[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN COMBATING ONLINE SEX TRAFFICKING
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 30, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-84
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
28-792 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
____________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
Chairman
JOE BARTON, Texas FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
FRED UPTON, Michigan BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ANNA G. ESHOO, California
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee GENE GREEN, Texas
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey DORIS O. MATSUI, California
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky KATHY CASTOR, Florida
PETE OLSON, Texas JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia JERRY McNERNEY, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois PETER WELCH, Vermont
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida PAUL TONKO, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
BILLY LONG, Missouri DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
BILL FLORES, Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana Massachusetts
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma TONY CARDENAS, California
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina RAUL RUIZ, California
CHRIS COLLINS, New York SCOTT H. PETERS, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
TIM WALBERG, Michigan
MIMI WALTERS, California
RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
Chairman
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois PETER WELCH, Vermont
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky RAUL RUIZ, California
PETE OLSON, Texas DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida ANNA G. ESHOO, California
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
BILLY LONG, Missouri G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
BILL FLORES, Texas DORIS O. MATSUI, California
SUSAN W. BROOKS, Tennessee JERRY McNERNEY, California
CHRIS COLLINS, New York FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota officio)
MIMI WALTERS, California
RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee, opening statement.......................... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. Michael F. Doyle, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, opening statement................ 3
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Hon. Susan W. Brooks, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Indiana, opening statement.................................. 5
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, prepared statement........................ 75
Hon. David B. McKinley, a Representative in Congress from the
State of West Virginia, prepared statement..................... 75
Witnesses
Hon. Ann Wagner, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Missouri....................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Yiota G. Souras, Senior Vice President and General Counsel,
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children............. 17
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Derri Smith, Chief Executive Officer, End Slavery Tennessee...... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Russ Winkler, Special Agent in Charge, Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation.................................................. 35
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Eric Goldman, Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law.... 44
Prepared statement........................................... 46
Submitted Material
H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex
Trafficking Act of 2017, submitted by Mrs. Blackburn........... 76
Letter of November 27, 2017, from Alexandra F. Levy, University
of Notre Dame Law School, to Mrs. Blackburn and Mr. Doyle,
submitted by Mr. Doyle......................................... 82
Response to Online Sex Trafficking and the Communications Decency
Act hearing, Shared Hope International, et al., October 3,
2017, submitted by Mrs. Blackburn.............................. 84
Letter of November 27, 2017, from Shared Hope International, et
al., to Mrs. Blackburn, submitted by Mrs. Blackburn............ 93
Article, ``Wyden blocks bill to stop online sex trafficking,'' by
Rebecca Bender, The Register-Guard, November 30, 2017,
submitted by Mrs. Blackburn.................................... 95
Letter of April 3, 2012, from Mrs. Blackburn and Hon. Carolyn B.
Maloney to Larry Page, Chief Executive Officer, Google, Inc.,
submitted by Mrs. Blackburn.................................... 99
Letter of November 30. 2017, from Chris Cox, Outside Counsel,
NetChoice, to Mrs. Blackburn and Mr. Doyle, submitted by Mrs.
Blackburn...................................................... 101
Article, ``Congress must stop sex trafficking on the internet,''
by Mrs. Blackburn, The Tennessean, November 29, 2017, submitted
by Mrs. Blackburn.............................................. 121
THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN COMBATING ONLINE SEX TRAFFICKING
----------
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2017
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:22 p.m., in
Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Marsha Blackburn
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Blackburn, Lance, Latta,
Guthrie, Olson, Kinzinger, Bilirakis, Johnson, Long, Flores,
Brooks, Collins, Walters, Costello, Doyle, Welch, Loebsack,
Ruiz, Rush, Eshoo, Engel, Butterfield, Matsui, and McNerney.
Staff present: Jon Adame, Policy Coordinator,
Communications and Technology; Ray Baum, Staff Director; Kelly
Collins, Staff Assistant; Robin Colwell, Chief Counsel,
Communications and Technology; Sean Farrell, Professional Staff
Member, Communications and Technology; Adam Fromm, Director of
Outreach and Coalitions; Gene Fullano, Detailee, Communications
and Technology; Elena Hernandez, Press Secretary; Paul Jackson,
Professional Staff Member, Digital Commerce and Consumer
Protection; Tim Kurth, Senior Professional Staff Member,
Communications and Technology; Lauren McCarty, Counsel,
Communications and Technology; Alex Miller, Video Production
Aide and Press Assistant; Evan Viau, Legislative Clerk,
Communications and Technology; Jessica Wilkerson, Professional
Staff Member, Oversight and Investigations; Everett Winnick,
Director of Information Technology; David Goldman, Minority
Chief Counsel, Communications and Technology; Jerry Leverich,
Minority Counsel; Dan Miller, Minority Policy Analyst; and Tim
Robinson, Minority Chief Counsel.
Mrs. Blackburn. The Subcommittee on Communications and
Technology will now come to order.
I am sorry that we are a few minutes late in beginning, but
we have this thing we have to do around here called votes. And
we did have a vote on the floor and, in the middle of it, a
colloquy concerning our schedule.
At this time, I recognize myself for 5 minutes for an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
Good afternoon, and a warm welcome to each of our witnesses
who are going to join us today. We are here on what has turned
out to be an absolutely gorgeous day in Washington, DC, but we
are here to talk about a very ugly, sordid subject, and that is
online sex trafficking or, as the name of Ms. Smith's
organization describes it more bluntly, slavery.
As the stings and headlines continue to proliferate, those
who thought that slavery was something that could never happen
in 2017 America have had to confront the terrifying reality
that not only is it happening, it is on the rise. And it is on
the rise in large part because the internet, the technological
masterpiece of our time, has made it much easier to do.
In both the House and the Senate this year, we are facing
up to the challenge with a long-overdue conversation, driving
toward effective action. With this hearing, it is my hope that
the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, with our
particular focus, will add some valuable perspective about
exactly what is going wrong and what is going right on the tech
side as the lowest of the low harness the power of the internet
to enslave and exploit our children.
I am so very pleased that Ms. Smith and Mr. Winkler have
been able to join us today to tell their stories of how
Tennessee has been impacted by this abhorrent crime. Like so
many of the districts that my colleagues represent, our home
has been invaded by criminals luring in vulnerable women and
children and forcing them into a life of sex slavery and
unspeakable abuse.
I know that you both share my deep sadness and absolute
outrage that this is happening in our backyard. And I cannot
thank you enough for rescuing the victims, then helping them
heal while seeking justice for their abusers. You are doing a
superlative job.
For the fifth year in a row--get this--Tennessee received
an A on its report card in the Protected Innocence Challenge, a
comprehensive annual study of existing State laws. And this is
compiled by Shared Hope International. The challenge produces
State report cards that rate how effectively each State
responds to the crime of domestic minor sex trafficking.
After 4 years of straight A's, Tennessee outdid itself this
year by leading the rankings, number one in the country. What a
testimony to the partnership between Tennessee law enforcement
and victim advocates that you have built and grown together
over the years. We are honored that you are taking time away.
The legislative debate this year has focused on amendments
to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which law
enforcement has consistently identified as a barrier preventing
effective prosecution of online entities that facilitate
trafficking and adequate recourse for trafficking victims.
Today, we welcome my colleague and dear friend, Ann Wagner,
who is leading this charge in the House. I look forward to
hearing her testimony about her efforts to find an effective
approach to attack and defeat this problem. She has been a
passionate and tireless advocate, and I am proud to be a
cosponsor of her bill.
I also want to welcome and we look forward to hearing the
concerns and the perspective of Ms. Souras and Mr. Goldman as
we consider next steps. With so many women and children waiting
on us and counting on us, doing nothing is not an option.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Blackburn follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Marsha Blackburn
Good afternoon and a warm welcome to all of our witnesses.
We have come here together on this beautiful afternoon to talk
about a very ugly subject: online sex trafficking, or as the
name of Ms. Smith's organization describes it more bluntly,
slavery. As the stings and the headlines continue to
proliferate, those who thought that slavery was something that
could never happen in 2017 America, have had to confront the
terrifying reality that not only is it happening, it is on the
rise. And it is on the rise in large part because the Internet,
the technological masterpiece of our time, has made it much,
much easier to do. In both the House and the Senate this year,
we are facing up to the challenge with a long overdue
conversation driving toward effective action. With this
hearing, it is my hope that the Communications and Technology
Subcommittee, with our particular focus, will add some valuable
perspective about exactly what is going wrong and what is going
right on the tech side as the lowest of the low harness the
power of the Internet to enslave and exploit our children.
I am so very pleased that Ms. Smith and Mr. Winkle have
been able to join us today to tell their stories of how
Tennessee has been impacted by this abhorrent crime. Like so
many of the districts that my colleagues here represent, our
home has been invaded by criminals luring in vulnerable women
and children, and forcing them into a life of sex slavery and
unspeakable abuse. I know that you both share my deep sadness
and outrage that this is happening in our own backyard, and I
cannot thank you enough for rescuing these victims, then
helping them heal while seeking justice for the abusers. You
are truly doing the Lord's work.
And you are doing a superlative job of it. For the fifth
year in a row, Tennessee received an ``A'' on its report card
in the Protected Innocence Challenge, a comprehensive annual
study of existing State laws conducted by Shared Hope
International. The challenge produces State report cards that
rate how effectively each State responds to the crime of
domestic minor sex trafficking. After four years of straight
A's, Tennessee outdid itself this year by leading the rankings,
#1 in the country. What a testimony to the partnership between
Tennessee law enforcement and victim advocates that you have
built and grown together over the years. We are honored that
you would take time away from your important work to give us
the latest perspective from the front lines.
