K.I.P.A
Kids' Internet Protection Act

• ICON - Internet Control Network for Arkansas. As Governor, I will create an Internet Control Network for Arkansas (ICON) that will allow Internet users in Arkansas to register their email address as a "do not email" account.
• Make it a Crime to Use Email to Solicit Minors for Pornography. I will call for legislation applying the same penalties for sending messages to the email accounts of minors that we impose for selling pornography to minors.
• Better Regulate Unsolicited Email. I will propose legislation to forbid commercial e-mail unless the message is labeled as an ad and includes the name, address and e-mail address of the sender - and there's a notice informing the recipient how to opt out of future e-mail advertisements from that sender.

Protecting Our Children from Online Stalkers

• Make Internet Sex Offenses Against Children a Crime.
• Promote a Guide to On-Line Safety for Parents.
• Better Educate the Public on How to Fight Cybercrime. We must let the public know how to report Internet-related crime, incidents of child pornography, hacking, piracy, Internet fraud and Internet harassment.
• Authorize State Law Enforcement Agencies to Track Emails and Net Use of Criminals. I will support legislation to give state authorities access to the e-mail communications and Web sites of those suspected of crime and allow extension to whatever communication devices are used by a suspect.
• Helping Schools and Libraries Protecting Our Children. I will create and oversee an Internet-Action Mobilization program, I-AM Informed, to train schools and public libraries on blocking predators from access to our children.
  K.I.P.A.

Every forty-four seconds, an unsavory act is committed on the Internet. The possibilities of distasteful or dangerous activities are as immeasurable as the World Wide Web itself. Meanwhile, federal and state governments have been slow to protect our families from the potential dangers and hazards the Internet can pose; and no single law-enforcement agency is authorized to patrol cyberspace, and its borders are limitless. As Governor, I will make it one of my top priorities to protect our privacy and - first and foremost - our children from those who would use the Internet do us our families harm.

Millions of American children use the Internet for various purposes every day. Consider the following statistic for children between the ages of 10 and 17 who use the Internet on a regular basis*:

• About one in five received an online sexual solicitation or approach in the past year. One in 33 received an aggressive sexual solicitation, meaning that the child was asked to meet, was called on the phone, or received mail or gifts. When this aggressive solicitation occurred, 36% of children were very or extremely upset and 25% were extremely afraid.
   
• Approximately one in four children in the past year was subject to unwanted exposure to photos of people having sex or of naked people. This was true even though about one-third of households reported using Internet blocking software. Of children so exposed, 23% were very or extremely upset, 20% were very or extremely embarrassed and 20% reported at least one symptom of stress.
   
• About one in 17 children has been threatened or harassed on the Internet, including threats of harm to the child, friends and family. Of those children so threatened, 31% were very or extremely upset, 19% were very or extremely afraid, 18% were very or extremely embarrassed, and almost one-third - 32% - had at least one symptom of stress.
   
• Law enforcement authorities receive reports of less than 10% of sexual solicitations and only about 3% of unwanted exposures. Moreover, only about 17% of children and approximately 10% of adults can even name a specific authority such as the FBI to whom they could make such reports.

Fighting Child Exposure to Internet Pornography

"Spam" email or junk email is a relatively new but growing problem. If "spam" were merely limited to get-rich-quick schemes and chain letters, the problem would not be so bad - but more and more Internet users, including children, are getting unsolicited emails offering pictures of hardcore sex and even teen pornography sites. If a shopkeeper at a magazine stand offered to sell pornography to our children so freely, we would have the store shut down immediately. Dealers of Internet pornography should be treated no differently. That is why, as Governor, I will offer several initiatives to crack down on unwanted and unsavory emails and solicitation of minors to buy Internet pornography.

• ICON - Internet Control Network for Arkansas. Many states around the country have statewide "do not call" lists that telemarketers must use to purge their list of people who do not wish to be contacted. In fact, even the U.S. Postal Service keeps a list of all consumers who do not wish to have unsolicited "sexually oriented advertisements" mailed to them. We must do the same with unsolicited email. As Governor, I will create an Internet Control Network for Arkansas (ICON) that will allow Internet users in Arkansas to register their email address as a "do not email" account. It would then be a crime for any company to send out junk or bulk emails soliciting commerce to individuals on this list. Parents could register their email accounts and those of their children to stop the growing bombardment of emails offering access to porn and other unwanted materials. In addition to protecting people from unwanted pornography, ICON will save money for Internet users in Arkansas who must pay the phone and Internet time they spend receiving these unwanted emails.
   
