U.S. Senator Ken Salazar

Member of the Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs Committees

 

2300 15th Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO 80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

 

 

For Immediate Release

July 27, 2005

CONTACT:    Cody Wertz – Press Secretary

                        202-228-3630

Jen Clanahan – Deputy Press Secretary

                        303-455-7600

 

SEN. SALAZAR ACTS TO PROTECT CHILDREN AND FAMILIES FROM ONLINE SMUT PEDDLERS

WASHINGTON, D.C. – United States Senator Ken Salazar today helped introduce the Internet Safety and Child Protection Act, which will help protect children and families from obscene and offensive pornographic images.

“For too many years, internet pornographers have been preying unchecked on our children,” Senator Salazar said. “Parents know that our kids can be stopped from buying this kind of material in a store. Internet vendors should have to play by the same rules.”

Under this new proposal, sponsored by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Sen. Salazar, adult websites will be required to use more advanced age verification technology by using Federal Trade Commission-approved age verification software and maintain records of these verifications.

The proposal also establishes a Child Protection Trust Fund financed by a 25-percent excise tax on internet pornography transactions, which would (1) pay for federal agencies and private entities in their efforts to combat Internet crimes against children as well as 24-hour staffing of a federal cyber tip line, (2) provide funds to states to support one Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force center in each state and (3) funds to support educational training in Internet safety and create a grant program for companies who develop filtering software.

The Lincoln-Salazar proposal was introduced in conjunction with the release of a new report by the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, of which Senator Salazar is an Honorary Senate Chair. Third Way’s study exposed a number of alarming findings on the access of online pornography by children, including:

  • Nearly six in ten youth age nine to nineteen have come into contact with Internet pornography;
  • The largest group of consumers of Internet pornography are youth age twelve to seventeen; and
  • The average age at which children are first exposed to pornography on the Internet today is eleven years old.

“These statistics paint a horrifying picture and the federal government needs to take a stand on the side of parents. Parents need the tools to protect their children from these shocking images, and this legislation is an important step towards giving parents the ability to protect their families as they see fit,” Sen. Salazar said.

The Internet Safety and Child Protection Act will now go on to consideration by multiple Senate committees before being taken up by the entire Senate for consideration.

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