RENO: Thank you very much for inviting me to be here with you today. I am really very happy to join the company of so many people who are concerned about and have devoted so much time to developing means of protecting children in the interaction with the Internet.

This is a historic group because you are united in a common effort to make the Internet safe, rewarding and educational for our children. I want to particularly commend the summit organizers. I know how much time and effort goes into a conference like this, and I think it has been very important and very rewarding for us all.

Advances in computer and telecommunications technology, along with the explosive and wonderful growth of the Internet, have given children a powerful and exciting new educational resource. I have the opportunity to measure that to some extent by nieces and nephews, and it is so exciting from Thanksgiving to Christmas to Easter as I see them to see the developments.

Children use the Internet for research, to visit museums, play educational games, tour different countries and communicate with their counterparts around the world. This technology has also allowed our nation's children to become vulnerable to exploitation and harm by pedophiles and other sexual predators.

These predators use the Internet for such illegal acts as luring children into illicit sexual relationships and widespread distribution of child pornography. It used to be that children could be kept from harm by keeping them at home. Now, cyberpredators and child pornographers can reach out to children who innocently spend time learning and playing on the family computer.

One of the greatest challenges we face in this area of law enforcement is to identify online predators or traffickers in child pornography. Current technology often allows these criminals to mask their location and their identity. Moreover, unlike other harms that may come to our children, crimes perpetrated over the Internet may never be reported or even noticed by a parent. The youngest may not even know that something wrong has occurred.

There is much that we have done in federal law enforcement to protect children from the hazards of the Internet. Perhaps one of the most significant steps we have taken is the formation by the FBI of the ground-breaking Innocent Images Initiative.

This program combines technology, sophisticated investigative techniques and coordination among federal and local law enforcement agencies to create an effective task force aimed at sellers and chronic of child pornography. By collating and analyzing information and images obtained from numerous sources, the task force avoids duplication of investigations and focuses resources on the worst offenders.

I applaud the efforts of the FBI and its task force partners, which include the Customs Service, the Postal Service, and state and local law enforcement agencies across this country. Congress' recent appropriation of an additional $10 million for enlargement of the Innocent Images Program means the addition of as many as 60 new personnel to support extended enforcement and training efforts.

Initiatives like Innocent Images and other important efforts have enabled the Department of Justice to vigorously prosecute those who purvey child pornography and who exploit our children including those who use the Internet to do so.

Between 1992 and 1996, the Department of Justice increased its filings against those engaging in child pornography by 162 percent. In the same time period, the department increased its filings against those transporting minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity by 263 percent. This offensive against those who prey on and exploit children is making a difference, and we will continue to pursue these cases vigorously.

RENO: These efforts are pieces of a more comprehensive initiative, focusing on crimes against children that the Department of Justice through the FBI and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section has developed.

This wider effort seeks to protect children by curbing sexual exploitation, prosecuting parental abductions, fighting abuse on government facilities and Indian reservations, and enforcing child support recovery act cases.

Each of the FBI's 56 field offices has now designated two special agents to coordinate this effort and has tasked these agents with developing multiagency teams capable of effectively investigating and prosecuting child victim crimes across jurisdictional boundaries.

We also continue to work with Congress to ensure laws that protect children remain effective even as technology advances. Until 1996, for example, federal law prohibiting the interstate distribution of child pornography required that the offending material depict an actual child engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Because technology has advanced to the point where pornographic images may be entirely computer-generated or partially altered by a computer, images that clearly depicted offending conduct were not covered by the statute.

Under the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, which had the strong support of President Clinton, Congress modified the definition of covered images to include computer-generated and other simulated images of children.

Additionally, Congress' support of enhanced sentencing guidelines for those convicted of using a computer to possess or traffic in child pornography will help keep dangerous offenders off of the Internet and behind bars longer.

As I have said, I am proud of the vigorous efforts of our federal, state and local law enforcement officials in their efforts to target and prosecute those who use the Internet to harm children. But we can't do it alone.

To succeed in an environment where skilled predators and pornography disseminators navigate the complex electronic Web in new and ingenious ways, we must work collaboratively with the online industry and advocates for children in this endeavor.

Only through a creative, a flexible approach to this problem is it possible to hasten development of a safe environment for children on the Internet. That is why I'm excited about the new initiatives and the relationships that have been forged as a result of this summit.

