Tester Unveils Plan to Fight Child Sex Predators
Plan contrasts Burns’ hypocritical record of failing to protect victims of sex crimes
In light of Sen. Conrad Burns’ failures to protect victims from sexual predators, Big Sandy farmer and U.S. Senate candidate Jon Tester on Tuesday unveiled his multi-part plan to crack down on sexual predators, especially those who use the Internet to target their victims.
When elected to the U.S. Senate, Tester plans to:
- Establish an Internet Safety and Child Protection Trust Fund to help law enforcement combat Internet and pornography-related crimes
- Replace the adult website ‘honor system’ with a better system to verify age
- Hold Internet service providers and the telecommunications industry more accountable for efforts to fight child predators
- Dedicate resources to cracking down on child predators who fail to register
Tester’s full plan is available online here. It is a clear contrast to Sen. Burns’ record on sexual predators.
Sen. Burns not only voted against the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, he voted against funding to protect children from child pornography. And he voted against requiring sexual predators to report their addresses to authorities.
Last month the Department of the Interior–which Sen. Burns oversees–released a study that revealed its employees spend a significant amount of time at work surfing adult and illegal websites. Some DOI employees even kept child porn on their computers. But Sen. Burns has refused to call for an investigation. [Department of the Interior, Office of the Inspector General, “Excessive Indulgences,” September 2006; Knoxville News-Sentinel, 3/3/06; AP, 4/14/05; Washington Post, 10/5/06]
Sen. Burns is currently criticizing 37 state senators including 18 Republicans, who, along with Tester, voted against Senate Bill 139 in 2001. The bill would have unnecessarily required Montana libraries to install Internet filters, even though those filters were already in place.
Instead, as a leader in the Montana Senate, Tester focused on more effective measures, continually voting to toughen laws against sex offenders.
- He voted to sentence predators who sexually abuse children to life in prison. [SB 381, Tester yea, 2/21/05]
- Tester voted to restrict where sex offenders can live and work in Montana. [HB 434, Tester yea, 3/31/01]
- Tester voted to monitor sex offenders electronically. [SB 207, Tester yea, 3/18/05]
- Tester introduced legislation requiring sex offenders to pay the cost of registering with the State of Montana. [HB 308, Tester yea, 3/31/03]
Tester has also signed a pledge from the National Association to Protect Children, vowing to increase law enforcement efforts to track child sex predators. Sen. Burns has refused to sign the pledge.
“Sen. Burns likes to play political football with important issues like sex predators,” said Matt McKenna, Tester’s spokesman. “But when it comes to protecting our children from known sex predators like Congressman Mark Foley, Sen. Burns has fumbled.”
Posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 2:17 pm.