The legislative debate this year has focused on amendments
to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which law
enforcement has consistently identified as a barrier preventing
effective prosecution of online entities that facilitate
trafficking, and adequate recourse for trafficking victims.
Today we welcome my colleague and dear friend Mrs. Wagner, who
has led the charge in the House. I look forward to hearing her
testimony about her efforts to find an effective approach to
attack this problem we are all facing. She has been a
passionate and tireless advocate, and I am proud to be a
cosponsor of her bill. And I also look forward to hearing the
perspectives and concerns of Ms. Souras and Mr. Goldman as we
consider our next step. With so many women and children waiting
on us and counting on us, standing still is not an option.
Mrs. Blackburn. At this time, I yield back my time, and I
recognize Mr. Doyle for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL F. DOYLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this
important hearing.
And thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us
today. Human trafficking in all its forms and, in particular,
sexual trafficking of children and adults is an abhorrent
crime. I want to thank the witnesses here today from End
Slavery Tennessee, the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
This is hard work that you all do, and I know that it carries a
heavy burden. For my part, I want to thank you for your efforts
and the efforts of your organizations. Be assured this is an
issue of great concern to all of us.
I also want to thank Representative Wagner for testifying
before us today. I understand that this is an issue that you
have been working on for some time and that the SAVE Act that
you wrote, and which has become law, is starting to be used to
combat online sex trafficking.
I also understand that, in reference to the bill before us
today, you are working with Chairman Goodlatte on an amendment
in the nature of a substitute to your bill and hope that it
will be marked up in the Judiciary Committee. I am hopeful that
you will be able to move your amended bill out of committee and
before the full House for a vote.
I also want to acknowledge the good work being done by
Senators McCaskill and Portman and the Senate's Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations in the investigation and report
they released on Backpage.com. This report is truly
frightening. The report alleges that Backpage knowingly
facilitated child sex trafficking.
I am deeply concerned about emails sent by Backpage
moderators seeking to limit the number of ads they were
reporting to NCMEC on a monthly basis. In addition, according
to the report, Backpage repeatedly edited and altered ads by
deleting words, phrases, and images that would indicate child
sex trafficking without reporting those ads to NCMEC or other
authorities. Again, according to this report, these edits were
done for the express purpose of concealing the illegal nature
of these activities.
Backpage went so far as to deploy software that
automatically deleted terms from ads before publication, words
such as ``AMBER Alert,'' ``rape,'' ``young,'' and ``fresh.''
This filter was apparently deployed for the purpose of
concealing the true nature of the transactions that were
occurring on the site.
The report goes on to say that, by Backpage's own internal
estimates, they were editing between 70 to 80 percent of the
ads in the adult section of their site.
Backpage would go on to start rejecting ads that contained
these words, but then they would do so with a popup that would
include explicit instructions for advertisers as to what the
offending word or phrase was and how they could repost their ad
to get around Backpage's filters.
Backpage used similar techniques when advertisers posted
ads identifying people as under 18, simply instructing users to
change the posted age in order for the ad to be posted.
To my mind, this report indicates a vast criminal
enterprise. I am heartened by reports that there are
potentially multiple Federal investigations using insights from
the Senate report and an impaneled grand jury. My hope is that
justice can be done.
Madam Chair, I thank you for this hearing, and I yield
back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Doyle follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Michael F. Doyle
Thank you madam chairman for holding this important
hearing, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us
today.
Human trafficking in all its forms--and in particular
sexual trafficking of children and adults--is an abhorrent
crime. I want to thank the witnesses here today from End
Slavery Tennessee, the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
This is hard work that you all do, and I know it carries a
heavy burden. For my part, I want to thank you for your efforts
and the efforts of your organizations. This is an issue of
great concern to us all.
I'd also like to thank Representative Wagner for testifying
before us today. I understand that this is an issue that you
have been working on for some time--and that the SAVE Act that
you wrote and which has become law is starting to be used to
combat online sex trafficking.
I also understand that in reference to the bill before us
today, you are working with Chairman Goodlatte on an Amendment
in the Nature of a Substitute to your bill and that you hope it
will be marked up in Judiciary Committee. I am hopeful that you
will be able to move your amended bill out of committee and
before the full House for a vote.
I also want to acknowledge the good work done by Senators
McCaskill and Portman and the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations in the investigation and the report they
released on Backpage.com. The report is truly frightening. The
report alleges that Backpage knowingly facilitated child sex
trafficking.
I am deeply concerned about emails sent by Backpage
moderators seeking to limit the number of ads they were
reporting to NIC-MEC on a monthly basis and efforts by the
company. In addition, according to the report Backpage
repeatedly edited and altered ads by deleting words, phrases,
and images that would indicate child sex trafficking without
reporting those ads to NIC-MEC or other authorities. Again
according to this report, these edits were done for the express
purpose of concealing the illegal nature of these activities.
Backpage went so far as to deploy software that automatically
deleted terms from ads before publication, words such as amber
alert, rape, young, and fresh. This filter was apparently
deployed for the purpose of concealing the true nature of the
transactions that were occurring on the site.
The report goes on to say that by Backpage's own internal
estimates they were editing between 70-80 percent of ads in the
Adult section of their site.
Backpage would go on to start rejecting ads that contained
these words, but do so with a pop-up that would include
explicit instructions for advertisers as to what the offending
word or phrase was and how to repost their ad to get around
Backpage's filters. Backpage used similar techniques when
advertisers posted ads identifying people as under 18, simply
instructing users to change the posted age in order for the ad
to be posted.
To my mind this report indicates a vast criminal
enterprise. I am heartened by reports that there are
potentially multiple Federal investigations using insights from
the Senate report and an empaneled grand jury.
My hope is that justice can be done.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Brooks, you are recognized. We will see if Chairman
Walden makes it, but you are recognized for your comments.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN W. BROOKS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And I am very, very pleased to see our colleague and a
leader in the House of Representatives, Representative Wagner,
who, since we came in together 5 years ago, has been a strong,
strong voice fighting for the victims and educating the
American people about Backpage and other avenues of sex
trafficking.
I just want to take a moment to commend the State of
Indiana. I was involved as a United States attorney from 2001
to 2007, and, during that time, the Bush administration put a
huge focus on exploitation and on child exploitation. And we
started an effort called IPATH now, which is about protection
against human trafficking. And it brings together law
enforcement, victim services; it puts in place protocols.
But I will tell you that the criminals and the perpetrators
are always trying to stay one step ahead. They are always
trying to find ways to exploit children, women, and others in
order to satisfy their sexual desires. And it is very, very
difficult work. Law enforcement work around the world to find
victims and the webs that they have created. And the
perpetrators, which coordinate around the world, are something
that we must continue to pursue with every avenue we possibly
can.
And, finally, I just want to focus on the victims. The
victims of this type of sexual exploitation, sexual
trafficking, can be found in every district in our country,
from urban areas to rural areas to suburban areas. And I think
people are often shocked when they read in our papers or read
about the victims. And we must make sure that we are there for
the victims.
So I just want to commend Ann Wagner and so many Members on
both sides of the aisle who have stepped up to really lead the
charge and try and say that we cannot allow this type of human
slavery in this day and age to continue and we must continue to
fight it. And I just want to thank my colleague from Missouri
for being a leader.
And I yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentlelady yields back.
Is there any other Member seeking recognition?
No other Member seeking recognition, at this time I want to
recognize Mr. Pallone--who is not here--for his 5 minutes.
Any other Member seeking recognition?
Mr. Doyle. Oh, Madam Chairman, I----
Mrs. Blackburn. Mr. Doyle.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you. I forgot, I need to ask unanimous
consent to enter into the record a letter to yourself and
myself from Professor Alexander Levy of the University of Notre
Dame Law School.
Mrs. Blackburn. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
Mrs. Blackburn. All right. At this point, our first witness
for today's panel will include Mrs. Ann Wagner, representing
Missouri's Second Congressional District, who will give opening
remarks regarding her efforts on the issue.
Mrs. Wagner, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HON. ANN WAGNER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM
THE STATE OF MISSOURI
Mrs. Wagner. I thank you, Madam Chairman and Ranking Member
Doyle and colleagues, for hosting this committee hearing today
and for allowing me to give some opening remarks.
I appreciate your commitment to addressing online
trafficking and especially appreciate that so many members of
this subcommittee have publicly cosponsored H.R. 1865. Stopping
the victimization of America's children and adults online is my
top priority in Congress, and I know I have an ally in Chairman
Blackburn. I also appreciate subcommittee members Adam
Kinzinger and Yvette Clarke for being original cosponsors of my
bill.
My first major piece of legislation concerning online
trafficking was the SAVE Act, which became law in 2015. The
SAVE Act was a first step in addressing Federal-level
prosecutions of websites. Unfortunately, it has not yet been
used, presumably because the mens rea standard in the
legislation, knowingly, is too high. Moreover, the SAVE Act was
federally focused, and it did not enable States and local
prosecutors to protect their communities.
I have learned a lot since then. And this is why, over a
year and a half ago, I began working on H.R. 1865, the Allow
States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or
FOSTA. The bill is written for victims, not only because it
would allow victims to pursue civil justice but because it
would empower local prosecutors to take down websites that
facilitate trafficking before they ever reach the size or the
scope of Backpage.com.
