Posted on 03/05/2020 5:01:16 PM PST by ransomnote
The Justice Department and Homeland Security, along with government counterparts from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, announced today the publication of Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. Developed in consultation with several leading technology companies, the 11 voluntary principles outline measures that companies in the technology industry
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
Good afternoon. I am pleased to be joined here today by Acting Secretary Wolf of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, distinguished colleagues from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and representatives from leading tech companies, to announce a very important initiative: Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
Last summer, I traveled to London for the Five Country Ministerial Digital Industry Roundtable. There, our five nations met with senior representatives from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Roblox, Snapchat, and Twitter. We agreed that a more robust global response to online child sexual abuse was necessary to ensure that all children across the globe are protected, and that there is no safe space online for offenders to operate. Further, we committed to developing a set of voluntary principles to ensure online platforms and services have the systems they need to combat online child sexual exploitation. As a result of that meeting and much diligent work since then, today, we are collectively launching the 11 Voluntary Principles. I am happy that our hard work has come to fruition with today’s event.
The 11 Voluntary Principles establish a baseline framework for companies that provide online services to deter use of the Internet as a tool for sexually exploiting and abusing children. The six technology companies involved in this initiative have now publicly endorsed the Principles, and I commend them for their leadership.
The sexual exploitation and abuse of children is one of the most horrendous crimes affecting the most vulnerable members of society. Unfortunately, this has emerged as a massive problem not only in the real world, but also in the virtual one. Last year alone, more than 16.8 million CyberTips of suspected child sexual abuse material offenses were made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), involving children as young as infants.
Earlier today at the White House, we heard from members of the Phoenix 11, which is the group responsible for the powerful video you just watched. Phoenix 11 is an organization of survivors whose child sexual abuse was recorded and, in the majority of cases, distributed online. I commend these brave survivors for raising the profile of this issue. Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to them for their courage in coming forward and telling their stories. They have given a voice to victims who have been silenced. They inspire us to take action, and we are thankful for their fearless and unrelenting efforts.
No child should ever have to endure the unspeakable pain and suffering of sexual exploitation and abuse. Sadly, however, technological change over the past few decades has amplified the scope and harm caused by these crimes.
First, the borderless nature of the Internet has made these crimes transnational. A global problem requires a global solution. We are, therefore, collaborating with our international counterparts, particularly our close rule-of-law allies, like those represented in this room.
Second, technology has made it easier to produce, conceal, and distribute child sexual abuse materials. For example, over the last decade, the Department of Justice has seen a 160-percent increase in cases involving the production of videos and images of children who were sexually exploited and abused. This increase is due in part to the ready accessibility of smart phones, which can be used to both produce images and videos and distribute them online.
Third, with digital content, sexual-abuse imagery can be preserved online for much longer periods of time and disseminated more broadly. Victims incur not only the initial harm of abuse, but are victimized again and again when those images are recirculated. For example, sexual abuse imagery of one particular victim has been found in almost 21,500 separate U.S. investigations over the last 20 years. As we heard this morning from the courageous survivors in the Phoenix 11, knowing that their child sexual abuse material is still online is debilitating, preventing some from even being able to use the Internet. Victims should not be forced to live in such fear.
Fourth, the Internet affords child predators more places to hide. Predators often use anonymous or false personas, even in the most innocuous of settings, like online children’s games. They also communicate using virtually unbreakable encryption. A suspicious individual interacting with children at a real-world arcade is easier to detect than a predator lurking in the digital world. As the survivors at our roundtable this morning implored, predators’ supposed privacy interests should not outweigh our children’s privacy and security. There is too much at stake.
While technology is part of the problem, it is also part of the solution. This is why I am heartened to be here today with my partners from the Five Country Ministerial and with representatives from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Roblox, Snapchat, and Twitter to announce these Voluntary Principles, and to encourage other tech companies to join this initiative.
This is the first time that our five nations have collaborated in this way with technology companies to protect children against online child sexual exploitation and abuse. The Voluntary Principles that we are announcing today have already been implemented informally by some leaders in the industry. Now formalized, they will serve as a baseline for the rest of industry to use, and to build upon, as they assess their current vulnerabilities and design new products and services.
While these companies are leaders, they represent just part of the online world. There is a massive disparity among companies in their child protection efforts. In 2019, three companies — Facebook, Google, and Microsoft — accounted for 97.5 percent of the CyberTips submitted to NCMEC. And let us give credit where it is due: Facebook alone submitted 94 percent of last year’s CyberTips — almost 16 million in total.
