WARNING:
MATURE CONTENT. READER DISCRETION ADVISED!
Statement of Sheriff Michael J. Brown
Bedford County, Virginia
19 September 2006
Washington, DC
Prepared for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Senator McCain and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today.
My name is Mike Brown; I am the Sheriff of Bedford County, VA, home of the National D-Day Memorial. I am a retired federal agent with 42 years of law enforcement experience on a local, national and international level. Since 1998, I have directed a Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.or, to shorten that a bit.an ICAC Task Force named Operation Blue Ridge Thunder. Our task force is responsible for Virginia and West Virginia, with the exception of five counties in Northern Virginia which are ably protected by the Virginia State Police ICAC Task Force.
I will not take up your time, nor my allotted time, by giving you a lot of statistics. your staffers are quite capable of researching this subject and providing you with reams and reams of stats, charts and graphs about children and the Internet, porn and the Internet, sexual solicitation over the Internet, unwanted exposure to sexual material, etc. You asked that I address what, if any, appropriate controls might be placed on child pornography on the Internet, and how the government can help.
First, let me give you an idea of what goes on in this cesspool of child porn on the Internet.what we hear and a description of what we see.
On any given day an ICAC Task Force Investigator, assigned to any of the 46 task forces, will view the following:
The investigators are looking at a young female, as young as 3 to 4 years of age (the images can be either digital images or videos). there is a look of stark fear on her face. She is being forced to perform any number of graphic sexual acts with an adult male or males.oral sex, vaginal sex, anal sex; many of the images have another adult male ejaculating on this young girl, most of the time on her face. Image after image.video after video.hundreds of thousands of them!
Parry Aftab, Cyber-Lawyer described the scene best, and I paraphrase: “In most of the videos the cameraman has the young female facing the camera. All of her, and his, genitalia are graphically displayed in the video.close up, wide angle, overhead, side.a flash or special lighting is clearly being used and shone in her face to illuminate the graphic rape. The little girl was not only being painfully molested, she was forced to bear the additional humiliation of being filmed at the same time. Unable to stop the rape, she did the only thing she could do to protect herself: She shut her eyes. Most parents understand this gesture. When our children are very young, they think that by closing their eyes they become invisible. They stand in front of us, thinking that if they can’t see us, we can’t see them. “Mommy, can you see me?” is the game of the day, and we all pretend that we can’t. We call out to them, “Where are you? We can’t see you!” pretending to look everywhere for them. The game ends with lots of giggling, tickling, laughter, and hugs. This little girl’s attempt to be invisible would end very differently”..
ICAC Task Force investigators, and other investigators working in local, state and federal cyber units, see these images every day.it use to be just (forgive me, how do I say .just.) one dimensional images, now it’s video.streams and if you look hard enough it can be live .stream. video. One of the most sought-after videos at this time is one of an adult male attempting to sexually penetrate what appears to be a 2 to 3 year old female. He removes her diaper at the start of the video. Investigator O.Neal mentions this in his recorded comments to this committee.
There is a 40 second video clip, according to Department R, Russian Police (Unit in charge of hi-tech crimes), where two sexual predators have sex with a young girl (10/12 years old?) after which they stab her, cut off her ears and smash her face to a bloody pulp. This clip, as reported by the Russian police, was first noticed by the US authorities. US police experts assert that the video footage represents real activity, not imitation.
Our investigators routinely pose as children, young teens, and like minded adults, in chat rooms on the Internet. Posing as a child they simply place their profile in the chat room, usually a 12, 13, 14 year old female.and then just sit back and wait. In a nana second they begin to be .hit. on by the sexual predator surfing the web for his next victim. Sometimes the predator takes his time and tries to schmooze his way in. More often that not, they simply open the conversation with, .What are you wearing, how big are your breasts (and I.m being polite), do you want to have sex, if I send you a video cam would you masturbate for me, would you like to see me masturbate, how far have you and your boyfriend gone.oral sex, anal sex, vaginal sex, are you a virgin, do you like to perform oral sex, how big is your boy friend.s penis, would you like to have sex with a real man with abig penis, would you like for someone to urinate/defecate on you.. andthen offers or just sends porn pictures.sometimes adult, often child.
When posing as a like minded adult they are often engaged by parents or care-takers wanting them to share in the abuse, and or sexual exploitation of children in their care. These care takers and parents are often the persons responsible for the manufacturing and distribution of the horrific pictures and videos available on the web today.
END
All my hopes and respect go out to Sheriff Brown. I hope that many other law enforcement agencies follow his lead. This stuff makes me crazier than I can tell you. Bottom line is that you are either with us or against us! No grey tones here!
CHOOSE YOUR SIDE NOW BECAUSE THIS WAR IS JUST GETTING STARTED?! PL