The House understands that enabling vigorous criminal
enforcement is not just important but mandatory in any
legislation we pass. This is why over 170 of my colleagues
cosponsored FOSTA when I personally explained to them how
websites can perpetuate modern-day slavery with impunity.
Why are these websites able to sell our children? Because
judges have ruled that section 230 prevents websites that
exploit the most vulnerable members of our society from being
held accountable. Congress' response to these rulings must be
patently clear. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
was never intended to allow businesses to commit crimes online
that they could never commit offline. When Congress passed the
Communications Decency Act in 1996, it explicitly acted to
prevent the internet from becoming a red light district, and it
clearly did not believe that rape was a prerequisite of a free
and open internet.
What Congress cannot do is pass a bill that amends section
230 but is so narrow that it could only be used to prosecute
Backpage.com.
Let me be plain: I support the Senate's recent action on my
legislative proposal. I appreciate the complicated strategic
environment that Senators Blumenthal and Portman and others are
operating in. And I believe that it is a step in the right
direction. But the Senate bill is not the full solution.
Backpage.com is currently, as Mr. Doyle stated, the largest
of the websites that facilitate trafficking in America, but it
is already under Federal investigation, and it is just a small,
small piece--small piece--of this growing criminal ecosystem.
Hundreds--and let me underscore--hundreds of advertising sites
have jumped into the marketplace of illegal sex. For instance,
Eros serves as the high-end market. Escorts In College
advertises women close to and under the age of consent. And
Massage Troll is, sadly, popular in my own district.
Thanks to Senator Portman's investigation, a wealth of
evidence against Backpage.com has been discovered over the past
year. And while it may now be possible, though still incredibly
difficult, to prove that Backpage.com knowingly assisted in sex
trafficking violations, it is not possible to gather this level
of evidence for the hundreds of other websites that are
profiting from the sex trade.
I have spoken with prosecutors across the country who have
asked the House to pass a practical solution that will allow
them to take predatory websites off the internet. And I am
repeatedly told that any legislation that depends exclusively
on the ``knowingly'' mens rea standard is merely a Washington,
DC, feel-good exercise. Congress might pat itself on the back
but will have accomplished little to prevent the sale of
victims online.
FOSTA is centered on the ``reckless disregard'' standard
that prosecutors need to open cases on bad actor websites. And
we must find a way to maintain a useful mens rea standard or,
at the very least, not raise the very high bar that victims and
prosecutors must already meet.
If we are serious about helping victims, we must create
laws that allow for a robust State and local criminal
enforcement. Criminal enforcement means businesses will stay
out of the illegal sex trade, fewer people will ever become
victims, demand will be reduced, and, yes, civil suits will be
easier to bring. The criminals who auction our children will be
put behind bars.
I believe, in closing, we can mark up a bipartisan House
bill that will provide meaningful tools to prevent future
victimization. And I look forward to working with you to pass a
forward-facing--forward-facing--solution that will disrupt the
online trafficking industry.
I thank you, Madam Chairman, and I thank you all on the
committee and my colleagues for allowing me to give these
opening remarks.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Wagner follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentlelady yields back.
We thank you so much for your remarks and your well wishes
that we will move forward.
At this time, we will briefly recess long enough to put the
new nameplates up, and we will welcome our panel to the table.
[Recess.]
Mrs. Blackburn. At this time, we welcome our second panel
of witnesses: Yiota Souras, who is the senior VP and general
counsel for the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children; Ms. Derri Smith, CEO of End Slavery Tennessee; Mr.
Russ Winkler, assistant special agent in charge at the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation; and Mr. Eric Goldman, a
professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.
Welcome to each of you. We appreciate that you are here
today.
We are going to begin our testimony with you, Ms. Souras.
Each of you will have 5 minutes. I ask that you move the
microphone to you, touch the button in the center so that you
activate it. And at the end of your 5 minutes, we will begin
the questioning portion of this hearing.
Ms. Souras, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF YIOTA G. SOURAS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND
GENERAL COUNSEL, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED
CHILDREN; DERRI SMITH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, END SLAVERY
TENNESSEE; RUSS WINKLER, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, TENNESSEE
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; AND ERIC GOLDMAN, PROFESSOR, SANTA
CLARA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
STATEMENT OF YIOTA G. SOURAS
Ms. Souras. Thank you.
Chairman Blackburn, Ranking Member Doyle, and members of
the committee, I am honored to be here today on behalf of the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and to join
this discussion to ensure that America's most vulnerable
victims--children trafficked online for rape and sexual abuse--
have opportunities for justice against their traffickers,
including those who participate in trafficking them online.
I would like to thank Congresswoman Wagner for her
longstanding dedication to child sex trafficking victims and
her tireless work to create meaningful change for these
survivors.
As part of our work as the congressionally designated
resource center on missing and exploited children, NCMEC
receives approximately 9,800 reports of child sex trafficking
every year. Over the past 5 years, 88 percent of these reports
have involved a child being trafficked online. More than 74 of
these reports from the public relate to an ad on Backpage.
In recent years, we have learned an enormous amount about
the complexity, ruthlessness, and profitability of the sale of
children for sex online. But we have also seen courts struggle
and fail to hold websites liable for facilitating sex
trafficking. Today, we are at a crossroads on how best to
proceed with legislation that combats this heinous crime.
Courts have been able to find their way around the current
application of the CDA, a statute that is over 21 years old and
has created broad immunity, even for websites that support
online child sex trafficking. These courts have called on
Congress to clarify that all facilitators of online sex
trafficking, including websites, are not legally protected.
The House of Representatives and the Senate have worked on
parallel tracks to develop bills that respond to the recent
court decisions and reconcile the CDA with protections granted
to victims under the Federal trafficking statute.
We believe these bills address the specific legal barriers
faced by child sex trafficking victims and coalesce around
three legislative solutions: first, ensuring that State
attorneys general have the authority to protect children in
their own States and can bring criminal and civil actions
against online entities that participate in sex trafficking;
second, clarifying that sex trafficking victims can pursue
civil remedies against everyone who participates in their
trafficking, including websites; and, third, defining
participation in a trafficking venture under Federal law as
assisting, supporting, or facilitating sex trafficking.
These broad legislative solutions specifically respond to
what courts have called on Congress to do: provide children
with access to justice and hold websites that facilitate sex
trafficking responsible.
NCMEC has assisted tens of thousands of children victimized
by online sex trafficking. Behind the current debate about the
particular details and standards within the legislative
proposals are horrific experiences suffered by these children,
who are defenseless against predators selling them for rape and
sexual abuse online.
NCMEC has worked closely with many sex trafficking victims
whose cases have been dismissed due to the current broad
interpretation of the CDA's immunity. We have witnessed the
anguish of these children's recovery and have heard their
hopelessness when courts dismiss their cases against websites
that facilitated their trafficking.
Victims who have been denied justice due to the CDA include
a 14-year-old girl who was trafficked online for 2 years and
advertised in sexually explicit poses; two 15-year-old girls,
one who was raped over 1,000 times while trafficked online for
just over a year and a second girl who was trafficked online
for 2 years and sold to from 5 to 15 customers a day.
Cases like this remind us of the ongoing suffering of
victims and the urgency to move forward with current
legislation that addresses past cases and has broad support
from all key stakeholders, including the tech sector. NCMEC
believes that legislation that includes the three core
solutions outlined more fully in my written testimony will
provide powerful tools to ensure the rights of child victims
while protecting current law that encourages a robust internet.
Chairman Blackburn, we couldn't agree with you more when
you said in yesterday's Knox News that standing by idly is
simply not an option. It is time that we hold companies
accountable for their actions when they cross the line. We have
been encouraged by the Senate's legislative progress on FOSTA,
including the support of the Internet Association and Facebook,
and are hopeful that under your leadership a similar path
forward can be accomplished here in the House.
In conclusion, we stand ready to assist the committee so
that at the end of the day a bill can move expeditiously to the
President's desk for enactment into law.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Souras follows:]
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Mrs. Blackburn. The gentlelady yields back.
Ms. Smith, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DERRI SMITH
Ms. Smith. Chairman Blackburn, Ranking Member Doyle, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for holding a hearing on
this important topic. It is an honor to offer testimony on the
impact of technology on human trafficking victims and
survivors.
The sexual exploitation perpetrated against women, men,
boys, and girls in the commercial sex industry is found all
across the internet. There is no place for a survivor of human
trafficking to hide, because their victimization is already on
display for all to see. The public victimization exponentially
complicates the healing process.
In the early days of this work, I met two girls from
Atlanta. They were deceived by a girl they thought was their
friend, held by child safety locks, and driven to Nashville by
their trafficker. The trafficker got a hotel room, popped an ad
up online, and was in business within half an hour. I was
struck with how easy it was for him to sell those girls, as
easy as advertising a bicycle or a car for sale. I was also
struck with how quickly men arranged to have sex with these
young people, as fast as ordering a pizza.
In my years since, I have heard hundreds of variations of
this story. At least three out of four of the survivors we
serve were advertised online, and others were recruited and
groomed online.
Thankfully, an undercover detective was answering online
ads that day posing as a john. He came to the girls' room and
ended their exploitation within days of its start. They were
the lucky ones.