We hope that our actions today will encourage others in the tech industry to consider these Voluntary Principles as they make decisions about their own services. Company leaders and employees should ask questions like:
The Voluntary Principles are an important first step, but we can and must do more. The department, for one, is prioritizing combating child sexual exploitation and abuse in our prosecution efforts. We are also addressing child exploitation in our efforts on lawful access and in analyzing the impact of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act on incentives for platforms to address such crimes and the availability of civil remedies to the victims.
Government, however, cannot do it alone. Given the size and scope of this problem, we each need to do our part. As governments, as industry leaders, as parents, as grandparents, as a global community, we all have a duty — indeed, a moral imperative — to protect our children from these abhorrent abuses in the physical world and the online world.
The Voluntary Principles show that international actors and the public and private sectors are eager to take important first steps to address this vital issue. It is our sincere hope that other leaders throughout the tech industry will commit to these principles as well. Nothing less than the safety and security of our children is at stake.
Thank you.
can choose to implement to protect the children who use their platforms from sexual abuse online and to make their platforms more difficult for child sex offenders to exploit.
“Today marks a historic event,” said U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr. “For the first time, the Five Countries are collaborating with tech companies to protect children against online sexual exploitation. We hope the Voluntary Principles will spur collective action on the part of industry to stop one of the most horrendous crimes impacting some of the most vulnerable members of society.”
Online child sexual exploitation and abuse is a global crime that demands a global response. In an increasingly digital and borderless world, this crime has become easier to commit. Rapidly evolving technology and anonymizing tools allow offenders to continuously adapt and diversify their methods to conceal their activities from law enforcement. Not surprisingly, as a consequence, offenses are growing in scale and are becoming more extreme. These crimes have a devastating and lasting impact on victims and survivors.
“Nothing is of greater importance to the Trump Administration than ensuring the safety and security of Americans, especially the most vulnerable among us — our children,” said Acting Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Chad Wolf. “Combating online child sexual exploitation is a top priority for the department. ICE Homeland Security Investigations has one in 10 agents investigating child sexual exploitation at any given time and that is why DHS released its first Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking, the Importation of Goods Produced with Forced Labor, and Child Sexual Exploitation. I am confident the Voluntary Principles will help us move forward our goal of creating a world where children can grow up free from sexual exploitation. The Voluntary Principles set new norms across the private sector, incorporating child safety throughout a company’s operations and properly considering the needs of victim-survivors.”
“We cannot allow children to fall victim to predators who lurk in the shadows of the web,” said UK Security Minister James Brokenshire. “Through global collaboration and with enhanced action from the Five Countries, law enforcement agencies and tech companies, we will ensure that children are protected online.”
“It is imperative that we keep children safe from online sexual exploitation and abuse, and we can only accomplish that if we work together with other countries and across sectors,” said Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair. “Today’s release of the Voluntary Principles represents a huge step forward and is the result of innovative cooperation between Five Eyes partners and industry stakeholders. For Canada, the principles directly align with our efforts guided by our National Strategy and continues to fulfill our commitment of protecting children from sexual exploitation of any kind.”
“When it comes to tackling child abuse committed on online platforms and services, the digital industry has a vital role to play,” said Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton. “The Voluntary Principles will help industry optimize these efforts; they reflect Governments’ expectations of digital industry, and are scalable and practical to implement across various platforms — from search engines to gaming services to social media networking sites.”
“Those who engage in online child sexual exploitation work to get around current barriers and regulations, despite the best efforts and hard work of the digital industry,” said New Zealand Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister for Children Tracey Martin. “This is a global crime that demands a global response. Working with my colleagues from the Five Countries and the digital industry has ensured we have a set of principles that are robust, flexible, and most importantly, will create effective responses.”
At the Five Country Ministerial Digital Industry Roundtable on July 30, 2019 in London, the Five Country Ministers and senior representatives from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Roblox, Snap and Twitter agreed “tackling [the online child sexual abuse] epidemic requires an immediate upscaling of the global response to ensure that all children across the globe are protected…and that there is no safe space online for offenders to operate.” As a result, the Five Countries developed the Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in consultation with the six companies and a broad range of experts from industry, civil society and academia.
