Sen. Biden's Speech Introducing S-1738

June 2007:

.By Mr. BIDEN (for himself and Mrs. BOXER)

S. 1738. 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; to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007. This legislation takes a bold step forward in addressing child exploitation.

And, Mr. President, let me assure you, we need bold action. We have taken some important steps here in the Senate, including passing the Jacob Weterling Act, the Pam Lyncher Act, the Amber Alert program, and last year's Adam Walsh Act.

But, this is a problem that keeps growing and growing, and we need bold action to address this problem. If we do not act, we will probably be back here naming a new bill after another unfortunate child victim.

The bottom line is that the Internet has facilitated an exploding, multi-billion dollar market for child pornography, with 20,000 new images posted every week. This is a market that can only be supplied by the continued sexual assault and exploitation of more children and the research shows that victims are getting younger and they are being exposed to more sadistic abuse.

The FBI and the Department of Justice have testified before Congress that there are hundreds of thousands of people trafficking child pornography in this country and millions around the world.

We are not making a dent in this problem.

Don't get me wrong, there are many Federal, State and local investigators and prosecutors out there working tirelessly, but need to do much more.

We have not dedicated enough Federal agents to this problem and we have not provided enough support for States and local government.

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.

We also know that when law enforcement agents do investigate these cases, there is a local abused child in 30 percent off the cases. And, research shows that at least 55 percent of child pornography possessors have previously sexually assaulted children or attempted to do so. So, by picking up these known offenders, we are saving children.

Finally, it is important to note that every time one of these images or videos are shared, the child is victimized again and again.

So, to help ensure that law enforcement has the capacity to get the job done, I am introducing the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007.

First, this legislation will establish a Special Counsel in the Deputy Attorney General's Office to coordinate all activities related to preventing child exploitation. This will be one person who will be held accountable for results.

We will also congressionally require that there be at least one Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, CAC, in each State. This program is poised to become the backbone for our investigative efforts here in the U.S. by forming a network of highly trained investigators to focus exclusively on combating child exploitation. Under this bill, we will triple the funding for the ICAC program to help with hiring, training, and investigative resources to form this Nation-wide network.

In addition, we will authorize over 250 new Federal agents to focus exclusively on this problem, including 125 new FBI agents, which will double the number of agents under the Innocent Images Program at the FBI, 95 new agents for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, ICE, and 31 new postal inspectors.

This bill will help us form a coordinated effort to go after child predators. As stated previously, we know where many of these people are and we need to go get them.

In my view, it is inexcusable that we are not putting the resources toward tracking the ones down who we know about and doing much more to find the others who are lurking in the shadows.

This legislation will get us on the right track and I urge my colleagues to support this effort.