Once recovered, survivors still face threats from predators
online who are waiting for them to surface. Especially in the
early days of survivor recovery, our efforts to monitor online
activity are more challenging than simply monitoring phone
usage. There are temptations, dangers, and master manipulators
ready to entice survivors back into exploitation.
When the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation began
proactively attacking human trafficking, they called End
Slavery Tennessee for assistance. First, they wanted to
understand the technology landscape and how it affected
victims. How were victims recruited, bought, and sold across
the internet? They needed firsthand information, and one of our
young survivors was willing to tell them all she knew about
being trafficked online.
Secondly, the TBI wanted a more direct partnership during
the undercover operations. That meant our survivor intervention
specialist and case manager were on site during the operation.
When TBI identified a victim, she met with End Slavery
Tennessee staff. These young women were offered services and a
way out of exploitation that very day. Some took the offer;
others did not. But they did understand that the offer did not
have an expiration date. The goal was to turn that scary and
often negative interaction with law enforcement into one of
hope.
Once a survivor comes to End Slavery Tennessee, the plan of
care often depends on drug addiction, prior victimization,
length of time enslaved, and the age of the victim. We have
provided care and services to survivors from the age of 4 to
52, with a primary focus on minors through age 25, and in eight
languages.
In the past 5 years, we have gone from operating out of one
10-by-10-foot office to a small suite of offices and now to a
care center and three safe houses. We currently care for about
190 survivors a year in Nashville and the surrounding area.
Survivors need a plethora of wraparound services to meet
their every need. Because trafficking victims suffer complex
post-traumatic stress disorder, the restorative process can and
usually does take years. To compound the trauma of trafficking,
most victims were abused as children or suffer from a range of
other adverse childhood experiences that made them vulnerable
to exploitation in the first place. It is essential that an
agency offer case management and a comprehensive array of
specialized services until a survivor is ready to lead a
productive and stable life.
In Tennessee, we use a single-point-of-entry model, with
one agency in each of the four regions of the State whose
entire focus is on providing intensive case management and
restoration of victims. Together, we form the Tennessee Anti-
Slavery Alliance. This approach ensures that quality,
consistent trauma-informed services are provided statewide in
the most effective and efficient way possible and that victims
don't fall between the cracks.
Thank you for this opportunity to address the committee,
and I will welcome your questions later.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]
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Mrs. Blackburn. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Winkler, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF RUSS WINKLER
Mr. Winkler. Thank you.
Chairman Blackburn, Ranking Member Doyle, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me today. I am a special
agent in charge with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and
co-director of the Tennessee Fusion Center. One of my
responsibilities is to oversee human sex trafficking
investigations.
Since 2011, thanks to our general assembly, our Governor,
and my boss, TBI Director Mark Gwyn, we have been given better
tools to combat this disgusting crime. We are proud that, this
year, Tennessee ranked number one on Shared Hope
International's State report card, and that is due in large
part to the sustained focus of our State leadership.
As I sit here talking with you, I am overseeing 66 active
human sex trafficking investigations with minor victims in big
cities and small towns across Tennessee. In most of these
cases, a sex trafficking perpetrator takes a child and forces,
threatens, or coerces her--the victim is nearly always female--
to engage in sex acts for money. In our experience, most cases
involved the posting of ads for underage sex on Backpage.com,
though Backpage is not the only site.
To identify people seeking to engage in commercial sex acts
with underage females, we use young-appearing female law
enforcement officers to post ads online offering sex acts. We
seed these ads with terms like ``new to town'' that are code in
that environment for underage females. The undercover agents
establish that they are under 18 in phone and text
conversations with potential johns. All have been men so far in
our investigations.
Numerous men are not deterred by their juvenile status and
eventually show up at the hotels, where we set up encounters
with undercover agents. The agents meet with the men in a hotel
room and, again, engage in conversation that proves that the
offenders think that they are underage. Money is given to the
undercover agents, and the men are promptly approached by
uniformed law enforcement officers, who are waiting in the next
room.
For us, this is, unfortunately, a routine operation. The
demand is staggering, and we know we are not unique among
States. Our most recent undercover operation in a Nashville
suburb resulted in 21 men being apprehended over a 3-day period
when they came to a hotel room to engage in sex acts with
undercover female agents who they believed were juveniles.
To target traffickers of underage girls, we use male
undercover TBI agents posing as johns. Our undercovers respond
to advertisements that our Fusion Center intelligence analysts
find on Backpage.com. Our analysts use advanced software called
Spotlight to help identify ads that have a strong likelihood of
being minors.
Rescuing victims of human sex trafficking is a priority for
us. We have established strong cooperative relationships with
nonprofit organizations and our State child protective services
agency. The nonprofit organization End Slavery Tennessee is
sometimes on site during our operations. They offer services
immediately on scene to women who come to the hotels answering
Backpage ads.
We have conducted operations and investigations involving
numerous perpetrators and victims. The one constant we
encounter in our investigations is the use of online platforms
like Backpage.com by buyers and sellers of underage sex.
Before I close, I want to point out that human sex
trafficking cases offer another example of a crime that is
enabled through emerging communications technologies. Victims
are marketed on sites like Backpage.com, and traffickers and
johns often use anonymous smartphone applications to facilitate
and hide their negotiations over these children. This creates
unique law enforcement challenges, which are sometimes referred
to as ``going dark'' challenges.
So, while we need tools to discourage online platforms from
facilitating commerce in children, it is clear that we also
need a legal framework that ensures law enforcement can get the
additional evidence we need to investigate these horrible
crimes.
I appreciate the invitation to testify today and look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Winkler follows:]
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Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you.
The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Goldman, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ERIC GOLDMAN
Mr. Goldman. Thank you.
Chairman Blackburn, Ranking Member Doyle, and members of
the subcommittee, I applaud the efforts of Congress and this
subcommittee to combat the horrible crime of sex trafficking.
These efforts include the Allow States and Victims to Fight
Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, called FOSTA.
I defer to experts in the sex trafficking victim advocacy
community about whether FOSTA would help victims. Based on my
expertise in internet law, I will discuss FOSTA's implications
for 47 U.S.C. 230, the law that Congress enacted in 1996 that
says websites aren't liable for third-party content.
Section 230 ranks as one of Congress' most important policy
achievements in the last quarter-century. Section 230 touches
deeply each of our lives by enabling the internet services we
rely upon every waking hour. It also advances free speech by
helping ordinary people communicate with a global audience for
the first time in history. Furthermore, Section 230 improves
marketplace efficiency across our entire economy and reduces
entry barriers so that new and innovative online services can
keep emerging.
Section 230 is a globally unique policy. No other country
provides such strong protections for online publishers of
third-party content. This differentiation gives the United
States a global competitive advantage for such services, which
has helped create enormous social value here in the United
States.
Congress enacted section 230 in response to a 1995 ruling
that an online service could be liable for user content because
it had removed other objectionable content. The ruling created
a dilemma for all online services that moderate user content.
Online services had to choose between two strategies: one,
exercise full editorial control over user content and accept
liability for whatever legally problematic content they miss;
or, two, minimize potential liability by exercising no
editorial control over user content.
Some services can't afford to exercise full editorial
control. Other services, such as tools for real-time
communications, can't function with full editorial control.
Thus, if failing to moderate content perfectly leads to
liability, some online services will abandon efforts to
moderate user content or even shut down.
Section 230 eliminated this moderator's dilemma. Section
230 applies regardless of what online services do to moderate
content or even what they know about user content. This means
online services can deploy and experiment with a wide range of
content moderation techniques without fearing liability for
what they miss. This helps online services, but it also helps
people access publication tools that let them reach new
audiences.
FOSTA would reinstate the moderator's dilemma. For the
first time in over 2 decades, it would cause online services to
question whether they should moderate content. Some services
will conclude that it is too risky to do so. If online services
reduce or eliminate their moderation efforts, FOSTA may
counterproductively cause a net increase in sex trafficking
promotion and all other types of antisocial content.
Section 230 does not give a free pass to online services
facilitating sex trafficking. Section 230 does not limit
Federal criminal prosecutions, and the Department of Justice
has prosecuted online services for publishing third-party ads,
including at least two prosecutions against services, MyRedBook
and Rentboy, that facilitated online prostitution. Furthermore,
in the 2015 SAVE Act, Congress criminalized online advertising
of sex trafficking, and a Phoenix grand jury has been
investigating Backpage.
Congress can balance additional anti-sex-trafficking
initiatives with section 230's benefits by: one, ensuring that
online services face only a single Federal standard of
liability rather than State-by-State variations that will make
it difficult or impossible for online services to determine
what law applies to them; two, encouraging online services to
continue performing socially valuable content moderation
efforts by basing liability on an online service's intent to
facilitate illegal activities, not on what it knows, and
expressly saying that online services shall not be legally
penalized for their moderation efforts. I oppose FOSTA because
it does not to conform to either principle.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the subcommittee
on this very important matter.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Goldman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Goldman.
The gentleman yields back. That concludes our testimony.
At this time, I have several documents to enter for the
record: Shared Hope International, Exodus Cry, the National
Center on Sexual Exploitation, and the Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women submit a statement. We have a letter from
Shared Hope International; an article from The Register-Guard;
a letter written April 3, 2012, that Ms. Maloney and I did to
Google, Larry Page of Google, questioning Backpage, so we have
been working on this for quite a while; and then a letter
submitted and testimony from Mr. Chris Cox, partner from Morgan
Lewis, and he is the outside counsel for NetChoice.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mrs. Blackburn. So let's begin our questions.
