21 September 1999

Amb. Hall Salzburg Says Online Pornography Threatens Families, Children

"As the Internet grows, so do the risks to our children by being exposed to inappropriate material, and in particular, to criminal activity by pedophiles and child pornographers," U.S. Ambassador to Austria Kathryn Walt Hall said in Salzburg September 21.

Hall was addressing the Salzburg Women's Career Network and the Austro-American Society. Her audience was composed of professional women from government, academia, business and media.

Thousands of children all over the world are believed to have suffered sexual abuse by members of cyberpedophilia rings, the Ambassador told the group. In the United States alone, she said, there are over 500,000 online photos showing sexual acts involving minors - photos "almost impossible to remove" once they have appeared on the Internet. "No country, no family, and no child is safe from these dangers in the borderless world of cyberspace."

In her address, Hall described what law enforcement authorities have learned about this new threat to children and what parents can do to protect their families. She also mentioned the joint U.S.-EU sponsored conference to combat child pornography over the Internet that will be held in Vienna from September 29th through October 1st. Initiated last year by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel, the conference will bring together policy makers, Internet providers, hotline providers, enforcement and justice officials. Hall said specific objectives for the conference include:

-- reinforcing cooperation between cross-border law enforcement and the judiciary agencies;

-- encouraging Internet Service Providers "to establish more rigorous self-regulatory mechanisms that cut-short the access of child pornographers and pedophiles";

-- and encouraging the establishment of additional hotlines and networking to report crimes by citizens and pass this information along to law enforcement officials wherever the crime is committed.

"Our goal," she said, "is to facilitate an international framework for policing the Internet, encouraging the Internet providers to self-regulate while preserving fundamental liberties."

Following is the text of Ambassador Hall's speech:

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U.S. Ambassador to Austria Kathryn Walt Hall

Salzburg, Austria

September 21, 1999

STOP THE SUFFERING -- END ONLINE CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

The good news: as we dash toward the second millennium, the Internet has forever changed the way we play, buy, educate, communicate and dream. But, in the tumultuous and extraordinary year of 1969, the quiet birth of the Internet -- which allowed computers to talk to one another -- had some pretty tough competition for media coverage.

It was a year that ended the decade of the 60s with a bang...and the world has never been quite the same:

A rock concert on a farm in upstate New York makes "Woodstock" the most famous small town in the world, spurring numerous 'reunions' but never one that worked as well as the original. While Jimmy Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner on electric guitar with his teeth, the U.S. prime interest rate was soaring three times, hitting 8.5%. It was safer to fly the Friendly Skies in 1999 then it was in 1969, when airplane hijackings around the world occurred 65 times. Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon. Breaking the heart of every teenage girl around the world, the 'cute' Beatle Paul McCartney marries Linda Eastman while John Lennon and Yoko Ono tie the knot and get political. IBM unbundles its software products for the first time, allowing customers to buy software separately from its computers. Thereby creates the software market - setting the stage for the growth of Silicon Valley and for a Harvard dropout by the name of Bill Gates to become the wealthiest man in the U.S., three decades later.

INTERNET BENEFITS & REVOLUTIONARY POSITIVE CHANGES

This month, celebrating its 30th birthday, the Internet remains a youngster by technological standards. And yet, it has been called the most profound change in the way we communicate since the invention of the printing press.

Users can access an almost limitless array of rewarding content at the click of a mouse, and they are doing so in vast and surprising numbers:

There are over 350 million personal computers today with Internet capability. Most people today buy computers simply so they can log on to the Net. Over 100 million global user's 'login' into the Internet daily, and this is expected to increase to 515 million by 2002. Sales over the Internet could top one trillion dollars in just a few years. Email addresses are as common as street addresses for 54% of the American households now hooked up to the Web. 39% of all Americans are online, that's about 76 million compared to Europe's 16%. 31% of all Austrians, or 2 million Austrian's, now have Internet accessibility. Austria is number 3 in Europe behind Sweden with 49% usage and Norway with 48%. The real growth in the use of the Internet is outside of the United States. 45% of Internet users live in Europe and Southeast Asia and this number will double in two years.

As the Internet becomes a familiar technology to millions of users, a whole new set of words have entered our daily vocabulary; login, Information Highway, the Global Village, Worldwide Web, the Net, ISPs or Internet Service Providers, Gateways, Websites, Homepages, download, email, chatrooms, search engines, pop-ups, encryption devices, Amazon.com, Yahoo.com and Cyberspace.

