Make the US Gov. Create A “Stop Child Pornography and Protect Children’s Rights LAW”

Dear Congress,

Children are people, and U.S. citizens, from birth and need to be protected. We are not protecting them. I am proposing that the US government create a law:

a) mandating that all Internet Service Providers (ISP's), public and private, to install filters to filter out child pornography

b) to keep a database of all child porn and related sites to be blocked by these filters in a data and require these filters to update themselves automatically every 7 days or reasonable time frame.

c) Make law enforcement responsible for reporting and adding new sites that have been detected to the data base.

d) Mandating that all Internet Service Providers (ISP's), public and private, to report all child pornography related issues on their network to authorities and mandate them to release all information about the person that committed the crime which would mean making and amendment to the Privacy Act of 1974 to force them to be able release that info.

This filter would block all known and future recognized child pornography sites and related sites. It would allow all other non-illegal websites. For example, Australia has a similar filtration system to the one that I am proposing. The Australian government requires that all of its citizens to purchase low cost filtering software or install a filter to be placed on their internet connection to block child pornography sites and they block all pornographic sites that are not rated. Those sites are stored in a database created by the ACMA. This low cost example could also work in the U.S.

Reported cases of child sexual abuse reached epidemic proportions, with a reported 322 percent increase from 1980 to 1990. (Source: Sorensen Snow, 1991) Before 1980 child pornography was almost non-existent, since the explosion of the Internet the amount of child pornography is staggering. The main way to solve a dilemma is to determine the root cause. If the root cause were eliminated then the issue would take care of itself. The root cause of child pornography is the Internet and we need cut it off their distribution source.

This filter would also help reduce the amount of children being molested make these photographs. Someone is committing a crime during the creation of these images and hurting our children. It would also drastically reduce the amount of sex offenders that have accidentally downloaded child pornography. It would cut down on court costs and jail time for the offenders and would reduce tax dollars. This would allow more funding to help the government set up counseling centers for victims and go after the people committing the crimes against children or more funds for other related or non-related issues.

There are people that think that this would be unconstitutional. How would blocking just the material that is illegal in the US and is hurting our children but allowing everything else violate any amendment to the constitution? The images of the children are taking away their rights so why would anyone have the "Right" under the constitution to view those illegal images. The US does not allow drugs to come into the country then why should they allow child porn. Pedophiles use the Internet to hunt down sexually explicit images of children and other illegal images.

If we could reduce the images that are being distributed and downloaded dramatically it would reduce child crimes in the US and possibly help reduce them throughout the world. Let's eliminate the ease of the crimes against children and stop fueling the people that want to view these images. Pedophiles are not born pedophiles. Child pornography helps create pedophiles out of people that would not normally be one. We need to reduce Pedophiles wanting to produce the images and committing crimes against our children.

Remember our children are the future! They have the right to be protected and the government needs to protect them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.