I am writing this to bring awareness to House Bill 2424 regarding the exploitation of minors.

This is a bill that is trying to redefine the felony crime of possession of depictions of child pornography to include deliberately viewing images of child sexual abuse on the Internet. It also would reset the unit of prosecution in child pornography cases back to the nationally recognized per-image standard.

This bill also would protect noncommissioned law enforcement personnel from prosecution when viewing these depictions during investigations.

Boys and girls of all ages suffer negative effects when exploited through pornography.

Child exploitation is a global problem, a multi-billion dollar industry and one of the fastest-growing online businesses. Child pornography is a permanent record of a child's sexual abuse and the distribution of the images victimizes that sexually abused child again each time the image is viewed.

I want to help in getting this bill passed. I have a 4-year-old son and would hate if anything like this ever happened to him. We need to protect all of our children from this type of abuse ever happening.

Please contact legislators today. Tell them our children need their support on this bill. The legislative hotline is 800-562-6000, or visit www.leg.wa.gov.



Kimberly Burns grew up in Port Angeles, graduated from Peninsula College in 2009 and now studies at the University of Washington.