Bush Signs Amber Alert Bill

Surrounded by rescued Elizabeth Smart and the families of other kidnapped children, President Bush on Wednesday signed a wide-ranging package of child safety measures into law.

The legislation's centerpiece would expand nationwide a voluntary rapid-response network to help find kidnapped children.

"No family should ever have to endure the nightmare of losing a child," Bush said. "Our nation will fight threats against our children."

At the insistence of Republicans in Congress, the new law also strengthens federal criminal penalties for child pornographers, sexual abusers and kidnappers.

The network is named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl abducted in Arlington, Texas, and later found murdered.

State Amber Alert systems have already gotten results.

"America gets it, people are responding to these messages, and children are coming home safely," Ernie Allen, head of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told CBS News Correspondent Peter Maer.

The legislation provides matching grants to states and communities for equipment and training for the network, which will distribute information quickly, through radio and television broadcasts and electronic highway signs, about kidnapped children and their abductors.

"We have tough penalties. We're doubling the budget for the funding of the missing and exploited children program in the country," Ashcroft told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.

Also attending the Rose Garden ceremony Wednesday afternoon were the families of Hageman; and the families of Jacqueline Marris, and Tamara Brooks, two teen-agers abducted in California last year and later rescued in California's first use of the Amber child-abduction alert system. It prompted hundreds of law enforcement officers to be on the lookout for the girls and the stolen vehicle.

Last June, Elizabeth, then 14, was taken at knifepoint from her bedroom. She returned to her family March 12 after she was spotted in a Salt Lake City suburb with Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, the transients who have been charged with her kidnapping.

"The first few hours are so critical, this alert will help bring those kids back," Elizabeth's uncle, David Smart, told CBS Radio News.