And it's not just the new vocabulary but the new opportunities and unparalleled convenience that makes the Internet truly the medium of communication for the future:

If you are from Dallas, Texas but live in Salzburg, Austria, you can download your hometown newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, keeping abreast of people and events that matter to you, effectively closing the 'distance gap.' Or on the other hand if you live in Dallas and miss Salzburg, you can order Austrian food specialties through the Internet as you may have read in the Salzburger Nachricten the specialties should soon be available on-line. If you want to get an advanced degree, and your German isn't quite ready for university level work, you now have the option of taking classes online from the University of New York or from my alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley. Keeping in touch with children, friends or parents abroad is a snap with email -- in most cases a lot more convenient and cheaper than a phone call. Want information about America? Want to read speeches by American officials, get travel warnings, or just learn more about the American Embassy in Austria? Visit our Website at www.usembassy-vienna.at or chat with us the first or third Wednesday of each month. If you're flying to London, you can check the weather or read the reviews of the musical that opened yesterday in the west end. No time for grocery shopping...my most dreaded job while I was living in the states? Order it over the Internet from your local grocery store and have it delivered. Meinl grocery store in Austria is online & they do deliver! It's 9 o'clock at night, the library is closed, and your teenager has just started her research paper due tomorrow morning. She has a good chance she can finish it--if she hops onto any of the search engines on the Net--AND doesn't spend the first two hours sending emails to her girlfriends!

INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET & KIDS & DARK SIDE

Familiarity with this technology is vital to our children's future. The Internet can entertain and empower our children. For today's children to lead tomorrow's world, they must acquire the skills to access the enormous benefits of the Internet. It is especially important that they develop the key job skills and an awareness of the increasingly global community. The Internet can give them the ability to communicate, and to share ideas and information on a worldwide basis.

All of this creative and innovative growth offers tremendous convenience and unrealized potential for the online community--of which our children and their children--will become the major beneficiaries. Still, with every new technological gift capable of altering our world and lives with its light and brilliance, there is contained a shadow flip side to this coin of fortune.

One of the father's of the Internet, Professor Richard Kleinrock from UCLA says, "Thirty years ago, I never imagined 'the dark side of the Internet'--with all that porn and all that hate." Unfortunately, the Internet's dark side has spawned yet another set of additions to our lexicon: Cybercrime, cyberchild porn, hotlines, cybercriminals and cybercops.

Along with the bright future for this Internet youngster, we must sadly acknowledge that there is an Enfant Terrible lurking inside every computer with an Internet connection, as pedophiles and pornographers peddle their illegal trade in cyberspace, causing untold damage to those most vulnerable in society-our children. Additional problems include equitable access, marketing and advertising practices, quality content and privacy along with implementing effective policies and policing against cybercriminals who stalk and abuse our children over the Net.

INTERNET CRIMES & ABUSES AGAINST CHILDREN

Today, there are 17 million children worldwide surfing the Internet. As the Internet grows, so do the risks to our children by being exposed to inappropriate material, and in particular, to criminal activity by pedophiles and child pornographers. No country, no family, and no child is safe from these dangers in the borderless world of cyberspace:

Several weeks ago in Austria, five people were arrested for trafficking in illegal child pornography over the Internet.

In Germany, a Berlin doctor was sentenced to two years in prison for distributing over 9,000 pornographic photos over the Internet of children; some with animals and depicting scenes of violence.

In England, a Catholic priest was sentenced to six years in prison after he was found guilty of sexually abusing young boys and exchanging pornographic materials with a pedophile ring on the Internet.

In the Netherlands, police busted a child pornography ring that tied children up; raped and abused them on camera then distributed the video over the Internet so that others could watch. One of these children was a 12-year-old boy who had disappeared in Berlin five years ago and is still missing.

In San Jose, California, Ronald Riva admitted to sexually molesting a 10-year-old girl, filming the incident with his digital camera then immediately posting the pictures on an International online child pornography ring called The Orchid Club. Riva was one of sixteen Orchid Club members sentenced to jail. He is currently serving a thirty-year prison sentence.

Riva is now safely behind bars but he and the others I have just mentioned are the few who are caught - the rest hide in cyberspace.

The sickening truth is that the vast majority of cyberchild pornography crimes remain unreported and unchecked in spite of a 410% increase in the prosecution of child pornography over the Internet. The FBI reports over 4,000 cases of child pornography being distributed online in the United States. 23,000 websites have already been detected as advocating sex with children.

RISKS OF INTERNET FOR CHILDREN

As a result, thousands of children worldwide are believed to have suffered sexual abuse by members of cyberpedophilia rings that stretch from the U.S. to the European Union and beyond. For these young victims, the real dangers include: contracting sexually transmitted diseases, rape, assault, torture, and even, and if they survive the physical harm their emotional wounds nevertheless remain. If left untreated, often those abused create another generation of child abusers.

