Hold the bacon

Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on earth can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances with no more than five intermediaries.

Let’s put this theory to the test by examining HR 5319 which is a bill introduced to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.

This immediately brings to mind MySpace which some consider the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends and discovering popular culture. MySpace, a $580 million acquisition, is a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc. Fox is part of “The News Corporation”.

Rupert Murdoch has grown “The News Corporation” into one of the largest and most influential media groups in the world. The company owns some of the largest and most popular brands in many areas of the media industry including: 20th Century Fox, Fox Television Studios, DIRECTV, Harper Collins Publishers, Festival Records and the New York Post.
“I’m a catalyst for change … You can’t be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place.” Rupert Murdoch

One of Fox’s television programs is America’s Most Wanted, AMW, which is hosted by John Walsh. His hard work and determination helped to pass the Missing Children’s Assistance Act of 1984 which created National Center for Missing and Exploited Children NCMEC which now serves as the national clearinghouse for information on missing children and the prevention of child victimization.

On June 21, 2006, the NCMEC praised MySpace’s for its new enhanced safety features.
“We know that children can benefit greatly from being online,” said Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). “We commend MySpace for adding new safety and security features that will help provide protection to their youngest members, so they can have a safer online experience.”

By a vote of 410 to 15, the US House of Representatives passed yesterday H.R. 5319 “Deleting Online Predators Act” (DOPA), which amends the Communications Act of 1934 to require schools and libraries receiving federal money to protect minors from commercial social networking websites. Social networking sites such as MySpace.com may soon be inaccessible to minors from libraries and schools receiving federal funding.

The NCMEC receive approximately $35 million annually in federal funding, in part to protect children from being exploited.

When a child goes missing

Why does it take so long to post a missing child in the various missing child clearinghouses yet the poster can be removed within minutes if the outcome is tragic? If it is out of respect for the families, why not show more respect by posting the child’s information quicker?

Why are the major news outlets covering Destiny Norton's death but had little interest in her disappearance or search?

How many reported missing children cases have actually been resolved by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children ® (NCMEC) since 1984?

What are the resolutions of those cases? Recovered unharmed/harmed? Not recovered? Murdered?

How do they compare statistically with all missing children reported during the same timeframe but not reported to NCMEC?

Why does the NCMEC refer to statistics, concerning murdered children, from the Office of the Attorney General of Washington State which was a study conducted in 1997? Are these statistics still relevant today?

View their site and are they basing their conclusions on studies that are four years old?

“…How many missing children are there?

Answer: The problem of missing children is complex and multifaceted. There are different types of missing children including family abductions; endangered runaways; nonfamily abductions; and lost, injured, or otherwise missing children. The best national estimates for the number of missing children are from incidence studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

To date two such studies have been completed. The first National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART-1) was released in 1990, and the second, known as NISMART-2, was released in October 2002. …”


In the year 2006, with all the technology available and all their technology partners, shouldn’t they have more current information? They receive approximately $40 million annually to fulfill their National Mandate and Mission. They tout the number of tips, calls etc and their 94% recovery rate so they must have some basis for the numbers.

“…The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s® (NCMEC) mission is to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation; help find missing children; and assist victims of child abduction and sexual exploitation, their families, and the professionals who serve them.
NCMEC was established in 1984 as a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization to provide services nationwide for families and professionals in the prevention of abducted, endangered, and sexually exploited children. Pursuant to its mission and its congressional mandates (see 42 U.S.C. §§ 5771 et seq.; 42 U.S.C. § 11606; 22 C.F.R. § 94.6), NCMEC ..”

The National Child Search Assistance Act of 1990 requires each federal, state, and local law-enforcement agency to enter information about missing children younger than the age of 18 into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. The Act also establishes state reporting requirements.

Can statistics not be extracted from the NCIC database?

America's Most Wanted coverage

On America’s Most Wanted television show Saturday night, there was approximately a five second mention of the disappearance of Destiny Norton. They displayed a photo with an announcer doing a voice over.

By all accounts, her story has been mostly a regional story with little, if any, national coverage. Since her pictures and story have been on the internet for over a week, will a short blurb on AMW help that much?

