Letter to Dear President & CEO John Clark - As Thousands of Students Nationwide Are Targeted by New & Advanced Online & Social Media Predatory Blackmailing Schemes, Including Four Recently Impacted Rochester-Finger Lakes School Districts, Senator Calls on National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to Immediately Mobilize All Available Resources to Impacted Rochester Districts; Announces Push for New Legislation Designating Online Predator Blackmailing as Federal Crime

Letter

Dear President & CEO Clark,

Over the past 60 day period school districts across the Rochester and Finger Lakes region of New York State have become aware that a new online extortion scheme, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has now classified as the "fastest growing online threat against children," has been targeting or victimizing students throughout these communities. The fact that this crime is new, on the rise, and relatively unknown to would-be victims requires an "all-hands-on-deck" response from federal agencies in order to safeguard kids from cybercriminals that are perpetrating this online extortion scheme. Fortunately, in December I was pleased to help pass into law the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) which specifically recognize this new online extortion scheme as a federally recognized threat targeting children. Moreover, these new laws codify Congress's intent that the federal resources provided to the National Center on Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) be used to engage with schools, local educational agencies, law enforcement agencies, local governments, and the general public to develop and disseminate programs and information in order to prevent and safeguard children from this new and growing threat. As you conduct this work, I request you prioritize engaging with the schools and stakeholders in the Rochester Finger Lakes region as your first focus.

To date students at four schools districts -- Penn Yan, Canandaigua, Wayne Central, and Hilton -- have been preyed upon my these online extortion perpetrators who create fraudulent social media identities to befriend students and obtain compromising or private information or images from the victims which the perpetrator then uses to blackmail the victims by threatening to publicly post the victim's private information. Last year the FBI reported that in one month alone between July and August, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, received 13,000 complaints from victims of these attacks. In many of those cases the perpetrator demanded the victims pay them money as ransom or they would post the personal information publicly on social media or release it to the victim's contacts.

By exploiting online social media platforms these cyber extortionists can operate far outside of local jurisdictions making it difficult for local or even federal law enforcement to identify and apprehend them. This makes it even more incumbent for the NCMEC to arm local educators with new tools and information and educate would-be victims in the Rochester Finger Lakes region to help prevent children from falling victims to these crimes in the first place.

I appreciate your attention to my request.

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