Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Amazon.com: The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries (Child Development) (9780787988319): Michele Borba Ed.D.: Books
Amazon.com: The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries (Child Development) (9780787988319): Michele Borba Ed.D.: BooksI love and trust this parenting expert! Michele Borba is amazing. buy this book!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
An Aert if You Use Google Docs and link to them from public websites
Hello Google Apps admin,
We wanted to let you know about some important changes around published documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
In a few weeks, documents, spreadsheets and presentations that have been explicitly published outside your organization and are linked to from a public website will be crawled and indexed, which means they can appear in search results you see on Google.com and other search engines. There is no change for documents published inside your organization or shared privately.
If you wish to prevent users from publishing documents to the public internet, we now offer an admin control in the Google Apps Control Panel that allows users to continue to 'share documents outside the domain' without allowing them to publish the files to the public Internet. To change this setting, follow these steps:
- Login to your admin control panel
- Select Service Settings > Docs
- Un-check the option 'Users can publish documents to the public internet'
If a user does not want their published Docs to be crawled, then the user must unpublish them by doing the following:
- Go to the 'Share tab'
- For documents and spreadsheets, choose 'Publish as web page'. For presentations choose 'Publish/embed'
- Click on the button that says 'Stop publishing'
For more details, please see this Help Center article: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60781
This is a very exciting change as your published docs linked to from public websites will reach a much wider audience of people!
Sincerely,
The Google Apps Team
Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Enterprise product or account.
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
We wanted to let you know about some important changes around published documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
In a few weeks, documents, spreadsheets and presentations that have been explicitly published outside your organization and are linked to from a public website will be crawled and indexed, which means they can appear in search results you see on Google.com and other search engines. There is no change for documents published inside your organization or shared privately.
If you wish to prevent users from publishing documents to the public internet, we now offer an admin control in the Google Apps Control Panel that allows users to continue to 'share documents outside the domain' without allowing them to publish the files to the public Internet. To change this setting, follow these steps:
- Login to your admin control panel
- Select Service Settings > Docs
- Un-check the option 'Users can publish documents to the public internet'
If a user does not want their published Docs to be crawled, then the user must unpublish them by doing the following:
- Go to the 'Share tab'
- For documents and spreadsheets, choose 'Publish as web page'. For presentations choose 'Publish/embed'
- Click on the button that says 'Stop publishing'
For more details, please see this Help Center article: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60781
This is a very exciting change as your published docs linked to from public websites will reach a much wider audience of people!
Sincerely,
The Google Apps Team
Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Enterprise product or account.
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Espejo Público - Antena 3 televisión
Espejo Público - Antena 3 televisiónsexting issues in Spain and information about the hughe upcoming EU cybersafety event in Gijon.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Join us at the topCyberbullying Coalition event - October 13, 2009 in DC
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Please Join Us October 13, 2009
What: The StopCyberbullying Coalition Roundtable � Understanding, Preventing and Addressing Cyberbullying from the Trenches
Where: The Russell Senate Office Building SR:325
When: Noon � 4pm (lunch provided)
Who: Members of the StopCyberbullying Coalition, Industry Leaders, Tweenangels and Teenangels, Cyberbullying Experts, Members of the Media and Policymakers
Cybersafety organizations, Internet industry and entertainment leaders, members of the media and news agencies, child protection and anti-violence advocacy groups, community service organizations, law enforcement agencies, policymakers, authors, researchers and educational institutions, coalitions and working groups are each tackling cyberbullying and the risks associated with kids and teens hurting each other using digital devices and technologies. Members of the StopCyberbullying Coalition representing each of these stakeholder groups will share their work and expertise at the StopCyberbullying Coalition Roundtable.
The afternoon will consist of a lunch presentation, followed by three one-hour long panels of experts, young people, industry representatives and key stakeholder groups. Vibrant discussions and interactions with the participants will take place throughout the afternoon as we move towards a greater understanding of the issues, the wonderful work taking place and next steps.
Space is limited. RSVP required, 201-444-8910 or parry@aftab.com.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Verizon | International “Stop Cyberbullying” Conference
Verizon | International “Stop Cyberbullying” ConferenceIvan Seidenberg's speech at WiredSafety's Stop Cyberbullying Conference.
A trip down memory lane - Speaking Out - PC World
Speaking Out - PC World11 years ago, several of us joined in a panel on the Internet and children.
Se i software per la sicurezza dei bambini in Rete, rivendono le conversazioni dei vostri figli a scopo di marketing… - Gizmodo IT - Il gadget weblog
Se i software per la sicurezza dei bambini in Rete, rivendono le conversazioni dei vostri figli a scopo di marketing… - Gizmodo IT - Il gadget weblogSentry software expose is reported worldwide.
Gijón se convierte en sede mundial del debate sobre el uso de Internet entre los niños - Ticpymes
Gijón se convierte en sede mundial del debate sobre el uso de Internet entre los niños - TicpymesAn upcoming international conference on children online in Gijon, Spain, October 2009.
Generation Rude
Generation RudeParenting Magazine ran an article about teens and technology, netiquette and was digital communications are misunderstood. An interesting read.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Sentry "Parental Control" software is collecting and sharing kids information
Parents looking to buy a reputable monitoring software to keep track of their kids' chats, IMs and online communications might have considered Sentry's various products. But AP just learned that Sentry collects the information that parents may think is stored only on their home computer for their own review for the purposes ot selling it to marketers. They claim they strip it of more personal information, but admit to collecting at least the screen name or other identifier used by the kids. Legal? Maybe not. Unethical? Certainly looks that way if the AP report is accurate.Bismarck Tribune Online - World and National NewsThe plot thickens. I suspect that Fox and others will run like the dickens when they learn how data is obtained. Parent's permissio to sharing of COPPA-applicable info on their preteens is more than an opt-out. The privacy policy does not otherwise comply with COPPA. With fines of more than $1 million in recent years to getting it wrong when COPPA is concerned, you'd think a public company would be more careful.
My advice to everyone with Sentry installed on their home computers is to turn it off until we learn more.
My advice to everyone with Sentry installed on their home computers is to turn it off until we learn more.
Web-monitoring software gathers data on kid chats - wtop.com
Web-monitoring software gathers data on kid chats - wtop.comParents get a free downloadable product to oversee their kids surfing and online communications. Great, right? Not so great if that company is capturing those communications anc activities for its own use, like to share with marketing and datamining services. But no one would do that without letting parents know in big letters, flashing neon signs and foghorns, right? No quite. What about not letting you know in a privacy policy found on each page where everyone else keeps them. What about tucking the privacy policy (and the inadequate disclosure) in a "support" link and then in a "policies" link under that.
Not an issue, claims the company. Parents can opt out if they don't want the company or third parties getting info about their kids. AP claims that wasn't in their download. I don't want their download anywhere near my machine. It's not on the site, not where it should be and not clearly stated, and even if it were, it's probably not legal or sufficient disclosure for any consumer protection agency.
I am saddened to hear that a company claiming to be in the child safety business may be putting them at risk. Hopefully when both sides are fully-heard and the regulatory agencies (FTC and state AGs) finish looking into this it will be a tempest in a teapot. But if it's not...shame on Sentry!
Expect to hear more, much more.
Not an issue, claims the company. Parents can opt out if they don't want the company or third parties getting info about their kids. AP claims that wasn't in their download. I don't want their download anywhere near my machine. It's not on the site, not where it should be and not clearly stated, and even if it were, it's probably not legal or sufficient disclosure for any consumer protection agency.
I am saddened to hear that a company claiming to be in the child safety business may be putting them at risk. Hopefully when both sides are fully-heard and the regulatory agencies (FTC and state AGs) finish looking into this it will be a tempest in a teapot. But if it's not...shame on Sentry!
Expect to hear more, much more.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
National Journal Online -- Tech Daily Dose -- Contributor Profile
National Journal Online -- Tech Daily Dose -- Contributor ProfileAgencies, Web Safety
NTIA Unveils Web Safety Working Group
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration unveiled its Online Safety and Technology Working Group on Tuesday -- a panel of experts dedicated to keeping children safe on the Internet. More than two dozen private sector and child and family advocacy leaders will help evaluate industry efforts and make recommendations to promote education, labeling and parental control technology. Members will work with the Justice Department, FTC, FCC and others. "President Obama recognizes the importance of protecting the safety and privacy of our children as they use the Internet," Acting NTIA Administrator Anna Gomez said in a press release. "We are committed to helping foster a safe online environment for America's youth." Within a year of its first meeting on May 22, the group will submit a report to the administration on how to increase Web safety.
Members of the working group include:
Parry Aftab, WiredSafety
Elizabeth Banker, Yahoo
Christopher Bubb, AOL
Anne Collier, ConnectSafely.org
Bradon Cox, NetChoice Coalition
Caroline Curtin, Microsoft
Brian Cute, Afilias U.S.A.
Jeremy Geigle, Arizona Family Council
Marsali Hancock, Internet Keep Safe Coalition
Michael Kaiser, National Cyber Security Alliance
Christopher Kelly, Facebook
Brian Knapp, Loopt
Continue reading NTIA Unveils Web Safety Working Group.
http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2009/04/ntia-unveils-web-safety-workin.php#more
NTIA Unveils Web Safety Working Group
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration unveiled its Online Safety and Technology Working Group on Tuesday -- a panel of experts dedicated to keeping children safe on the Internet. More than two dozen private sector and child and family advocacy leaders will help evaluate industry efforts and make recommendations to promote education, labeling and parental control technology. Members will work with the Justice Department, FTC, FCC and others. "President Obama recognizes the importance of protecting the safety and privacy of our children as they use the Internet," Acting NTIA Administrator Anna Gomez said in a press release. "We are committed to helping foster a safe online environment for America's youth." Within a year of its first meeting on May 22, the group will submit a report to the administration on how to increase Web safety.
Members of the working group include:
Parry Aftab, WiredSafety
Elizabeth Banker, Yahoo
Christopher Bubb, AOL
Anne Collier, ConnectSafely.org
Bradon Cox, NetChoice Coalition
Caroline Curtin, Microsoft
Brian Cute, Afilias U.S.A.
Jeremy Geigle, Arizona Family Council
Marsali Hancock, Internet Keep Safe Coalition
Michael Kaiser, National Cyber Security Alliance
Christopher Kelly, Facebook
Brian Knapp, Loopt
Continue reading NTIA Unveils Web Safety Working Group.
http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2009/04/ntia-unveils-web-safety-workin.php#more
SpectorSoft - Spector Pro for Windows
SpectorSoft - Spector Pro for WindowsParents are looking for monitoring tools...
WiredKids: From Safety and Privacy to Literacy and Empowerment
WiredKids: From Safety and Privacy to Literacy and Empowermentgotta love this man! Art Wolinsky is an amazing teacher and leader in the field.
Girl's suicide after online chats leaves a town in shock - The Boston Globe
Girl's suicide after online chats leaves a town in shock - The Boston GlobeMegan Meier was not the first, nor (sadly) the last teen to take their own life after facing cyberharassment. It's crucial to reach out and help if you see someone being hurt online or off.
Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From Afar - The New York Times
Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From Afar - The New York TimesThis was the first major piece done on cyberbullying. I remember bringing Amy to a school presentation to hear from the kids first hand. She was shocked. It ended up front page NY Times and began the coverage on this issue. As I search for archive pieces to help round out what we think are new issues, this piece stands out.
Parry Aftab's Blog
Parry Aftab's Blog I just added a polling gadget to my main blog page. I'm looking to see what others (especially parents) think about posting something on their teens' walls or on their Facebook pages. Creepy? No big deal?
Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids | The Onion - America's Finest News SourceTurn about is fair play, how parents "get even" and stalk their kids on Facebook. :-)
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Parry talks with CBS News about the model who sued google to get information about anonymous blogger
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=131615@wcbs.dayport.com
model talks exclusively to Diane Sawyer
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8361712
Parry Aftab provides advice on good morning america segment
Parry Aftab provides advice on good morning america segment
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Facebook Boosts Search Savvy - PC World
Facebook Boosts Search Savvy - PC WorldI advise everyone to "google" themselves and their kids. They can spot what is being said about them that way. One of the problems with this is that Facebook was not fully "google-able."
