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Blair calls on Obama to tackle child porn

Former British prime minister Tony Blair is urging US president-elect Barack Obama to launch a crackdown on the millions of pornographic images of children distributed through the Internet system in the US every day.

Blair is believed to have grave concerns that the US’ reluctance to tackle the issue has serious consequences for other countries.

In an unusual move signaling his profound personal desire for the president-elect to take urgent action, it has emerged that Blair recently delivered a lengthy letter to Obama, signed by Britain’s leading children’s charities, calling for action.

Blair, who included a personal covering note, is understood to have been concerned about the issue for some time, having raised the matter with US President George W. Bush when they met at Camp David in 2001.

The Bush administration did not act upon Blair’s suggestions, but now charities including Action for Children, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society hope his successor would be more responsive to the “aspirations of millions who want to see the problem attacked with fresh vigor and determination.”

Until recently, the focus on tackling the distribution of child abuse images had concentrated on the major criminal gangs involved in their production in countries such as Russia and Thailand. But attention is switching to the companies and networks that provide hosting services.

The UK’s Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which monitors the dissemination of child abuse images, says that more illegal images are hosted by internet companies in the US than in any other country.

During the first six months of this year, US companies hosted 70 percent of paid-for and 48 percent of “child porn” sharing sites, representing around 66 percent of all such content known to the IWF.

“If these companies were obliged to know more about their customers, perhaps particularly those of their customers using overseas billing addresses, this alone could have a dramatic impact,” the letter from the children’s charities said.
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