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You are here: WiredSafety > Information > Our Mission Our MissionWiredSafety is the newest online safety and help group…and the oldest. In 1998, Parry Aftab (a renowned cyberspace lawyer and security and privacy expert) took over the helm of Cyberangels. Under her leadership, Cyberangels became the world's largest online safety and help group, with almost 10,000 volunteers in 76 countries around the world. Cyberangels had been formed in 1995 by the Guardian Angels (the patrol group established to protect people in subways and the undergrounds). WiredSafety has taken the best of that group and recruited them to its new and specialized mission, to make the Internet safer for everyone. For four years Parry ran Cyberangels independently from Guardian Angels involvement, but it was always legally a program of the Guardian Angels. After four years of donating her time and money to form and run the group, Parry and the other leaders and volunteers from Cyberangels left to create WiredSafety. It is now an independent 501c3 organization, formed in the U.S. and operating worldwide. Building on the site and content they have developed over the years for Cyberangels, as well as Parry's leading books on the topic of online safety for children, the WiredSafety group has what it needs to provide help to everyone who needs it online. And now, for the first time, this group can have its own Board of Directors, as well as an advisory board. It can now also seek funding and grants under its own name and expand its programs. It is the master of its own fate. The work, programs and even the Web site remain the same. But the name and focus are changed. WiredSafety and its sister groups will take Internet safety and help to the next level of professionalism and expertise. Since Cyberangels was first formed in 1995, and even since it was reformed in 1998 by Parry, the world of online safety, privacy and cybercrime prevention and investigation has changed dramatically. In 1998 few law enforcement agencies were capable of cybercrime investigations, few laws existed to help people being cyberstalked or harassed, and leading countries of the world had not yet criminalized child pornography possession and production. Now the emphasis is on providing assistance and support to law enforcement, training to law enforcement and regulatory agencies, creating awareness and cybercrime prevention programs and helping people who need our help, when no other help exists for them. We are also needed to provide our expertise to governmental groups, to help them know which laws are needed and the trend of cybercrime and abuse. Our patrol groups will become more expert, all volunteers will receive training in providing help online, and the core of volunteers will be better trained and communication among members and with outside agencies improved. Our help volunteers will know how to handle victims' needs better. Our motto of "Awareness -Education - Prevention - Help" will be put to serious use going forward. The umbrella group, which will handle all administration of the three groups is WiredSafety.org. It will oversee the operation of three specialized groups - WiredSafety (for general help, training and online safety and privacy awareness, and help for victims of harassment and abuse online), WiredKids.org (for children, preteens, teens, parents, teachers and librarians for all online safety, privacy and risk management issues impacting children, and programs to create universal and educational access for all children regardless of financial ability, physically abilities or ethnic background) and WiredCops.org (for law enforcement and high tech security issues). Whether wired or wireless, WiredSafety.org has the right people and skills to assist those who need our help. Our Support of Law Enforcement, and Our Law Enforcement Volunteers of WiredCops:Thanks partially to Parry's help and the help of other dedicated volunteers (most notably Richard Riley, who created Cyberangels law enforcement division and later Cyberlawenforcement.org, a separate non-profit group), as well as increased support and government funding, law enforcement agencies are becoming better trained to handle local cybercrimes. They have also learned that some online safety groups are more reliable than others, and have worked with us to help return 10 children who had been lured by Internet child molesters. While cooperating with the leading law enforcement agencies in the world, such as the FBI, U.S. Customs Cybersmuggling Unit, the FTC, Interpol, Secret Service, Scotland Yard, the Swedish Police, Irish Police, Greater Manchester Police and the Home Office in the UK, the RCMP, the Metropolitan Police in Tokyo and the National Police of Japan, the Hong Kong Police, New York City police, the Texas Rangers, California State Police and New Jersey State Police, the Tampa cybercrime squad, Malaysian Police, Singapore Police, Indian Police, South African Police among others, we have investigated and reported cybercrimes ranging from death threats and stalking, child pornography and exploitation to fraud and deceptive practices. We have learned that law enforcement needs credible volunteer groups to assist them, while respecting their role as law enforcement. Understanding the role volunteer groups can and should play is key to this wonderful cooperation. WiredSafety is committed to building new relationships with law enforcement