With all the talk about Facebook taking on Google in search, I think many of the tech experts have forgotten the difference between Facebook's info and Google's. Facebook has people, lots and lots of people. While Google owns search, Facebook owns people info. 93% of the teens we polled in the US have a Facebook.
There have to be a few other things before it can reach full potential. 1. the privacy settings need to have more granularity (item by item settings instead of global settings) and 2. they have to be convinced to expose more information to the public and search by using fewer or more carefully defined rivacy settings.
When seeking info, in depth, about individuals, Facebook and its new Friendfinder might be more powerful than Google. And when it comes to travel, shopping and other "thing" oriented search Google will rule.
I wonder when I will start telling people to "Facebook" someone.
With all the talk about Facebook taking on Google in search, I think many of the tech experts have forgotten the difference between Facebook's info and Google's. Facebook has people, lots and lots of people. While Google owns search, Facebook owns people info. 93% of the teens we polled in the US have a Facebook.
There have to be a few other things before it can reach full potential. 1. the privacy settings need to have more granularity (item by item settings instead of global settings) and 2. they have to be convinced to expose more information to the public and search by using fewer or more carefully defined rivacy settings.
When seeking info, in depth, about individuals, Facebook and its new Friendfinder might be more powerful than Google. And when it comes to travel, shopping and other "thing" oriented search Google will rule.
I wonder when I will start telling people to "Facebook" someone.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Salmon Museum in New Brunswick, Canada
Salmon MuseumWhenever I find special places, offline and online, I try and share them. This is the Salmon Museum outside of Miramichi, NB, Canada (salmon country). They just started a new program to allow families, scholls and companies to adopt a baby salmon (a "parr"). You can visit the museum and net your own "parr", name it and transfer it ot the adjoining tank for Ca$15. This includes a picture and an adoption certificate. You can have them net one for you, if you aren't there in person. (Tell them to grab the shiny spotted green one I couldn't catch :-)). The netted "parrs" will then be released into the river when old enough and hopefully survive to travel around the world and back.
Only 1 in 100 survives. So this conservation project is crucial.
In New Brunswick, some of the top salmon fishing lodges in the world and fishing camps teach VIPs and families alike to fish wild salmon. They use a fish and release program that allows you the challenge of fishing wild salmon, but saves their lives, allowing them to grow and thrive on the Miramichi Rivers and world oceans.
Got a spare Ca$15? You can adopt them online. Got a spare Ca$45? You can adopt three and get one free.
If you can, visit the salmon musuem. If you can't make it there, support salmon conservation and give your kids a chance ot learn about ecology, sealife preservation and sporting all at once.
I adopted 4.
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Stop Cyberbullying Toolkit - free for schools
WiredSafety’s StopCyberbullying Toolkit
The volunteers at WiredSafety have worked cyberharassment cases since 1995, 18 months after the launch of the web. Hundreds of thousands of adult and young victims of online harassment and cyberbullying have turned to WiredSafety for help. It has helped educate families on hate and bigotry online and ways to use technology safely and responsibly. And, over the years, their unique perspective coupled with Parry’s expertise as one of the world's first cyberlawyers has helped guide policymakers, schools, families, NGOs, law enforcement, and the Internet industry on these issues.
But the problems online are growing faster than either Parry, our volunteers or WiredSafety as a whole, can deal with. That’s why the StopCyberbullying Toolkit was developed. By putting the tools, programs, and proven approaches into the hands of schools and community organizations, we can tackle the issues and forge solutions by working together. It’s a cyberwar and school professionals, community leaders and all young people who care are our cyberarmy.
Cyberbullying is when one minor uses technology as a weapon to target another young person. In polls of 45,000 students from North America conducted by WiredSafety.org, 85% of middle school students reported being cyberbullied at least once in 2007. In some schools the percentage of students reporting having been targeted by a cyberbully ran as high as 97%. Yet only 5% said they would entrust their parents with the fact that they are being targeted by a cyberbully.
Students have shared 65 different ways you can use a cell phone to cyberbully someone. And handheld gaming devices are common tools for harassment. Students as young as those in second grade (7 year olds) are learning about cyberbullying the hard way. Often before they know how to use the technologies, they are forced to contend with mean messages, lewd language, and threats. When asked to describe cyberbullying, second graders in Long Island, New York, explained that extortion, manipulated pictures, ID theft, hacking, and text-bullying were commonplace. At the same time, they gave more than 20 reasons why children will not confide in their parents when targeted. That list has now grown to 56.
Any vulnerability is exploited, from racial, ethnic or physical ability differences, to sexual preferences, religion and economic levels. Teens around the world engaging in “sexting” (where they take nude or sexually explicit images of themselves and text it or otherwise share it with the person they are dating, would like to date or everyone who is interested). WiredSafety has been involved in “sexting” cases from Mexico to Egypt to the UK and Canada, as well as within the US. It has become one of the fasest growing weapons in the teen bully arsenals, where the image is release and spread to hurt the victim and in some cases extort the target.
Sadly, the young people rarely know where to turn for help. The obvious choice, their best friends, may not be the trustworthy confidants they were seeking. One young teen told Parry Aftab (WiredSafety’s founder and cybersecurity lawyer), “You never know if the cyberbully is your best friend or worst enemy. You never know if your friend is just laughing at you behind your back when you turn to her for help with something they were doing anonymously.” This creates an environment where young people have no safe place to turn, and no safe person to help alleviate their pain. That’s why WiredSafety does what it does.
The upcoming StopCyberbullying Toolkit is free for schools and for community organizations. It contains practical tips, animations, activity sheets, games and printables, a risk management guide for schools, presentation materials for parents and students, first responder guides for community policing units and school resource officers, and fun activities for students of all ages. It includes materials for student handouts, parents' awareness, and for the community at large. The materials and programs are directed at four distinct student age groups: K-4th, 5th-6th, 7th-9th, and 10th-12th grades, as well as parents, and professional development audiences. Games and educational activities are deployed to help inspire learning for all ages.
While the StopCyberbullying Toolkit provides all of the information a school or community organization needs, it also provides young people with a mission. Through the StopCyberbullying Pledge, they can take a stand against cyberbullying. By taking the pledge they promise to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. The entire StopCyberbullying program is designed to motivate schools, students, and their parents to do something, not just stand there while others are hurt. It gives them the tools and information that they need to create their own grassroots campaign and address cyberbullying and hate online wherever they find it.
The volunteers at WiredSafety have worked cyberharassment cases since 1995, 18 months after the launch of the web. Hundreds of thousands of adult and young victims of online harassment and cyberbullying have turned to WiredSafety for help. It has helped educate families on hate and bigotry online and ways to use technology safely and responsibly. And, over the years, their unique perspective coupled with Parry’s expertise as one of the world's first cyberlawyers has helped guide policymakers, schools, families, NGOs, law enforcement, and the Internet industry on these issues.
But the problems online are growing faster than either Parry, our volunteers or WiredSafety as a whole, can deal with. That’s why the StopCyberbullying Toolkit was developed. By putting the tools, programs, and proven approaches into the hands of schools and community organizations, we can tackle the issues and forge solutions by working together. It’s a cyberwar and school professionals, community leaders and all young people who care are our cyberarmy.
Cyberbullying is when one minor uses technology as a weapon to target another young person. In polls of 45,000 students from North America conducted by WiredSafety.org, 85% of middle school students reported being cyberbullied at least once in 2007. In some schools the percentage of students reporting having been targeted by a cyberbully ran as high as 97%. Yet only 5% said they would entrust their parents with the fact that they are being targeted by a cyberbully.
Students have shared 65 different ways you can use a cell phone to cyberbully someone. And handheld gaming devices are common tools for harassment. Students as young as those in second grade (7 year olds) are learning about cyberbullying the hard way. Often before they know how to use the technologies, they are forced to contend with mean messages, lewd language, and threats. When asked to describe cyberbullying, second graders in Long Island, New York, explained that extortion, manipulated pictures, ID theft, hacking, and text-bullying were commonplace. At the same time, they gave more than 20 reasons why children will not confide in their parents when targeted. That list has now grown to 56.
Any vulnerability is exploited, from racial, ethnic or physical ability differences, to sexual preferences, religion and economic levels. Teens around the world engaging in “sexting” (where they take nude or sexually explicit images of themselves and text it or otherwise share it with the person they are dating, would like to date or everyone who is interested). WiredSafety has been involved in “sexting” cases from Mexico to Egypt to the UK and Canada, as well as within the US. It has become one of the fasest growing weapons in the teen bully arsenals, where the image is release and spread to hurt the victim and in some cases extort the target.
Sadly, the young people rarely know where to turn for help. The obvious choice, their best friends, may not be the trustworthy confidants they were seeking. One young teen told Parry Aftab (WiredSafety’s founder and cybersecurity lawyer), “You never know if the cyberbully is your best friend or worst enemy. You never know if your friend is just laughing at you behind your back when you turn to her for help with something they were doing anonymously.” This creates an environment where young people have no safe place to turn, and no safe person to help alleviate their pain. That’s why WiredSafety does what it does.
The upcoming StopCyberbullying Toolkit is free for schools and for community organizations. It contains practical tips, animations, activity sheets, games and printables, a risk management guide for schools, presentation materials for parents and students, first responder guides for community policing units and school resource officers, and fun activities for students of all ages. It includes materials for student handouts, parents' awareness, and for the community at large. The materials and programs are directed at four distinct student age groups: K-4th, 5th-6th, 7th-9th, and 10th-12th grades, as well as parents, and professional development audiences. Games and educational activities are deployed to help inspire learning for all ages.
While the StopCyberbullying Toolkit provides all of the information a school or community organization needs, it also provides young people with a mission. Through the StopCyberbullying Pledge, they can take a stand against cyberbullying. By taking the pledge they promise to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. The entire StopCyberbullying program is designed to motivate schools, students, and their parents to do something, not just stand there while others are hurt. It gives them the tools and information that they need to create their own grassroots campaign and address cyberbullying and hate online wherever they find it.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Sen Menendez drops a new bill on "games of skill" online
INTERNET POKER AND GAMES OF SKILL REGULATION, CONSUMER PROTECTION AND ENFORCEMENT ACT SUMMARY
THIS BILL WOULD LICENSE AND REGULATE ENTITIES WHO WANT TO RUN ONLINE GAMES OF SKILL IN THE UNITED STATES
PURPOSE:
Internet poker has become a worldwide phenomenon which has continued to grow for more than a decade. It is estimated that approximately 10 to 15 million Americans play Internet poker with some regularity. The average Internet poker player spends $10 to $20 of their recreational dollars on a given poker Web site. This is less than the cost of dinner or going to the movies.
Currently, companies that offer Internet poker are licensed, regulated and taxed in foreign jurisdictions. However, to date the United States has failed to exercise oversight and control of Internet gaming even though the U.S. represents the largest percentage of Internet poker players worldwide. The millions of Americans who play Internet games of skill will benefit greatly from the additional protections U.S. regulation can provide.
This bill establishes the needed licensing and regulatory framework for the United States to exercise appropriate control and oversight over Internet poker and other games of skill that currently is lacking. This oversight includes a thorough vetting of potential licensees; mandatory implementation of technologies to protect against underage gambling and to monitor and detect individuals with excessive gaming habits; high standards to thwart fraud and abuse of customers; regulation to prevent money laundering; and, processes to prevent tax avoidance. Licensing and regulation of other gaming modalities have proven successful in protecting consumers as well as eliminating “bad actors” from the marketplace.
In addition, the bill proposes to create meaningful enforcement against Internet poker companies that seek to operate outside of the licensing process as well as companies that take unlawful Internet sports bets, or that accept bets from minors under age 21. By licensing good actors and blacklisting bad ones, the bill brings needed clarity that would allow Treasury to pursue black market sportsbooks and gambling shops.
