More funds sought to fight child porn

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Parents of child victims of sexual predators are asking Congress for more funds to fight the alarming problem of child pornography.

The Surviving Parents Coalition, in urging more funds in a Washington news conference, said new research indicated that thousands of child pornography leads are not investigated.

The coalition, formed last year, is asking the U.S. Senate to join the U.S. House of Representatives in a bill to more than double current funding for more forensic labs, task forces and federal agents to fight child porn. Costing an estimated $8 billion over eight years, the proposal passed the House on a 415-2 vote in November.

Erin Runnion, a coalition member whose 5-year-old daughter was kidnapped, sexually abused and killed in 2002, said the lack of proper funding means the federal government investigates less than 2 percent of known child pornographers.

"We give a lot of lip service to protecting children but we don't fund it," she told USA Today.

Flint Waters, a coalition member who heads Wyoming's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said he traced child pornography to more than 570.000 computers nationwide since 2005.