit card numbers, which could presumably help investigators identify children entangled in the online pornography industry. The department denied that contention.

"The Department of Justice uses every resource available to quickly protect and remove children who are being exploited from dangerous situations, and to prosecute those responsible for their abuse," a spokesman, Bryan Sierra, said.

The hearing was the first of several on this topic. On Thursday, the committee is to address law enforcement efforts. A representative from the Justice Department is expected to testify.

"Justin Berry stepped forward at a time the government did not know he existed," Mr. Eichenwald said. "He is, to experts' knowledge, the first such teenage witness to ever turn over this kind of vast evidence to the government."

Still, he added, "important data offered to the government by Justin has, even at this late date, not been collected and has only been reviewed by me."

At issue is how to handle the companies involved in these crimes, from Internet service providers to credit card companies to banks.

"At a minimum what we can do is follow the money," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "If we take away the profitability, it is going to be very difficult for these sites to maintain themselves."

DHS Spokesman Is Accused of Soliciting Teen Online

The fact that such a high official of the Deprtment of Homeland Security was involved in this heinous activity only proves the point that it is those that we form a sense of trust about/with are the ones most likely to breach that trust. Even the vigilante group, Perverted Justice, and the news media programs that are setting up stings to lure pedophiles to meetings with supposed teens and children demonstrate that most of the molesters have jobs, many in positions that we trust as a metter of fact. We can do better... WE NEED TO DO BETTER!

The deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security was arrested last night on charges that he used the Internet to seduce an undercover Florida sheriff's detective who he thought was a 14-year-old girl, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.

Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested at his Silver Spring home at 7:45 p.m. and charged with seven counts of using a computer to seduce a child and 16 counts of transmitting harmful materials to a minor, according to a sheriff's office statement.

Agents with the department's Inspector General's Office, the U.S. Secret Service, the Montgomery County police and the Polk County Sheriff's Office served a search warrant and seized his home computer and other materials, the statement said.

Doyle was online at the time awaiting what he thought was a nude image of a girl who had lymphoma, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in an interview with Fox News' "On the Record With Greta Van Susteren." "We wanted to make sure he was using that computer and talking to detectives at the time of the arrest," Judd said.

In his initial communication last month, Doyle told an undercover computer-crimes detective who he was and that he worked for the Department of Homeland Security, later disclosing numbers for his office phone and government-issued cellphone and using those lines, the sheriff's office said.