Finally, the bill would give states and the federal government needed revenue from an industry that currently only pays taxes in foreign jurisdictions. The bill provides for the appropriate taxation of players’ net winnings as income and imposes taxes on Interne poker entities comparable to the taxes paid by other gaming entities. Conservative estimates have shown that more than $3 billion in annual revenue can be raised by licensing and regulating Internet poker.
While some might like to wipe the poker industry off the map, the reality is that internet poker has continued to thrive in the U.S. It is simply a question of whether the federal government wants to have a say in how Americans can play.
SUMMARY:
This legislation provides a licensing, regulatory and taxation framework to establish a legitimate online skill game industry in the United States, while creating enhanced enforcement against those who accept illegal Internet gambling from the United States.
LICENSING:
• Require applicants to undergo a thorough review by the Department including the financial condition of applicant, business record, and background checks
• In addition to any further documentation requested by the Department, the applicant must submit a full financial statement, corporate structure documentation, and a certification that applicant agrees to be subject to US gambling laws.
• The burden of proof is on the licensees. The Department has wide latitude to deny licenses for anybody who they do not feel meets the criteria set by the Department for honesty, integrity, business probity, and experience, and financial capabilities facility.
• Automatic denial to anybody previously convicted anywhere in the world of gambling, financial, or information security law.
• License term will be five years in length; renewal subject to same requirements
• License will be revoked for failure to comply with any provision in this legislation, or conviction of a crime that would lead to denial of license.
REGULATION:
• Any state or Indian tribe can opt out of regulations, and it will be illegal to accept bets from individuals residing in these jurisdictions.
• Treasury must require periodic financial reports from each licensees; and in turn submit an annual report to Congress on the status of the online skill game industry.
• Violations of this legislation will be punished by fines and prison terms of a maximum of 5 years.
CONSUMER PROTECTION:
This legislation directs the Department of the Treasury to develop the following regulations that licensess must follow in order to retain their license:
• Appropriate Safeguards to ensure age verification
• Ensure bettors are physically located in a jurisdiction where gambling is legal.
• Ensure all taxes due are collected
• Safeguards to combat fraud and money laundering.
• Safeguards to ensure games are fair.
• Safeguards to combat compulsive internet gambling
• Privacy safeguards for bettors
• Any other safeguards the Director of FCEN believes necessary
TAXATION:
This legislation imposes appropriate taxes on providers of Internet games of skill, which can yield billions of needed dollars state and Federal government.
• Licensed sites must pay a 10% tax on all deposits into playing accounts, the proceeds of which are split evenly between the federal government and the government of the state where the player is situated.
• Appropriate witholding of taxes on the net winnings of players.
• Appropriate payment of corporate taxes by licensed companies.
PROBLEM GAMBLING AWARENESS, RESEARCH AND TREATMENT
The legislation provides unprecedented funding for programs to promote problem gambling awareness, research and treatment.
• Authorizes $200,000 per year over five years for problem gambling awareness education.
• Authorizes $4 million per year over five years for problem gambling research.
• Authorizes $10 million per year over five years for grants to help states, localities and non-profits provide treatment to individuals with gambling problems.
THIS BILL WOULD LICENSE AND REGULATE ENTITIES WHO WANT TO RUN ONLINE GAMES OF SKILL IN THE UNITED STATES
PURPOSE:
Internet poker has become a worldwide phenomenon which has continued to grow for more than a decade. It is estimated that approximately 10 to 15 million Americans play Internet poker with some regularity. The average Internet poker player spends $10 to $20 of their recreational dollars on a given poker Web site. This is less than the cost of dinner or going to the movies.
Currently, companies that offer Internet poker are licensed, regulated and taxed in foreign jurisdictions. However, to date the United States has failed to exercise oversight and control of Internet gaming even though the U.S. represents the largest percentage of Internet poker players worldwide. The millions of Americans who play Internet games of skill will benefit greatly from the additional protections U.S. regulation can provide.
This bill establishes the needed licensing and regulatory framework for the United States to exercise appropriate control and oversight over Internet poker and other games of skill that currently is lacking. This oversight includes a thorough vetting of potential licensees; mandatory implementation of technologies to protect against underage gambling and to monitor and detect individuals with excessive gaming habits; high standards to thwart fraud and abuse of customers; regulation to prevent money laundering; and, processes to prevent tax avoidance. Licensing and regulation of other gaming modalities have proven successful in protecting consumers as well as eliminating “bad actors” from the marketplace.
In addition, the bill proposes to create meaningful enforcement against Internet poker companies that seek to operate outside of the licensing process as well as companies that take unlawful Internet sports bets, or that accept bets from minors under age 21. By licensing good actors and blacklisting bad ones, the bill brings needed clarity that would allow Treasury to pursue black market sportsbooks and gambling shops.
Finally, the bill would give states and the federal government needed revenue from an industry that currently only pays taxes in foreign jurisdictions. The bill provides for the appropriate taxation of players’ net winnings as income and imposes taxes on Interne poker entities comparable to the taxes paid by other gaming entities. Conservative estimates have shown that more than $3 billion in annual revenue can be raised by licensing and regulating Internet poker.
While some might like to wipe the poker industry off the map, the reality is that internet poker has continued to thrive in the U.S. It is simply a question of whether the federal government wants to have a say in how Americans can play.
SUMMARY:
This legislation provides a licensing, regulatory and taxation framework to establish a legitimate online skill game industry in the United States, while creating enhanced enforcement against those who accept illegal Internet gambling from the United States.
LICENSING:
• Require applicants to undergo a thorough review by the Department including the financial condition of applicant, business record, and background checks
• In addition to any further documentation requested by the Department, the applicant must submit a full financial statement, corporate structure documentation, and a certification that applicant agrees to be subject to US gambling laws.
• The burden of proof is on the licensees. The Department has wide latitude to deny licenses for anybody who they do not feel meets the criteria set by the Department for honesty, integrity, business probity, and experience, and financial capabilities facility.
• Automatic denial to anybody previously convicted anywhere in the world of gambling, financial, or information security law.
• License term will be five years in length; renewal subject to same requirements
• License will be revoked for failure to comply with any provision in this legislation, or conviction of a crime that would lead to denial of license.
REGULATION:
• Any state or Indian tribe can opt out of regulations, and it will be illegal to accept bets from individuals residing in these jurisdictions.
• Treasury must require periodic financial reports from each licensees; and in turn submit an annual report to Congress on the status of the online skill game industry.
• Violations of this legislation will be punished by fines and prison terms of a maximum of 5 years.
CONSUMER PROTECTION:
This legislation directs the Department of the Treasury to develop the following regulations that licensess must follow in order to retain their license:
• Appropriate Safeguards to ensure age verification
• Ensure bettors are physically located in a jurisdiction where gambling is legal.
• Ensure all taxes due are collected
• Safeguards to combat fraud and money laundering.
• Safeguards to ensure games are fair.
• Safeguards to combat compulsive internet gambling
• Privacy safeguards for bettors
• Any other safeguards the Director of FCEN believes necessary
TAXATION:
This legislation imposes appropriate taxes on providers of Internet games of skill, which can yield billions of needed dollars state and Federal government.
• Licensed sites must pay a 10% tax on all deposits into playing accounts, the proceeds of which are split evenly between the federal government and the government of the state where the player is situated.
• Appropriate witholding of taxes on the net winnings of players.
• Appropriate payment of corporate taxes by licensed companies.
PROBLEM GAMBLING AWARENESS, RESEARCH AND TREATMENT
The legislation provides unprecedented funding for programs to promote problem gambling awareness, research and treatment.
• Authorizes $200,000 per year over five years for problem gambling awareness education.
• Authorizes $4 million per year over five years for problem gambling research.
• Authorizes $10 million per year over five years for grants to help states, localities and non-profits provide treatment to individuals with gambling problems.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Tom Perelli speaks at Safe and Drug-Free Schools Conference
Remarks by Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli at the National Conference for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools
Posted : Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:30:09 GMT
Author : U.S. Department of Justice
Category : Press Release
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WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 Truancy-&-crime-reax
National Harbor, Md.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following are remarks by Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli:
Good afternoon and thank you. I am very happy to be joining you today on behalf of the Department of Justice. It is great to see Bill Modzeleski continuing to lead the effort to make our schools safer, as he was the last time I served in government. Bill and his office are doing great work, and I'm pleased to be with all of you here today.
I am very happy to be at here for two reasons. First and foremost, I'm a parent. I have two sons, and, like all parents, I want them to have every opportunity in life. Although they aren't of school age yet, I know that education will be their key, as it was for me. What all of you in this room are doing matters to me personally.
What you are doing also matters to me professionally. It isn't often that, as Associate Attorney General, I get to walk into a room full of educators and education advocates. I think that in many communities, and for many Americans, what the Department does and what so many of you do are thought of as opposite ends of the spectrum. The theory goes that students have had to make choices and they can either make good choices, and succeed in school, or they can make bad choices, and end up in the criminal justice system. The theory would follow that you take care of the good kids and get them to college, and we take care of the bad kids and get them off the streets.
One of the reasons I am here today is because you and I know that that's not how the world works. People who actually work in law enforcement, and people who actually work in our nation's schools, know that our jobs are closely interwoven. When their neighborhoods and homes don't feel safe, our children have a tough time paying attention in school. And when our children are not engaged at school, they're going to be much more likely to get into trouble outside of it.
Attorney General Janet Reno really drove this point home to me when I worked for her back in the 1990s. Attorney General Reno had been a prosecutor down in Florida, where she had taken a leading role in reforming the juvenile justice system there, and had worked actively on issues that affect children. I remember that once, when she was on a long plane flight, she took out a pen and paper and started to outline the elements of law enforcement policy, all the factors that go into making a community safe.
A number of the things on that list focused on what we think of as traditional law enforcement issues: Do we have enough officers on the streets? Are those officers using the right techniques? Are we being smart in how we prosecute crime?
But what stood out to me about that list was how many of the elements on that list were things that most people never think of as law enforcement issues. On her list -- Head Start, available childcare for working families. Indeed, she started her list with pre-natal care, which she viewed as the first step in ensuring safe communities. Wherever one thinks we should start, we all know that it takes a lot more than police, prosecutors and prisons to make a community safe. You need people who watch out for each other and who have a stake in their community. You need an economic base that keeps people engaged and relatively free from need. And you need safe schools.
Much of what we are doing in today's Justice Department is based on our recognition that we need broad partnerships to make our communities safe, and that good law enforcement is essential to building healthy communities. That means revitalizing the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services -- or COPS -- which was so successful at bringing down crime in the 1990s and which, in those years, also funded School Resource Officers (SROs) to help make our schools safer. That means re-building the partnerships with state and local authorities who are the first responders to most crime in this country and who are best positioned to make our communities safer. And that means re-engaging with our partners in health care, education, and other areas not traditionally thought of as part of law enforcement.
We are lucky to have, in Eric Holder, an Attorney General who has always understood these connections. Some of the best things we are doing today on this issue are things that Eric Holder started ten years ago, when he served as Deputy Attorney General. He started up the Justice Department's Safe Start Initiative, which looks to find new, evidence-based ways to deliver better services to children who are exposed to violence. That program takes a multi-dimensional approach to protecting our youth, creating partnerships among all the people who have interests in protecting children. Improving the services being offered to children who are exposed to violence takes more than our law enforcement and judicial resources. It requires us to tap into our early childhood education, our mental health, and our prevention-of-substance-abuse resources.
Attorney General Holder really drives home to all of us that when we think about law enforcement, we need to think broadly. You all practice that lesson every day, working hard to keep kids safe at school. I know that your goal is education, but schools also play a key role in law enforcement in any number of ways. I want to focus in today on one aspect of what you do in particular, that evidence shows is critical both for future student success and for overall community safety: the challenge of keeping kids in school.
