As media outlets report that Super Bowl entertainer Pete Townshend of The Who was a once-registered sex offender in the U.K., a couple of items come to light: 1.) Most Americans did not know about Townshend’s sex offender status; 2.) They are furious that the NFL would hire Townshend for the primo family show of the year.
The NFL and halftime sponsor Bridgestone, however, are standing behind their man, and support Townshend’s “research” excuse he used when he was caught accessing and paying for online child pornography. Even so, the NFL and its Super Bowl sponsors have been sent disclosure documentations from our over-seas friends at Child AbuseWatch that leave them in no doubt as to Townshend’s confession of guilt which earned him his sex offender status. That leaves them in the position of knowingly hiring a sex offender.
Of course, if sponsors decided not to support the NFL’s choice of “entertainment,” the NFL would be forced to drop Townshend from the line-up, a decision that should come as relief to parents everywhere.
On a side note, a registered sex offender—past or present—cannot land a job even as a groundskeeper at Land Shark Stadium under usual circumstances…it will be interesting to see just how serious stadium officials are about enforcing their own guidelines to help keep kids safe.
Townshend’s worries are also growing, despite any support he may receive today. Florida has strict laws about the treatment of anyone with a sex offender record and requires such individuals to register when entering the state.
Law enforcement has been notified of Townshend’s arrival in hopes that local officials at the State Department, Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement will revoke Townshend’s visa due to his criminal record.
Even the attorney general has been asked to consider apprehending Townshend at the South Florida airport, or at any time during his stay. After all, Townshend could potentially be taken into custody to face charges of paying for child pornography in Texas, the state where the child porn website was based when he used his credit card to access the images in 2003.
Regardless, this time of year is marked by cold season. Perhaps Mr. Townshend will suddenly come down with something that would prevent him from traveling to the U.S. and that could possibly help salvage his reputation, if there is anything left salvaging.
A recent case involving a Texas man allegedly forcing his 8 and 9-year-old daughters to watch online pornography has prompted Texas officials and parents to fight a state law that allows parents to show their children “harmful material.”
The law was originally created in the 1970s in order to protect parents who wanted to teach their children about sex education. As written, the law specifically says that parents can’t be prosecuted for showing “harmful material” to their children, but doesn’t set boundaries as to what constitutes such harmful material. Thus, the door is left open for potential abuse. In the aforementioned case, the incident came to light after one of the girls told a school counselor that her father made her and her sister watch an online video of group sex.
The mother of the children is upset that nothing can be done about her ex-husband’s actions. She’s spreading awareness about the law in hopes of changing it, recognizing that she herself wasn’t aware of the law until she tried to have her ex arrested.
With the rapid rise in the number of children with access to the Internet, parents owe it to their kids to teach them about the potential pitfalls of the world wide web, not lure them to danger.
The Internet is filled with images that children should not be exposed to, even under the supervision of their parents. For example, child pornography has become so common on the Internet it has turned into a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise. In the decade since the FBI launched a 1996 initiative to combat online child pornography and exploitation, the number of such cases jumped by over 2,000 percent. It’s also estimated that some child pornography websites receive more than one million visits in a single month and that victims are becoming younger and the images more graphic and violent.
Let’s not forget that the broad audience for child pornography drives up the demand for child pornography to be produced—and in turn, the demand for children to be molested in front of cameras or live audiences. Worse, showing any type of porn to kids is a common “grooming” practice of pedophiles that desensitizes victims and makes them less likely to resist further advances. This type of grooming is widely considered by child advocates to be as abusive as actual contact abuse.
Of course, sexual education is an important and laudable goal.And parents ought to have the right to teach their children about sex in privacy without fear of persecution or prosecution. But the same law that protects the privacy rights of parents also needs to protect children from exposure to dangerous or harmful content. So while no one is accusing this Texas father of sexually abusing his daughters, let’s hope the state legislature better clarifies the intent of the law and helps protect families from this type of abuse in the future. Such action is necessary to adapt the law to better fit today’s Internet hungry environment and to better protect each and every child.
The growth of the internet—including broadband and wireless access—has the unfortunate side effect of putting children at potential risk. For the most part, the connections our kids make on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace allow teens the opportunity to connect to other teens from around the world—something that would not have been possible just a few years ago.
But along with this new ability to “hang out online” has also come the danger of predators looking for ways to lure children into dangerous or even fatal situations.
Kudos to Google for attempting to make Street View more user-friendly. But shame on them too for not going the extra step to remove all images of kids who are unsuspectingly photographed for anyone to see. Why place the burden on busy parents who already feel they can’t keep up with technology when it comes to protecting their families? Allowing parents an opt-out feature, while seemingly a helpful tool, isn’t enough – parents ought to be able to opt-in instead. It may come as a surprise to some, but not every parent cruises the Internet daily like most teenagers…Who’s helping those parents opt out of this intrusive and potentially dangerous program? Street View seems harmless enough. But considering the technology allows online users to view zoomed-in, high-resolution photographs of their homes, parks, schools, and in some cases, even children playing outside, sadly, it’s only a matter of time before someone uses this site to harm a child. It’s time Street View does more to protect our kids.
Governor Rick Perry of Texas signed legislation this week that requires registered sex offenders to provide their internet identifiers and cell phone numbers to the state sex offender registry in an effort to remove such offenders from online social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
Senate Bill 689, sponsored by State Senator Florence Shapiro, follows in the footsteps of a dozen other states that require the registration of electronic addresses.
