Music Downloads are Doorway to Pornography

Feds Arrest 65 for Sending Porn Via Internet File-Sharing Technology 5/17/2004
By Rebecca Jones

Actions confirm ‘peer to peer’ networks open children to risk from pedophiles.

Federal officials announced on Friday that a nationwide investigation into peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technology as a means for exchanging child pornography has resulted in 1,000 cases and 65 arrests. Those arrested face charges of distribution of child pornography and sexual abuse of children.


These actions affirm the dangers of peer-to-peer technology, the subject of a congressional hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on May 6. Members of Congress convened “Online Pornography: Closing the Doors on Pervasive Smut” to hear from experts and lawmakers about the threat P2P technology poses to unsuspecting children and young adults.


Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Florida 6th) said that while he recognized that P2P technology is “legitimate and a neutral technology with tremendous potential to do good,” it has also become a popular medium for pedophiles to use to prey on new victims.


“As with the Internet itself, it didn’t take sexual predators long to turn a good technology into an instrument of evil,” said Robert Knight, director of CWA’s Culture & Family Institute, commenting on the testimony. “Congress has a responsibility to the nation’s children to take aim at those who would destroy innocence and sexually abuse kids.”


P2P software enables users to share files and to access each other’s hard drives on Internet sites. This new technology is popular among children and youth because they can download free music or images. For example, if a teenage girl wants one of Britney Spears’ newest songs, she can search a peer-to-peer site to see if another user has the song on her hard drive. Then she can copy it without ever directly contacting the user. Popular peer-to-peer sites among children and youth include KaZaA, Grokster, Morpheus and Gnutella.


However, this new technology also invites unwanted participants, such as pedophiles. If the teenage girl wanting Britney’s newest song misspells the pop star’s name in her search on a peer-to-peer site, she may have pornographic images sent to her computer instead. Pedophiles commonly use misspelled file names to send pornographic images to underage victims as a seduction tactic.


Since peer-to-peer networks allow direct access to users’ hard drives, the transferred files completely bypass filters, leaving children and youth unprotected.


Penny Nance, president of Kids First Coalition, who is also a board member of Concerned Women for America and a mother of two, testified at the hearing. She cited a recent study(report number: GAO-03-351) from the General Accounting Office (GAO) that said “kids searching with innocent keywords … would find either graphic adult pornography or child pornography 56 percent of the time.” (This report can be accessed on www.gao.gov, report number GAO-03-351.) Nance also pointed out that the GAO reported that “4 million people are on KaZaa alone at any one time and 40 percent of those are kids.”



The hearing included testimony about proposed solutions.


Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania) is sponsoring the “Protecting Kids from Peer to Peer Pornography Act” (H.R. 2885), which Concerned Women for America supports. The bill would require P2P networks to inform users of the risks and to obtain parental consent before a minor installs the software.


“The proposed rules are the minimum we should be doing to ensure that children aren’t picked off while searching for ‘The Little Mermaid’ or ‘Toy Story,’” CWA’s Knight said.


Additionally, P2P United, another trade organization, has promised to cooperate with the FBI to develop a “most wanted” list of suspected child pornography offenders on their Web sites or installation pages.


At the close of the hearing, Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-New Jersey, and a parent of four) expressed outrage over the danger posed by P2P software. He warned the trade associations that if they didn’t clean up their own sites, then federal regulation was coming.


Other panelists included representatives from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the FBI, U.S. General Accounting Office, and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.