Keeping kids in school matters because as we all know, excessive absence is a predictor of poor achievement and higher dropout rates. That matters not just because we want every child to have every opportunity to succeed, but because we want our communities safe. The evidence is clear: truants are at greater risk of facing a lifetime of problems. Missing school is a good indicator that a student will become delinquent, use alcohol and drugs, commit violence, or become involved in a gang. These aren't just young people out having some harmless fun. Though they may not realize it, their behavior and actions have serious -- and destructive -- consequences. As one California prosecutor put it, "I've never seen a gang member who wasn't a truant first."
The prosecutor knew what she was talking about, because the research bears out her concerns. A study of 12- to 15-year-olds in Denver, Colo. for the American Society of Criminology found that even so-called minor truants are four times as likely to commit serious assaults and five times as likely to commit serious property crimes as other students. For chronic truants -- students who miss more than nine days in a given year -- the numbers are even starker. A student who misses more than nine days in a year is 12 times as likely to commit serious assaults and more than 21 times likely to commit serious property crimes.
Truancy is a similarly strong indicator of drug use. A study in Rochester, N.Y. from the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs found that minor truants are seven times as likely to begin using marijuana by age 14, and chronic truants are 16 times as likely.
And it doesn't stop there. Truants are more likely to go to prison, they're more likely to become pregnant as teenagers, they're more likely to have marital problems as adults. And the list goes on.
And if you're thinking that these figures just affect a few troubled kids, think again. Habitual or chronic truancy is all too common. A recent Open Society Institute analysis of students in Baltimore, Md. found that 9 percent of all public school students were deemed habitually truant, meaning they were illegally absent 20 percent or more of the time. In Wisconsin, where habitual truancy is defined as five or more illegal absences in a semester, 45 percent of students fell into this category according to news reports.
So what do we do about it? How do we get kids back in school? And not just back in school, but engaged?
The first thing we need to do is to get the message out that school is important. This means making sure that parents understand the risks of truancy, and holding them responsible when their kids are absent. And I'm aware that it's not always sheer parental apathy that's the problem. Often, it's an issue of trying to meet other needs, particularly in some difficult economic times -- whether it's a parent relying on an older child to baby-sit a younger child so the parent can go to work, or maybe even concern about the safety of a child who has to walk through a dangerous neighborhood in order to get to school. We know that parents are facing tough choices and priorities. We need to work to make sure that when they have to make those choices, they understand and appreciate the consequences of staying away from school -- and that they have the services they need, so that they can make the choice to come to school.
I don't want to make excessive demands of our school administrators and educators, because I know that we already expect so much of them, but it's important that school officials reach out to parents. They need to let them know, first of all, that their kids aren't coming to school. We can't forget that, in many cases, parents don't know what their kids are up to. And schools also need to let parents know that they will be held accountable and that there will be consequences if their children skip school. This is, after all, not just an issue of one child's occasional absences; it's a serious matter of public safety. What we learned in the 1990s was that, for most young people who end up in the criminal justice system, there were dozens and sometimes more than a hundred opportunities for intervention -- warning signs to which we could have responded, and points at which, with a proper response, we might have been able to change the future of that young person for the better. We have to do a better job of responding to these warning signs.
While parents are perhaps the most important part of the solution, they are not the only ones who need to get involved. We need a multi-tiered approach, involving school officials, community agencies, and, yes, law enforcement. School Resource Officers -- or SROs -- are an important part of this, and not just because having an officer close by the scene of the crime can make a difference. SROs are also doing classroom teaching on subjects from how to resist gangs to the consequences of shoplifting. They're mentoring students. Sometimes they are just going jogging with the track team. And we see that where you have a SRO, you have increased levels of trust in the police. What you're getting, among other things, is one more adult that the child knows and trusts at that school --and one more adult who the child knows cares whether the child shows up for class each day.
We need these School Resource Officers and school officials and parents all right on top of the problem, because we need to identify our future truants the first chance we can get. There's often a disconnect between our perception of truancy's causes and the reality. Many people ascribe truancy to the mercurial behavior of adolescents. They suddenly become bored with school or fall in with the wrong crowd. So some administrators and policymakers assume that there is no way to predict if a child will become a truant.
In fact, research shows just the opposite. There's a study that some of you may know about involving about 14,000 students in Philadelphia, called "An Early Warning System." Researchers followed these students from the time they entered the sixth grade until the time they would be expected to graduate six years later. They specifically looked for signs that would show at least a 75 percent probability of dropping out of school. The findings are fascinating. What the researchers found is that there were four signals that indicated that a student had a three in four chance of dropping out in those next six years. The signals were -- and this is in the sixth grade, remember -- that these students had: A final grade of F in math; A final grade of F in English; Attendance below 80 percent for the year; and A final "unsatisfactory" behavior mark in at least one class.
If a student had just one of these indicators, there was a 75 percent chance that he or she would eventually drop out of school. Students with more than one of these signals had an even greater probability of dropping out.
So let's put all of this together, and figure out where we have to go: We know that when a child misses school, the likelihood that the child is going to go on to commit serious crimes starts increasing pretty quickly. And we know that there are things we can look at in sixth grade to figure out whether that kid is going to end up dropping out. Let's put it simply: If we're going to keep kids out of jail, we need to get to them while they're young. And we all have a role to play in that. The question is -- how do we do it?
We know that there are strategies that work in identifying truancy problems early, and in finding solutions. We know that continual monitoring, contact and home visits of families can be enormously effective in reducing chronic absenteeism. We know that a continuum of long-term, multi-disciplinary services, including family support and case management, is essential. And we know that using the monitoring authority of the courts can be very effective in some circumstances.
I'll highlight a couple of programs that have shown us some positive results. The Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program is one. That program, I should mention, is funded by our Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, in partnership with our hosts here, the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. It employs all these strategies -- monitoring, contact, home visits, family support, and yes, the authority of the courts -- and has shown some great successes. The average unexcused absent rate for truants dropped by half after three months of intervention -- a drop that we now know is correlated with reductions in crime. To take one sample site -- the truancy and diversion program in Jacksonville, Fla. -- over a 10-year period, the number of juveniles sentenced to state prison dropped from 47 to 5, and the number sentenced to jail dropped from 201 to 22. Again, this program and others like it are successful because they rely on a range of strategies, and they involve partners from across the spectrum.
I should emphasize here that I'm not trying to put the solution off on educators and social workers. Just as truancy has consequences over in the legal system, there also ways to address it in the legal system. I want to highlight one program in particular here. It's the Truancy Intervention Project -- or TIP -- in Fulton County, Ga. This isn't one of the Truancy Reduction Program sites being funded by the Justice Department and the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, but it's a great example of how the justice system, working with schools and the community, can be effective in getting at truancy and keeping kids out of trouble.
TIP is a partnership between the Fulton County Juvenile Court and the Atlanta Bar Association, aimed at providing early intervention to children in Atlanta Public and Fulton County Schools who are chronically absent and who either become involved with the court or are referred to early intervention at the school level.
TIP gets referrals from school social workers, and then pairs trained volunteers, some of whom are attorneys, with children and their families. The social workers and the TIP volunteer then meet with the student and the family to develop a plan designed to lead to solid attendance. TIP has served more than 5,000 children over the years, and has had some remarkable success stories -- like for the third-grader who was having attendance problems. TIP and its volunteers worked out arrangements for the third-grader to spend school-weeks with her grandmother, who could make sure that she got to school on time. This is a student whom TIP caught early, before the full implications of truancy had become apparent. But TIP has also worked later on: like the young woman who had sporadic attendance for over a year, and whose truancy had escalated to some pretty serious offenses. Hers had become a familiar face around Juvenile Court. She got involved in TIP, and there, she said, "You have to decide for yourself that your life is worth something, and for me that meant getting an education." She graduated from high school and went on to college on a full scholarship.
TIP has had an incredible impact on many lives. One of its most notable aspects is its Early Intervention program, which they instituted in elementary schools. The success rate -- which is based on the number of children who are not referred to juvenile court after their involvement with TIP -- is greater than 95 percent.
And let me emphasize, this focus on truancy has had real consequences for the criminal justice system. It is estimated that by keeping these kids out of juvenile court, Fulton County has saved more than $4.2 million in court-appointed attorney fees alone, not to mention the other more indirect costs associated with juvenile crime and delinquency.
We need more programs like these, programs that identify problems early on and jump in to help with all available resources.
And while you are working to keep kids in school and out of the criminal justice system, we in law enforcement need to be keeping your kids safe so they can focus on learning.
On the whole, schools remain a place of relative safety. Students experience fewer crimes on school grounds than away from school. But the numbers are still too high. About 1.7 million students age 12 to 18 were victims of crime at school in 2006, 767,000 of them victims of violent crime. And according to the 2005-2006 School Survey on Crime and Safety, almost 80 percent of public schools have had a violent crime incident during the year.
So while you are working overtime to keep tabs on students, to talk to their families, and to make sure that the kids who are most at risk get the support they need to help them come to school, we in law enforcement are watching for the next threat, preventing every harm we can, and helping heal the harms that have been done. We know that the greatest threat is no longer just the biggest kid on the playground. That's why we're taking an expansive view of what it takes to keep kids safe and in school.
It's why, together with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, we recently awarded almost $33 million in grants under the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative to prevent violence and to improve attendance, achievement and mental health in our nation's schools. That's a program that takes a coordinated, integrated approach from the state. Educational agencies partner up with local law enforcement to apply for these grants, which they then use for anything from anti-bullying programs to rehabilitative justice programs, where a prosecutor comes into the school to develop the kinds of peer juries that are used to help groups of young people come to terms with the harms they inflict on each other and themselves.
It's also why the Justice Department is developing task forces to fight the internet predators who seek to do our children harm. It's why we're developing curriculum, like the Gang Resistance Education and Training Program, to help keep kids out of gangs.
We do all of this because we know that just as good schools are part of keeping a neighborhood safe, safe neighborhoods are a key part of keeping our kids in school and learning. We know this is a team effort, and if we try to divide things up as education issues or law enforcement issues, we are going to lose our children. If you want to keep kids out of jail, let's do what it takes to keep them in class. It's the right thing for our and their futures, and it's the right thing for our cities, towns and villages.
I want to thank those of you who have seen the importance of this issue, and who have been working to get kids back in school and engaged. Your work will pay huge dividends - for thousands of young people, for the safety of your communities, and for the future of our country.
Thank you.
SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice
Posted : Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:30:09 GMT
Author : U.S. Department of Justice
Category : Press Release
News Alerts by Email ( click here )
News | Home
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 Truancy-&-crime-reax
National Harbor, Md.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following are remarks by Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli:
Good afternoon and thank you. I am very happy to be joining you today on behalf of the Department of Justice. It is great to see Bill Modzeleski continuing to lead the effort to make our schools safer, as he was the last time I served in government. Bill and his office are doing great work, and I'm pleased to be with all of you here today.
I am very happy to be at here for two reasons. First and foremost, I'm a parent. I have two sons, and, like all parents, I want them to have every opportunity in life. Although they aren't of school age yet, I know that education will be their key, as it was for me. What all of you in this room are doing matters to me personally.
What you are doing also matters to me professionally. It isn't often that, as Associate Attorney General, I get to walk into a room full of educators and education advocates. I think that in many communities, and for many Americans, what the Department does and what so many of you do are thought of as opposite ends of the spectrum. The theory goes that students have had to make choices and they can either make good choices, and succeed in school, or they can make bad choices, and end up in the criminal justice system. The theory would follow that you take care of the good kids and get them to college, and we take care of the bad kids and get them off the streets.
One of the reasons I am here today is because you and I know that that's not how the world works. People who actually work in law enforcement, and people who actually work in our nation's schools, know that our jobs are closely interwoven. When their neighborhoods and homes don't feel safe, our children have a tough time paying attention in school. And when our children are not engaged at school, they're going to be much more likely to get into trouble outside of it.
