Texas Attorney
General to Host Cyber Safety
Town Hall Meeting
April 13, 2006
 Parents, Teens
Encouraged to Attend Meeting
Texas
Attorney General Greg Abbott and his top Cyber Crimes Unit investigators,
responding to the proliferation of predators seeking children online,
will visit Plano soon for an interactive “cyber safety” town
hall meeting that will arm parents with the tools they need to
keep their children safer on the Internet.
The
Internet Safety Town Hall Meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on
Thursday, April 20, at Plano West Senior High School in the auditorium,
5601 W. Parker Road, Plano, TX 75093.
National
statistics show that one in five children receive unwanted sexual
solicitations online each year. “Web sites that kids frequent
very often are also cruised by child predators,” said Attorney
General Abbott. “My Cyber Crimes Unit investigators have
seen firsthand the dangerous criminals that prey on children and
teenagers in Internet chat rooms, personal web pages and social
networking sites.
"Parents
attending the event can benefit from the experiences of our investigators
by learning how to protect their children from those who seek to
take advantage of them online.”
Town
Hall Meeting - Tips, Video, Q&A
At
the town hall meeting, Attorney General Abbott and his Cyber Crimes
Unit investigators will outline the risks children face online,
the environment teens face online and the way child predators are
using this emerging technology to find victims. The investigators
will also offer information and safety tips about online predators
and help parents decipher chat room lingo.
 “I
especially encourage high school students to participate in our
discussion about safely using social networking Web sites like
MySpace , Friendster and Xanga without
compromising personal information that could unintentionally lead
predators to them and their families,” Attorney
General Abbott added.
The
interactive presentation will provide the audience with an opportunity
to ask questions, and attendees will also receive Attorney General
Abbott’s new “Internet Safety for Parents” video,
which offers advice and tangible safeguards to parents on how to
spot the warning signs that their children may be giving out too
much information to a potential child predator.
The
presentation will include straight talk about the issue of online
solicitation and some discussions will include mature content.
Parents of children of all ages and high school students are strongly
encouraged to attend. Students in middle school should attend at
their parents’ discretion.
Texas
Cyber Crimes & Fugitive Units
The
Texas Attorney General’s office is a national leader in arresting
online child predators. The Cyber Crimes Unit, launched by Attorney
General Abbott in May, 2003, targets online predators by assuming
the identities of young teenagers in Internet chat rooms.
Investigators
have arrested 76 men who used teen chat rooms to arrange meetings
with underage victims, with some predators driving hundreds of
miles to meet children they met online. The office has also obtained
convictions against 39 men on child pornography charges.
 Cracking
down on sexual predators is a top priority of Attorney General
Abbott’s administration. The Cyber Crimes Unit’s hunt
for online child sex predators has resulted in arrests of men from
17 Texas counties and Indonesia.
In
addition to the Cyber Crimes Unit, Attorney General Abbott also
formed the Fugitive Unit to locate convicted child sex offenders
who have violated the terms of their parole and could be stalking
children. The Fugitive Unit has arrested 275 of these parolees,
as well as 48 unregistered sex offenders and another 23 men and
women in other operations.
For
more information, contact the Texas Attorney General’s office
at 1 (800) 252-8011 or visit the Attorney
General’s web site.
|