Sen. Shapiro is no stranger when it comes to protecting children.Dating back to the passage of Ashley’s Law in 1995—named in honor of seven-year-old Ashley Estell who was molested and strangled by a repeat sex offender, the law requires longer prison terms and public registration for sex offenders—Senator Shapiro has worked to increase the awareness of child safety in the real world and a virtual one.
Child safety advocates are rightfully commending Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, Sen. Shapiro and Rep. Aaron Pena for their combined efforts in increasing online safety for Texas’ families and sending a clear message to sex offenders that they’re not welcome on social networking sites, or anywhere near our children.SCP is proud to add to those much-deserved accolades and lend our support to keeping kids safe in Texas and nationwide.
As child advocacy group and SIP partner InstantAmber recently pointed out to its readers, June is “National Internet Safety Month” and a good time for organizations, educators, law enforcement, civic leaders, parents and others to increase awareness of safe online practices. National Internet Safety Month is a month dedicated to promoting best practices on the Internet, and to ensuring that everyone who utilizes the Internet understands the dangers posed by the technology and uses the Internet as safely as possible. For our part, SIP launched a safety awareness campaign this summer to help parents, teachers and children learn how to stay safe in today’s online world. We’re taking this message to schools in the coming weeks, and appreciate the support of state attorneys general and other lawmakers, law enforcement, and community groups that are helping us teach such programs to parents and students alike. Read InstantAmber’s latest news article to learn more about their efforts to encourage safe online practices.
Summer is an exciting time for most kids. School’s out, and the warm weather allows for lots of outdoor play. But these days, too often kids don’t spend their new-found free time playing outside. Instead, they’re locked indoors, held captive by the all-empowering computer monitor.
And it can be more difficult to supervise a child’s computer usage than a game of freeze tag…For that reason, it’s imperative our kids become well-versed in staying safe online, and parents and educators have the skills they need to effectively protect children from the minefield of threats to their online safety.
Stop Internet Predators, a project of Stop Child Predators, will kickoff Summer Safety week on Monday May 18th. Summer Safety Week will show kids how they can safely navigate the Internet, and help teach parents what they can do to make sure their kids are making responsible decisions online (and maybe even have fun doing it).
Florida Activities:
To kick off Summer Safety Awareness Week in Florida, Stop Internet Predators and Florida state Attorney General Bill McCollum’s CyberCrime Unit announced a partnership to conduct a summer safety awareness campaign. The two organizations and the Unit will work together on statewide Internet safety presentations for local PTAs and other interested groups throughout the summer months.”
The North Carolina Department of Justice will give a presentation designed to help parents and children understand online safety issues and provide practical information to assist them in keeping young people safe on the Internet.
Caroline Farmer, Deputy Director of North Carolina Department of Justice will discuss identity theft and consumer protection issues related to the Internet and Lindsay Deree, Special Counsel will then speak about the most prevalent risks of the Internet to minors (solicitation, exposure, and threats/harassment) and what adults can do to keep minors safe while they use the Internet
An interactive video with helpful tips for staying safe will also be shown after the presentations. Upon completion of the video, parents and children will have the opportunity to look at the materials and to interact one-on-one with the speakers.
TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2009
Event: Child Internet Safety Awareness Week Press Conference
This will be the kick-off press conference for the Child Internet Safety Week. The North Carolina Lieutenant Governor will discuss efforts in the North Carolina General Assembly and Attorney General’s office to protect children from online predators and prevent children from being taken advantage of on the Internet.
In an effort to recognize key policy makers and community leaders across America, Stop Internet Predators will award individuals who work to combat the online sexual exploitation of our nation’s children. Their work is especially crucial in an ever evolving environment where new technologies are created daily.
The Champion of Online Safety Award will be presented during a press conference on Tuesday, May 12th at 4:30 pm in the Pavilion Ballroom of the Ritz Carlton at Ten Avenue of the Arts in Philadelphia. The event will be streamed live to www.stopinternetpredators.org. You can view the stream below.
The award will be presented by Stacie Rumenap, Executive Director of Stop Internet Predators. Each person receiving an award will be given the opportunity to speak.
Stop Internet Predators has a proven track record of working with lawmakers, parents, teachers, consumers, and children to educate them about the dangers of many new online technologies that predators use to exploit children. With new technologies emerging all the time, this is an especially daunting task.
The devastating consequences of criminal exploitation of technology can often strike very close to home. One such example is the tragedy surrounding the alleged predator being referred to in the media as “the Craigslist Killer.” For every story deemed newsworthy there are countless other’s that the general public never hears about.
The host of available online tools and applications can be very useful to consumers as they provide a variety of services and benefits often at no cost to the user. Unfortunately criminals are lining up to take advantage of these technologies and the people who use them—most concernedly, our children. It’s time for companies to step up to the plate and provide users with the proper safeguards, and take preventative measures to reduce the risk that criminals rely on.
As schools close their doors for the summer, many children head off to camp or spend their days at community swimming pools. But with their days often wide-open, many kids will also have more time to spend on the family computer, often unsupervised.
While parents, of course, need to take an active role in keeping their children safe online year round, the summer is a good time to highlight ways to do just that.Which is why we created Summer Safety Week, May 18th – 24th, and will meet with state officials and child advocates to educate parents and children about the potential danger of newer technologies, like social networking sites, pdas and mapping systems (think Facebook and Street View).Internet predators, sadly, can use sites like these to take advantage of unsuspecting children.
More details on our Summer Safety awareness campaign will be available in the coming weeks.If you would like to contact us or receive emails about Stop Internet Predators click here.