And, Mr. Winkler, I want to come to you to begin. You
referenced the sting that you had conducted, and we all know
that that made headlines, of course, in Tennessee but also
around the country. And we have looked at how Tennessee is
number one in Shared Hope International's study.
And what I would like to hear from you and I think everyone
on this panel, Democrat and Republican, would like to hear from
you, what do you think has made the difference in Tennessee?
What do you use most within the law? What would you like to see
changed?
The partnership--Ms. Smith, you may want to weigh in on
this--but you are doing something different. You are getting
results.
And I would like for you to begin, Mr. Winkler, and then,
Ms. Smith, for you to add to his answer.
Mr. Winkler. Yes, Chairman. I think that the continued
commitment by the general assembly and the Governor and the TBI
director to support human trafficking investigations and our
partnerships across the State with the nonprofit organizations
and our partnership with our State's child protective services
agency, all those things combined have been a tremendous help
in Tennessee.
A lot of emphasis has been placed on enhancements in the
law to make it more punishable for both buyers and sellers of
sex acts with juveniles. And I think that all those things
combined is what has really helped us in Tennessee combat this
problem.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK.
Ms. Smith?
Ms. Smith. I agree. I think it takes all parts of the
puzzle working together. So you have to have law enforcement,
legislature, the courts, child protective services, and service
providers all working together communicating and collaborating
together. I think that is something we do very well.
Law enforcement does work we can't do--investigate,
prosecute the perpetrators, rescue. We can bring a survivor and
an advocate perspective so that they can work in a trauma-
informed way. We can bring survivors on the scene at those
stings to build trust and transfer that trust to law
enforcement so they are a lot more likely to cooperate. And if
you don't have services in place for the victims, they are not
going to stick around to make a good case. So everything
intersects together.
Mrs. Blackburn. Let me ask you this. How are you all
working in educating healthcare professionals?
Ms. Smith. We actually, right now, are working with one of
the large hospital systems. They have been working with us for
about a year to create training for all of their staff
nationwide. We are doing a beta rollout now in our region to
train everybody from ER staffs to the receptionists at clinics.
And we have a protocol in place so that they have a trauma-
informed response. So they know to call the hotline number,
they know the protocol for service provision, for mandatory
reporting.
And then, in our case, we bring survivors on the scene from
our staff to be there immediately to build their trust and to
offer them services.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK.
I want to go to you, Ms. Souras and Ms. Smith. I did some
reading in preparation for the hearing and looking at who is
kind of the target victim for this, and many times it seems as
if it is young girls who are in State or foster care custody,
if you will.
And I would like for you--we will begin with you, Ms.
Souras, and then to Ms. Smith--to just talk about how these
perpetrators of the crime go about targeting these victims, and
then add if there is anything you think we could do
differently.
Ms. Souras. Absolutely. Thank you, Chairman Blackburn.
You are absolutely right that the location of the child
often has great bearing on whether they were vulnerable to
being exploited.
NCMEC really views child sex trafficking victims as a
missing-child problem. In our experience, and as an example,
just last year, in 2016, one of six runaways reported to us
were likely sex trafficking victims, and, of those, 86 percent
were running from State care. So definite correlations between
children who were running away and also where they are running
away from and, again, their ultimate vulnerabilities.
In our experience, the average victim is a girl, even
though there are boys and LGBTQ youth, of course, who are
trafficked as well. But, again, average victim is a girl about
15\1/2\ years old. Between 15 and 17 is the general age range
we see.
And, typically, these are children who are really
experiencing an array of vulnerabilities. They are looking for
something. It might be a parental figure. It might be love or
affection, someone to care about them. You know, we often talk
about children who are seeking, really, human basic
requirements--safety, security, shelter. These are children
who, you know, are not receiving that in their current home or
social services setting. So they are very susceptible to false
promises, false promises of love, shelter, again, security--
very basic needs. And that really is how they are lured.
These are children who are, you know, often seeking just
the smallest remnant of kindness from someone, so the smallest
extension of that from a trafficker. And traffickers know who
to extend that to and what that child might be looking for.
That is often enough, just, again, for them to feel like
someone has done something kind for them or something to care
about for them.
Mrs. Blackburn. Ms. Smith?
Ms. Smith. I ditto that 100 percent.
And I will say that foster care and the State custody
system is a perfect pool for exploitation, because you have
those children who are vulnerable. And we know lots of girls
who were actually recruited within the system, out of group
homes. There would be somebody who was recruiting on behalf of
a trafficker.
It is a system that sets things up for exploitation because
these girls learn, ``Oh, I have a family who gets paid to take
care of me.'' That kind of mentality can transfer to a
trafficker. ``Well, he is going to take care of me, and it is
reasonable that he is getting money to do so.''
And I think I would add, though, that there is such a thing
as familial trafficking. There are family members who traffic
their children for money for drugs, usually, or for alcohol.
And so, in that State system, when we are dealing with child
services, there needs to be a track that is identifying those
children and that is giving them the kind of specialized care
that they need. They can't just be lumped in with the truants
and the runaways and the unruly children. There needs to be a
track that quickly gets them into the services they need.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you.
My time has expired, and at this time I yield to Mr. Doyle,
5 minutes.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Goldman, in your testimony, you mention two ways you
believe that Congress can achieve a balanced solution: first,
by avoiding a patchwork of State laws, which websites would
have to comply; and then, secondly, by targeting a website's
intent to facilitate illegal activities.
I wonder, have you seen Mr. Goodlatte's proposed amendment
to Mrs. Wagner's legislation that involves targeting the
facilitation of prostitution with a specific intent standard
and carving out State criminal laws that would do the same
thing? Would such a proposal serve that purpose of balance?
Mr. Goldman. I have seen the proposed legislation, and I do
think that the effort to focus on the specific intent to
facilitate prostitution is a productive way of approaching the
issue. And I consider it to be superior than the alternatives
that I have seen.
Mr. Doyle. You know, I want to again applaud the good work
of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations because
they bringing the details of this issue in focus. And after
reading their staff report, it is clear that Backpage.com not
only profited from online sex trafficking but that Backpage.com
also helped to develop content for online sex traffickers.
Now, Professor Goldman, it is my understanding that section
230 does not protect the website when it develops content in
this way. So could you explain for us where the courts have
drawn the line between developing content which is not
protected and allowing third-party posts, which is?
Mr. Goldman. The statute excludes anyone--it is protection
for anyone who creates or develops content in whole or in part.
So someone who develops content in part is not covered by the
statute per its terms.
In my opinion, the courts have interpreted that to really
say that the party doesn't qualify for the section 230 immunity
if they develop what is illegal about the content. And so there
is a nexus between developing the content and developing what
made it illegal. And I think that that is a helpful guidance
for us to think about.
Mr. Doyle. So if the facts that were laid out in the Senate
report are true, do you think Backpage.com can continue to use
section 230 as a shield?
Mr. Goldman. I must say that the facts have raised a lot of
questions about exactly how we interpret the statutory
language, and I am eager to see what the courts end up doing
with the facts that they have.
Certainly, in Backpage's case, we have a lot of suspicion
about the legitimacy of their motives. But some of what they
were doing are common tactics on the internet, and we need to
make sure that whatever happens to Backpage doesn't also create
problems for the other sites that might be doing similar things
but with a much less pernicious objective.
Mr. Doyle. Mrs. Wagner's SAVE Act was recently passed into
law. And can you tell us what tools this legislation gives law
enforcement in pursuing sites like Backpage and how prosecutors
and their investigators are starting to utilize it in their
investigation?
And maybe you and Mr. Winkler could respond to that.
Mr. Goldman. So the SAVE Act criminalized knowingly
advertising sex trafficking. And that is a new crime that did
not exist, So it did cover some new area that had not been
covered by any other crime.
That law was just passed in 2015. I don't know what the
typical turnaround times are for new crimes being enacted and
the actual usage of them. So it is fairly early in the
development of that particular law to gauge whether or not it
has been effective.
We do know that there is a grand jury investigation that
has been investigating Backpage in Phoenix. We don't know what
is going on in the grand jury investigation because that is a
black box to us; it takes place under the cloak of secrecy. But
it would be logical to me that the SAVE Act would be one of the
grounds on which the DOJ has asked the grand jury to
investigate Backpage.
Mr. Doyle. Mr. Winkler, have you been able to utilize that
act in any of your investigations or prosecutions?
Mr. Winkler. No, sir. I am not familiar with the details of
that. But did you have a question, too, about Spotlight, or did
I misunderstand?
Mr. Doyle. No, I didn't.
Mr. Winkler. OK. Well, I am not familiar with that act,
sir.
Mr. Doyle. OK. Thank you.
Madam Chair, I will yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Guthrie, 5 minutes.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
So I was sitting here just listening, and Ms. Smith
described how quickly girls or ladies were transferred from
Atlanta to Nashville and set up--I think you said as easy as
ordering a slice of pizza. And Mr. Winkler commented
specifically on the online platforms and the difficulty it has
had in trying to deal with this.
And I know section 230 was passed in 1996 through a
Republican Congress, through this committee. But when you hear
the stories of what is coming out of this, it has to be
addressed--absolutely has to be addressed.
And, Mr. Goldman, when Mr. Doyle asked you about the
Goodlatte amendment, I noticed you said it is superior to the
current bill, but do you think it is acceptable and something
you would like to see passed into law?
