South Carolina Attorney General Reacts to ISTTF’s Report
So here is some follow-up to this week’s Internet Safety Technical Task Force report that downplayed predators on social networks and encouraged more parental participation in child online activity.
Apparently, the Attorney General of South Carolina has withdrawn from the group (which was collective of 49 of the state AGs – only Texas chose not to participate). He has left based on the fact that the report downplays the threat of sexual predators online. He says the findings create a “false sense of security on the issue of child Internet safety,” maintaining that the predator threat is indeed “a clear and present danger” posed to children.
Here is a good report on the story followed by someone’s blog that has a very interesting take on the drop-out – and heavily criticizes the move. Personally, I can totally see the position and statement and agree that the downplaying could serve as a slap in the face to someone who created a task force to hunt down these guys – where you know there is never a slow day at the office. On the other hand, to leave the group… eh. I don’t know.
Anyway, here are the stories:
Attorney General Henry McMaster on Wednesday criticized a report issued by Harvard University that he said downplayed the threat children face online from sexual predators.
The report was commissioned by a National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) working group looking into the problem of Internet predators on social networking sites such as MySpace.com.
The report’s findings, McMaster said in a letter to the working group’s chairmen, “are as disturbing as they are wrong, and the conclusions in this report create a troubling false sense of security on the issued of child Internet safety.”
As a result, McMaster said he has withdrawn South Carolina as a participant in the NAAG working group.
The report, released by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, concluded sexual predators remain a concern, but it said bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most frequent threats that children face, both online and offline.
It also said cases of predators typically involved youths who were aware they were meeting an adult for sexual activities.
The report said there isn’t a single technological solution that would protect children and that parental oversight is vital.
However, in a letter written to the NAAG working group chairmen, Attorneys General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, McMaster cited results of his Internet Predator Task Force to illustrate what he said is “a clear and present danger” posed to children by online predators.
The problem is so widely recognized in South Carolina alone, McMaster wrote, that it has prompted 43 law enforcement agencies, including the State Law Enforcement Division, to join a state task force that places undercover officers on the Internet to locate predators before they can harm children.
Those efforts have led to 147 arrests and 66 convictions, most by a guilty plea, according to McMaster said. The remaining cases are pending, he said.
The Internet task force’s report was released by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard.
Its yearlong review, which examined tools and technologies for a safer Internet environment for children, was conducted by officials from 29 Internet businesses, nonprofit organizations, academic fields and technology companies.
MySpace.com’s chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said in a statement the company supports the task force’s report and its call for a comprehensive effort among educational, social services, law enforcement and social networking interests to improve online safety for teens and children.
McMaster Forecast: Still Raining Perverts In SC
By fitsnewsWhen you’ve built your entire gubernatorial campaign around cracking down on internet sex predators, it just wouldn’t do for a study to come out showing that there was a decline in internet sex predators, would it?
Well, unless of course you could find some way to take credit for the decline.
Wait … why the hell didn’t they just think of that?
As it turns out, the handlers of S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster are as dumb as he is, because they’ve gathered together wherever people like that gather and decided that the better electoral calculus was to come out swinging against the report.
While at the same time forecasting a 100% chance of perverts here in South Carolina, of course.
From McMaster’s de facto campaign website.
A study released (Jan. 14) by Harvard University’s Internet Safety Technical Task Force that claimed a decreasing trend in online threats to children from sexual predators is bogus, according to South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster. And he has withdrawn the state from the group that commissioned the report.
“Ask any law enforcement officer, and they will tell you – the Internet is full of predators seeking to sexually harm our children – here and across America,” said McMaster. “To deny the seriousness of this problem presents an even more horrible risk to the children.”
Hmmm … we’re sure this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that McMaster is pushing for expanded legislation on this very issue this year in an effort to get his name in the paper as many times as possible between now and the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary.
Which is why no matter what the facts might say, Henry McMaster simply must make it rain perverts in South Carolina.
Grab your umbrellas, people.
