Child Pornography Blog Post 3

Tajh Jenkins

Science Leadership Academy
Lobbying Assignment 3

Like past years, 2010 has provided it’s share of child pornography happenings. While there have been attempts by United States officials to ban all aspects of child pornography, their efforts in 2010 could have been better.

The U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

“Government cannot solve the child pornography crisis in America unless it takes a broader approach than currently pursued and looks to the root causes of such deviancy.”

2010 has not been a productive year in terms of the governments efforts in banning child pornography. America is currently in a stand still in handling the situation. According to Patrick A. Trueman, former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in the Reagan and Bush I Administrations, Eric Holder’s indication that the United States is losing in the war on child pornography is troubling but not surprising.

Patrick A. Trueman

”Our efforts today are not partisan because the protection of children, violence against women, addiction and sexual trafficking are not partisan issues. Nor are we here today to quarrel with Attorney General Holder … The Attorney General previously indicated support for the enforcement of obscenity laws. We are asking that the prosecution of obscenity, which seems to be on hold in the Obama Administration, be given a high priority because of the widespread harm we now know that obscene material is causing.

Patrick Trueman heads the War on Illegal Pornography, a coalition effort of many national, state and local groups working to encourage enforcement of federal laws against obscene adult pornography. He is also the founder of the website PornHarms.com, http://pornharms.com. The website categorizes and posts peer-reviewed studies on the harmful aspects of pornography. Studies and articles on PornHarms.com explain and discuss the brain science of pornography, which indicates that regular consumers of porn are at risk of brain manipulation and addiction leading to increasingly deviant behaviors, including, for some, an interest in child pornography

Nearly every current government official elected has indicated their support for banning child pornography. The problem is that not enough of the officials are stepping up their efforts to really making a difference on this specific issue. From what I researched, other than the two government officials that I spoke about in my second lobbying assignment as well as Eric Holder, there aren’t really any officials that I researched who has mad significant strides in banning it. This issues does get great media coverage because of all the court cases and news that pertain to child pornography. Citizens have expressed support on banning child pornography as the issue has become bigger throughout the years because of the media attention. There are multiple facebook groups that illustrate citizens tryings to prevent child porn.

There have been past policies on this issue:

• Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000 (CIPA)
• Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA)
• Child Protection and Sexual Predator Punishment Act of 1998
• Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA)
• Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA

* In 2002, the Supreme Court made a decision to reject Congress' attempt to combat child
  pornography in the computer age.

Stakeholders on this issue include

• Children and young people
• Parents Guardians and Educators
• Industry
• The Research Community and NGO’s
• Law Enforcement
• Social Service Organizations
• Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other Electronic Service Providers (ESPs)
• Teacher Organizations, Academic and Research Communities
• Government Agencies

• Owners of Internet cafés and other public access providers e.g. libraries, telecentres, PC Bangs6 and online gaming centres etc

There are many people who are working on this issue:

• Cristina Bueti and Sandra Pandi (ITU)
• John Carr (Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety)
• Raoul Chiesa and Francesca Bosco (United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute)
• Catherine Cummings and Jessica Sarra (International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children)
• Johan Martens (Child Helpline International)
• Michael Moran (Interpol)

I think that if I am really serious about this issue, I can influence anyone in the public to want to ban virtual child pornography. With the help of the public, we would be able to influence the government to take a more serious approach towards banning all aspects of child pornography. I think that the government does not see much of the public wanting to ban child pornography. When it comes to this specific issue, if the public doesn’t show its seriousness about the situation, then the government won’t act on it as quickly and effectively.

If I could contact the authors who wrote the “Guidelines for Policy Makers on Child Online Protection” I think that we could really make a difference together. The authors who wrote the guidelines are the the same people who I listed as the people who are working on this issue. These are people who are really serious interested in making it aware that child pornography is a relevant issue that should be taken care of. If I could get some personal insight on this issue from these people, it would really help me become more prepared to influence people who are not up on the issue as they should be. I think that I should come in contact with the authors as soon as possible.

After doing some research I have not found any recent meetings or any recent news about government officials attempt to crack down on child pornography in the future. Therefore, there aren’t any future meetings or committee headlines that I can talk about. All of the hearings that I have come across have already taken place.