Attorneys general warn parents to stay connected
By JOHN MULLER Special to the Daily Press
DOWNTOWN — A gathering of Attorneys General from across the country descended on Santa Monica this week to discuss the legal issues surrounding the war on terrorism, Internet file sharing and cyber-crime during a four-day meeting at the Miramar Hotel that concluded Friday.
Less than a third of the NAAG attended Friday morning’s final program on how to combat cybercrime and protect youth from Internet predators. According to a May survey by Chief Security Officer magazine, online criminal attacks on corporate and government networks cost businesses $666 million in 2003. More than 40 percent of the 500 executives polled said hackers had become the greatest cybersecurity threat to their networks.
The National Association of Attorneys General works “to facilitate interaction among Attorneys General as peers” and “to facilitate the enhanced performance of Attorneys General and their staffs,” according to its mission statement. It includes the chief legal officers from each of the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories of Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer of California is the current president of the Association.
The attorneys participated in a panel on national security, terrorism and individual rights, and discussed the issues of freedom of speech and intellectual property on the Internet over the course of the first three days of the conference. The NAAG also held committee meetings to discuss methods of dealing with environmental policies, health care, violence against women, prescription drug abuse and the tobacco industry.
On Friday, Thomas K. Clancy, the director of the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law, presented his organization’s National Programs Initiative. The Center, which seeks to ensure equality, equity and fairness in law, has been in a partnership with the NAAG since 2001, and has funded programs to train prosecutors for Internet crimes like identification theft, credit card theft and Internet auction theft.
“We need to work together to help investigate sophisticated criminal activity,” Clancy said. “What we’re trying to do is build a network of people, an organization, to help combat computer-related crime and give the states a role in the area.”
He said that a survey returned by 30 attorneys general had showed that only a “small number” of states have a specific unit dedicated to fighting cybercrime. Clancy said that the attorneys general requested more training in forensics, updated legislation, increased cooperation with other offices and the high-tech industry, and a campaign to increase public awareness.
The non-profit organization i-SAFE also made its services available Friday with its Operation Shield. I-SAFE teaches K-12 students to surf the Internet safely and responsibly through classes integrated into school curriculums, according to Chief Operations Officer Dennis Shaw.
Shaw stressed that the Internet has no boundaries and that parents have become increasingly disconnected from their children’s Internet activities.
“They take risks, unreasonable risks,” Shaw said. “They’re online to have fun, and they think that everybody else is online to have fun as well. And that creates a problem. It makes our kids vulnerable to these people.”
Shaw compared young and untrained Internet surfers to youth cruising the highway without driving lessons or seat belts. Even worse than a highway, he said, the Internet is filled with people actively seeking to do harm.
“We think the solution is education,” Shaw said. “We’ve got to empower our kids to think responsibly... There are all different kinds of danger available away from filtering and blocking. We support those, but what we find is that because our kids are so technologically savvy today, [those methods] really aren’t effective.”
According to NAAG’s president-elect, William H. Sorrell, the presentations were aimed at promoting awareness and coop-eration between the organizations and the different attorneys general.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 19, 2004. Read the original PDF.