• Make it Crime to Use Email to Solicit Minors for Pornography. If newsstands and adult shops mailed advertisements to your children or walked up to them on the street and offered them pornographic magazines for sale, we would shut those shops and companies down and prosecute them. The Internet should be no different. I will call for legislation applying the same penalties for sending messages to the email accounts of minors that we impose for selling pornography to minors. In addition, I will ask Arkansas' prosecuting attorneys to pursue the prosecution and arrest of violators. And since email easily crosses state lines, I will work with governors from other state to set-up extradition agreements regarding Internet pornographers who push their services on our children.
   
• Better Regulate Unsolicited Email. As Governor, I will propose legislation modeled on a Nevada law that imposes the strongest regulation of "junk" email in the country. Nevada's law forbids e-mail that contains advertisements unless the message is labeled as an ad and includes the name, address and e-mail address of the sender - and there's a notice informing the recipient how to opt out of future e-mail advertisements from that sender. Recipients can sue for damages or $10 per e-mail, plus costs and attorneys' fees, but the law relieves third-party mailing houses ("spamhausen") from liability. In addition to the restrictions of the Nevada law, I will mandate an opt-out method in all cases, as discussed above.

Protecting Our Children from Online Stalkers

This past summer has a seen a dramatic rise in the reports of children being abducted from their homes or becoming the victims of sex crimes by people they met on the Internet. As the Internet has grown, states have been slow to enact tough laws that target online stalkers. The time has come for our legislature to deal specifically with Internet crime and how we can protect our families.

• Make Internet Sex Offenses Against Children a Crime. I will support a law to make sex offenses against children that involve the Internet a specific crime. California, Illinois, and North Carolina have similar laws that codify that a person who knowingly distributes pornographic or other sexual materials to a minor by electronic mail, the Internet, or a commercial online service is guilty of a crime punishable by imprisonment.
   
• Promote a Guide to On-Line Safety for Parents. My Administration will develop an On-Line Safety Guide to be used by parents in Arkansas to help teach children the dangers of the Internet. This brochure will include guidelines to educate parents and children about protection techniques on the Internet, such as:
  
   

  Do not give out personal information such as first and last name, address, telephone number, parent's names, work address or telephone number, or the name and location of their school, church, clubs etc. Teach your child or teen to always be thinking about what identifiers could be used to find them.   Do not allow children or teens to send an on-line friend a picture of themselves or other visual identifiers such as pictures of their house, school, etc.   Develop and discuss with children and teens household rules for going online. Decide upon the time of day that they can be online, the length of time they can be online, and appropriate areas for them to visit. Consider purchasing Internet filtering software that can greatly reduce the chance of their exposure to inappropriate material. Internet filtering software should not, however, give parents a feeling of ultimate security. Although these programs do filter many inappropriate sites, they do not filter against inappropriate chatting online.

   

• Better Educate the Public on How to Fight Cybercrime. Cybercrime covers a range of topics, from the right way to seize and search computers to explaining the legislative history behind laws used in the prosecution of computer crimes such as hacking. We must offer a section on the state website to let the public know how to report Internet-related crime and to direct victims to the right agency to report incidents of child pornography, hacking, piracy, Internet fraud and Internet harassment.
   
• Authorize State Law Enforcement Agencies to Track Emails and Net Use of Criminals. As Governor, I will support legislation that will give state authorities access to the e-mail communications, addresses and their content, and the Web site addresses and their content of those suspected of crime. The law should allow extension of a wiretap to whatever communication devices are used by a named suspect, as so ordered by the courts.
   
• Reward Schools and Libraries that Make Protecting Our Children a Top Priority. Recently, the US Supreme Court ruled that states cannot mandate that our children be blocked from access to websites. While we all must respect the First Amendment, I want to give parents the control they need to fight the predators who lurk on the Internet - and that includes working with schools to protect kids during the school day. I will create and oversee an Internet-Action Mobilization program called I-AM Informed. The state will work with at least one educator in every school and at least one library official in every public library to train them on the methods and technologies to block predators from access to our children. We will also provide all participating organizations with written information on the do's and don'ts of Internet safety that they can distribute to all parents, students, teachers, and librarians. This will give educators, parents, and children the tools to isolate Internet predators and pornographers.

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* At the request of Congress, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the University of New Hampshire conducted a study regarding threats posed by online predators and inappropriate content in cyberspace. After conducting a fairly comprehensive survey, the NCMEC released a report entitled "Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation's Youth."