Emotional Testimony From Online Predator Victim

Alicia Kozakiewicz Was a Victim of an Internet Sex Crime Six years ago, Alicia Kozakiewicz says she was just a normal 13-year-old girl. That all changed on New Year's Day 2002. Today, she recounted for Congress how an online sexual predator befriended her in an Internet chat room, then kidnapped her, drove her across state lines and locked her in a cage in his basement, where he beat her, tortured her and raped her.

"I cry inside. I mourn for that child that was me. The child that was stolen from me.  Make no mistake that child was murdered. I know now that some parts of me are forever there. The child that I was is still chained in that room, still suffering. "The boogey man is real. And he lives on the Net. He lived in my computer and he lives in yours," she said, looking at the lawmakers. "While you are sitting here, he is at home with your
children.

Kozakiewicz was rescued by FBI agents. She is now a 19-year-old college sophomore. Scott Tyree of Herndon, Va., was convicted of the crime and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Not only did he beat, torture and rape Kozakiewicz, he also posted online pictures of her taken while she
was locked in his basement.Committee members were urged by fellow lawmakers to take legislative action against online sex
crimes.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., cited a "dearth of federal resources devoted to investigating and prosecuting child exploitation and crimes.
She cited Flint Waters of the Wyoming Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, telling the committee, "right now there are nearly 500,000 identified individuals in the United States trafficking child pornography on the Internet. Law enforcement knows who they are and where they are.

What shocked me the most and what compelled me to get involved in this issue is that due to a lack of resources, law enforcement is investigating less than two percent of these known 500,000 individuals. "Sometimes the problems we face as a Congress are extremely complex and other times the
solutions are simple and right in front of our eyes," she said. "There is no mystery about what we need to do now to save thousands of children from abuse and exploitation.

Wasserman Schultz has introduced the Protect Our Children Act of 2007.
"The Internet has unfortunately become an easy avenue for predators to find unsuspecting victims," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. "That is why I have introduced legislation, the Sex Offender Internet Prohibition Act of 2007, which imposes mandatory penalties, five to 10 years in prison, for individuals who are required to register as sex offenders and knowingly
access a Web site with the intent to communicate with an unsuspecting child.

This bill sends a clear message to sex offenders that if they use these Internet sites to contact children, they will go to jail."... The committee also heard testimony from federal officials, as well as experts in the fight against
online sex crimes.

The FBI estimates that there may be as many as 50,000 child predators prowling the Internet."There can be no tolerance and no retreat in our efforts to combat this scourge. We cannot and will not rest until these predators are shut down and locked up," said Michael Mason, executive
assistant director of the FBI's Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch.

Michelle Collins of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has a CyberTipline to apprehend those who use the Internet to victimize children, urged the committee to "take a serious look at the dangers threatening our children today and to move decisively to
provide law enforcement with the toolsit needs to identify and prosecute those who target our children.

Waters cautioned lawmakers that a lack of resources is harming efforts to address this problem. "We are overwhelmed, we are underfunded and we don't have the resources we need to save these children," said Waters. "The price we pay for coming up short will be measured in children lost.

"Predators use the Internet to infiltrate social networking sites to arrange meetings with minors, where they use brute force to commit sexual offenses or worse," said Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.. "We cannot allow the Internet to be a playground where our children are one mouse-click away from sexual predators.

However, it was Kozakiewicz's testimony that carried the most weight. "Support the children," she pleaded to the committee. "Save us from the pedophiles, the pornographers, the monsters.

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