Political Quotes

“I want to thank Chairman Joe Barton and Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton for their leadership in shepherding this legislation, the Deleting Online Predators Act, from the Energy and Commerce Committee to the floor today. I want to especially thank Congressman Mark Kirk and all of the members of the Suburban Caucus for the commitment they have shown in addressing the needs of American families in the suburbs. Monitoring our children's use of emerging technologies is a huge task for parents across the Nation, and the Internet remains the focus of many parents' concerns. The growth of the Internet has opened the door to many new applications that tear down the walls that once prevented communication across vast distances. One set of applications in particular has created a huge following online, but have also created an equal amount of danger, and they are social networking sites. Social networking sites, best known by the popular examples of MySpace, Friendster and Facebook, have literally exploded in popularity in just a few short years. MySpace alone has over 90 million users and it is growing every day. While these sites were designed to allow their users to share virtual profiles of themselves to friends and like- minded users, the sites at most have become a haven for online sexual predators who have made these corners of the Web their own virtual hunting ground. The dangers our children are exposed to by these sites is clear and compelling.…”