by Rusty Pugh
A leading pro-family group says the U.S. Department of Justice has a monumental task ahead to prosecute child pornography on the Internet — but also has a good opportunity to use a major offender as an example.
The Mississippi-based American Family Association wants the Justice Department to prosecute Yahoo!, one of the world's largest Internet portals. AFA, along with other pro-family groups, has presented evidence that Yahoo! continues to allow the spread of illegal material by allowing child pornographers to post and distribute it on and through the Yahoo! servers.
AFA executive assistant Buddy Smith says since the Internet's inception, there have been anti-porn laws. But he says former President Bill Clinton and his attorney general, Janet Reno, “looked the other way” and allowed a monster to grow.
“Clinton and Reno did nothing to prosecute any of this — so therefore, the precedent unfortunately was set in that administration as to basically what you can get away with on the web,” Smith says. “We realize that the current administration, Attorney General [John] Ashcroft, has a monumental task before him — but we're talking about the welfare of our children here!”
Smith says Attorney General John Ashcroft must start someplace, and asks: Why not start with Yahoo!?
Toward that end, AFA is encouraging people to join in a petition drive to get the Justice Department to prosecute Yahoo! for trafficking in child pornography. Smith says Yahoo! has a responsibility to stop being a vehicle for “people who rape, kidnap, and murder children.”
Noting that Yahoo! announced recently it was joining a program to help locate missing children through online banner ads, Smith says Yahoo! is being hypocritical about the face it is putting on about “helping children.”
“At the same time, it continues to allow Yahoo! members to post messages about using children for sexual purposes — including incest,” he says.
Smith says AFA is asking concerned citizens to write a letter to Attorney General Ashcroft, asking him to prosecute Yahoo! He says citizens can e-mail Attorney General John Ashcroft by visiting the websites OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com.
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(This article courtesy of Agape Press.)