Attorney General Janet Reno really drove this point home to me when I worked for her back in the 1990s. Attorney General Reno had been a prosecutor down in Florida, where she had taken a leading role in reforming the juvenile justice system there, and had worked actively on issues that affect children. I remember that once, when she was on a long plane flight, she took out a pen and paper and started to outline the elements of law enforcement policy, all the factors that go into making a community safe.
A number of the things on that list focused on what we think of as traditional law enforcement issues: Do we have enough officers on the streets? Are those officers using the right techniques? Are we being smart in how we prosecute crime?
But what stood out to me about that list was how many of the elements on that list were things that most people never think of as law enforcement issues. On her list -- Head Start, available childcare for working families. Indeed, she started her list with pre-natal care, which she viewed as the first step in ensuring safe communities. Wherever one thinks we should start, we all know that it takes a lot more than police, prosecutors and prisons to make a community safe. You need people who watch out for each other and who have a stake in their community. You need an economic base that keeps people engaged and relatively free from need. And you need safe schools.
Much of what we are doing in today's Justice Department is based on our recognition that we need broad partnerships to make our communities safe, and that good law enforcement is essential to building healthy communities. That means revitalizing the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services -- or COPS -- which was so successful at bringing down crime in the 1990s and which, in those years, also funded School Resource Officers (SROs) to help make our schools safer. That means re-building the partnerships with state and local authorities who are the first responders to most crime in this country and who are best positioned to make our communities safer. And that means re-engaging with our partners in health care, education, and other areas not traditionally thought of as part of law enforcement.
We are lucky to have, in Eric Holder, an Attorney General who has always understood these connections. Some of the best things we are doing today on this issue are things that Eric Holder started ten years ago, when he served as Deputy Attorney General. He started up the Justice Department's Safe Start Initiative, which looks to find new, evidence-based ways to deliver better services to children who are exposed to violence. That program takes a multi-dimensional approach to protecting our youth, creating partnerships among all the people who have interests in protecting children. Improving the services being offered to children who are exposed to violence takes more than our law enforcement and judicial resources. It requires us to tap into our early childhood education, our mental health, and our prevention-of-substance-abuse resources.
Attorney General Holder really drives home to all of us that when we think about law enforcement, we need to think broadly. You all practice that lesson every day, working hard to keep kids safe at school. I know that your goal is education, but schools also play a key role in law enforcement in any number of ways. I want to focus in today on one aspect of what you do in particular, that evidence shows is critical both for future student success and for overall community safety: the challenge of keeping kids in school.
Keeping kids in school matters because as we all know, excessive absence is a predictor of poor achievement and higher dropout rates. That matters not just because we want every child to have every opportunity to succeed, but because we want our communities safe. The evidence is clear: truants are at greater risk of facing a lifetime of problems. Missing school is a good indicator that a student will become delinquent, use alcohol and drugs, commit violence, or become involved in a gang. These aren't just young people out having some harmless fun. Though they may not realize it, their behavior and actions have serious -- and destructive -- consequences. As one California prosecutor put it, "I've never seen a gang member who wasn't a truant first."
The prosecutor knew what she was talking about, because the research bears out her concerns. A study of 12- to 15-year-olds in Denver, Colo. for the American Society of Criminology found that even so-called minor truants are four times as likely to commit serious assaults and five times as likely to commit serious property crimes as other students. For chronic truants -- students who miss more than nine days in a given year -- the numbers are even starker. A student who misses more than nine days in a year is 12 times as likely to commit serious assaults and more than 21 times likely to commit serious property crimes.
Truancy is a similarly strong indicator of drug use. A study in Rochester, N.Y. from the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs found that minor truants are seven times as likely to begin using marijuana by age 14, and chronic truants are 16 times as likely.
And it doesn't stop there. Truants are more likely to go to prison, they're more likely to become pregnant as teenagers, they're more likely to have marital problems as adults. And the list goes on.
And if you're thinking that these figures just affect a few troubled kids, think again. Habitual or chronic truancy is all too common. A recent Open Society Institute analysis of students in Baltimore, Md. found that 9 percent of all public school students were deemed habitually truant, meaning they were illegally absent 20 percent or more of the time. In Wisconsin, where habitual truancy is defined as five or more illegal absences in a semester, 45 percent of students fell into this category according to news reports.
So what do we do about it? How do we get kids back in school? And not just back in school, but engaged?
The first thing we need to do is to get the message out that school is important. This means making sure that parents understand the risks of truancy, and holding them responsible when their kids are absent. And I'm aware that it's not always sheer parental apathy that's the problem. Often, it's an issue of trying to meet other needs, particularly in some difficult economic times -- whether it's a parent relying on an older child to baby-sit a younger child so the parent can go to work, or maybe even concern about the safety of a child who has to walk through a dangerous neighborhood in order to get to school. We know that parents are facing tough choices and priorities. We need to work to make sure that when they have to make those choices, they understand and appreciate the consequences of staying away from school -- and that they have the services they need, so that they can make the choice to come to school.
I don't want to make excessive demands of our school administrators and educators, because I know that we already expect so much of them, but it's important that school officials reach out to parents. They need to let them know, first of all, that their kids aren't coming to school. We can't forget that, in many cases, parents don't know what their kids are up to. And schools also need to let parents know that they will be held accountable and that there will be consequences if their children skip school. This is, after all, not just an issue of one child's occasional absences; it's a serious matter of public safety. What we learned in the 1990s was that, for most young people who end up in the criminal justice system, there were dozens and sometimes more than a hundred opportunities for intervention -- warning signs to which we could have responded, and points at which, with a proper response, we might have been able to change the future of that young person for the better. We have to do a better job of responding to these warning signs.
While parents are perhaps the most important part of the solution, they are not the only ones who need to get involved. We need a multi-tiered approach, involving school officials, community agencies, and, yes, law enforcement. School Resource Officers -- or SROs -- are an important part of this, and not just because having an officer close by the scene of the crime can make a difference. SROs are also doing classroom teaching on subjects from how to resist gangs to the consequences of shoplifting. They're mentoring students. Sometimes they are just going jogging with the track team. And we see that where you have a SRO, you have increased levels of trust in the police. What you're getting, among other things, is one more adult that the child knows and trusts at that school --and one more adult who the child knows cares whether the child shows up for class each day.
We need these School Resource Officers and school officials and parents all right on top of the problem, because we need to identify our future truants the first chance we can get. There's often a disconnect between our perception of truancy's causes and the reality. Many people ascribe truancy to the mercurial behavior of adolescents. They suddenly become bored with school or fall in with the wrong crowd. So some administrators and policymakers assume that there is no way to predict if a child will become a truant.
In fact, research shows just the opposite. There's a study that some of you may know about involving about 14,000 students in Philadelphia, called "An Early Warning System." Researchers followed these students from the time they entered the sixth grade until the time they would be expected to graduate six years later. They specifically looked for signs that would show at least a 75 percent probability of dropping out of school. The findings are fascinating. What the researchers found is that there were four signals that indicated that a student had a three in four chance of dropping out in those next six years. The signals were -- and this is in the sixth grade, remember -- that these students had: A final grade of F in math; A final grade of F in English; Attendance below 80 percent for the year; and A final "unsatisfactory" behavior mark in at least one class.
If a student had just one of these indicators, there was a 75 percent chance that he or she would eventually drop out of school. Students with more than one of these signals had an even greater probability of dropping out.
So let's put all of this together, and figure out where we have to go: We know that when a child misses school, the likelihood that the child is going to go on to commit serious crimes starts increasing pretty quickly. And we know that there are things we can look at in sixth grade to figure out whether that kid is going to end up dropping out. Let's put it simply: If we're going to keep kids out of jail, we need to get to them while they're young. And we all have a role to play in that. The question is -- how do we do it?
We know that there are strategies that work in identifying truancy problems early, and in finding solutions. We know that continual monitoring, contact and home visits of families can be enormously effective in reducing chronic absenteeism. We know that a continuum of long-term, multi-disciplinary services, including family support and case management, is essential. And we know that using the monitoring authority of the courts can be very effective in some circumstances.
I'll highlight a couple of programs that have shown us some positive results. The Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program is one. That program, I should mention, is funded by our Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, in partnership with our hosts here, the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. It employs all these strategies -- monitoring, contact, home visits, family support, and yes, the authority of the courts -- and has shown some great successes. The average unexcused absent rate for truants dropped by half after three months of intervention -- a drop that we now know is correlated with reductions in crime. To take one sample site -- the truancy and diversion program in Jacksonville, Fla. -- over a 10-year period, the number of juveniles sentenced to state prison dropped from 47 to 5, and the number sentenced to jail dropped from 201 to 22. Again, this program and others like it are successful because they rely on a range of strategies, and they involve partners from across the spectrum.
I should emphasize here that I'm not trying to put the solution off on educators and social workers. Just as truancy has consequences over in the legal system, there also ways to address it in the legal system. I want to highlight one program in particular here. It's the Truancy Intervention Project -- or TIP -- in Fulton County, Ga. This isn't one of the Truancy Reduction Program sites being funded by the Justice Department and the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, but it's a great example of how the justice system, working with schools and the community, can be effective in getting at truancy and keeping kids out of trouble.
TIP is a partnership between the Fulton County Juvenile Court and the Atlanta Bar Association, aimed at providing early intervention to children in Atlanta Public and Fulton County Schools who are chronically absent and who either become involved with the court or are referred to early intervention at the school level.
TIP gets referrals from school social workers, and then pairs trained volunteers, some of whom are attorneys, with children and their families. The social workers and the TIP volunteer then meet with the student and the family to develop a plan designed to lead to solid attendance. TIP has served more than 5,000 children over the years, and has had some remarkable success stories -- like for the third-grader who was having attendance problems. TIP and its volunteers worked out arrangements for the third-grader to spend school-weeks with her grandmother, who could make sure that she got to school on time. This is a student whom TIP caught early, before the full implications of truancy had become apparent. But TIP has also worked later on: like the young woman who had sporadic attendance for over a year, and whose truancy had escalated to some pretty serious offenses. Hers had become a familiar face around Juvenile Court. She got involved in TIP, and there, she said, "You have to decide for yourself that your life is worth something, and for me that meant getting an education." She graduated from high school and went on to college on a full scholarship.
TIP has had an incredible impact on many lives. One of its most notable aspects is its Early Intervention program, which they instituted in elementary schools. The success rate -- which is based on the number of children who are not referred to juvenile court after their involvement with TIP -- is greater than 95 percent.
And let me emphasize, this focus on truancy has had real consequences for the criminal justice system. It is estimated that by keeping these kids out of juvenile court, Fulton County has saved more than $4.2 million in court-appointed attorney fees alone, not to mention the other more indirect costs associated with juvenile crime and delinquency.
We need more programs like these, programs that identify problems early on and jump in to help with all available resources.
And while you are working to keep kids in school and out of the criminal justice system, we in law enforcement need to be keeping your kids safe so they can focus on learning.
On the whole, schools remain a place of relative safety. Students experience fewer crimes on school grounds than away from school. But the numbers are still too high. About 1.7 million students age 12 to 18 were victims of crime at school in 2006, 767,000 of them victims of violent crime. And according to the 2005-2006 School Survey on Crime and Safety, almost 80 percent of public schools have had a violent crime incident during the year.
So while you are working overtime to keep tabs on students, to talk to their families, and to make sure that the kids who are most at risk get the support they need to help them come to school, we in law enforcement are watching for the next threat, preventing every harm we can, and helping heal the harms that have been done. We know that the greatest threat is no longer just the biggest kid on the playground. That's why we're taking an expansive view of what it takes to keep kids safe and in school.
It's why, together with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, we recently awarded almost $33 million in grants under the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative to prevent violence and to improve attendance, achievement and mental health in our nation's schools. That's a program that takes a coordinated, integrated approach from the state. Educational agencies partner up with local law enforcement to apply for these grants, which they then use for anything from anti-bullying programs to rehabilitative justice programs, where a prosecutor comes into the school to develop the kinds of peer juries that are used to help groups of young people come to terms with the harms they inflict on each other and themselves.
