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LAKE ZURICH, IL – Today Congresswoman Melissa Bean (IL-08) was joined by local police to discuss the Constitution and internet safety with students and teachers at Lake Zurich Middle School – North Campus. Bean had been invited to speak on those issues to the entire 7th grade class.
As part of her presentation, Bean, Detective Kurt Danielson of the Lake Zurich Police Department and Hawthorn Woods Police Chief Jennifer Paulus, addressed threats facing young internet users and outlined concrete steps their families can take to protect against on-line predators and other dangers lurking on the web. The interactive presentation encouraged students to examine their own internet practices and allowed them to ask questions and voice their concerns.
Today’s school forum is part of Bean’s ongoing efforts to combat cyber-crime and raise awareness in the community. Last year, she held five public forums on protecting against identity theft; and, since February 2006 Bean has done over a dozen forums on internet safety for parents and kids. She currently has outstanding invitations from several additional schools, and has organized an Internet Safety Summit for community educators and law enforcement officials for October 20th.
While Bean regularly provides internet safety tips to parents and kids in public forums across the 8th District, Bean believes it is important to educate families on a national scale. In April, Bean introduced HR 4982, the SAFER NET Act, which would improve access to information that will help parents educate themselves on internet safety practices, and establish a public awareness campaign on the scale of the "Just Say No" to drugs campaign that would teach kids how to "just say no" to providing personal information about themselves to strangers on the internet.
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