After Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the bust of a computer-based pornography ring Monday, there seemed to be a nationwide sigh of relief and pat on the back for the government for protecting America's children against such exploitation.
While arresting as many as 89 subscribers in 'Operation Candyman' is a laudable accomplishment, it is only half the solution.
As long as there are men and women who can make easy money out of exploiting children and imprisoning people in the addictive ring of pornography, there is still a problem and children are still at risk.
The FBI must not think that a single sweeping bust of one ring will hinder the child pornography industry in any tangible way.
Rather, the FBI must realize that to truly stop the pervasive and perverted influence of child pornographers, it must find the leaders - the individuals behind the Web sites - who are the real perpetrators.
Much like the war on terrorism, investigators in child pornography cases must realize that the battle cannot be won until those at the top are routed out.
Porn leaders don't care about the men and women they hurt as long as they accomplish their goals.
Just as Osama Bin Laden was apathetic toward the men who lost their lives hijacking planes Sept. 11, neither do the leaders of child pornography rings care about the 89 people arrested for dabbling in their poisonous wares.
Nothing will drastically change until the leaders of the child pornography industry are stopped.
President George W. Bush realizes that it's not about catching 1,300 terrorists; the FBI needs to realize that the solution is not arresting 89 subscribers.
To really make a difference, investigators can't be satisfied with merely apprehending sweeping nets of lackeys.
They need to go after the leaders.
That is not to say the FBI does not deserve the admiration of people nationwide for protecting children by arresting such users.
It is just that they have only hit the tip of the iceberg and they cannot become satisfied with such
surface-level results.
The crisis goes much deeper than subscribers.
FBI agents need to explore new levels to find the men and women who are at the root of the problem.
One such leader in the pornography ring wrote on the Candyman group Web site, 'If we all work together we will have the best group on the Net.'
Ashcroft and others need to destroy this feeling of unity among men and women who huddle together in dark corners of cyberspace.
These covert groups need to be broken up because their members crawl out of their corners and become the school-bus drivers, clergymen and teachers that interact with unsuspecting children everyday.
The images they see at home become the nightmare of little children who fall prey to the predators' perverted sense of reality - a reality that begins with a mouse click.