Children are sexually exploited repeatedly every time their images are transmitted on the Internet. Once their photograph appears on the Internet, it is almost impossible to remove it. In the U.S. alone, there are over 500,000 online photos showing sexual acts involving minors.

This visual documentation of the child's exploitation causes a deep sense of shame and guilt in the child and fear that their family or friends might discover the exploitation. This fear often makes it difficult for a child who has been exploited to testify in court against the molester.

Children continue to be exposed to the risks and abuses currently occurring online because the nature of the Internet makes it easy for children to access obscene materials and become prey to cybercriminals. Children do so in a number of ways:

Often, they mistakenly mistyped URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) Using common search engines to look for innocent information often brings in links to pornographic sites as well. For example searches for 'toys', 'pets', "boys', "girls", and even "Barney" all bring links to porn sites among others. The need to constantly say "NO" battles with a child's natural curiosity. Misdirected searches 'Push' pornography and emailed links - With recent developments in technology, content can be 'pushed' to intended recipients either through special interactive applications or as links contained in emails. Children open their email and find direct access to adult content sites. Many emails bear subject lines that can be very deceptive, and children can't determine their contents merely by looking at the subject line. If a child, out of curiosity or carelessness, clicks on such links, the result will often be either a pornographic image or heavy four-lettered language. Once children are exposed to this material, it can never be erased from their minds. In the anonymous chatroom, cybercriminals most often search for their next young victims.

INTERNET PERPETRATORS

And while the Internet has not caused the problem, it has provided a safe haven for pornographers and pedophiles to sexually abuse our children by contacting them and distributing child pornography through the anonymity of the Internet. One out of every four adults in North American has access to the Internet. In 2000, 90% of all American students in school will have access to the Net creating a much larger pool of potential victims for pedophiles and child pornographers to draw from.

The Internet facilitates the duplication and recycling of old materials, shortening the time between production and distribution through the use of cheaper and easily accessible new technologies like digital cameras, scanners and photo file software. These technologically savvy cybercriminals elude authorities by concealing themselves through a maze of Internet servers, providers, files, screen names and sophisticated encryption devices. They always seem to be one step ahead of the law.

Who are Cyberchild pornographers? According to the FBI, 99% are white, professional males, 25-45 years of age. They are above average in intelligence, own a computer and most have no prior arrests for pedophilia.

One of the most important things in a pedophile's life is his collection of pornography. FBI Special Agent, Pete Gulotti says, "These guys collect child pornography like stamp collectors collect stamps. They all want the fresh, new ones, and to find new stuff. They're always looking for something that nobody else has, always raising the stakes. There are tens of thousands of these photographs going around the Internet every day. In my 30 years with the FBI, I've worked over 300 violations, and child pornographers are the most reprehensible group I've ever had to investigate."

Their operations are underground and restricted. They mostly deal with known pedophile customers. To become a member in a child pornography online club, the new member is usually required to send one or more original pornographic photos online. Once the child pornography is acquired, the pedophile carefully organizes and adds to his collection by storing the image on back-up tapes and computer disks, often using advanced computer technology to hide the illegal file.

Pedophiles don't just use the pornography for themselves; they use the child pornography they have collected to seduce other children into participating with them in sexual activities by lowering the inhibitions of potential victims. When shown images of other children performing sexual acts, these children are led to believe that participation in sexually explicit behavior is acceptable, making it easier for the pedophile to molest the child.

How does a pornographer or pedophile contact a child on the Internet? Police and the press report that pedophiles are using chat rooms to lure children into physical meetings. According to a recent newspaper report, chat rooms are the most popular activity for children online, yet most chat rooms are unsupervised. Many are 'private' accessible only by invitation and special passwords which may be provided to children by email or 'instant-type' messages to the screen of a targeted child.

Through chat rooms, adult strangers can have direct access to our children. The 'safe' home setting, combined with our children's natural trust, may lead them to forget that these people are strangers. This makes it easier for the pedophile to prey on children who would never talk to a stranger in the 'real word'. The anonymity of Internet chat rooms, and the code names and encryption devices used on the Net, make it very difficult for law enforcement agencies to catch these perpetrators and stop their insidious crimes.

INTRODUCTION TO POLICING THE INTERNET & PARENTS

Only 382 cases have been successfully tried in the United States, the vast majority of these child pornographers are free to continue trafficking in child smut. However, authorities are closing ranks as parents, educators, industry officials along with the international community has started placing a higher priority on this growing problem.

