9-14-2008 National:
On Monday September 15 the Oprah show will be doing a piece on Internet Predators.
The real, but hidden, purpose of this show is to push a bill pending in Congress, S-1738, a bill originally introduced by Sen. Joe Biden, currently Sen. O'Bamas choice for Vice President in his run for the Presidency.
Since every bill has two titles, first the Political: `Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2008' and the Actual: A bill to establish a Special Counsel for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, to improve the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, to increase resources for regional computer forensic labs, and to make other improvements to increase the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute predators.
Now, given those facts who would ever think there is anything wrong with this bill?
Is there a problem in the definitions it sets up?
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. In this Act, the
following definitions shall apply:
(1) CHILD EXPLOITATION- The term `child exploitation' means any conduct, attempted conduct, or conspiracy to engage in conduct involving a minor that violates section 1591, chapter 109A, chapter 110, and chapter 117 of title 18, United States Code, or any sexual activity involving a minor for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.
(2) CHILD OBSCENITY- The term `child obscenity' means any visual depiction proscribed by section 1466A of title 18, United States Code.
(3) MINOR- The term `minor' means any person under the age of 18 years.
(4) SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONDUCT- The term `sexually explicit conduct' has
the meaning given such term in section 2256 of title 18, United States Code.
Effectively "..or any sexual activity involving a minor for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense," covers ANY type of sexual crime against a person under 18 and in some cases will conflict with a state's age of consent laws (generally 16 or so). In those conflict case permitting a harsher sentence than state law would have permitted before this bill.
This also affects the right of a state to legislate without federal interference (another 10th. amendment issue?). At what point will the federal government stop interfering with state legislatures.
What has been appropriated is shocking and makes one wonder if this bill is just fattening the pockets of federal appointees and enlarging the federal government duplicating what already exists in the states:
SEC. 107. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
(a) In General- There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this title--
(1) $60,000,000 for fiscal year 2009;
(2) $75,000,000 for fiscal year 2010;
(3) $75,000,000 for fiscal year 2011;
(4) $75,000,000 for fiscal year 2012;
(5) $75,000,000 for fiscal year 2013;
(6) $75,000,000 for fiscal year 2014;
(7) $100,000,000 for fiscal year 2015; and
(8) $100,000,000 for fiscal year 2016.
(b) Availability- Funds appropriated under subsection (a) shall remain available until expended.
Sen. Biden, in his speech introducing this bill in 2007, said:
The most troubling aspect, one that led to the drafting of this legislation is that we know where many of these people are and if we set the right priorities we can go pick them up.
Let me repeat that, we have new investigative techniques that will allow us to identify many of the people who are trafficking child pornography and we can go pick them up.
A very conservative estimate is that there are more than 400,000 people who we know who are trafficking child pornography on the Internet in the U.S. right now.
We can, with minimal effort, take these people down. But, due to lack of resources we are investigating less than 2 percent of these cases. Again, we are only investigating 2 percent of the known child pornography traffickers.
If the location of these people is known are these appropriations justified?
In April of this year when the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs held its hearing ars Technica covered the hearing and also pointed out problems that may be encountered with "fasle positives" which could ensnare innocent folks. That coverage is well worth your time to review.
In closing, assume 400,000 folks are captured, prosecuted in federal courts, and placed in the federal Bureau of Prisons. We all know those sentences will end with a civil commitment hearing which is required by the Adam Walsh Act, and may result in commitments. Commitments means folks need sex offender therapy.
Does anyone see ONE DIME appropriated in this bill for the costs associated with the after prosecution phase of S-1738 efforts?
Zip, zero, zilch. America, open your pocketbooks the government is coming.
eAdvocate
3 comments:
Notice that the revised version of the bill which came out of the Committee struck the section about "findings" which usually lay the foundation for the laws.
And that there was no Senate Report from the Committee giving the public insight into what went into the original version and the revised version.
So you're opposed to this bill because it will result in more child-sex predators being convicted and that it will cost money to detain them?
Using this logic, why don't we save all the money we can and not enforce ANY laws?
I think people are missing the point of the reason to oppose this bill. It has nothing to do with protecting the public. It has everything to do with more money to duplicate laws that are already in place to do the job. It is a PORK project, not a crime prevention project.
Biden clearly stated they already know who these 400,000 people are..if so why do we need to spend millions more to find the same people who are already on these lists?
Also if you look at most such projects you see they require state participation and the cost to states, who are already close to bankruptcy, means cuts to other programs such as education, police, fire and so on... all to DUPLICATE laws that already cover this exact form of crime.
The other component always missing from these bills is mandating and funding treatment programs. They are all about "registering" but don't ever require treatment or counseling which, contrary to public belief, does work.
Are we really passing laws to protect children or are we passing laws to create more federal jobs that just duplicate existing programs?
This is not more protection..this is PORK at a time the tax payer just can't afford more PORK!
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