On March 27, the House approved, 410-14, legislation (H.R. 1104) that would expand the AMBER alert communications network and provide tougher penalties for child abductions. Republican leaders inserted the bill into a Senate measure (S. 151) that would outlaw virtual child pornography. The combined bill was passed by voice vote and is headed for conference with the Senate.
While the Senate passed a separate AMBER Alert bill in January (see The Source, 1/24/03), the House bill, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chair James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), includes the AMBER provisions in an omnibus bill that contains numerous other measures, including provisions stiffening penalties for child murderers and kidnappers (see The Source, 3/21/03).
The recent recovery of Elizabeth Smart, the Utah teenager kidnapped from her home last year, has focused renewed attention on the AMBER Alert system. Many have urged Congress to pass swiftly the AMBER Alert provisions as a separate bill. The House’s move to combine H.R. 1104 with the Senate-passed child pornography bill was designed to expedite Senate consideration of the omnibus package.
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) warned that by tacking “a host of controversial, sound-bite based provisions” onto the “non-controversial, bipartisan” AMBER Alert bill, Congress ran the risk of passing through the Senate neither the AMBER bill, nor the so-called “sound bites.”
“I think the Senate has chosen not to consider many of the controversial items hitchhiking on the AMBER Alert bill for good reasons: more death penalties, at a time when we know the death penalty has problems; more mandatory minimums, two strikes and you are out. We are authorizing FBI wiretaps for behavior that is not even a crime; pretrial detention, lifetime supervision, and removing the statute of limitations on crimes such as adults crossing State lines to engage in consensual sex that would be a crime in the home State,” Rep. Scott said. “Virtually all of the crimes described in the bill are already crimes with significant penalties. Others have already passed the House in separate bills and are still pending in the Senate, as they have been for the last six years. It is wrong to hijack the AMBER Alert bill to try to pass these things again. It will not help AMBER Alert, and it will not help pass the extraneous provisions.”
“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,” said Rep. Sensenbrenner. “I note with interest that the DCCC, the political wing of the House Democrats, have labeled provisions of the bill … 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.”
“It is important to talk about not only the AMBER Alert provision in the bill, but to also praise additional measures of the legislation that serve and protect our Nation’s children,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). “Certainly the AMBER Alert system has helped to find missing children throughout the nation … but this bill has a wider scope by working to stop abductions before they occur. [This bill] gives us the ability to provide stronger penalties against kidnappers, sex offenders and child abductors. It aids law enforcement by giving them the ability to prosecute the criminals responsible for these crimes.”
The House adopted, 406-15, an amendment offered by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) that would change the definition of child pornography in federal laws dealing with some crimes against children. The amendment was crafted in response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down portions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act, which made illegal so-called “virtual” pornography that appeared to depict minors but was produced without using real children, i.e., through computer technology or youthful looking adults.
The Smith amendment would narrow the definition of virtual pornography by requiring consideration of the artistic, literary, political, or scientific value of the work, and contains provisions aimed at helping police and investigators prosecute child pornography cases.
The legislation would make it a crime to use child pornography, virtual or not, to pander or entice a minor into engaging in sexual activity and would establish a victim shield law to keep the identity of child victims out of court.
Additionally, the bill would increase the penalties for repeat offenders who cross state lines to sexually molest a minor. The language of the Smith amendment is similar to S. 151 (see The Source, 2/28/03).
The House also adopted, 357-58, an amendment by Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) that limits the ability of courts to hand down sentences that fall outside federal sentencing guidelines. The Feeney amendment also increases penalties for possession of child pornography that depicts acts of violence.
Before moving to final passage, the House by voice vote adopted an amendment by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), which would make it a crime to use a misleading Internet domain name with the intent to deceive a person into viewing obscenity on the Internet. The amendment also makes it a criminal act to knowingly use a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material on the Internet that is harmful to minors.
Also adopted by voice vote were amendments by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), which would reauthorize grant programs that provide funding to child advocacy centers; Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), which would require the national AMBER Alert coordinator to submit reports to Congress on the effectiveness of the program; Rep. John Carter (R-TX), proposing background checks for volunteers of groups that work with children, the elderly and the disabled; Rep. Nick Lampson (R-TX), which would provide explicit statutory jurisdiction to the U.S. Secret Service to continue to provide forensic and investigative support upon request from local law enforcement or from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
