Stranger Danger: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) had a big media hit the other day. On Good Morning America, NCMEC pushed to retire the slogan, ‘stranger danger.’ Those words have drilled fear and moral panic deep into millions of people, especially parents and children. The phrase has also drawn criticism over the years from various quarters. NCMEC’s messaging had already changed so there’s nothing new but ABC News obliged with fawning coverage – right as a new Congressional bill with more funding for NCMEC is introduced (the Improving Support for Missing and Exploited Children Act of 2017).
Dr. Marty Klein was not fooled by the Good Morning America story, have a look at his essay which is linked below. In short, legitimate concern about child sex abuse went haywire. Klein is well versed in these matters, his piece is a great overview of NCMEC’s work.
NCMEC’s major funding source is the federal government which annually provides millions of dollars; it has a close relationship with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Despite wielding significant power as a quasi-governmental operation, NCMEC is set up as a private entity and therefore not subject to government accountability measures such as the freedom of information act and salary caps. In addition the group is not limited by constitutional protections for due process and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. A 2010 St. Petersburg Press article, below, has much more on why those controls are needed. Has anything changed? The 2015 IRS Form 990 indicates 15 employees are compensated in excess of $150,000 annually; the CEO makes close to $500,000 yearly. Financials are online here. Patty Wetterling and John Walsh are on the board of directors, according to recent filings. Bill Dobbs, The Dobbs Wire
Sexual Intelligence Blog | Apr. 1, 2017
Nation Center for Missing and Exploited Children Hypocrisy on “Stranger Danger”
by Dr. Marty Klein
Excerpts: For decades, NCMEC has told parents to fear “stranger danger,” and instructed them to transmit this fear to their kids. They even got the phrase institutionalized in elementary schools. NCMEC has been one of the single biggest drivers of parents’ fear in our lifetime. By conflating “missing” and “exploited,” they have panicked Americans into thinking the average child is “at risk” of being kidnapped. Yesterday on TV, they encouraged parents to ignore what they used to say, and to use different, more sophisticated words. But their fundamental message—that parents should be scared, that predators lurk everywhere—remains the same. In revoking their position on “stranger danger,” NCMEC still doesn’t tell the key truth—that the rate of kids being molested is NOT increasing (so says the FBI). MORE:
http://www.martyklein.com/ncmec-hypocrisy-stranger-danger/
ABC News – Good Morning America | Mar. 31, 2017
Experts warn against teaching the phrase ‘stranger danger’
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is now encouraging parents to steer away from using the phrase “stranger danger,” a slogan that has been taught for decades to emphasize to children the potential threat posed by strangers.
Although the group moved away from “stranger danger” years ago, the phrase is so pervasive that many parents still teach it. The group renewed their call to end its use on “Good Morning America” today. “It’s so easy, it rhymes,” Callahan Walsh, a child advocate at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told ABC News. “It’s just this one phrase, blanket statement, but it really doesn’t fit all scenarios and that’s why we want to re-think stranger danger.” MORE:
St. Petersburg Times | Jan. 25, 2010
Quasi-governmental missing kids center enjoys key exemptions from federal rules
By Susan Taylor Martin
Excerpts: In many ways, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a quasi-government agency. Mandated by Congress, the center has access to the FBI’s missing, wanted and unidentified persons files. It operates tip lines for the Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It gets more than half of its money from U.S. taxpayers.
Yet the Virginia-based center, with regional offices in Florida and three other states, is a private nonprofit organization exempt from federal salary caps. And that has enabled the center’s president, Ernie Allen, to command a salary among the highest in the nonprofit world.
Unlike the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, the center is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. But it should be subject to it because of its quasi-governmental status, contends a medical researcher who was labeled an “abductor” on the center’s Web site in 2005, after he left the United States with his daughter.
Emmanuel Lazaridis, now living in Greece with the child, sued the center last year after it declined to turn over records he requested. There is a Michigan arrest warrant for Lazaridis for custodial interference, but he has never been convicted and was cleared by a Greek court.
The center is “intimately entwined with agencies of the executive branch of government,” the suit says. “Because even their simplest statements about a person are accorded substantial weight, any abuse of their vaunted position can cause to the plaintiffs irreparable harm.” MORE:
Most of these “child protection do-gooders” are driven by something other than facts. If facts were made known they would find that their “gravy train” income would come to an end. It’s criminal that they would use paranoia driven fear to destroy the lives of those with failures in their lives and their families…including their children. Let’s hope that with enough effort and stamina, education will eventually get the message across.