It is somewhat ironic with the vote on H.R. 4472, the ‘‘Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006’’ and the upcoming 25th anniversary of his death, you might have thought there would have been more coverage of her disappearance.

Food for thought

When designing sales territories, an analogy of approaching the territory like a pie has often been suggested. In other words, do you believe there are only a certain finite number of slices in the pie, so you need to protect your slice (share), or is the pie so large collectively you could never eat the entire pie. The size of the slice doesn’t matter.

I posted this on “When a child goes missing” concerning the number of reported missing children. The NCMEC receives approximately $40,000,000 annually from the Department of Justice and donations.

A quick search of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) will provide the following information for the period 07-01-06 thru 07-15-06.

Endangered missing 2
Endangered Runaway 10
Family abductions 0
Hague cases 0
Lost, Injured, missing 0
Missing 0
Non Family abductions 1
Unidentified 0
Unknown 0

There are according to Department of Justice statistics, over 800,000 reported missing children every year. That would be @67,000 per month. If the cases reported to NCMEC have been resolved, may be they should add a category. There is a major discrepancy between @67,000 per month historically reported missing and so far this month, 13 missing children, all between the ages of 14-18 years old?

Based on these statistics, how should the funding pie be sliced? Would the DOJ funding be better distributed locally or statewide or charities/organizations directly involved with finding missing children? It appears that is where the cases are being resolved. Do statistics exist to indicate otherwise?

Ad content FTC or DOJ?

If you look up Advertising in Webster’s you will find this definition:

Main Entry: ad·ver·tise

1 : to make something known to : NOTIFY
2 a : to make publicly and generally known b : to announce publicly especially by a printed notice or a broadcast c : to call public attention to especially by emphasizing desirable qualities so as to arouse a desire to buy or patronize : PROMOTE
intransitive verb : to issue or sponsor advertising
- ad·ver·tis·er noun

According to the FTC,…."You don't need a crystal ball to know that the FTC will continue to stop unfair and deceptive trade practices," said J. Howard Beales III, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "We want consumers to know that when companies make a promise in an ad, they need to deliver."

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Federal Trade Commission working around the domain issue, found these to be “ads” instead and therefore guilty of deceptive advertising practices through misleading placement of the text in their “ads”? They are selling porn and these are enticements to visit the site for purchases. Aren’t these porn sites trying to sell something? Even if the site is an affiliate program, technically they may earn money for your visit.


Are you being promised missing child information or teen porn?

Enough is Enough

Here are some useful tips as promised from Chris McElroy, the founder of Kidsearch Network.org whose missing child blog post was copied and put into a the source code of a teen porn site.. (see post below).

Visit the forum at Affiliate Website Design for some “teaching without preaching”.

Lip Service?

MySpace advertising policy is allegedly going to be altered to target appropriate age groups. Does that mean they haven’t been properly targeted?

For instance, ads for mature online dating sites will not be presented to minors. This would be exemplary except their newly appointed security czar suggests there are no current age verification systems available.

How can you target age appropriate ads if you can't verify the age you are targeting? Is it just lip service or is it talking out of both sides of your mouth or the best they can do? Decide for yourself, read about MySpace’s new enhanced safety features.

Summer School?

Are the 5 ISP’s being asked to keep a year of historical data on all subscribers regardless of whether child porn is involved or not? If all data is warehoused can they not scan IM, social network sites, photo sites etc, or is it just email as initially proposed? AOL suggests it will be very difficult to manage the data and very costly.

Internet providers divided on anti-porn plan
By Kurt Eichenwald The New York Times
Published: June 28, 2006

In hearings before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this was part of the testimony given by AOL.

"Warehousing of data requires the allocation of enormous resources," John Ryan, the chief counsel of compliance and investigations at the AOL unit of Time Warner, said.

"Creating such a voluminous database will actually frustrate law enforcement's goal of locating and identifying the suspects they are pursuing," Ryan said.

Ryan said an analysis by his company showed that storing and maintaining such data for a year would cost AOL about $44 million

Glance at this PDF and you will see 2005 was not to bad of a year for AOL.


