Duncan Faircloth: “in the past few years, I have been shocked by the number of crimes I have read about that are connected to the Internet.…”

“in the past few years, I have been shocked by the number of crimes I have read about that are connected to the Internet. This was a problem that did not even exist just a few years ago, but now it has become very prevalent. What is happening is that sex offenders and pedophiles are using the Internet to recruit children. I think I have a solution that can help this situation. Today, I am introducing legislation that would prevent a convicted sex offender from having an Internet account. Under my bill, the on-line service provider would be barred from providing an account to anyone who is a sexually violent predator or who has registered under Megan's law. I do not think this would be difficult to enforce, because convicted sex offenders are already on a data base. A background check on that data base could keep them offline. Mr. President, we all know that proper parental supervision is the best defense against this type of crime, but I am finding that some parents aren't as computer literate as their children and it is almost impossible to watch children every minute of every day. In my view, it is time to pull the plug on sex offenders and take them offline. Mr. President, as I said, this problem has been growing year by year. It has grown to the point where the FBI has set up a special task force to track down computer sex offenders.”