F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I support this amendment as an important step to stop the exploitation of our children. This amendment is directly connected to the abduction of children, since children are abducted and sold into the sex industry for both pornography and for prostitution. The amendment addresses growing challenges to the government's ability to prosecute child pornographers. It also includes a provision to address child pornography that is produced overseas to be distributed in the United States. The exploitation of any child is unacceptable, and the United States must take affirmative steps to prevent this exploitation wherever it occurs. The amendment is essentially the same as the Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act, which passed the House in the last Congress by a vote of 413 to 8. This legislation had strong bipartisan support. Congress understood then what has become even more clear now, that this legislation ensures the enforceability of existing child pornography laws. During the 1990s, advances in computer technology threatened the government's ability to protect real children. Congress attempted to address this concern in 1996 with the Child Pornography Prevention Act, parts of which were subsequently struck down by the Supreme Court in the Free Speech Coalition decision. Regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the court's decision, we must now deal with its consequences. Since that decision, defendants in child pornography cases have routinely claimed that the depictions of child pornography could be virtual, thus requiring the government to prove first that the depicted image is a real person. The mere existence of computer technology that creates virtual depictions which are indistinguishable from depictions of actual children allows defendants who possess images of real children to escape prosecution. This Congress has an obligation to correct this absurd permutation in the law. Given the prevalence of the Internet, we absolutely cannot protect our children if prosecutors must first complete the almost impossible task of identifying the children depicted in child pornography. Unless this amendment is adopted, the Supreme Court's decision will effectively legalize all child pornography by throwing an insurmountable burden in the face of the prosecution. I urge my colleagues to support this critical amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I also believe that this is a very constructive amendment, and I commend the gentleman from Puerto Rico for offering it; and I hope that it is adopted. Let me say that one of the first things I did when I came to Congress was I helped pass the Missing Children's Act which was in response to the abduction and gruesome murder of Adam Walsh, whose father, John Walsh, has obtained quite a bit of fame in being an advocate for missing and exploited children. The Code Adam proposal has been very successful when privately implemented in Wal-Mart stores around the country, and I think that having a Code Adam alert system in place nationwide for all public buildings will significantly improve the chance of recovering children who might be abducted in a shopping mall or some other public building. I think the gentleman from Puerto Rico has done the children of this country a great service by offering this amendment, and I hope that it is adopted.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. This is also a very good amendment. It broadens the tools that law enforcement can use to track down missing children through better forensic investigation. I commend the gentleman from Texas for offering this amendment, and I hope that the committee adopts it.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I believe this amendment is a very necessary amendment, if I could just take a minute to explain why. In 1993, the National Child Protection Act was passed to provide a process for background checks for volunteers. It did not get up and running. Additional legislation to improve the process was enacted through the Volunteers for Children Act of 1998. It still is not up and running. What the gentleman from Texas is proposing is to tell the Justice Department that they have 120 days to tell us why these programs are not up and running, what is needed to fix them, and to get on with the background check system so that those who do volunteer to work not only with children, but also the disabled and the elderly, can be checked out to see if altruism is not their sole motivation for working with these groups of people. I think that this is a very good amendment, and I hope that it would be adopted.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds just to point out that neither the Senate-passed stand-alone AMBER Alert bill nor its companions in the House establish a mandatory national AMBER system. All of the bills are voluntary. The States can apply for grants. It is my hope that they will do so. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. (Mr. COBLE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, on the other side of the aisle some Members have come up and stated that we ought to bust this bill apart and strip out all of the non-AMBER Alert-related issues. That would be a big mistake. It would be a huge mistake because most of these provisions are designed to prevent kidnappings and molestations from happening in the first place. I support AMBER Alert. It is important once a kidnapping takes place that the police and the public and the news media know about that kidnapping so that an alert public can hopefully spot the abducted child and return the child to his or her parents. But even more important in my opinion is to prevent the kidnappings and the molestations in the first place because if that ever happens, those people's lives are scorched for life. In H.R. 1104 there are a number of provisions. I do not think they are controversial, but let me enumerate them. It provides the judge with the discretion to extend the supervision of a released child sex offender up to a maximum of life, eliminates the statute of limitations for child abductions and sex crimes, denies pretrial release for child rapists and child abductors, requires a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for twice-convicted child sex offenders, reauthorizes and doubles the annual grant to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to $20 million a year through fiscal 2005, mandates a minimum 20-year prison sentence for the kidnapping of a person under the age of 18 by a nonfamily member, authorizes COPS funding for a sex offender apprehension program, adds four new wiretap predicates that relate to sexual exploitation crimes against children. We give these predicates so that the police will have the same authority to seek court wiretap authority when someone is using the Internet to try to entice children that the police presently have in cases of organized crime, international terrorism, or drug trafficking. The bill facilitates the prevention of international parental kidnapping by adding an attempt to liability to the statute defining that offense, and it punishes persons who travel to foreign countries to engage in illegal sexual relations with minors and criminalizes the actions of sex tourism operators. These are provisions that the opponents of this bill want to strip out. They are important provisions. They ought to be the law of the land, and we ought to pass H.R. 1104 intact today to make them the law of the land.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn), the author of the stand-alone AMBER Alert bill on the House side.