Getting serious for a minute

So, just when I swore off Oprah, she airs an episode that moves me. I forced myself to watch an episode about Internet child predators last night. It was awful and unpleasant, but I stuck with it hoping that I could learn something that would help me prevent something awful from happening to my kids.

What I learned was shocking. Internet child abuse is so prevalent, so widespread, that it's becoming an epidemic. Hundreds of thousands of people (or more) trade images and videos of children doing unspeakable things each day, like baseball cards. People are even trading information about how to abuse children, how to avoid leaving DNA evidence and how to groom victims to remain quiet about it.

They're saying that these people are living/working/breathing beside each one of us. They are our neighbors, co-workers and fellow church goers. And they have access to our kids. (Many abuse their own.) Another shocking fact is that most of these cases are people who habitually abuse neighborhood kids, family members and close friends' children. The number of kids who are snatched from their parents and then abused is a tiny percent of overall victims.

And often, the only way to catch these sick people is through their computers, which can take time and resources.

Luckily, there are people who make it their job to find and prosecute these people. But they are overworked and underfunded, meaning that each day when they leave the office and leave a stack of work to be done, they know that thousands of kids will be abused in the time before they get back into the office the next day.

So, as I watched and learned of these horrible facts and statistics, I learned that there's something very real that I can do to help stop these horrible crimes against children. I need to reach out to my senators and ask them to please pass Senate Bill 1738 - The PROTECT Our Children Act.

This is a non-partisan bill which will:

• Authorize over $320 million over the next five years in desperately needed funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation.
• Mandate that child rescue be a top priority for law enforcement receiving federal funding.
• Allocate funds for high-tech computer software that can track down Internet predators.

We have to act soon. I can't find the deadline, but I believe they said we have until Sept. 25. Writing, calling or emailing a senator could save hundreds of thousands of children from being abused.

Please, please, please help me pass this bill. Learn more.