Predators to Prey - Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act.

It's time to stop talking and time to start doing something.

Copy this blog post on your own blog and spread the word. Send it as an email to everyone in your address book. There truly is power in numbers.

Time is short, we only have until the end of the month to get legislation passed to help put and end to child predators. Hundreds of thousands of children are victims of sexual abuse each year in our country.

In the physical world, a predator or child molester is usually someone a parent or child knows—someone who might even be trusted by the family. Online, however, it can be a different story. Predators can use the Internet to seek out children they don’t know. When they succeed in establishing and maintaining contact, the informal nature of the medium itself is partly to blame. The usual caution that kids might exercise away from the computer—walking to school, for example—can gradually erode. By the time a child agrees to meet a predator face to face, he or she no longer thinks of that person as a stranger.

The Internet can sometimes seem like the Wild West for child predators—a place that largely operates outside the law. While trading in pedophile pornography is illegal, lack of adequate funding means law enforcement officials are able to investigate just 2 percent of their leads. And, according to Interpol statistics, only one-half of 1 percent are ever prosecuted.

"What you are going to see is going to shock you to the core, but I'm asking you to please don't turn away," Oprah says, "because this is happening in our country to our children in the United States every day."




The map behind Oprah shows how quickly one pornographic image of a child being molested can spread. It starts with the large red dot from a computer in Washington, D.C. Within 24 hours, it has spread all across the United States—from coast to coast and north to south. "This is just an average day in America—24 hours," Oprah says.

"We're seeing sexual abuse including oral penetration, vaginal, anal penetration," says Michelle, another analyst at the Center for Missing and Exploited Children "We see children with dog collars on their necks. Kids with plastic bags over their heads. Foreign object insertion with these children." The demand for new videos and photos is so high that authorities report tracking increasingly brutal pornography with younger and younger victims.

"For once, you and I can do something about it!" Oprah says.

Due to the sheer lack of resources, law enforcement is unable to follow up on the majority of leads they have.

The PROTECT Our Children Act will:

• Authorize over $320 million over the next five years in desperately needed funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation.
• Mandate that child rescue be a top priority for law enforcement receiving federal funding.
• Allocate funds for high-tech computer software that can track down Internet predators.

Act Now!
Your U.S. senators will be voting on the bill soon, so it is crucial you contact them immediately.
Go to www.senate.gov to find contact information for the senators in your state. Search for your senator by name or state by clicking on the arrow from either dropdown menu. Contact information is provided here. To send an e-mail, click on "Web Form" below his or her name, and e-mail your letter to make a difference!

Choose your senators and sort by "State". Fill out the form for each senator. Under issue or subject choose "Crime" or "Judicial" or "Justice"

Call Your Senators
If you choose to contact your senators by phone, be sure to tell them, "Vote yes on Senate Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act."

Write to Your Senators
If you choose to write a letter, fax, telegram or e-mail, you may use the following sample letter—and modify it how you see fit.


Dear Senator:

I know that you believe, like I do, that we must do everything possible to protect children from sexual predators. That is why I am asking for your help.

Last year alone, U.S. law enforcement identified over 300,000 criminals who were trafficking in movies and pictures of young children being raped and tortured. Experts say that one in every three of these criminals has local child victims. Many of these child victims are infants. Child pornography trafficking over the Internet has given us a trail of evidence that leads straight to their doorsteps, but the vast majority of these children will never be rescued because investigators are overwhelmed, outnumbered and underfunded.

As your constituent, I urge you to do everything in your power to pass the PROTECT Our Children Act (S. 1738, Biden-Hatch). This bipartisan legislation passed the House 415-2, but it is now the victim of petty partisan politics.

Now that we know where these children are and how to protect them, there is no excuse for the Senate to fail to take action this session.

Thank you for listening and acting!

[Your Name]

Here are some links to get educated:

Net Safe Kids
Family WatchDog
Child Predator Busters
National Sex Offender Registry

You don't even have to get off your butt to do anything. Here are the steps to take:

1. Copy and Paste or send a letter to your senators NOW.

2. Get Informed, check out the links above to see what you can do to protect your children.

3. Copy this blog post on your own blog and spread the word. Send it as an email to everyone in your address book. There truly is power in numbers.

Please don't delay. Millions of children are depending on us!



(content provided by Oprah.com)