Mr. Goldman. Personally, I would favor waiting to see how
the developments play out in the courts. There are a number of
developments taking place right now that are very germane to
what we are discussing.
For example, just on Tuesday, a Backpage challenge against
the Missouri attorney general investigation was dismissed, in
part with the court noting that section 230 may not protect
Backpage and that would not be the grounds to hold back the
Missouri AG investigation.
So we know right now things are taking place, and my
preference would be to see how that plays out.
Mr. Guthrie. So there is no amendment acceptable? You would
rather this legislation sit until some court makes a decision?
Mr. Goldman. I think that----
Mr. Guthrie. Or do you have something that would be
acceptable now?
Because the issue is, we hear that a lot in Congress. The
legislative branch, we do things, and we will let the court
clarify, we will let them move forward, you know. In my
personal opinion, it is our job to do that. If we know there is
a problem that needs to be out there, we don't need to wait,
``Well, let's see what a court decision is going to do,'' if we
can clarify that ourselves. I think that is what the American
people expect.
And so is there not anything we could do now that you would
find acceptable that might address the problem, or do you think
we should just wait on a court?
Mr. Goldman. Yes--no, I respect that, that the whole reason
why we are here is because you are in the position to take
advantage of the tools that you have to solve the problems that
you see.
I think that the best call is to let the existing law that
Congress enacted in 2015 and all the other laws that Congress
passed play out. If we are going to pursue legislation--like
you said, that is what Congress does--I do think that the two
principles I mentioned would be the guiding principles for how
I would consider legislation to be acceptable.
Mr. Guthrie. Thanks.
On another topic, Ms. Souras, the Missouri attorney
general, in your testimony, you specifically said that one of
the issues is the patchwork attorney generals are having to
move forward. What is the issue with going State by State
versus us addressing this? Why does it need to be addressed
here instead of waiting for a State-by-State attorney generals
process?
Ms. Souras. Thank you, Representative Guthrie.
What we really have seen over the past few years is more or
less a complete foreclosure on the State attorneys general in
their ability to protect children from trafficking in their own
States.
And I will point to the California attorney general's
investigation and subsequent attempts to prosecute Backpage not
once but twice on pimping charges over the past, I believe, 2
years. After a very long investigation into Backpage, pimping
and, you know, other related charges were filed against
Backpage in the Sacramento Superior Court by the State attorney
general's office. The court dismissed all of the pimping
charges based on the broad interpretation of the CDA.
Just before Attorney General Kamala Harris moved to the
Senate at the end of 2016, she had her office refile those
pimping charges with some additional facts developed to try to
answer to the court's last order. And the judge, the new judge,
in the second case, again dismissed the pimping charges, again
based on the Communications Decency Act.
So what we have at this point and what we have heard from
the courts, including the courts in California, is really that
Congress needs to clarify that State attorneys general can join
this battle, that they can join Federal prosecutors. I know you
didn't ask about civil remedies and civil attorneys, but it is
the same in that realm as well. Currently, State attorneys
general simply do not have the ability to get around the CDA.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you.
And I have been to NCMEC, and I actually have a bill that
has passed the House and hopefully reauthorizing NCMEC as we go
forward. And I was going to ask you a question about that, but
I will save that. I am running out of time.
Just to say, what your people in that building go through
every day, we are blessed as Americans to have people willing
to do that kind of work. It is disturbing to see, but we have
people there doing it. And I am sure, Ms. Smith, you are seeing
the same; Mr. Winkler, the same thing. And it is really good
that we have people on the front lines trying to combat this.
And we need to give them the tools. We need to be judicious,
but we also need to give them the tools available to do it.
And thank you for being here.
I yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. McNerney, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the chairwoman, and I thank the
witnesses today. This is a difficult subject and something that
needs to be done. It is urgent.
Ms. Souras, in 2015, Congress passed the Stop Advertising
Victims of Exploitation, or the SAVE Act. Do you think the SAVE
Act has been effective in giving prosecutors the tools to bring
down sites like Backpage.com?
Ms. Souras. Thank you for the opportunity to address that.
And I will, you know, piggyback a little bit on what Mr.
Goldman said. He did explain that the SAVE Act was enacted at
the end of 2015. It basically added advertising as one of the
new predicate acts that one could commit under the Federal
trafficking statute.
One thing that is very important, though, to take into
account is that the statute was enacted at the end of 2015.
Backpage immediately filed court papers in the Federal court
here in the District of Columbia to basically enjoin that
statute, saying that it was unconstitutional. They filed suit
against the Department of Justice. That case was not resolved
until October of 2016.
So, even though it may feel as though the law has been
around for a couple of years and no one has used it, I would,
you know, provide a bit of a counter view on that and say the
law has really only been available to prosecutors out from
under the specter of what that court's decision might have been
for just about a year, which simply is not a long time when you
think of a Federal investigation to be teed up and pursued.
Mr. McNerney. And I was going to ask you, first of all, are
we clear of courts possibly overturning the SAVE Act at this
point? Is the SAVE Act safe, you know, in legislative/judicial
terms?
Ms. Souras. Well, it was a curious decision that the DC
District Court issued. They did not actually address the
substance of the constitutionality issue. They actually found
that Backpage did not have appropriate standing, and they ruled
on ancillary issues. So one could view that act as still being
susceptible, if it were used in a prosecution, to
constitutionality arguments.
Mr. McNerney. Well, do you think that the Congress needs to
examine whether Federal prosecutors and investigators have
sufficient resources to combat online sex trafficking?
Ms. Souras. So I think that is always a valid measure. You
know, certainly at NCMEC we have such close partnerships with
Federal and State law enforcement, and we, you know, always are
encouraged by discussions around offering them more resources.
But what I would--what I would suggest is that what Federal
prosecutors need is not necessarily more resources or new laws;
they need more players on their team. And by that I mean State
attorneys general and civil attorneys as well.
Mr. McNerney. That was my next question. Does the Goodlatte
amendment allow State prosecutors to go ahead and prosecute
cases as long as they comply with Federal requirements?
Ms. Souras. So the language that I have seen, which I
understand is very much in flux and has shifted again, I
believe, since I saw a draft of it, permits that in extremely
limited ways, and I would argue much more limited than the
current FOSTA bill or the Senate bill, SESTA.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
Professor Goldman, thanks for coming out here from the bay
area. I want to make sure I understand a few things about
section 230. Does section 230 prohibit Federal law enforcement
from going after websites that host advertisements for sex
trafficking?
Mr. Goldman. No.
Mr. McNerney. Does section 230 protect individuals that
actively engage in sex trafficking?
Mr. Goldman. No.
Mr. McNerney. In your written testimony, you state that
section 230 ranks as one of Congress' most important policy
achievements in the past 25 years, a quarter century. What
makes that section so important? What gives it the teeth that
it has?
Mr. Goldman. It becomes the infrastructure for the entire
internet ecosystem, which itself is infrastructure for our
entire society. So the one little thing it does, saying
publishers aren't liable for third-party content, creates this
vast array of activity that wouldn't exist for any other reason
except for the internet and its enablement through section 230.
Mr. McNerney. What would the world--or the internet world--
what would the internet look like without 230?
Mr. Goldman. Well, we have some examples about that because
we see what it looks like in other countries. And they don't
have the same kind of robust user to user interactivity that we
have here in the United States. If they have it, it is because
it is provided by companies based here in the U.S.
Mr. McNerney. So basically 230 is doing what it is supposed
to do, and we may not need to amend it until we find out if it
is effective as we hope it is?
Mr. Goldman. Section 230 is a very powerful statute, and so
amendments to it have potential for very dramatic effects.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. I yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Olson, 5 minutes.
Mr. Olson. I thank my friend from Tennessee from the bottom
of my heart for having this important hearing. Modern-day
slavery happens all over America, as Mrs. Wagner said in the
first panel. It happens in my hometown of Sugar Land, Texas.
Slavery for sex and labor. It is ugly, offensive, but it is
real.
It is so offensive and so ugly that some law enforcement
people back home say it doesn't exist. But it does. In April
2016, back home, a high school senior, very attractive,
disappeared at night working at a local gym 500 yards from my
official office in the heart of Sugar Land. She had just turned
18, so she was a legal adult. Her father knew that, unless he
found her in 30 days, she would likely be gone forever.
Luckily, he had resources to hire former Special Forces,
SEALs, Green Berets, reinforced recon, and put a full-on
onslaught on social media. He got her back. That situation had
been planned for 2 years. She befriended the so-called groomer
when she was 16. He used Snapchat to communicate with her to
give her drugs, get her hooked, and keep that from her parents.
That family was lucky; they got their daughter back. And so was
my family.
Last June, my daughter went to South Africa on an overseas
study program with her college. She went to Durban, South
Africa. No one told us that was a hot bed for human
trafficking. The students had to walk about half a mile from
the dormitory to the classroom. In the middle of a bright sunny
day, 2 p.m., four-lane road, center divider, a car pulled up in
front of my daughter and her new friend. Three large men jumped
out. One had a pistol in his left hand. My daughter saw the
pistol. That man grabbed her shoulder, tried to take her in
that car. Luckily, she had her backpack hanging with one strap
on her right shoulder, the one he grabbed. The backpack came
off. That gave her new friend the time to grab her right arm
and pull her away.
They ran as fast as they ever could. My daughter said: I
was waiting to hear gunshots and being shot and dying in South
Africa.
