Attorney General Calls Americans to Battle Child Exploitation and Pornography     4/20/2006
By Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel

Gonzales says most people don’t know the ‘depth of depravity.’

Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, today called on “all responsible Americans and corporate citizens—down to every last parent, teacher, and minister—to educate themselves about the problem” of “child exploitation and pornography and see how they can help out.”

Gonzales addressed his comments to a few guests and the staff of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in Alexandria, Virginia.

Gonzales began by thanking the NCMEC president, Dr. Ernie Allen, and the staff for their “courageous and noble work” and for the “level of dedication” he could see in their eyes. I was privileged to be among them this morning. You can see it in their eyes, and they deserve to hear the thanks of all who appreciate the work they do on behalf of children.

Gonzales wasted no time getting to his first point about online enticement of minors. “The threat is frighteningly real. … [I]t is growing rapidly, and it must be stopped,” he said.

Media coverage has shown the ease by which “priests, teachers, doctors, and lawyers, all of whom thought they were going to have sexual contact with children,” are lured when they think they are talking with children in a chat room.

In his second point about the depravity of Internet child porn, Gonzales said “too many people, when you mention the term child pornography, they think of distasteful, but somewhat benign, pictures. Maybe a photograph of a partially nude teenager in a suggestive pose.” He used graphic language to debunk this all-too-prevalent notion:

To educate people about this threat, I am going to describe some of the criminal evidence we have seized. It is graphic, but if we do not talk candidly, then it is easy for people to turn away and worry about other matters. I think it is time to deliver a wake-up call about the true nature and scope of this criminal activity – the depth of the depravity and the harm being inflicted upon innocent children.

I have seen pictures of older men forcing naked young girls to have anal sex. There are videos on the Internet of very young daughters forced to have intercourse and oral sex with their fathers. Viewing this was shocking and it makes my stomach turn. But while these descriptions may make some uncomfortable, we will not defeat this threat unless we all really understand the nature of the child pornography now prevalent on the Internet.

But there are even more shocking and vulgar images we’ve uncovered. We’re talking about a young toddler, tied up with towels, desperately crying in pain while she is being brutally raped and sodomized by an adult man. Another was of a mere infant being savagely penetrated.

“Changes in technology,” he added “have made the work much more difficult.” He expressed his “fear that if we do not do more – if parents, community, business, civic, industry, and political leaders do not work better together, then we will lose this fight on behalf of our children.”

Gonzales spoke about “Project Safe Childhood” and the “need to make sure law enforcement has all the tools and information it needs to wage this battle.” Information in the hands of Internet service providers (ISPs) is critical to “the investigation and prosecution of child predators,” he added. “This evidence will be available for us to use only if the providers retain the records for a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, the failure of some Internet service providers to keep records has hampered our ability to conduct investigations in this area.”

To make sure that ISPs cooperate, Gonzales announced that “the Administration will send to Congress a new piece of legislation, the Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006,” to ensure that "ISPs report the presence of child pornography on their systems by strengthening criminal penalties for failing to report it.”

The bill, according to Gonzales, “will also prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet.” He urged Congress to take the bill up promptly.

Gonzales also addressed a very disturbing trend, so-called “molestation on demand,” where a pedophile molests a child and others watch live through streaming video. He referred to a specific case involving a variation of the on-demand abuse in the case of United States v. Mariscal:

We found that Mariscal had been traveling to Cuba and Ecuador over a seven-year period, taking orders from customers to produce child porn to the customers’ liking. He would allow customers to write fantasy scripts, and then he would find poverty-stricken families and pay them to allow him to sexually abuse their children, some under the age of 12. And Mariscal would make between $600 and $1,000 per order. To make matters worse, Mariscal was HIV-positive. We caught him and his co-conspirators, and in September 2004 he was sentenced to a 100-year prison term.

As soon as Gonzales mentioned Mariscal’s name, I realized who he was describing, and I hoped that he would include Mariscal’s own words acknowledging that “adult” pornography played a significant factor in how “an average guy” became the monster that he is.

“I am not a freak of nature. I’m just an average guy,” said Mariscal at his sentencing hearing, as quoted in the Associated Press. “Addiction to pornography is not something society is willing to accept.” He said he became a sex addict after coming to the United States in 1980 and blamed easy access to pornography in New York’s Times Square.

Unless the “adult” porn industry is ready to admit that it was providing “easy access” to

child pornography in the sleazy bookstores and peep-show booths that used to blight Times Square, it will have to admit that Mariscal was referring to the so-called adult version.

Mr. Attorney General, the “adult” porn industry regularly mocks you and the President in its trade publication of ignoring the war against terrorism to focus on a harmless and “legal” industry that provides “adult entertainment for adults.” The truth is, this industry is feeding depravity to “regular guys” who can become the likes of Mariscal, and worse yet, the industry’s Internet Web sites post the depravity in full view of kids.

Sir, I don’t doubt your sincerity to save America’s kids from sexual abuse and exploitation, and we thank you for what you are doing. But, please make sure that the FBI, the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and all of the U.S. Attorney’s offices are vigorously investigating and prosecuting those who violate the federal obscenity laws.

If they don’t, the addiction process that leads to the more deviant pornography that you mentioned this morning, and that Mariscal admitted, will continue to produce tens of thousands more like him.

There aren’t enough good guys to protect our kids from that.

Mrs. LaRue is an expert in pornography law and the fight to uphold it.

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