and maintaining those we have fostered over the years. We are also committed to training law enforcement, via the Internet and online presentations, on cybercrime prevention, awareness and investigation techniques. Our new Wired Cops affiliate will take over the operations of Cyberlawenforcement.org. The management will not change, but the branding of WiredCops as part of the WiredSafety.org family of help groups is key to helping people find help online when they need it. Cloudwalker, the Director of WiredCops, is an experienced member of law enforcement and dedicated to helping law enforcement make the leap to the cyberworld. Providing Help to Those Who Need It Online:WiredSafety will be the first stop of most people who need help online. Designed as a Cyber911 or Cyber999 program, Cyberstalking and Harassment team volunteers will help those who need their help and when WiredCops or WiredKids is needed, will refer site visitors to the right group and volunteers to assist them. The site will provide much more prevention information to help site visitors help themselves. It will have a FAQ section for victims of all abuse and harassment online, for applicable laws and for how to avoid becoming a victim of cybercrime. Reliable strategic partners are being recruited to provide support in areas not within our mission or expertise. Major ISPs and portals will be working with us to provide help to their members, as well. Providing Education to Improve Skills and Increase Awareness: WiredSafety will be holding offline programs with women's groups and senior's groups on online fraud and stalking awareness. WiredKids will be providing training to teachers, librarians, school administration and others on Internet risk management, and how to handle online crimes against children. These programs will also be directed to the students, on how to surf ethically, safely, intelligently and privately, with lesson plans for classroom study and special in-school assemblies and projects. The Teenangels program will be expanded to enable committed teenagers to help create online safety programs for others within their communities. Offline media and spokespeople will be used as well to spread awareness, worldwide. The class schedule will be reviewed to include programs that are relevant to online safety, privacy and crime prevention and self-help. The class texts are being updated and rewritten. The teachers will be better trained and provide guest teachers as well, expert in their fields. Teaching Children About Responsible Surfing - WiredKids: Competitions and multi-media programs will be created to spread the word to everyone who needs it, from creating an online soap opera with Internet safety as a theme, to celebrating the wonderful resources online for children, families and educators. Online comics will be directed at teens, and an interactive preteen cyber-sleuth club called WiredAngels, will solve online crimes and mysteries. We will also work with leading online sites to create online safety games and awareness programs that are both informative and fun for kids and teens. Our WiredKids Best of the Web Awards will be held for the third year, providing awards to site that pass the muster of parents, kids and even our legal expert, Parry Aftab. The more we can find wonderful resources to feature, the less likely our children will be to wander off to the darker side of the Web. And, together with WiredSafety trained chat room ops, we will create a safe community for children, preteens and teens to chat and communicate. Civilian volunteers working with Law Enforcement Volunteers, Joint Campaigns of WiredSafety and WiredCops:The first major joint campaign between WiredSafety civilian volunteers and WiredCops law enforcement and high tech security volunteers will be our campaign against child pornography online. The tag line for this campaign, which will be presented both in the print media and online media, is "Behind every picture there's pain" using shadowed images of children's faces. One of the leading advertising agencies in the U.S. has designed this campaign for us, without charge, to honor our work in the field. The campaign is to tell people what to do when they encounter online child pornography and where to report it. By raising the understanding of this horrible crime, we may be able to finally stop it, or at least significantly slow its growth. The second joint campaign is the cyberstalking awareness campaign, where we release research we have done in the field of online stalking and harassment. There are many assumptions made about Cyberstalkers and their victims that we have learned are no longer true. Our studies will help victims; groups and our own outreach division train people how to avoid cyberstalking and what to do if they become the victim of cyberstalking. This will be coupled with a larges online awareness campaign to help mobilize the victims and inform law enforcement agencies of the applicable laws and resources available. Our Cyberstalking - First Response Program is designed to teach law enforcement about the cyberstalking laws and intake information that is key to a successful investigation and prosecution. This program will be addressed to prosecutors and district attorneys, as well as judges and parole officers, as well as to law enforcement agencies. The program will be called The New Stalkers - Handling CyberStalking and Harassment. |
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