Mr. Petersen raises more concerns for children involved with Reality TV.
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Even more chilling for me is the awareness that other children working in states outside California are being subjected to similar exposure that will, I promise you, have life-long consequences. Most of the children employed in so-called reality shows do not have California's protections, which last night we observed in the breech, and it is a national disgrace that children employed in entertainment are exempt from federal child labor laws and have been since 1938 with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
I am ashamed by the Industry that raised me. I am ashamed of the national media that is now trafficking in the images of children who are incapable of providing Informed Consent and do not have the power to disobey.
My wife and I have played by the rules, even passing meaningful legislation at great personal and professional cost. Today is a day of reckoning. Surely someone on Capitol Hill or living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue watched last night's broadcast. I am pleading with you to fix this, for if you cannot protect the most visible children in the world from what we saw last night then everything else you have to say from Health Care to the National Debt is meaningless because your silence means that the promise of childhood in America is dead.