Luckily, God was with her. They got to safety, and she came
home. But she came home different. Those thugs took my
daughter's innocence and trust. And it is a pain that will
never ever go away from my family.
As I mentioned, especially with the girl from the gym, sex
traffickers use emerging technologies to help them obtain an
advantage and to stay hidden from law enforcement and families.
As I mentioned, Snapchat, an example, a 6-second video pops up,
pops away. Bitcoin for online transactions.
My question for the entire panel--I will start with you,
Ms. Smith--if I can make you the king, the queen, for one day
to end human trafficking, what would you do?
Ms. Smith. I only have 5 minutes.
Mr. Olson. I can take whatever the chairman gives me.
Ms. Smith. First, let me say, my heart goes out to you. I
sit across from parents with some regularity who didn't have an
almost, whose children were trafficked, and it is one of the
hardest things in my job to do. So I am glad your story was an
almost.
From my perspective, I see the devastation in lives of
young girls, primarily girls. I see, even after they come out
of trafficking, the fear they have that their images are still
up online, and who might find them and who might see them, and
parents have those fears, too, when there are parents involved.
And even looking ahead, as we are trying to help them heal,
they are worried about whether their employer is going to see
those someday or their children or their potential spouse. So
they are just tentacles that go out in this technology.
So I think you have alluded to some of those things. The
anonymity, the ease of the marketplace, has to be shut down. We
can't--you know, I heard somebody tell me this story: If you
take it out of the internet and you say, ``In that hotel over
there, we are going to have children being raped and sold so
that we can go and, you know, find them, use them as live
bait,'' so to speak, we would be appalled. But we are OK with
doing that if it is on the internet; somehow that is different.
So we have got to have mandatory privacy controls. As long
as we don't have those privacy controls, predators are going to
exploit our children. Children are going to lie about their
ages to get accounts. So we have got to have that. We have got
to get rid of the anonymity. I am a big believer in free speech
but not in letting people rape our children. That is a
simplistic answer, but----
Mr. Olson. And I am out of time.
I yield back. But one final comment. Those guys are so bad
with Snapchat. They would send this young girl, ``OK, the drugs
are on the car tire in the school parking lot on the fifth car
that is a red Impala on the back rear tire.'' That would pop up
for 6 seconds and then pop away; you can't track it. They are
devils. Absolute evil devils. And thank God put you to stop
this thing. It has to stop--has to, has to, has to stop. My
daughter was lucky. She came home. But, as you mentioned, most
daughters aren't that lucky. They don't come home. And that is
terrible, terrible, terrible. Thank you for coming today.
I yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Eshoo, 5 minutes.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Thank you to all the witnesses that are here today. A
special welcome to Professor Goldman from home, from Santa
Clara University, that we are all very proud of. Professor
Goldman, when I read the reports about Backpage.com, I was
really just absolutely disgusted by their business model. I
think we need to be enforcing the law, obviously, to the
fullest extent, when it comes to websites that are promoting
sex trafficking.
But with that in mind, I want to clarify something about
section 230. And I read your testimony, and much of it is
centered in and around section 230. Under that section, does
anything stop the Department of Justice from bringing a
criminal case against sites like Backpage.com, and are there
other ways besides civil cases that victims can seek redress?
That is my first question.
Mr. Goldman. The first question--the first part is, no,
nothing would restrict the Department of Justice from bringing
an enforcement action against anyone, Backpage or any of the
other sites that have been referenced.
Ms. Eshoo. Have they?
Mr. Goldman. We have the grand jury investigation that has
been taking place in Phoenix, and we don't know what the result
of that is because of the nature of the grand jury
investigation. It seems safe to say that Backpage surely is on
their radar screen, but how that translates into a prosecution
decision is beyond my expertise.
Ms. Eshoo. You don't know that yet. Uh-huh. Can you make
any suggestions to us about how websites and tech companies can
take it upon themselves to be proactive and find other ways to
be proactive about fighting sex trafficking? Isn't that what
230 civil immunity is designed to incent?
Mr. Goldman. Yes, it does. And I liked how Ms. Smith
referenced it. It does take a partnership of all the players to
combat sex trafficking. We need everybody on the fight,
including the technology companies. And to get their
willingness to undertake initiatives requires that they aren't
held accountable for making mistakes or for not being
instantaneous in their response or for the other kinds of
things that are natural in an environment where users are
posting lots and lots of content.
So section 230 is an integral part of the solution by
making sure that we have provided the kind of legal framework
that motivates the companies to do the work that we want them
to do.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you.
The bill that our colleague came to testify on is obviously
intended to reduce the placement of antisocial content, like
sex trafficking ads, online. But could, in your view, it be
counterproductive, in other words, increase the appearance of
such content? I mean, can you explain in the little more detail
how that would work?
Mr. Goldman. Yes. And I appreciate the opportunity to
clarify that because it is counterintuitive. You would think
that if we banned content and made more people liable for them,
we will get less of the objectionable content. But that assumes
that the existing services continue to do the work that they
are already doing. But if we change the liability structure on
them, they might decide that the best choice for them is to do
less of the kind of policing and moderation work that we
already are counting upon.
So, while we might be able to take care of some players by
driving them out of existence, we might also create other
players who choose to do little or none of the work that we
expect them to do. And if that is the result, if those players
turn off their policing efforts, then they create more
environments where the antisocial content can occur.
Ms. Eshoo. That is very interesting. Do you know of any
examples where online services have used the flexibility
granted by 230 to help combat online sex trafficking or similar
crimes and, if so, how effective these efforts have been?
Mr. Goldman. I don't have the details on that. In fact,
some of my copanelists here might actually have more
information on that.
Ms. Eshoo. Mr. Souras, do you know?
Ms. Souras. Yes, absolutely. You know, from NCMEC's
perspective, we can certainly attest to the tremendous value
that our technology partners provide, especially in the child
sexual exploitation or child pornography realm. The
developments of tools, hashing, the ability to utilize very
advanced analytical comparisons and connections between images
and data and video has definitely not only increased our report
load tremendously at NCMEC, but it means that more and more
content relating to child sexual exploitation has been reported
to us. That work in the bulk of it came after the mandatory
statute was put into place requiring technology companies to
report apparent child pornography to NCMEC.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you.
My time has expired, and I yield back.
Thank you to the witnesses very much.
Mrs. Blackburn. We thank the gentlelady.
Mr. Bilirakis, 5 minutes.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciate it very much. Thank you for holding the
hearing, and I appreciate the testimony of the panel. And, of
course, Mrs. Wagner is doing an outstanding job on this issue.
I am glad to see this is her priority.
I have a couple questions, but in response to increased sex
trafficking around the world and in the Tampa Bay area--I
represent the Tampa Bay area or parts of it in Florida--our
local leaders established the Pasco County Commission on Human
Trafficking in 2014. Over the last 3 years, the commission has
helped to educate over 500,000 Floridians, trained over 3,000
community members, and saved many victims from their captors.
Recently, the commission held its first meeting to
specifically address online sex trafficking. Partnering with
local universities and the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, they
are gathering data on local online trafficking networks in the
Tampa Bay area, and it is a big problem in our area.
So my question is--my first question is to Ms. Smith. Based
on your experience, what recommendations do you have for
communities around the country that are beginning to target the
online aspects of sex trafficking? And are there experienced
organizations they should reach out to as they move forward?
Ms. Smith. Well, I applaud you for the efforts in your home
State. I think that a lot of people are well-intentioned and go
in and just have knee-jerk reactions. So it is important that
there be a professional approach to this, as with any other, so
that there is a needs assessment that you have the
professionals in place who are best qualified to address each
of the components of your--of the problem you are tackling,
whether that is internet or not.
You need the kind of collaboration that we talked about in
our State, where legislators are getting educated, law
enforcement is getting educated, the courts; where there is a
unified system where people are talking to each other and not
at crossroads; where you are defining what your issues are, and
not comparing apples and oranges. There is some foundational
work that I think you have to do around the issue of
trafficking before you can even move to the online aspects.
I think it is important that you have survivor voices who
are talking about the ways that they were trafficked and the
effects on their lives and their concerns, the legal issues
that they are facing. But I think some of my colleagues here
might be even better in a position to----
Mr. Bilirakis. OK. Sure.
Ms. Souras, would you like to begin?
Ms. Souras. Yes, thank you.
I certainly agree with everything Ms. Smith related. I
think--you know, one of the things that is important, and NCMEC
always says this, is that sex trafficking is a multifaceted
problem; it requires a multifaceted solution. So certainly the
community awareness and the use and the listening to survivors
and what they have gone through and the use of peer-counseling.
And, again, learning from and using the experiences of those
who have gone through this so that we can learn how to better
educate on prevention and awareness and signs of trafficking to
everyone that comes into contact with children, in addition to
the judicial system and the healthcare system as well.
Mr. Bilirakis. We have got to beat this together. It has
got to be a collaborative effort, there is no question. I wish
everyone could respond, but I want to move on to my next
question because I don't have very much time.
While technology has been a facilitator to traffickers, it
also has put innovation into to the hands of law enforcement.
Mr. Winkler, you mentioned your use of the Spotlight software
to help identify traffickers in a crowd of online posts. Can
you expand on how this technology works and its success for the
Bureau, as it might benefit our commission on human trafficking
as they begin online monitoring for this illegal behavior?