It's also why the Justice Department is developing task forces to fight the internet predators who seek to do our children harm. It's why we're developing curriculum, like the Gang Resistance Education and Training Program, to help keep kids out of gangs.
We do all of this because we know that just as good schools are part of keeping a neighborhood safe, safe neighborhoods are a key part of keeping our kids in school and learning. We know this is a team effort, and if we try to divide things up as education issues or law enforcement issues, we are going to lose our children. If you want to keep kids out of jail, let's do what it takes to keep them in class. It's the right thing for our and their futures, and it's the right thing for our cities, towns and villages.
I want to thank those of you who have seen the importance of this issue, and who have been working to get kids back in school and engaged. Your work will pay huge dividends - for thousands of young people, for the safety of your communities, and for the future of our country.
Thank you.
SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Stop H*Commerce - putting a face on cybercrime
Stop H*CommerceToo often we ignore accounts of cybercrimes. They don't happen to us. We're not rich enough, or famous enough. We're too smart. This new McAfee documentary puts a face on the problem. Real people, not rich and famous ones, are caught in the net.
They're free and online.
Check them out.
They're free and online.
Check them out.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Verizon | International “Stop Cyberbullying” Conference
Verizon | International “Stop Cyberbullying” ConferenceWant to stop cyberbullying? Visit stopcyberbullying.org and check out the upcoming stopcyberbullying toolkit for schools.
Girl Scouts of Western North Carolina Pisgah Council
Girl Scouts of Western North Carolina Pisgah Councilcheck out the latest form the girls couts and the new lmk.girlscouts.org training program Parry set up.
Online Games for Children
In today’s world, the internet is part of our everyday lives. There are literally hundreds of games that are available to play online, but how many of them are safe for children? While many online games are directed at teens and adults, there are many that are directed to younger children under 13. These games usually help children learn about internet safety and how to interact with others, and most have messages about education, the environment or about cultural diversity. Here is a list of games that are safe for children that both the child and the parent will like!
1. Club Penguin – Disney’s Club Penguin lets your child create their own penguin character to explore the virtual world and interact with other players from around the globe. There are many games based around the island that can be played alone or be played with friends. Players can earn coins to buy different clothing and accessories for the penguins or to buy their very own pet to care and look after. Club Penguin is an intro to social networking and uses many safety features, like having a very flexible language filter to stop vulgar language and requiring a parental email account to let them know that their child is playing the game. Memberships are available to access more content and games.
2. Buildabearville¬ – Build-a-Bear Workshop’s Buildabearville is an interactive world where you can bring your stuffed animal friend to life! Play games with other players and your furry friends to ear bear bills to buy new cloths for your avatar or your bear or even a pair of rollerblades or a skateboard to help get you from place to place faster. The game only allows pre-approved words to be said, so there is no chance your child should ever come across bad language. The game also has parental controls to restrict the child’s interaction with other players if the parent chooses to do so.
3. Webkinz – Webkinz is a virtual world where the Webkinz toy you bought in store is brought to life in an interactive world. Players can play games, do jobs and other activities to earn KinzCash that can then be used to buy food for your pet, buy furniture for their room or their pets’ room and other accessories. Players can feed, pet, groom and play with their Webkinz and invite other players to their house to play games and chat. Parents can chose whether to allow a safe chat that uses a language filter, or only allow pre-approved words and phrases from a list to communicate with other players.
4. Neopets – Set in the virtual world of Neopia, players can adopt their very own Neopet to take care of. Players can play a multitude of games to earn neopoints, which can be used to buy food to feed their neopets, furniture for their homes, play other games and much more. The game itself has very little chat involved, and the chat that does exist is always moderated. Players can even make their own shops to display the items they have collected throughout the game, and players can even pit their neopet against each another for added fun. The game is constantly expanding with new areas, items and games for everyone to play.
5. ToonTown – Another of Disney’s games, ToonTown allows children and families to defend the world from the evil robot Cogs. To progress in the game, players must complete tasks and quests they receive, such as defeating a group of Cogs or by helping lower level players. Players use slap-stick style gags to defeat the Cogs and gain experience points which allows for more powerful gags to be unlocked. Players can also compete in a multitude of minigames either against a computer opponent or friends such as minigolf or tag to obtain jellybeans which act as the in-game currency. To protect children, ToonTown uses three sets of chat modes:
a. Speed Chat, which only allows the player to communicate using pre-approved words and phrases.
b. Speed Chat Plus, which allows a player to use any words that are in the Disney approved dictionary. This allows players to have logical conversation and allows for greater coordination.
c. True Friend Chat requires players to receive a six digit code from each other. True Friend Chat is like Speed Chat Plus where the players can use words that are from the Disney approved dictionary, but only that player can see what is being typed. To other players, it appears as gibberish and animal noises like barking or meowing.
The Parent can change these setting any time by accessing the parental controls. ToonTown does have a subscription option to allow the player greater access to the game like their own house, additional clothing customization and higher character levels.
5. KidZui
Not exactly a game site, more of the Internet for kids. Everything from approved Youtube videos to their favorite sites and games (including those I listed above).
The kids can share their favorite sites and videos, without being able to share personal information. They have a great free version and an even better paid subscription. Comcast just added a special version fot ehri subscribers.
1. Club Penguin – Disney’s Club Penguin lets your child create their own penguin character to explore the virtual world and interact with other players from around the globe. There are many games based around the island that can be played alone or be played with friends. Players can earn coins to buy different clothing and accessories for the penguins or to buy their very own pet to care and look after. Club Penguin is an intro to social networking and uses many safety features, like having a very flexible language filter to stop vulgar language and requiring a parental email account to let them know that their child is playing the game. Memberships are available to access more content and games.
2. Buildabearville¬ – Build-a-Bear Workshop’s Buildabearville is an interactive world where you can bring your stuffed animal friend to life! Play games with other players and your furry friends to ear bear bills to buy new cloths for your avatar or your bear or even a pair of rollerblades or a skateboard to help get you from place to place faster. The game only allows pre-approved words to be said, so there is no chance your child should ever come across bad language. The game also has parental controls to restrict the child’s interaction with other players if the parent chooses to do so.
3. Webkinz – Webkinz is a virtual world where the Webkinz toy you bought in store is brought to life in an interactive world. Players can play games, do jobs and other activities to earn KinzCash that can then be used to buy food for your pet, buy furniture for their room or their pets’ room and other accessories. Players can feed, pet, groom and play with their Webkinz and invite other players to their house to play games and chat. Parents can chose whether to allow a safe chat that uses a language filter, or only allow pre-approved words and phrases from a list to communicate with other players.
4. Neopets – Set in the virtual world of Neopia, players can adopt their very own Neopet to take care of. Players can play a multitude of games to earn neopoints, which can be used to buy food to feed their neopets, furniture for their homes, play other games and much more. The game itself has very little chat involved, and the chat that does exist is always moderated. Players can even make their own shops to display the items they have collected throughout the game, and players can even pit their neopet against each another for added fun. The game is constantly expanding with new areas, items and games for everyone to play.
5. ToonTown – Another of Disney’s games, ToonTown allows children and families to defend the world from the evil robot Cogs. To progress in the game, players must complete tasks and quests they receive, such as defeating a group of Cogs or by helping lower level players. Players use slap-stick style gags to defeat the Cogs and gain experience points which allows for more powerful gags to be unlocked. Players can also compete in a multitude of minigames either against a computer opponent or friends such as minigolf or tag to obtain jellybeans which act as the in-game currency. To protect children, ToonTown uses three sets of chat modes:
a. Speed Chat, which only allows the player to communicate using pre-approved words and phrases.
b. Speed Chat Plus, which allows a player to use any words that are in the Disney approved dictionary. This allows players to have logical conversation and allows for greater coordination.
c. True Friend Chat requires players to receive a six digit code from each other. True Friend Chat is like Speed Chat Plus where the players can use words that are from the Disney approved dictionary, but only that player can see what is being typed. To other players, it appears as gibberish and animal noises like barking or meowing.
The Parent can change these setting any time by accessing the parental controls. ToonTown does have a subscription option to allow the player greater access to the game like their own house, additional clothing customization and higher character levels.
5. KidZui
Not exactly a game site, more of the Internet for kids. Everything from approved Youtube videos to their favorite sites and games (including those I listed above).
The kids can share their favorite sites and videos, without being able to share personal information. They have a great free version and an even better paid subscription. Comcast just added a special version fot ehri subscribers.
Family of Staten Island murder victim set to file suit over Facebook photo - SILive.com
Family of Staten Island murder victim set to file suit over Facebook photo - SILive.comThis is a tragic story. But the law is clear. You can't sue Facebook or any other service provider for what their users do. Not unless thei user is controlled by the service provider. The CDA ( a law designed to censor content sent or posted online, originally and that was found laergely unconstitutional) has a provision that provides immunity from suit in these kinds of cases.
While it might sound harsh for a grieving family looking for someone to hold accountable it makes sense.
Would you sue the phone company for what one of their subscribers say on a call? Of course not. And the same rules should apply to a service provider with more than 225 million users. They don't, and don't have to, monitor everything said or posted by their users anymore than the phone company does.
My heart goes out to the family.
But the lawyers should know better.
The law is clear.
They should be going after the people who took and posted the images.
Not Facebook.
Parry
While it might sound harsh for a grieving family looking for someone to hold accountable it makes sense.
Would you sue the phone company for what one of their subscribers say on a call? Of course not. And the same rules should apply to a service provider with more than 225 million users. They don't, and don't have to, monitor everything said or posted by their users anymore than the phone company does.
My heart goes out to the family.
But the lawyers should know better.
The law is clear.
They should be going after the people who took and posted the images.
Not Facebook.
Parry
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Sexting for Parents
What is Sexting?
“Sexting” is when someone sends a nude or sexual image to someone else using a cell phone. “Sexing” is when they do it using any interactive device, such as a webcam, digital camera or video, cell phone, game device, etc. Just as “textbullying” is a subset of “cyberbullying” “sexting” is a subset of “sexing.”
How Prevalent is It Really?
It’s everywhere, even where you least expect it – like on your teen’s computer, cellphone and game device. 44% of boys in coed high schools we polled reported seeing at least one image of a fellow female classmate in the nude. Most saw images of more than just one girl. And many saw multiple images of each girl. Your daughter may be among them.
And it’s not just girls. Boys are sending pictures too. They see it as a way to convince the girls that they are a good catch. Some do it when they are just being “boys.”
Younger teen and preteen girls see it as a sophisticated way of “flirting” and to audition for dates with older boys. It starts as young as 11, when the girls want to be “grown-up” and do what the “kewl teens” are doing. Sadly, the “kewl teens” know better, but this message isn’t making it through to the preteens.
It is far more prevalent among upper middle class to upper class teens than lower socio-economic class teens. It is often a product of too much time and technology on their hands. Too much peer pressure, too little self-respect and too few others willing to support pushing back when someone asks for a nude picture are the problem.
What Laws Apply to Taking a Sexting Photo, Sending It to Others or Keeping a Copy?
There are two sets of laws that apply when a minor is involved in sexing, and right now one is too hot and the other too cold:
1. Child pornography or sexual exploitation laws are very serious laws. You may have heard of Megan’s Law [check spelling]. It requires that people convicted of sexual exploitation laws register as sex offenders. Registered sex offenders may not live near a school or a public park and have to register wherever they move. Employers can learn that you are a registered sex offender and most social networks will not allow you to have an account. The laws were designed for the creeps who molest kids. But they also apply to minors who take naked pictures of themselves, share them with boyfriends or girlfriends or share them with others, or keep a copy. These are too hot for most cases of sexing.
2. Harassment laws cover some kinds of cyberbullying and when people use technology to harass others. They may apply if messages are sent anonymously and designed to annoy someone, or if they are designed to harass them. If the sexing images are being sent around, especially if it is being done to make fun of or embarrass another, these may apply to anyone who is forwarding or sharing the images. But they are rarely used and typically only involve a fine and a slap on the wrist. They are too cold.
