Editor's note: the following letter is republished with permission of the author, Andrew G. Oosterbaan, Chief, Criminal Division, Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, US. Department of Justice.

• Author: Oosterbaan, Andrew G.
• Position: Response to Mark Hansen, ABA Journal, June 2009

U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division

Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section

1400 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 600

Washington, DC 20530

(202) 514-5780 FAX: (202) 514-1793

July 1, 2009

Edward A. Adams

Editor and Publisher, ABA Journal

321 N. Clark Street, 15th Floor

Chicago, IL 60654

Dear Mr. Adams:

I write in response to Mark Hansen's article "A Reluctant Rebellion," which appeared in the June 2009 issue of the ABA Journal. The Department welcomes a wholesome debate about sentencing policy--but it must be premised on accurate information and characterizations. Although Mr. Hansen's article raises questions about the child pornography sentencing guidelines, the discussion seems premised upon a number of fundamental misunderstandings--one of which is the seriousness of the crime. While Mr. Hansen acknowledges that producers of child pornography--those known to be molesting a child--are committing serious offenses, he and the critics he cites seem far less concerned about the individuals collecting, trading, viewing and possessing these images. Indeed, Mr. Hansen and the critics intentionally highlight offenders who he depicts as "otherwise law abiding" citizens who merely enjoy an odd and even deviant form of sex, but do so in the "privacy of [their] own home." The article seems to suggest that the serious sentences for these offenses are motivated by some puritan ideal.

The collection, trade, and possession of such images are not illegal because of "polite society's disgust and revulsion" with pornography, as Mr. Hansen suggests. The heart of a child pornography case is not Victorian-era discomfort with sex, but the endless sexual exploitation of a child through the ongoing mass circulation of images of their abuse. New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 758 (1982) ("the use of children as subjects of pornographic materials is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child."). In the words of one victim, a child who was raped and bound repeatedly by her father for 2 years starting when she was 10:

"thinking about all those sick perverts viewing my body being ravished and hurt like that makes me feel like I was raped by each and every one of them. I was so young ... It terrifies me that people enjoy viewing things like this ... Each person who has found enjoyment in these sick images needs to be brought to justice ... even though I don't know them, they are hurting me still. They have exploited me in the most...