First, I think the Internet service providers' commitment to a zero-tolerance policy for child pornography is commendable and a keystone to the elimination of this insidious market. This is a significant agreement that involves Internet provider trade associations representing 95 percent of the home Internet use market. We look forward to working with representatives as service providers in developing additional measures and relationships to assist providers in implementing this important policy.

I'm also delighted that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is launching a cybertip line, which will serve as a national resource for leads regarding the sexual exploitation of children in cyberspace. This will serve as an important resource for law enforcement efforts against those offenders.

The Department of Justice is also proud to participate in the ongoing Internet safety forum with private industry, a permanent, cooperative arrangement. The forum will include representatives from federal law enforcement agencies, Internet service providers and associations, and international representatives to discuss issues of common concern and work toward new solutions to the hazards children face on the Internet.

In addition, the Department of Justice is expanding its computer training initiative to include joint training with private industry representatives and local law enforcement. Law enforcement needs to know all it can about developments in Internet technology and in the online market industry.

On the other hand, you need to understand your obligations under the law and how best to assist law enforcement. More in-depth training will foster cooperation and ensure that all investigations of cybercrime aimed at children are conducted using the most advanced techniques possible.

I think this is so important, because when I came to the Department of Justice, they were just beginning to understand what computers could do, both in terms of providing extraordinary tools for law enforcement. They gave us remarkable ability to solve crimes in a quick and effective fashion.

But we also saw that cybertools were in the hands of the bad guys. And we also saw out in the private sector tremendous technological development changing by the day. And it became clear to me that we had to form a partnership with the private sector, that it was our duty to explain to you what limits we faced, what were the constitutional restrictions involved, what were the laws, how could the laws be changed.

But we needed your assistance in understanding the latest technology -- how we could apply the law, how we could make our Constitution a truly living document and adjust it to new changes in technology without in anyway limiting the rights of all Americans that we have held dear for so long.

In this effort, it has been important to involve those who have been advocates for our children. It is wonderful for me to see people who were first librarians, and now I believe they're called media specialists in our schools, and the wonderful opportunities that they give to children through the use of technology to travel around the world in the hour they spend in the library.

So it is exciting for me to see this group come together. And I would like to see us look at this as a first step towards a continuing partnership and a continuing dialogue that respects what each is trying to do and tries our best to understand the problems that the industry faces and that law enforcement faces.

We have many challenges. One of our challenges is to keep track and keep current on the latest technology. How do we purchase that technology? How do we purchase it and keep it current? We're going to need to work with the industry to understand.

These new initiatives are important steps in protecting our children from the hazards of the Internet. They are a collaborative model, which we know is the most effective means of protecting our children and enforcing the law. But these measures are only our first steps. The Department of Justice is currently working with state and local law enforcement, and with industry to identify additional measures designed both to identify predators who would lure children away from home as well as to purge the Internet of child pornography.

Let us continue the dialogue. I would appreciate the industry -- instead of getting frustrated and saying, that's just law enforcement, they don't understand our problems -- I'd appreciate your picking up the phone and calling me or writing me a letter, and saying, here's the problem and here's the way I think we can resolve it.

The rapid and global growth of the Internet raises a host of complex issues involving criminal law enforcement that expand beyond national boundaries.

For this reason, next week I will host a meeting of Justice and Interior ministers from eight industrialized nations to discuss collaborative efforts to fight high-tech crime. When we meet, we will be talking about methods to locate and identify computer criminals so we can bring them to justice.

Again and again, the message that we have had from law enforcement on the front lines of this effort is the problem they have in trying to locate where that hacker is that's stopping up an emergency line, where that hacker is that's stealing from a bank in one of our cities, where that hacker is or where that pornographer is that is conveying this to the children of America.

As we work together to develop tools for doing this, it will be invaluable in all that we do to fight computer crime, but especially, in addressing how we protect our children from child pornography and from predators.

When people come together like this, I think of the time that it takes away from your business and from what you are doing. For you to evidence this interest, for you to spend this time is heart-warming, and I thank you so much and I look forward to this being truly the first step in a continuing dialogue on how we use that mighty, marvelous invention and idea of the Internet for the good of our children and this nation.

Thank you.

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