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Youth Internet Safety Task Force report released

He has already announced plans to require sex offenders to register their email and IM names with the state.  Today, Attorney General Bob McDonnell announced more legislation to keep online sexual predators away from children.

The hundred page report, generated by the AG's Youth Internet Safety Task Force, includes recommendations for police, parents and private Internet companies.  In some cases, the task force found improving safety simply means cleaning up existing laws.   

It is probably alarming to hear that soliciting some teens online for sex is actually allowed in Virginia.  It was not intended to be that way.  As cyber crimes were added to state law books, language including 15 to 18-year-old's was left out. 

Under General McDonnell's proposals, producers of child pornography, or those who solicit children online, will stay in jail longer.  Crimes that have a maximum sentence of ten years now would carry a sentence of five to 30 years. 

Sexual predators, those that law enforcement call the worse of the worse, would not be allowed bond.  Prosecutors would be able to get information from out of state Internet service providers more quickly.  More police officers would be trained on how to protect and retrieve evidence when investigating cyber crimes.

Since parental controls are no good if parents do not know they exist, AOL is donating $100,000 to help McDonnell kick off a media campaign on the dangers of the Internet.  That may be one of the more important recommendations.  That is because only about 25% of the children solicited online for sex tell their parents.