A Message from District Attorney Gregory D. Totten

Why you need to know what your child does on the Internet

Much like the real world, the World Wide Web can be an inviting but dangerous place for children. Young people with unmonitored access to the Internet can be exposed to a wide variety of risks, some of them even life-threatening. Every responsible parent knows the importance of exercising caution and oversight when it comes to where and with whom our children are allowed to play, what they watch on TV, and how they interact with strangers. Parents should be just as vigilant in monitoring their children's Internet activities.

The World Wide Web offers many benefits to adults and children, including valuable educational resources and communication tools that make it easier to keep in touch with family and friends. But the Internet also offers children easy access to a variety of objectionable and even dangerous material - including pornography, hate propaganda, and violent images.

Children can and regularly do receive unsolicited e-mail communications from Internet predators who seek to harm children they meet online. Pedophiles, for example, can operate with complete anonymity on the Internet, which provides them an endless supply of potential victims - our children. But parents and law enforcement are not powerless to stop Internet predators. We must work together to protect our children by educating them about the dangers posed by the Internet, and by monitoring and restricting our childrens' online activities.

The Ventura County District Attorney's Office is committed to protecting our children from becoming victims of online crime or being enticed into various illegal Internet activities. The goals of the Protecting Our Children Web site initiative are simple. We want to reduce the number of children exploited and abducted by Internet predators; we hope to increase the reporting of such criminal activity; and we strive to provide parents, guardians, and other responsible adults with resources to make our children's online experiences safe, educational, and fun.

GREGORY D. TOTTEN
District Attorney

About the Protecting Our Children Program

Ventura County District Attorney Gregory D. Totten implemented the Protecting Our Children program to help parents and other concerned adults safeguard the Internet activities of young people. Protecting Our Children gives parents and other adults in charge of supervising children, the tools they need to protect children from online predators and help prevent children from being lured into various Internet crime.

By understanding how to avoid the dangers of the Internet and how to take control of the family computer, parents can successfully keep criminal predators out of their homes and out of their children's lives. They can also learn how to prevent their children from using the Internet to break the law.

Please take time to view all of the sections on the Protecting Our Children Web site. You can learn "How Bad is the Problem", "What Can I Do?", what "Parental Controls" are available, your children's rights under the "Children's Online Privacy Act", how to access statewide and national databases pursuant to "Megan's Law", how to help your children take the "Honest Surfer Pledge", view "Links" to other resources, and how you can purchase the "ComputerCOP" software.

ComputerCOP Software

ComputerCOP software provides a quick, easy way for parents to determine what their children are doing while on the computer and to assess their children's exposure to objectionable or even dangerous material. By inserting the mini-CD, ComputerCOP instantly scans for potentially objectionable images and text - drawing on its database of nearly 1,000 red-flagged words and phrases associated with pornography, drugs, violence, hate crimes, and gambling. ComputerCOP even scans files that have been deleted.

For more information about ComputerCOP, please click here.