President Bush signed a bill into law Wednesday in the Rose Garden of the White House. The bill features a wide variety of child safety and protection measures.
One of the new law’s most heralded aspects is the Amber Alert system, a network by which police can instantaneously alert the public of a child’s kidnapping via radio, television and the Internet.
The Amber Alert system began in several states, taking its name from 9-year-old Amber Hagerman of Arlington, Texas, who was kidnapped and murdered in 1996. The Hagerman family was on-hand for the finalization of the bill. Also at the ceremony was Elizabeth Smart, a Salt Lake City teenager rescued in March 2003 after being kidnapped from her home.
“It is important to expand the Amber Alert systems so police and sheriffs’ departments gain thousands or even millions of allies in the search for missing children. Every person who would think of abducting a child can know that a wide net will be cast,” Bush said.
Bush said police and sheriffs’ departments need the Amber Alert system to help alert the public of a kidnapping and garnish case-breaking tips for the investigating parties.
Jacqueline Maris and Tamara Brooks, two teenagers kidnapped and rescued 12 hours later because of California’s basic Amber Alert system, were present for the signing.
“This is exactly what happened last summer in California, when several drivers heard an Amber Alert over the radio and soon passed a vehicle meeting the description they heard. Within hours, the two teenage girls were rescued, their abductor cornered by police,” Bush said.
Bush thanked Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, for his work to make sure the bill, officially signed into law as the Protect Act of 2003, was comprehensive in its protective measures for children.
Many Republican Congressman clamored for stricter penalties for child pornographers, molesters and kidnappers to be included in the child protection legislation. The Protect Act fulfills those requests and outlaws even computer-generated pornographic images of minors.
“Obscene images of children, no matter how they are made, incite abuse, raise the dangers to children and will not be tolerated in America,” Bush said. “Judges will now have the authority to require longer supervision of sex offenders who are released from prison. And certain repeat sex offenders in our society will now face life behind bars, so they can never do harm again.”
Chris Tuttle, press secretary for Rep. Mark Green, R-Wisconsin, said Green was pleased to see his “two strikes, you’re out” stipulation included in the Protect Act.
As a member of the Wisconsin State Legislature in 1998, Green introduced the two strikes provision to ensure sex offenders convicted of repeat offenses be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of life.
Green, who was also on hand Wednesday in the Rose Garden, said in a release that Bush’s signing of the Protect Act would be a defining moment because it would send a clear message to sex offenders who prey on children. Green said on a personal note that he was pleased to see the United States adopt a law he had been working to pass for the last six years.
Tuttle said that Green introduced the two strikes idea as an independent bill several times since he joined the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999, but while the bill had passed through the Assembly it had never passed the Senate.