The voluntary principles provide a common and consistent framework to guide the digital industry in its efforts to combat the proliferation of online child exploitation. The voluntary principles cover the following themes:
These voluntary principles are built on existing industry efforts to combat these crimes. Some leading companies have dedicated significant resources to develop and deploy tools in the fight to protect children online and to detect, disrupt and identify offenders. Although significant progress has been made, there is much more to be done to strengthen existing efforts and enhance collective action.
These principles are intended to have sufficient flexibility to ensure effective implementation by industry actors. Some companies have already implemented measures similar to those outlined in these principles. Regardless of whether or not a company chooses to adopt these principles, existing laws and regulations in relevant jurisdictions continue to apply to all companies. Nothing in these principles overrides or is contrary to the need for companies to comply with the law.
The Five Country governments have partnered with the WePROTECT Global Alliance — an international body comprising government, industry and civil society members — to promote the Principles globally and drive collective industry action. The WePROTECT Global Alliance will also collate information about industry’s uptake of the Principles, connect subject matter experts to share best practices for implementation, and analyze the evolving threat environment to identify gaps in the global response. Five Country Governments will work closely with the WePROTECT Global Alliance to ensure the Principles remain fit-for-purpose for emerging trends and threats.
The year 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the Department of Justice. Learn more about the history of our agency at www.Justice.gov/Celebrating150Years.
I also see a lot of posts that say Barr is "letting the swamp have it's way" etc. if he's at an event and doesn't bring Comey et. al. in orange jumpsuits to it. I want to encourage you. Barr is one of a legion of people draining the swamp from the bottom up.
Barr doesn't list classified activities on the DOJ website or release it to the news. Watching the DOJ website as I do, I've seen countless cases about medical fraud, tax evasion and two re Panama Papers that confirm he's drying up their resources and getting lower level convictions from those who serve the elites; these lower level cases are put before the judge when elites are tried. For example, revelations in the Panama Papers (international off shore accounts of the rich and famous) lead to convictions of their tax preparers and those convictions are taken to tax trials of the elites. Of course the elites will also face other charges too, but tax trials are a start and could hold them in place while the deep state's financial and thug resources are dried up so the elites can't retaliate (won't have funds and with it, power) when bigger cases are brought.
During the Obama years, Sotero depleted our military to the point that when Trump took office, the country was in no condition to fend off domestic and international aggression meant to thwart prosecution of our DS. But Trump fought hard and long to get money for the wall and to rebuild the military (I think he spent 1.5 Trillion rebuilding our military) while the tentacles of the DS were being cut, and the other half of the country is being educated (often against their will) about what the Dems/Deep State/ Media really have in mind for us.
It's been hard waiting to see prosecutions turn the spotlight on the highest profile villians in D.C., but the groundwork is there and is beginning to surface. (Also, those in high places providing depositions and engaged in prosecution won't tell us about it, and the optics require that we not be told.) For details re some of the "groundwork", watch Rudy Guiliaini's video series called "Common Sense" on Youtube for all the evidence re the Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-9J07yyuXQTx_uZQchtwsg
Without educating the public, and in the face of MSM propaganda, civil unrest would be cultivated by the DS and efforts would be made to provoke bloodshed. It's likely Pelosi et. al. would demand UN intervention to "save us" from President Trump, by falsely reporting that he is behind the civil unrest in a coup attemp (i.e., claim he wants to become dictator).
President Trump's strategy matches the winning strategy employed in a famous chess game 100 years ago (Capablanca vs Marshall), The President does love his chess games; he has used this strategy to keep the economy stable enough to impress many with economic wins across the board (win hearts, minds, re-election). That's what the DS is hammering on now, fanning the flames of fear re coronavirus to destabilize the econimy; it's about all the DS has left.
Don't worry if you see Barr at a press event or having lunch! The deep state is still being dismantled even while Barr has coffee, WE'RE STILL WINNING!
Let me guess. We need more surveillance and monitoring and centralized control.
....For the Children of course.
As much as this seems to be a good step.
...Fiveeyes just grew a bunch of new tentacles.
This reminds me is when Sessions went after weed, and not the deep state. This is Sessions 2.0. Barr, prior me wrong and do SOMETHING regarding the deep state.
Exactly what I was thinking. This is Barr’s weed crackdown move.
I expect that we’ll be seeing more FISA court fluff stories now that President Trump says he’s not going to rubber stamp the court’s reauthorization.
Not to change the subject but how are the Huber and Durham investigations going?
Barr has proven to be absolutely useless.
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