Child Pornography Elimination Act of 2007

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4136, the Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography Act of 2007. This bill adds child pornography offenses as money laundering predicates and clarifies existing law to prohibit knowingly accessing child pornography with the intent to view it. Child pornography is a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry. It is despicable in its scope, and it is vicious in its victimization of children. Money is what fuels this horrific crime.

The majority's proposal in H.R. 4136 takes a limited step to prohibit money laundering offenses as part of a child pornography scheme. But much more is needed. Legislation proposed by our ranking member, Lamar Smith, and Mr. Chabot, a member of the Judiciary Committee, contains a host of proposals to increase penalties for child predators and pornographers and provides law enforcement tools for combating these heinous crimes in a virtual universe. Unfortunately, the majority chose to ignore the improvements proposed by many Republican members.

However, H.R. 4136 does enact Representative Marilyn Musgrave's proposals in H.R. 3148, which was introduced on July 24, 2007, the Child Pornography Elimination Act. I commend Mrs. Musgrave for her legislative efforts. This closes a loophole in the law that child pornographers use to avoid possession of child pornography by not downloading the material. This provision will prohibit accessing such material with the intent to view it and will not require an offender to actually download the material.

This provision is a good one, and we support it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers and urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I thank the chairman of the committee for his hard work on all of these series of bills and hope to have the opportunity to continue to work with him to perhaps make some perfecting improvements as we move forward.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4136) to amend title 18 of the United States Code to clarify the scope of the child pornography laws and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members

have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4136, the Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography Act, addresses two gaps in the criminal statutes that punish those who trade in, profit from, and create the market for child pornography. First, the bill provides that those who launder proceeds from the business of child pornography may be charged with money laundering. This is obviously common sense, and a provision supported by the Department of Justice.

Then, it clarifies the definition of possession in the child pornography laws so that knowingly accessing child pornography on the Internet with intent to view it constitutes possession, even if the user does not download or otherwise save the images. Some defendants have claimed that they did not intend to possess the images, even when they clearly intended to view them, and some courts have said the reach of the statute is unclear in this regard. This measure removes any ambiguity from the law.

We are grateful to Chris Carney, our colleague from Pennsylvania, who has authored this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we are happy to get the support and concurrence of the gentleman from Virginia on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Carney), the author of the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time and thank the floor manager for his excellent work on all these measures.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud here today to stand with my colleagues to consider a number of child safety bills on the floor. I especially want to thank the House Judiciary Committee and particularly Chairman Conyers and his staff for their help.

As a proud father of five, I know how important the safety and well- being of our children is for our Nation. That is why I have introduced the Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography Act of 2007. This legislation will allow the Department of Justice to more effectively prosecute people who produce child pornography or knowingly access child pornography repeatedly with the intent to view it.

We are trying to dry up the source of demand for child pornographers. This legislation addresses a component of the problem that has been difficult for prosecutors to combat, the repeat consumer. We need to stop child pornography at the source and we need to stifle the demand. This is not about playing ``gotcha'' games with anyone accidentally stumbling across a mistyped Web address. Rather, this is going after those who repeatedly seek out child pornography and those that continue to produce it.

No one disagrees that we need to protect our children and we need to stop pornography at its source, especially child pornography. I want to encourage all my colleagues to support this legislation.