Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: You’re listening to “FBI, This Week.” The FBI is identifying a rapid growth of cyber crimes against children. Just about every day, pedophiles lure children away from their families on the Internet. Special Agent Paula Barrows is part of the Bureau’s Innocent Images National Initiative.

Ms. Barrows: “Our overall mission is really to protect children.”

Ms. Halpern: Barrows is seeing increases in the production of porn and in the number of pedophiles who look at the images.

Ms. Barrows: “There is a person behind each picture, and every time that picture is redistributed by these offenders they’re being re-victimized.”

Ms. Halpern: More personnel resources are invested in protecting children from online predators than any other program in the Bureau’s Cyber Division.

Ms. Barrows: “We’ve become very much busy, busy working on the search warrants and the actual online cases.”

Ms. Halpern: If Internet safety is compromised…

Ms. Barrows: “I would suggest calling the local FBI office, and also you can check the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.”

Ms. Halpern: I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau, and that’s what’s happening at the “FBI, This Week.”