webslingerZ _________________________________________________________________ POLICE SEARCH INTERNET FOR CHILD SEX ABUSERS __________________________________________________________________________

Copyright © 1996 Nando.net Copyright © 1996 Reuter Information Service

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Aug 31, 1996 00:11 a.m. EDT) - Police across Europe widened their net Friday to track down a pedophile network which is spreading increasingly to the hard-to-detect Internet, while at an international conference, Southeast Asia was cast as a major destination for child sex tourists.

At the World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, which has attracted over 1,000 delegates to Stockholm from 130 countries, campaigners outlined measures to crack down on pedophiles' use of the Internet.

Norway's ombudsman for children, Trond Waage, said to date there was very little action that could be taken to stop the distribution of child pornography on the Internet.

But he said the establishment last week of an international body to monitor child pornography on the net, a task taken on by the Norwegian branch of Save the Children, was firm action against pedophiles using the net.

"This is a kind of a cybercop," Waage told reporters.

"We need some visible cops on the net. If you undertake these kinds of criminal activities someone will monitor you."

Save the Children will try to monitor any child pornography on the Internet and is encouraging other net surfers to pass on information that will be handed to the police.

Want to bet how fast they'll be mail-bombed? Cops on the net are _not_ popular, no matter what they're doing. This fact is especially true when there's no actual harm taking place (unlike, say, spamming) - the harm has _already_ taken place by the time the material is on the Internet. Should we ban films with violence because they _might_ be snuff films? -Allen