FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                        Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Contact: Senator Joseph Foster

(603) 271-2111

COMMITTEE REACHES AGREEMENT ON ONLINE CHILD SAFETY ACT

CONCORD – A committee of House and Senate members reached a tentative agreement today on the Online Child Safety Act -- legislation designed to protect children from online predators and child pornographers.

“I’m pleased we’ve reached agreement. This is tough but smart legislation that will help protect our children,” said Senator Joseph Foster (D-Nashua).

Senate Bill 495 was sponsored by Foster, who worked with Governor John Lynch to modernize and strengthen the state’s laws covering Internet solicitation of children, child pornography and indecent exposure via new technologies such as web cams.

The bill had widespread support in both the House and Senate but each body developed a slightly different version which had to be reconciled in conference committee.

The compromise reached today contains penalties for distributing pornography involving images of children up to age 18 – a change from the Senate version which set the age at 16.  The compromise keeps the age at 16 for other provisions of the bill. It also spells out how illegal images will be handled as part of court proceedings, allowing experts who testify on the images to have access while protecting against any further dissemination.

Senate Bill 495 strengthens the penalties in existing law for enticing a child over the Internet, and provides enhanced penalties for repeat offenders; it overhauls and expands existing child pornography laws to better reflect the victimization that occurs when images of sexually abused children are created and distributed; and it closes a loophole so that sex offenders using web cams can be held accountable.

A tentative agreement also was reached today on House Bill 1640, which creates a new classification system for sex offenders and brings New Hampshire into substantial compliance with the federal Adam Walsh Act.