Is cost really an issue? Maybe a redirection of some of the current taxes, surcharges and fee's could provide the funding?

David and Goliath

NY Times article, By JOSHUA BROCKMAN, Published: April 5, 2006
Child Sex as Internet Fare, Through Eyes of a Victim

The Courier-Journal,By James R. Carroll, Published: April 5, 2006
Congress hears Web sex victim
Whitfield leads inquiry into sexual exploitation

These articles suggest the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet, according to witnesses testifying before congress, is a $20 billion industry. Five of the US’s biggest Internet companies have pledged a total of $1,000,000 to fight child porn.

It reminds me of David and Goliath but not sure the outcome will be the same.

Animal Farm

Did the same ISP’s committed to stopping the abuse, financially profit indirectly from the trafficking of these images?

It seems to be analogous to closing the barn door after the animals got out. Better late then never.

Read more

Crime & Punishment

These are some statistics from the FBI Crime UCR. Wouldn’t missing children (or even kidnapping in general) be considered a violent crime?

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of more than 17,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies voluntarily reporting data on crimes brought to their attention. During 2004, law enforcement agencies active in the UCR Program represented 94.2 percent of the total population.

Crime in the United States
by Volume and Rate per 100,000 Inhabitants, 1985 - 2004

Violent crime-
Murder and non-negligent manslaughter
Forcible rape
Robbery Robbery rate
Aggravated assault
Property crime
Burglary
Larceny-theft
Motor vehicle theft

View table

Policies and procedures

How prepared is your community should a child go missing? Most of us mistakenly believe procedures and policies are in place.

In an article originally published Aug. 3, 2005 by JASON NARK, Courier-Post Staff CAMDEN he writes about three boys who died tragically in the trunk of an abandoned car.

Among the questions that arose after they were found were did the families of three Cramer Hill boys put police at a disadvantage by waiting more than three hours to report their disappearance? Was it solely the responsibility of law enforcement to look in the trunk of the vehicle?

In an article today, Thursday, June 22, 2006 by RENEE WINKLER, Courier-Post Staff CAMDEN

“.. Elba N. Cruz, the mother of Anibal Cruz, has filed suit against Camden City and County, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and even Cherry Hill Township, which provided a K-9 unit to help in the search for the boys.

It was in Cruz's Bergen Avenue yard the car was parked. She reportedly told police her son had a habit of pulling down the back seat of the Toyota Camry and crawling into the trunk while it was being driven. No one checked the trunk of the car until it was too late…”


To view pdf

Summer Solstice

Long day or bad day....


MySpace Tightens Age Restrictions
Effort To Curb Adult Predators Who Seek To Contact Teens

Bloggers Eye Topless Teacher
Tamara Hoover Is Fired When Topless Photos Of Her Show Up Online

Local Sheriff's Deputy Fired Over MySpace Profile

Hide and seek

Does this provide true protection for your children or is it an attempt to sell services to an otherwise untapped market? Will the next marketing concept be to ensure parents purchase a camera phone so the child can snap and send a photo of the abductor as well?

These are a couple services from Sprint and Verizon available for parents to monitor their children’s location via a wireless phone. It is important to note the phones need to be turned on, within specific coverage areas and in the child’s possession to be of value.How realistic is it to expect the child to still have the phone should they be abducted? If they were lost, and not missing, wouldn’t they just call their parents?

What is Sprint Family Locator?

Sprint Family Locator is an inexpensive way for families on the go to stay in constant touch. Mom, Dad or a trusted caregiver can locate loved ones without disturbing their activities, receive notification when a child enters or leaves a designated area, and quickly and easily send text messages to one or more family members.

What is Chaperone?

Chaperone provides a convenient and valuable service to help you determine the location of your child’s mobile phone from the Internet or from your mobile phone. When your children carry their Verizon Wireless phones with them while on the go, you can use the Chaperone Web Site or the Chaperone Get It Now® application to view their location information. Your child's location information will be displayed as a nearby address and on a detailed map.

An interesting article discusses some of the pros and cons of these offerings.

The Family that plays together....

Interesting way to educate families on the dangers of the internet.

