We tell our kids not to talk to strangers and not to get into a car with anyone they don't know, but what about the Internet?

If your kids are in chat rooms, game rooms, social networking sites, there's a one in five chance they'll be solicited by a sexual predator. It's frightening to think about, but these people are online every day looking for teens to have sex with and, who knows what else.

A man who brought the issue to the forefront is Chris Hansen of Dateline NBC. He was in South Bend last week and Maureen was able to sit down with him to learn more about "To Catch a Predator."

"I grew up outside Detroit and I remember one summer when I was fourteen Jimmy Hoffa was kidnapped up the road, Telegraph Road, at this restaurant and I became fascinated with this story," said Hansen. "So I'd ride my bike up there, see the FBI, and the police and the network news guys and the local news was there, and I kind of got bit by the bug right then and continued on."

From Detroit, Hansen eventually moved on to the network, and in 2004 started "To Catch a Predator." The groundbreaking series began when Hansen and a friend were talking about "Perverted Justice," a watchdog group that goes into chat rooms hoping to catch sexual predators.

"I thought, 'if we could combine their expertise in decoys and chat rooms with our ability to wires homes with hidden cameras, it could be pretty compelling," said Hansen.

Perverted Justice delivered evidence of grown men, of all ages, soliciting sex from 12 to 15 year olds they believed were willing to have sex.

"When you did your first one, what was going through your mind?" asked Maureen.

"There was so much going on, it was just a challenge to focus," Hansen replied. "Obviously security, we had the decoys in the house, I was there, the associate producer was there, the crews. But we really had no idea what to expect."

"And I said to myself, what happens if no one shows up? What happens if I just wasted tens of thousands of dollars of NBC's money?"

Hansen quickly found out he hadn't wasted a dime, and that there is no shortage of sexual predators targeting our kids right in our own homes.

"And the next thing you know over the next two and a half days, 17 guys show up including a New York City firefighter," said Hansen.

A New York City firefighter who thought he was going to have sex with a 14-year-old girl.

Then there was the rabbi who thought he was meeting a 14-year-old boy. And the school teacher.

Men from all walks of life. They are married, fathers, husbands, some are hard-core sex offenders. Others never had a traffic ticket.

A man in New Jersey is even a fan.

"It comes time for me to come out, he looks at me, and before I can say a word, he says, 'you're Chris Hansen' and I said, 'how do you know that?' and he says, 'I watch the show all the time, I wouldn't miss an episode. I download them on the Internet,'" said Hansen. "The urge to fulfill his fantasy overcame his rational thought."

Hansen says it speaks to the addictive nature of the Internet, the anonymity it gives people, and the threat men like these are to our children -- both boys and girls.

"If we weren't here, and a teenager was, you know you could only imagine what could happen," said Hansen. "As a parent, it reminds you that there's a lot of danger out there in the world."

The arrest of a law enforcement officer in Florida was especially chilling.

"Well, it turns out he had a 38 caliber pistol in his pocket, he had an automatic handgun, an assault rifle, a shotgun, 800 rounds of ammunition, a chainsaw, videotape equipment. I mean God knows what this guy was up to."

Friday on Just Before 6, Maureen will continue her Conversation with Chris Hansen. He will discuss some of the more bizarre men he's come into contact with, and share some tips for parents on what to look for when our kids are in cyberspace, and signs they may already be targets.

For tips on keeping your kids safe from Internet predators, click on this link.

To read part 2 of Maureen’s Conversation with Chris Hansen, click on this link.