Assuring that the Internet is safe for our children has become a major issue for every parent in all countries with Internet access. Yet, some Civil liberty groups, Internet users and even, many in the Internet industry have battled against 'control' and 'regulation' of the Internet. They argue --with some validity--those basic human rights such as freedom of expression, speech and privacy are essential in democratic countries and to the continued growth of the Internet. But criminal activity online should not and cannot be tolerated.

All of our children are precious. Their safety online is our responsibility. It is time to stop their suffering from this revolting crime. Cyberstalkers invade your living room through your computer, and they can operate in your home without your permission. The last line of defense rests with parental supervision and control, and by educating every child to the dangers and risks of the Internet.

The US Custom's office and the FBI have published a brochure presenting several steps that assist parents in keeping their children safe on the Internet:

Placing any computer with Internet access in a central area of the house, not in a child's bedroom or secluded area. Cautioning children not to give out personal information such as their full names, address or telephone numbers to anyone on the Net without parental permission. Not permitting face-to-face meetings with people met on the Net, unless they are in a public place and a parent is present. Getting to know your children's online friends. Not allowing online profiles or personal web pages that give out your children's personal information, such as age, school, town, etc. Reporting any child pornography to the hotlines, which are connected to the proper legal authorities within the countries they operate. Becoming knowledgeable about the tools in the digital toolbox - or user employment tools includes codes of conduct to guide the development of the Internet.

A list of software tools and parental control options includes software such as CyberPatrol, Net Nanny, Surf Watch, Cybersitter and Softeyes, among others, which block 'bad sites' from appearing on your home computer as well as 'keyword' preferences set by parents. Although these software 'filter' features are only a partial solution, they are no substitute for parental oversight...or for increased cooperation by governments and law enforcement agencies. There are also hotlines available to report problems or ask for help. The hotline address in Austria is http://www.hotline.ispa.at.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION EFFORTS

President Clinton has announced an expansive plan to build a family-friendly Internet by giving children a "seat belt" for cyberspace. The White House plan called for cooperation from the Internet industry to provide parents and teachers with 'easy-to-use' child protection technology that includes new software designed to protect children in cyberspace.

This is not a problem of one nation. The United States is cooperating with other countries, realizing that our common responsibilities and the devastating social consequences of this child abuse. To successfully stop this abhorrent crime, we must work together--not just within our own households--but with our neighbors down the street and even, around the world.

The U.S. Customs Service is working closely with the Austrian Ministry of Interior in identifying and prosecuting perpetrators of child pornography. Our Customs Service has also trained several Austrian law enforcement officials in investigating methods used to track down the crime of the 21st century. Internet Service Providers from many different countries are working together to establish voluntary self-regulation. The Internet Content Rating Association, composed of Internet Service Providers from many countries, was created in May of this year to develop a user friendly and culturally objective international Internet content rating system that protects children and fundamental freedoms on the web. International cooperation between hotline operators is growing, especially through the work of INHOPE (International Hotline Providers in Europe) Forum, a non-profit organization that promotes the work of national hotlines. Law enforcement authorities are discussing setting-up an international network of national monitoring units used to filter out material, which shows victims and perpetrators who were already identified in the past. Interpol is advocating the harmonization of national laws dealing with child pornography to facilitate prosecution. Interpol also works on promoting international police cooperation.

To continue the international efforts I've just mentioned and put the problem into 'hyper space mode', a joint U.S.-EU sponsored conference will be held in Vienna on September 29th through October 1st to combat child pornography over the Internet.

Initiated last year by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel, the conference brings together policy makers, Internet Providers, hotline providers, enforcement and justice officials. Our goal is to facilitate an international framework for policing the Internet, encouraging the Internet providers to self-regulate while preserving fundamental liberties.

Over 300 participants from Western and Central Europe, the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Japan, China, Brazil, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina along with all major U.S. Internet providers, will gather at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna with a specific set of objectives and working groups to:

-- Reinforce cooperation between cross-border law enforcement and the judiciary agencies

-- Encourage Internet Service Providers to establish more rigorous self-regulatory mechanisms that cut-short the access of child pornographers and pedophiles to peddle their illegal trade

-- Encourage the establishment of additional hotlines and networking to report crimes by citizens and pass this information along to law enforcement officials wherever the crime is committed.

But government and industry cannot do the job alone. As President Clinton says so often, "In the end, the responsibility for our children's safety will rest largely with their parents. With a combination of technology, law enforcement and parental responsibilities, we have the best chance to ensure that the Internet will be both safe for our children and the greatest educational resource we have ever known."

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