“…..Qwest Communications and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) are working together to inform families about the dangers our youth face while using the Internet.

Recognizing the lack of parental awareness and the increasing risks to children, Qwest Communications has partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to develop a comprehensive campaign to provide parents and guardians with the necessary resources to establish safer online practices for their families…”

If you attempt to learn more about available resources such as an Internet Glossary, you are redirected to the NetLingo site. At the bottom of the screen is a list of NetLingo Partners.





Credit Card Application? Prepaid Phone? Poker? Casinos? Gambling?

Two cents worth

This is an interesting article involving a murdered child in Indiana which discusses the issue of when to issue an Amber Alert.

Why are there 116 Amber Alert systems if there are only fifty states?

"...Each of the 116 Amber Alert systems throughout the country has its own rules for issuing notices, said Robert Hoever, director of special operations at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children..."

Why wouldn’t you issue an Amber Alert if family abductions represent the second largest category of missing children?

The Indiana system launched in 2002, does not typically allow alerts in child custody cases.

Weekend at Bernie’s…… (part III)

Perhaps MySpace.com should merge with one of the travel sites or luggage companies. New meaning to the term exchange student.

Training the trainer?

Regarding the possible issue of training for law enforcement, in one of the NCMEC pdf’s concerning Partnering with NCMEC, they provided some historical information. On their fast facts page, they state that “ …from April 1984 through December 2003, …NCMEC has trained more than 184,000 law-enforcement professionals…”

This would indicate on average they trained @ 20,444 individuals per year. The Fiscal year 2005 training budget, from their annual report for last year, was $4,336,861 so at least for FY 2005 it would average @$212 per individual. If you look at their course offerings which are fairly extensive, and the fact they pay expenses to attend the courses, possibly allocation of training expense is an issue as it represents only 11% of the total program expenses.




















These are the costs incurred to attend training, and what is provided?











*Continental breakfast and buffet lunches will be provided at all training sessions in NCMEC facilities in Alexandria, VA, and Rochester, NY.


This would appear based on the available training schedules to be only a fraction of the educational services they provide as the courses don't include LOCATER training etc.

NCMEC Training

Nip it..Nip it..Nip it...

While searching the various Missing Children blogs,there is an interesting post concerning a La Salle Il. police chief at the Kids Search Network blog .

Should you visit the NCMEC website there are several tools available for law enforcement, including this pdf manual, so it is unclear where the disconnect lies. Most every site dealing with missing children advises parents to immediately contact 911 or local law enforcement.

Missing and Abducted Children: A Law-Enforcement Guide to Case Investigation and Program Management

Authored by a team of 38 professionals from local, state, and federal agencies, this guide outlines a standard of practice for law-enforcement officers handling missing-child cases whether runaways, thrownaways, family/nonfamily abductions, or when the circumstances of the disappearance are unknown. It describes — step-by-step with definitive checklists — the investigative process required for each of these types of cases and offers a wealth of resources to assist an investigator. 224 pp.

Download this publication (PDF)English

$64k question not a $32,565,881 one

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a federally funded 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. In the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2005 NCMEC's received $32,565,881 to support their mission which "...is to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation; help find missing children; and assist victims of child abduction and sexual exploitation, their families, and the professionals who serve them...".

According to their site information, since its establishment in 1984, NCMEC has assisted law enforcement with more than 117,100 missing child cases, resulting in the recovery of more than 99,500 children.

Their 2005 Annual Report indicates, "...NCMEC has played a key role in raising our nation’s recovery rate of missing children from 62 percent in 1990 to more than 96 percent today..."

Here is what I don't understand



However, the questions that I have are:

1) What happened to all the other children? They were established in 1984. If @880k children go missing that are reported each year (an estimated 500,000 more are not reported) wouldn’t that mean 17,600,000 give or take a few million have gone missing since 1984. They have recovered 99,500 children which is certainly admirable.

2) What is the recovery success ratio of 96% based on? Is it only based on non family abductions or do they include those classified as throwaways, runaways, family abductions, voluntarily missing, lost or injured?

3) What is the actual number of children recovered and what was the criteria used to classify them?