How you grant them access to your children

While first amendment activists are speaking up to ensure the Internet remains uncensored, our children are being exposed to a superhighway of dangerous content and predators. For pedophiles, the Internet offers freedom, acceptance, anonymity and security, despite the funding and the technological expertise of various pedophile-hunting and prevention groups. “No task force can keep up with the speed and scope of today’s Internet. It can’t stop child pornographers and child molesters from logging on.”[1]

The dangers are real, and hit too close to home. Brian Brigham was a 30-year-old man who had been exposed to AIDS. He met a 16-year-old boy through the Internet, and traveled from Myrtle Beach to Charleston to have sex with him. He also met a 13-year-old boy in Charleston and convinced him to go to Myrtle Beach with him, where he had sex with him, and gave him hallucinogenic drugs and alcohol. Fortunately, Brigham was caught red-handed: “As is often the case, investigators found a large collection of child pornography when they arrested Brigham two years ago.”[1]

David Westerfield, the convicted killer of seven-year-old Danielle van Dam, stashed pornographic movies of young girls being raped and other child pornography on his computer. “When prosecutors played the rape movies [from his computer] during the trial, several jurors burst into tears…Prosecutors alleged during the two-month trial that Westerfield was a budding pedophile who graduated from downloading child pornography to kidnapping, raping and killing his 7-year-old neighbor.”[2]

FBI Agent Cynthia McCants remarks that pedophiles tend to have large collections of porn.^[1]

What we expose ourselves to directly correlates to the acts we commit. In November of 1998, an 11-year-old boy stabbed an eight-year-old girl to death after viewing graphic, violent porn on the Internet for 20 minutes.[3] There is an abundance of resources—digital videos and photos, websites and mailing lists—that make pornography both easy and accessible. And while millions of dollars are being poured into stopping this industry, it is powerful, and to date protected by distorted privacy rights and apathy among secular companies who profit greatly from the trading of Internet porn.[1]

One in five children who uses computer chat rooms in 2000 had been approached by a pedophile. Yet only one in four children who received sexual solicitation informed a parent. And polling four million Internet users aged seven to 17 shows that 29% would reveal their home address and 14% would reveal their email.3

The dangers of the Internet are rampant and accepted in our society. Jamie Rea was a shy and sensitive 15-year-old girl who had been homeschooled since she was in seventh grade, and who taught the Bible to children in her church. One night, her parents woke to find her bed empty at 3am, and caught her sneaking in the back door shortly thereafter. Jamie admitted that this wasn’t the first time she had snuck out to meet a 29-year-old man she met in a chatroom on the Internet. She said she had snuck out 30-40 times before to meet this man. The traumatic relationship with the pedophile and the material that this man sent into Jamie’s computer and mind was enough to send Jamie to a psychiatric ward for rehabilitation. The psychological condition that this man left Jamie in prohibited her from testifying against him.[4]

The Role of ISPs in Pornography

In February of 2001, BuffNET, the New York-based ISP, was found guilty for knowingly providing access to child pornography. To their defense, BuffNET lawyer Steven S. Fox said that the court was prosecuting one ISP when "hundreds of ISPs carry these pictures."[5]Child porn can be traded online in chatrooms, and most ISPs do not want to get involved. Molesters know where to go to get pornography materials and victims. Children can be victimized online in chat rooms through the transmission of pornography and obscene material, or aggressively pursued by invitations to meet or talk on the phone. These meetings can result in sexual abuse, rape, torture and murder. FBI Agent McCants has a thick folder of pictures scary enough to make you sick, including those of children as young as three being assaulted, and “children bound and gagged, staring terrified into the camera.”[1] Sometimes these encounters and relationships are videotaped or photographed, and are even accessible online.

Usenet.com is a worldwide public network of over 80,000 various newsgroups. Usenet.com is known for its privacy and acceptance, as well as for hosting an immense quantity of child pornography. From the homepage, one can click “privacy,” and read, “With Usenet.com you will not need to worry about your government or your ISP seeing what you download.”[6] They admit that they cannot monitor the content, so it is the sole responsibility of the newsgroup to post legal material. Here lies a blatant invitation to defy government restrictions via the Internet.

While some people are not aware of the availability of this material on the web and through their ISPs, everyone is at-risk of encountering this dangerous content if they go online unprotected. Believers spend more time surfing the Internet than they do in prayer.[7] In this time of reliance on technology, Christians are inevitably exposed to the Internet—all dangers included. Focus on the Family estimates as many as one in five pastors,[8] and millions of men,[9] struggle with porn.

Common search words like dog and boy and girl reap dangerous content. If you don’t have filtered Internet, you and your children are being exposed to dangerous content—whether intentionally or unintentionally. It is necessary to preserve your integrity and health by abstaining from the things that will pull you and your family from God. Be aware that this is a dangerous issue and none are immune. It is necessary to filter the Internet you and your family uses in order to provide a strong and pure environment for your household.

What You Can do to Keep Yourself and Your Family Safe

1. Provide proxy-based filtered access
   Proxy filters filter from the side of your ISP, and the user is unable to alter the filters independently. Proxy filters provide the necessary protection for you and your family, as the settings can only be altered with proper authority by the ISP. Proxy filters work from a database, so a variety of dangerous content is filtered.
2. Set guidelines for Internet activity
   Discuss applicable rules for the following:
   1. What information to share/not to share
   2. Acceptable IM products
   3. Acceptable newsgroups
   4. Off-limits areas
   5. What to do if they are solicited
3. Educate your family on why it is important to be careful online
   Discuss online dangers, and the ways you are protecting them.
4. Provide a positive Internet community with daily functional tools and resources
   There are many viable options for your household to get the Internet that God wants you to see. Look for a community that satisfies your technological and social needs, like ZOL.com.
5. Pray
   The Internet is strong and powerful. Join with us in prayer to clean the Internet. Pray daily for:
   1. the safety of your family
   2. the salvation of offenders
   3. more protective legislature
   4. for the strength and preservation of existing organizations that work to keep the Internet clean

ZOL cares for the mental and spiritual health of you and your family, and wants to serve you by keeping your family safe: get ZOL.com filtered Internet now.

To report illegal online Internet activity related to pornography and child exploitation, call 1-800-THE-LOST.

Article by Amanda Chapman, Copyright ©2004 Zionline, Inc.