What we need, like in Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, is an approach that it just right. That would involve converting the child pornography statutes, when un-coerced minors are involved on all sides, to a misdemeanor instead of a felony. This would avoid the sex offender registration. And when sexing is used as the weapon in harassment, we should have higher penalties.
What Should Parents Be Doing?
First, if your teen in involved in a sexing incident, get legal advice and get it early. If it’s your daughter’s or son’s photo that is being circulated or posted, you’ll need help stopping the bleed and having it removed from the networks. Reach out to the cyberstalking and harassment team at WiredSafety.org and they will show you what to do and give you some help doing it. Let the school know right away. Print out the “What Schools Should Know About Addressing Sexting Incidents” to take with you, or ask them to download it from WiredSafety.org or StopCyberbullying.org.
If you son or daughter has received a sextual image or video, delete it right away, or remove it from your cellphone, computer or other device and store it securely as evidence. Do not forward it to Parry Aftab, the police or anyone else. In doing so, you may be breaking the law and could be charged with distribution of child pornography (if the image qualifies as child pornography.
Second, be vigilant and realistic.
Your sweet cherubic fourteen year old daughter may be starring in more videos than last Halloween’s costume competition. If she is sexually active, her boyfriend may be demanding a nude picture to seal their love.
And groups, especially when alcohol is involved, are fertile ground for sexting. Ask your daugher’s friends to park their cell phones with you when sleeping over or attending a party at your house, especially if alcohol is being consumed (with or without your permission). Sexting is often the result of boredom and looking for excitement. The more digital photo capability they have, the more likely someone will use it.
Step-By-Step Proactive Prevention
Take a cyber-inventory.
Start out by asking what devices they carry around or use have photo or video capture features, or can be used to send images or video to others. Include webcams, Xbox and Wii, their cell phones, DS and PSP handheld gaming devices, Playstation 2 and 3, video and still image cameras.
If they want a new device, before you plunk down your hard-earned cash, ask if you can use it to take or store videos or digital pictures. Once you know which devices and technologies are image or video capable, learn how they work. Be aware of what others are bringing into the house for slumber parties or larger parties, and suggest they leave them with you or drop into the party from time to time to deliver soda and chips.
Trust But Verify
It’s important to trust your teens. But all you have to do is think back to your teenhood to know how important it is to verify, not just trust blindly. Ask and then check. Do spot checks without it looking like you are spying on them.
Once you have figured out where and how they can store pictures and videos, verify what is stored there. Check them regularly (make it a tech spot check) for any stored images. Check their laptops and the family desktops, portable drives, flash drives, media cards and any discs. Ask to see their social network profiles and their online accounts, including their instant messaging profiles.
If they have any online free storage services, such as a Microsoft or Sony online account, ask to see those too. Let them know you care and are watching. They may not be thrilled about it, but when Parry did the Good Morning America town meeting special with Diane Sawyer on sexting, of the eight parents selected to do spot checks on their teens, four found something they hadn’t expected. Two found that their teens’ classmates were sexting, and one of those had her images on his computer. If you look, you may find!
Have The Talk
Our recent studies showed that the teens have a “didn’t ask so I didn’t tell” approach. If you want to know what they are doing online, you have to ask.
Share Jessie’s story with them. She ended up taking her own life after her “private” nude image was shared by a boy she was seeing with the world. Before she gave up trying to fix her reputation and be able to walk around school or town without being called names, she appeared in shadow on TV pleading with other teen girls to think before doing the same thing. She didn’t want them to face what she was facing. Sadly, while others may have learned from her message, her own torment didn’t end. She was found hanging in her bedroom closet - dead. She was barely 18.
Use the news as a conversation starter. Just don’t lecture. Our kids don’t react any better to lectures than we did at that age. And teach them to respect themselves enough to withstand peer pressure and pressure from the boys they love.
If you need help, contact Parry Aftab or visit WiredSafety.org or StopCyberbullying.org.
cyb
“Sexting” is when someone sends a nude or sexual image to someone else using a cell phone. “Sexing” is when they do it using any interactive device, such as a webcam, digital camera or video, cell phone, game device, etc. Just as “textbullying” is a subset of “cyberbullying” “sexting” is a subset of “sexing.”
How Prevalent is It Really?
It’s everywhere, even where you least expect it – like on your teen’s computer, cellphone and game device. 44% of boys in coed high schools we polled reported seeing at least one image of a fellow female classmate in the nude. Most saw images of more than just one girl. And many saw multiple images of each girl. Your daughter may be among them.
And it’s not just girls. Boys are sending pictures too. They see it as a way to convince the girls that they are a good catch. Some do it when they are just being “boys.”
Younger teen and preteen girls see it as a sophisticated way of “flirting” and to audition for dates with older boys. It starts as young as 11, when the girls want to be “grown-up” and do what the “kewl teens” are doing. Sadly, the “kewl teens” know better, but this message isn’t making it through to the preteens.
It is far more prevalent among upper middle class to upper class teens than lower socio-economic class teens. It is often a product of too much time and technology on their hands. Too much peer pressure, too little self-respect and too few others willing to support pushing back when someone asks for a nude picture are the problem.
What Laws Apply to Taking a Sexting Photo, Sending It to Others or Keeping a Copy?
There are two sets of laws that apply when a minor is involved in sexing, and right now one is too hot and the other too cold:
1. Child pornography or sexual exploitation laws are very serious laws. You may have heard of Megan’s Law [check spelling]. It requires that people convicted of sexual exploitation laws register as sex offenders. Registered sex offenders may not live near a school or a public park and have to register wherever they move. Employers can learn that you are a registered sex offender and most social networks will not allow you to have an account. The laws were designed for the creeps who molest kids. But they also apply to minors who take naked pictures of themselves, share them with boyfriends or girlfriends or share them with others, or keep a copy. These are too hot for most cases of sexing.
2. Harassment laws cover some kinds of cyberbullying and when people use technology to harass others. They may apply if messages are sent anonymously and designed to annoy someone, or if they are designed to harass them. If the sexing images are being sent around, especially if it is being done to make fun of or embarrass another, these may apply to anyone who is forwarding or sharing the images. But they are rarely used and typically only involve a fine and a slap on the wrist. They are too cold.
What we need, like in Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, is an approach that it just right. That would involve converting the child pornography statutes, when un-coerced minors are involved on all sides, to a misdemeanor instead of a felony. This would avoid the sex offender registration. And when sexing is used as the weapon in harassment, we should have higher penalties.
What Should Parents Be Doing?
First, if your teen in involved in a sexing incident, get legal advice and get it early. If it’s your daughter’s or son’s photo that is being circulated or posted, you’ll need help stopping the bleed and having it removed from the networks. Reach out to the cyberstalking and harassment team at WiredSafety.org and they will show you what to do and give you some help doing it. Let the school know right away. Print out the “What Schools Should Know About Addressing Sexting Incidents” to take with you, or ask them to download it from WiredSafety.org or StopCyberbullying.org.
If you son or daughter has received a sextual image or video, delete it right away, or remove it from your cellphone, computer or other device and store it securely as evidence. Do not forward it to Parry Aftab, the police or anyone else. In doing so, you may be breaking the law and could be charged with distribution of child pornography (if the image qualifies as child pornography.
Second, be vigilant and realistic.
Your sweet cherubic fourteen year old daughter may be starring in more videos than last Halloween’s costume competition. If she is sexually active, her boyfriend may be demanding a nude picture to seal their love.
And groups, especially when alcohol is involved, are fertile ground for sexting. Ask your daugher’s friends to park their cell phones with you when sleeping over or attending a party at your house, especially if alcohol is being consumed (with or without your permission). Sexting is often the result of boredom and looking for excitement. The more digital photo capability they have, the more likely someone will use it.
Step-By-Step Proactive Prevention
Take a cyber-inventory.
Start out by asking what devices they carry around or use have photo or video capture features, or can be used to send images or video to others. Include webcams, Xbox and Wii, their cell phones, DS and PSP handheld gaming devices, Playstation 2 and 3, video and still image cameras.
If they want a new device, before you plunk down your hard-earned cash, ask if you can use it to take or store videos or digital pictures. Once you know which devices and technologies are image or video capable, learn how they work. Be aware of what others are bringing into the house for slumber parties or larger parties, and suggest they leave them with you or drop into the party from time to time to deliver soda and chips.
Trust But Verify
It’s important to trust your teens. But all you have to do is think back to your teenhood to know how important it is to verify, not just trust blindly. Ask and then check. Do spot checks without it looking like you are spying on them.
Once you have figured out where and how they can store pictures and videos, verify what is stored there. Check them regularly (make it a tech spot check) for any stored images. Check their laptops and the family desktops, portable drives, flash drives, media cards and any discs. Ask to see their social network profiles and their online accounts, including their instant messaging profiles.
If they have any online free storage services, such as a Microsoft or Sony online account, ask to see those too. Let them know you care and are watching. They may not be thrilled about it, but when Parry did the Good Morning America town meeting special with Diane Sawyer on sexting, of the eight parents selected to do spot checks on their teens, four found something they hadn’t expected. Two found that their teens’ classmates were sexting, and one of those had her images on his computer. If you look, you may find!
Have The Talk
Our recent studies showed that the teens have a “didn’t ask so I didn’t tell” approach. If you want to know what they are doing online, you have to ask.
Share Jessie’s story with them. She ended up taking her own life after her “private” nude image was shared by a boy she was seeing with the world. Before she gave up trying to fix her reputation and be able to walk around school or town without being called names, she appeared in shadow on TV pleading with other teen girls to think before doing the same thing. She didn’t want them to face what she was facing. Sadly, while others may have learned from her message, her own torment didn’t end. She was found hanging in her bedroom closet - dead. She was barely 18.
Use the news as a conversation starter. Just don’t lecture. Our kids don’t react any better to lectures than we did at that age. And teach them to respect themselves enough to withstand peer pressure and pressure from the boys they love.
If you need help, contact Parry Aftab or visit WiredSafety.org or StopCyberbullying.org.
cyb
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Young Turn to Web Sites Without Rules - New York Times
Young Turn to Web Sites Without Rules - New York Timesthe first national report of stickam, live webcam feeds. Where the teen molested a college student live on camera.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
YouTube - Teenangels UN Casi 1
YouTube - Teenangels UN Casi 1Meet Casi, one of Parry's Teenangels presenting before the UN in June 2009.
YouTube - Teenangels...where teens are the Internet safety experts
YouTube - Teenangels...where teens are the Internet safety expertsAre you a teen and an expert on the Internet? Mee Parry's Teenangels.
Suicide Kids Looking For Fame? - CBS News Video
Suicide Kids Looking For Fame? - CBS News VideoWhen teens are troubled, seeing others promote suicide makes it more compelling.
MSN Video - Cynthia Logan talks with Parry and Matt about Jessie's sexting suicide
MSN VideoThis case is too often seen as a sexting story, it's really cyberbullying.
New MySpace.com Safety Rules - CBS News Video
New MySpace.com Safety Rules - CBS News VideoParry talks to CBS Evening News about MySpace
Parry Aftab on Mike and Juliet on Yahoo! Video
Parry Aftab on Mike and Juliet on Yahoo! VideoParry talks to Mike and Juliet on cybersafety
Handheld game devices - what parents need ot know
MSN VideoParry on the Today Show, along with her Tweenangels. Note this is the older DS, now the risks of DSi with WIFI are even greater.
The Progress & Freedom Foundation - News
The Progress & Freedom Foundation - NewsParry and other leaders in cybersafety policy will discuss new laws and what we need with laws, on Capitol Hill July 27th for a lunch briefing.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
the stopcyberbullying coalition
We have formed a coaltion to address cyberbullying and ways young people use technology as a weapon to hurt others. "Cyberbullying" is minor to minor. The same activities that constitute cyberbullying among young people is called "cyberharassment" when adults are involved. ("Bullying" is typically a term reserved for minors.)
