Readers are probably used to us urging parents to use computer monitoring software to protect their kids from online predators and cyber bullies.

But now the attorney who prosecutes crimes against children has stepped up and asked parents to do the same.

The Brownsville Herald highlights U.S. Attorney Megan Paulson in their recent piece on Internet safety. In it, Paulson says of computer monitoring that by "monitoring your children's activities on the computer" you are actually "spying on the Internet predators trying to access your kids."

And Paulson should know. Last year the Department of Justice prosecuted over 2,000 cases of child molestation. They figure there is "one child molester for every square mile in the United States."

And now that kids spend so much time on the Internet, those predators have a whole new way to prey in children that doesn't rely on more visible and therefore more dangerous means of approaching kids.

After all, most kids would walk away from a stranger on the street, but they might not ignore the new "boy" or "girl" that just "friended" them on a social networking site.

This is why computer monitoring software is so important today. Paulson suggests that most victims of Internet predators "have unsupervised access to a computer."

With good quality computer monitoring software in your home, no computer access will constitute unsupervised computer access.