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, sexual predators target America's children every day in large cities, small towns, and even in cyberspace. Sexual exploitation of children, a prime motive for kidnapping, is on the rise. When it comes to abduction, rape, and murder of children, the United States must have a zero tolerance policy. H.R. 1104, the Child Abduction Prevention Act, is comprehensive legislation that directly and forcefully addresses these heinous crimes. The bill is virtually identical to H.R. 5422, which overwhelmingly passed the House last October by a vote of 390 to 24. Like so many other meritorious bills sent to the other body in the last Congress, this legislation was allowed to die by the Democrat leadership. An abducted child is a parent's worst nightmare. We must ensure that law enforcement has every possible tool necessary to try to recover a missing child quickly and safely. H.R. 1104 not only gets the word out after a kidnapping, but it also takes strong steps to prevent them from occurring in the first place. The bill strengthens penalties against kidnapping and aids law enforcement agencies to effectively prevent, investigate, and prosecute crimes against children. Prompt public alerts of an abducted child could be the difference between life and death for that innocent victim. Recognizing this, the bill codifies the AMBER Alert program currently in place in the Departments of Justice and Transportation and authorizes increased funding to help States deploy child abduction communications warning networks. For those individuals that would harm a child, we must ensure that punishment is severe, and that sexual predators are not allowed to slip through the cracks of a system and harm other children. To this end, this legislation provides a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment for nonfamilial abductions of a child under the age of 18, lifetime supervision for sex offenders, and mandatory life imprisonment for second-time offenders. Furthermore, H.R. 1104 removes any statute of limitations and opportunity for pretrial release for crimes of child abduction and sex offenses. Those who abduct children are often serial offenders who have already been convicted of similar offenses. Sex offenders and child molesters are four times more likely than other violent criminals to recommit their crimes. This number demands attention, especially in light of the fact that a single child molester, on average, destroys the lives of over 100 children. In response, H.R. 1104 provides judges with the discretion to impose lifetime supervision upon such offenders. The bill also fights against an industry supporting one of the fastest growing areas of international criminal activity. The sex tourism industry obtains its victims through kidnapping and trafficking of women and children. These women and children are then forced into prostitution. H.R. 1104 works to end this. This legislation also authorizes increased support through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Nation's resource center for child protection. The center assists in the recovery of missing children and raises public awareness about ways to protect children from abduction, molestation, and sexual exploitation. Some have called for a stand-alone AMBER bill instead of the comprehensive approach we have taken to address the problem of child abductions in this country. I note with interest that the DCCC, the political wing of the House Democrats, have labeled provisions of the bill I have just outlined as controversial. I do not think these provisions are controversial. Neither do the Department of Justice, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or the 390 Members of Congress that voted for this bill last year. Mark Klaas, father of kidnap and murder victim Polly Klaas, supports us. Mr. Klaas said, ``I'm behind what Mr. Sensenbrenner's doing. I like the idea of a 2-strike law for people who are committing sexual offenses against children. And what it says is that if somebody does that, they are going to spend the rest of their miserable life in prison if they are convicted a second time. I see no problem with putting it out on the floor and seeing where people fall on it.'' Those who say we need a stand-alone AMBER bill on the President's desk today do not understand the actual impact of such a bill. The fact is that much of the stand-alone AMBER bill has already been implemented and is in place right now. The stand-alone AMBER bill calls for a national coordinator. On October 2, 2002, President Bush directed the Attorney General to designate a Justice Department officer to serve as AMBER Alert coordinator to help expand the AMBER Alert system nationwide. Assistant Attorney General Deborah J. Daniels was designated as that coordinator and for almost 6 months has been working to assist State and local officials with developing and enhancing AMBER plans and promoting statewide and regional AMBER coordination programs ever since. The Departments of Justice and Transportation already have $12.5 million in the bank today, ready to respond and spend on AMBER programs. Furthermore, in a March 18, 2003, letter to me, the Department of Justice stated that it has not been hampered in its efforts to implement an AMBER Alert program because of any legislation that has yet to be signed into law. Stand-alone AMBER legislation, in the words of the Department of Justice and their statement of administration policy, merely codifies current practice. This Congress must do better than codifying current practice, and this bill does that. Let us be clear, if a stand-alone AMBER Alert were enacted into law today, nothing that is already being done would change. This bill merely supplants the Department of Justice general authorization with a specific authorization. It may make some feel good, but it will not help protect America's children from kidnapping and sexual abuse in the first place. Federal money is in the pipeline for AMBER programs and is ready to be spent. A national coordinator has already been appointed. What we need now is a comprehensive legislative package that will crack down on child abductors, build and expand on the work of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and give Federal authorities additional tools to prevent and to solve these horrific crimes. I urge my colleagues to ignore the political rhetoric and to protect America's children by supporting this bipartisan and noncontroversial child protection legislation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon). (Mr. CANNON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, this is also a very good amendment. I commend the gentleman from Florida for drafting and offering it, and I would urge the Committee to adopt it.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 1104, the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections and conforming changes to the bill.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I have no objection to the motion, but I hope it will not be used to slow down the proceedings of the conference so that we can expeditiously reach a conference report. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the rule, I offer a motion.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I will not take a long time on this motion. The House has worked its will on H.R. 1104, and Members should be congratulated for their hard work. However, this is no time to pat ourselves on the back. There is still work to do with the other body, and I am prepared to get that job done. The following procedural maneuvers are necessary to get us to conference with the Senate. Many have complained that H.R. 1104 would get bogged down with the other body. This procedure ensures that we are able to expeditiously convene a conference to resolve differences between the House and the Senate versions of this legislation. The Committee on Rules, in its wisdom, has crafted a rule that permits us to expeditiously get to conference so that the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary can get to work. I am ready to roll up my sleeves to make sure this child protection legislation is on the President's desk soon. Mr. Speaker, this motion permits the House to get to a stage of disagreement with the Senate so the House can consider the next motion I will offer requesting a conference with the other body. I encourage all Members to support this motion so we can resolve our differences with the other body and send to the President strong child protection legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 160, I offer a motion.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 160, I call up the Senate bill (S. 151) to amend title 18, United States Code, with respect to the sexual exploitation of children, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 1104.