If you are a non-profit, charity, foundation, research group, community organization, school, website, media company or blogger, commercial entity, faith-based organization, governmental entity or agency or a law enforcement organization, we'd love to include you.
let me know.
the more we can get cooperating on this problem, the faster we can address it. Youth organizations are particularly welcome.
Parry
If you are a non-profit, charity, foundation, research group, community organization, school, website, media company or blogger, commercial entity, faith-based organization, governmental entity or agency or a law enforcement organization, we'd love to include you.
let me know.
the more we can get cooperating on this problem, the faster we can address it. Youth organizations are particularly welcome.
Parry
Monday, July 13, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
Facebook Privacy Enhancements
My thoughts on the new Facebook privacy enhancements. Good news! Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Facebook Privacy Enhancements
View more presentations from guest5f7bf4.
Facebook Privacy Enhancements
Facebook Privacy EnhancementsI have been writing lately about how all of our life segments colliding on Facebook. Our weird cousin Elmo can comment and our uptight boss can see. Our church friends see our wild drunken bashes. Our children can see us ranting about financial pressures. The lines we can draw successfully between the different parts of our lives can;'t be drawn easily when we have one Facebook account and everyone can see everyone else.
Facebook has fixed that. You can select different settings for different subgroups. Only Thanksgiving pics go to cousin Elmo. Only hardworking comments to our boss. Our kids see family things, our drunken buddies don't.
Am thrilled about this!
Now we need ot get everyone to use them. :-)
Facebook has fixed that. You can select different settings for different subgroups. Only Thanksgiving pics go to cousin Elmo. Only hardworking comments to our boss. Our kids see family things, our drunken buddies don't.
Am thrilled about this!
Now we need ot get everyone to use them. :-)
Judge dismisses MySpace cyberbully case - Network World
Judge temporarily dismisses MySpace cyberbully case - Network WorldI have said from the beginning that I wanted Lori Drew brought to justice. I didn't expect her to serve jail time, but wanted her to face a jury of her peers. She has. Forever she will be remembered at "That Mom!" Far more than jail time, Lori Drew will face a jury of her peers every time she walks down the street, introduces herself or meets new customers. She will always be "that mom!" to millions. That is justice.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
» Cyber Bullying Stopped: Go Daddy Web Site Pulled - Blogger News Network
» Cyber Bullying Stopped: Go Daddy Web Site Pulled - Blogger News NetworkJuicyCampus and others launched a new business model online - promoting hate and viciousness. It hit the dust after many of us reacted. But the trick was finding a hole. I found on with JuciyCampus and informed a few attorneys general about the consumer fraud issue I had discovered. After that it was only a matter of time.
Now it appears that GoDaddy took action as well.
Good for them!
Now it appears that GoDaddy took action as well.
Good for them!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Mesa man thinks Twitter lead to robbery
Mesa man thinks Twitter lead to robberywith so much of a focus on sexual predators using personal information to meet our children - people forget the more frequent risks of creeps breaking into your home or using your travel info to commit crimes against you...
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Cyber spies targeting governments, financial institutions - Winnipeg Free Press
Cyber spies targeting governments, financial institutions - Winnipeg Free PressFew realize how much consumers can help or hurt in cases of cyberterrorism or cyberwarfare. By infecting consumers laptops and desktops with trojan horses and other remote-controlled malware that can be programmed to act in unity to attack the cybercriminals' target site or networks, consumers can be enlisted unwittingly in the attacks. A simple fix? You bet. Quality security software and hardware products can keep mre than the consumer safe. They can keep a nation and indsutry grid safe as well.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
BBC NEWS | Americas | Alarm bells ring over "sexting"
BBC NEWS | Americas | Alarm bells ring over "sexting"This has gone from relatively unknown issue (except t teens and those of us working with them), to something that has driven a Law & Order piece last week, and news worldwide. I was recently in Cabo, Mexico and learned that it is a problem there. I am receiving emaisl from around the US, Canada and the world seeking help.
Our campaign on this is "Don't Be Stupid!" look for more....
Our campaign on this is "Don't Be Stupid!" look for more....
Thursday, May 14, 2009
U.S. Sen. Menendez unveils legislation establishing internet-safety grant program - NJ.com
U.S. Sen. Menendez unveils legislation establishing internet-safety grant program - NJ.comFinally! competitive grants and not over-lobbied earmarks! I thanked Sen Menedenz and Congreeewoman Wasserman Schultz for sponsoring this and hope it is adopted quickly. We need to help to protect our kids and give them cyberliteracy skills.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Friday, May 08, 2009
Teens Who Transmit Explicit Photos Can Get Caught in Web of Porn Laws - washingtonpost.com
Teens Who Transmit Explicit Photos Can Get Caught in Web of Porn Laws - washingtonpost.comat some point, parents will believe me when I tell them this is happening everywhere to all kids.
How to Be Safe Online - Facebook Breakup Tips - Cosmopolitan.com
How to Be Safe Online - Facebook Breakup Tips - Cosmopolitan.coma reat piece that highlights my latest tips for avoiding problems online. Sadly, the link should have been to wiredsafety.org where we help victims of cyberstalking.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
How things have changed...sifting the responsible gambling sites from the rest isn't easy. Laws can help.
Are We Raising Future Riverboat Gamblers in Cyberspace?
Gambling is thriving in the Internet arena,
even while facing strict governmental controls elsewhere. (It's illegal to use financial institutions to gamble online.)
Most of the gambling sites are hosted offshore, which makes law enforcement
more difficult. Many require prepayment in the form of credit
card advances, debit card advances, or wired funds. A simple search on
any of the search engines will result in thousands of gambling sites.
And your teenager’s money is as good as anyone else’s.
Frankly, I was surprised that kids are using the gambling sites as
much as they reportedly are. But with more and more children having
their own credit card on our accounts for emergency purposes, as well
as generous allowances and access to savings accounts that hold their
birthday cash, baby-sitting earnings, and paper route money gathered
over the years, it’s apparently easier than ever for them to gamble it
away.
Sometimes they’ll even use our credit card and hope we don’t notice
when the statement arrives. (And, surprisingly enough, we often don’t.)
What Can You Do About It?
Keep an eye on your credit card statements and on your children’s
savings account balances. Blocking their ability to send out credit card
information over the Internet might make it harder for them to gamble
online. (Some of the filtering products allow you to block certain outgoing
information.) In addition, if the computer is centrally located
under your watchful eyes, you may be able to keep them off of the
gambling sites entirely.
Let them also know that many of the gambling sites are scams, and many hold on to your winnings under the guise of international currency laws.
Gambling online is a no-win game for children and teens.
Gambling is thriving in the Internet arena,
even while facing strict governmental controls elsewhere. (It's illegal to use financial institutions to gamble online.)
Most of the gambling sites are hosted offshore, which makes law enforcement
more difficult. Many require prepayment in the form of credit
card advances, debit card advances, or wired funds. A simple search on
any of the search engines will result in thousands of gambling sites.
And your teenager’s money is as good as anyone else’s.
Frankly, I was surprised that kids are using the gambling sites as
much as they reportedly are. But with more and more children having
their own credit card on our accounts for emergency purposes, as well
as generous allowances and access to savings accounts that hold their
birthday cash, baby-sitting earnings, and paper route money gathered
over the years, it’s apparently easier than ever for them to gamble it
away.
Sometimes they’ll even use our credit card and hope we don’t notice
when the statement arrives. (And, surprisingly enough, we often don’t.)
What Can You Do About It?
Keep an eye on your credit card statements and on your children’s
savings account balances. Blocking their ability to send out credit card
information over the Internet might make it harder for them to gamble
online. (Some of the filtering products allow you to block certain outgoing
information.) In addition, if the computer is centrally located
under your watchful eyes, you may be able to keep them off of the
gambling sites entirely.
Let them also know that many of the gambling sites are scams, and many hold on to your winnings under the guise of international currency laws.
Gambling online is a no-win game for children and teens.
Internet Safety: Ask Parry! - Answers
Internet Safety: Ask Parry! - AnswersAnswers to a mom about her son's spending hundreds of dollars gambling online. The law had changed since I wrote this, dealing with payments to gambling sites online. But otherwise, the challenge of keeping kids form gambling online remains.
Gambling Online - what's the best way to handle it and keep people safer?
I first wrote about online gambling in my book for parents on cybersafety - A Parent's Guide to the Internet, published in 1997. It was the first cybersafety book written for parents in the world.
Even then, kids were gambling online - illegally, but gambling nonetheless.
Aside the fact that parents wanted to be able to keep their kids from gambling, many gambling sites were committing fraud, refusing to pay winners, rigging the games and sending malicious code and assisting in money laundering.
In the US online gambling is covered by the federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). It technically doesn't make gambling online illegal. It instead prohibits the use of any financial institution from permitting transfers/payments for gambling.
Our belief is that the best way to protect consumers from fraud, scams and underage online gambling is by legalizing it. Then we can regulate it, set rules and require that they run honest games, keep kids off and prevent illegal activities, such as money laundering and privacy violations.
We have been exploring this as one of the new issues we are facing online. Barney Frank's new bill addresses this issue. We have commissioned a study using independent academics to see if this provides answers to the risks we have identified.
Want to know what we think and why? Feel free to ask me at parry@aftab.com.
Even then, kids were gambling online - illegally, but gambling nonetheless.
Aside the fact that parents wanted to be able to keep their kids from gambling, many gambling sites were committing fraud, refusing to pay winners, rigging the games and sending malicious code and assisting in money laundering.
In the US online gambling is covered by the federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). It technically doesn't make gambling online illegal. It instead prohibits the use of any financial institution from permitting transfers/payments for gambling.
Our belief is that the best way to protect consumers from fraud, scams and underage online gambling is by legalizing it. Then we can regulate it, set rules and require that they run honest games, keep kids off and prevent illegal activities, such as money laundering and privacy violations.
We have been exploring this as one of the new issues we are facing online. Barney Frank's new bill addresses this issue. We have commissioned a study using independent academics to see if this provides answers to the risks we have identified.
Want to know what we think and why? Feel free to ask me at parry@aftab.com.
legalizing online gambling....new bill will legalize online gambling to regulate it
Advisory: Frank to Hold Press Conference to Unveil Internet Gambling Legislation
Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) will hold a press conference to unveil legislation that will enable Americans to bet online and put an end to an inappropriate interference with their personal freedom.
The new bill would create an exemption to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) for operators that are licensed and regulated. UIGEA, which was enacted in 2006, restricts the use of the payments system for Americans who seek the freedom to gamble online.
WHO: Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank
WHAT: Press Conference to Discuss Legislation to Enable Americans to Bet Online WHEN: Wednesday, May 6, 2009
10:00 a.m.
WHERE: Room 2220, Rayburn House Office Building
Reporters who cannot attend the press conference will be able to access a listen-only conference call. For dial-in information and password, email Elizabeth Esfahani at elizabeth.esfahani@mail.house.gov.
Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) will hold a press conference to unveil legislation that will enable Americans to bet online and put an end to an inappropriate interference with their personal freedom.
The new bill would create an exemption to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) for operators that are licensed and regulated. UIGEA, which was enacted in 2006, restricts the use of the payments system for Americans who seek the freedom to gamble online.
WHO: Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank
WHAT: Press Conference to Discuss Legislation to Enable Americans to Bet Online WHEN: Wednesday, May 6, 2009
10:00 a.m.
WHERE: Room 2220, Rayburn House Office Building
Reporters who cannot attend the press conference will be able to access a listen-only conference call. For dial-in information and password, email Elizabeth Esfahani at elizabeth.esfahani@mail.house.gov.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Facebook's 'Porn Cops' Are Key to Its Growth | Newsweek Enterprise - Technology
Facebook's 'Porn Cops' Are Key to Its Growth | Newsweek Enterprise - Technologyit takes a village to keep a social network out of trouble. Facebook does a much better job than most.
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