Some commetary on the new Domain Laws

[Mike AI]

http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0025567.html

Bill Provides Help to Fight Child Crimes
By David Brody, Washington, D.C., correspondent


There is a lot more than just the "Amber Alert" to cheer about in the new child crimes bill.

Both the House and Senate last week passed the Child Abduction Prevention Act, which cracks down heavily on sex offenders. The Amber Alert is part of the legislation and has gotten most of the press, but there's a lot more in the bill that will help protect kids.

Joanne Donnellan, with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the bill is rich in crackdown material. For example, the bill mandates that if a sex offender is convicted for the second time, he'll get life in prison. Also, child kidnappers would get a minimum sentence of 20 years in jail.

"Children now are going to be protected in a far greater way than they ever have," Donnellan said. "It really does send a strong message that we're not tolerating this type of behavior any more and that if you're going to go out there and harm our children, you're going to be tracked down quickly and you're going to face the harshest penalties."

Bruce Taylor, with the National Law Center for Children and Families, said the bill also calls for 25 extra prosecutors to go after pornographers on the Internet.

"There's a lot of good and great things in there. This is a good day for kids," Taylor said. "Maybe that's going to make or can make the biggest difference in the . . . war to protect children from the porn syndicates, because now we have some troops to go fight this."

And there's more. The bill calls for jail time and fines for any pornographic business that lures kids to its site using misleading domain names. Congressman Mike Pence, R-Ind., likes that idea.

"What we're doing is shutting down also a major method of child predators in having access to our kids," Pence said.

President Bush is expected to sign the bill.