Mr. Winkler. Yes, sir. My understanding of Spotlight is it
is an algorithm or overlay that looks for ads that are posted
online, where there is a strong likelihood that those ads have
been posted by minors or somebody has posted minors for--or
posted ads for minors. It is a tremendous tool for us in law
enforcement. Our intelligence analysts and our agents who are
assigned to conduct human trafficking investigations use that
tool almost on a daily basis in an effort to identify human
trafficking victims.
So any type of technology like Spotlight that would help us
in the furtherance of our investigations and in the furtherance
of our efforts to combat human sex trafficking would certainly
be welcome.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for their, obviously,
participating today and protecting our Nation's vulnerable
population. We really appreciate it. And I encourage Tampa Bay
residents to visit KNOW--and, again, spelled K-N-O-W--MORE
PASCO, know more information, KNOW MORE PASCO, on Facebook or
Twitter to learn more about what the community is doing to
combat these predators.
Thank you very much. And I thank my community for taking
action. I yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Rush, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rush. I certainly want to thank you, Madam Chairman,
for your courage in terms of having this hearing, and I want to
commend you for your work and leadership in this particular
matter. Child exploitation is pandemic through this Nation and
is indeed a seedy dark side of our culture.
And I want to see from a different perspective how--what
role does child marriage play in this crime? It seems as though
there is another aspect of this crime that really has not been
discussed at all, and that is for child marriages to occur.
Do you find or can you speak to this issue at all? Anybody?
I mentioned something--I have some legislation that I am
addressing to deal with the language of standards for our
Nation to have as it relates to child marriages. There are so
many different standards State by State. So we are trying to
create a common standard through legislation. Do you have any--
can you respond at all? Anybody? All right. Well, let me----
Ms. Smith. I am sorry. I am getting older and hard of
hearing, so I may have missed some parts of that. You were
asking about child marriage and----
Mr. Rush. I am asking about child marriages.
Ms. Smith [continuing]. And trafficking. I would say that
we have had limited experience with that. It is typically a
foreign national victim. We do have a current survivor we are
serving who was sold at the age of 14 to be married, and her
husband brought her here and trafficked her. It was just an out
and out trafficking situation. She managed to escape, and we
are providing her services.
But in the years in which I have worked here--I did work
internationally and came across that issue quite a bit--but
domestically, it is a relatively small percentage.
Mr. Rush. Well, I have heard and some of our researchers
have said in some parts of our Nation, it is very common that
young girls particularly are forced into marriages in order to
satisfy the laws that prohibit interstate transfer of minors
for sexual exploitation. So child marriage is an issue in
certain parts of our Nation.
Let me ask you another question. Is there--have you
noticed, is there a racial component to sexual exploitation of
youngsters? Is there a racial component?
Ms. Smith. I don't have those figures at my--those at my
fingertip. I would be happy to get the information and send it
to you later. I do know that there is a higher percentage of
African-American victims. We certainly see lots of Latina, but
I am sorry; I don't have the percentages, and I don't believe
any of us probably do.
Mr. Rush. All right. We, in recent days, have been highly
focused on sexual harassment in the workplace and also in
professional settings. And it seems as though there is a
predominance in the news today and in recent days about sexual
exploitation and harassment in the workplace and in
professional settings.
How is this affecting our national focus on children who,
in most instances, are far less powerful and are more
vulnerable because they are more voiceless? Are you seeing--are
you seeing any kind of lessening of the attention on child
sexual harassment because of the predominance in the news on
harassment in the workplace and in professional settings?
Ms. Souras. Congressman, what we handle in NCMEC is
obviously a much more severe type of child sexual exploitation.
But, you know, I will say I think the public attention, the
media counts, as you noted, around this issue, do create an
environment for additional discussion that we can have with our
children, with vulnerable populations.
Again, just regarding communication, being open to
reporting. We are seeing some of these same trends with adults
in professional settings. I think perhaps it is too early to
know how that might filter down into some of the vulnerable
populations that we work with here.
Mr. Rush. I yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Long, 5 minutes.
Mr. Long. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
This is a tough hearing to sit through. And what is the
rate, or do you have any statistics on the rate of recidivism?
I mean, you are talking about mostly girls, let's say, that are
in this--I know there are some LGBTQ, whatever--but mostly
girls that are trafficked. And you say that they mostly come
from State homes, correct? From the State system?
Ms. Smith. [Nonverbal response.]
Mr. Long. So Mr. Winkler goes up there and busts them with
his program. Where do they go from there? I mean, they don't go
to a house with a white picket fence and a dog in the yard and
have apple pie that night. What--is there a recidivism? Do we
know anything about that?
Ms. Smith. I can just speak experientially from our State,
and it depends on--if you are counting recidivism as returning
to that life of exploitation?
Mr. Long. Right. That is what I am asking. How do you break
that cycle for that age group, for those people? I mean, not
the next age group coming, or whatever, but how do you take
them--you know, rescue them from that, which we all want to do?
Then what happens?
Ms. Smith. I think that we found a terrific model in our
State. Currently, we have an 89-percent success rate for the
people that we serve not going back into exploitation. I am not
going to say it is not incredibly difficult. I believe I read
that the national average is that a girl typically running runs
back to exploitation seven times. Thankfully our rates are much
lower than that.
Mr. Long. Seven times?
Ms. Smith. Seven times. You know, there is some--there is
complex trauma going on here.
Mr. Long. I know. I mean, that is part of the----
Ms. Smith. But, thankfully, I think some of the reasons we
have had success are we have survivors on staff who build that
trust and who mentor, who show visibly: This does not have to
define your life. I am a professional woman. I am married. I
have children. I have a college degree. This does not have to
define your life.
That is a first step.
I think the fact that we keep very small caseloads, because
these girls typically are looking for relationships. They were
exploited because they want love and acceptance, things all of
us want, but they have that deep need. So you can provide
services all day long, but if you don't build that community of
other survivors that they live with and the support groups and
the relationship with staff and starting to build their outside
support system, they are going to go back to have that need met
in the only way they have ever known.
And I think those are keys to our success. I think it takes
time. We can't rush this. We tend to do that. And especially
child services: 2 months, 3 months, and that is all there is
funding for.
Mr. Long. Let me give each of you about 45 seconds to
answer, start with Ms. Souras: What are the top three things we
as Congress, two or three things, that we need to do to help
you?
Ms. Souras. I think the number one thing is really, quite
honestly, the topic of this hearing. There need to be legal
tools that can effectively break the commercial market, the
commercial market that these girls run back to, as Ms. Smith
indicated, that they are lured back into to be trafficked, and
the same market that, again, is feeding between 9,000 and
10,000 reports of child sex trafficking to NCMEC a year, and
there is no decrease in those reports. Something at a high
level needs to happen so that these websites can be taken down.
Mr. Long. OK. Go ahead.
Ms. Smith. I will just add with a little vignette: I have a
15-year-old this week who just got her privileges back online,
because we have a tiered system for that. And the same day she
got those privileges, a 40-year-old man was reaching out to
her. And she said, ``I am a minor,'' and he said, ``That is
fine.'' We see that over and over again. So I just concur.
Mr. Long. This Backpage.com or whatever it is, is this--I
mean, I have heard of it a million times, but I have never
looked at it. Is it--you buy bicycles and couches and
refrigerators there, and then there is also a trafficking
section, or how does it work? It is not all trafficking, right?
Ms. Smith. No, it is not all trafficking, but it is hidden
under euphemisms: Buy a girl for 40 roses. Everybody knows that
means $40. It is very blatant. The pictures are very
sexualized. There is not really much attempt to hide what is
going on.
Mr. Long. OK. Mr. Winkler.
Mr. Winkler. Anything that encourages innovation in
technology that would assist us in conducting the
investigations that we conduct, that would assist us in
furthering those investigations and helping us to identify
trafficking victims, anything, whether that is targeted funding
or just whatever, anything that you could do along those lines
would be----
Mr. Long. Mr. Goldman, I am over time, I am going to give
you--I am going to yield myself 45 seconds that I don't have
because I want to hear from you.
Mr. Flores. I object.
Mr. Goldman. I appreciate that. I do defer to the experts
on this. I think if we could clone my three copanelists here,
that would be a big step forward.
Mr. Long. Thank you. I yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back and didn't use
that 45 seconds he gave himself.
Mr. Flores, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Flores. I hope that means I get 5\1/2\ minutes.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
And I want to thank the panel for being here today.
And I have to echo Mr. Long's comments: This really is a
sad hearing to go through this. But I do appreciate your being
here to talk about this ugly blight on American society.
Mr. Winkler, I want to follow up on one of the questions
that Mr. Bilirakis introduced. He talked about your use of the
tool Spotlight. And from what I understand now, as the
trafficking business, if you will, is moving from text and
photos to live streaming and video, it is my understanding that
technology, the Spotlight types of technology, have not kept
up. What sort of a challenge does that present to you?
Mr. Winkler. I don't know specifically of challenges that
we are faced with yet. I do know that there is a shift from the
text format to video and streaming, and that it certainly is
something that is on the horizon, if it is not already here.
Like I said before, anything that you can do that would
assist in fostering innovation in that area would be most
helpful.
Mr. Flores. I have to agree with you, I think that is one
of the things that we as policymakers need to do, but not
through legislation necessarily, but through encouragement, is
to help get the best and brightest in Silicon Valley and
throughout the technology ecosystem to help develop tools to
help you stop this terrible crime that is being inflicted on
our young people.
Ms. Smith, I appreciate what you do. There is a group that
started in Waco, Texas, called UnBound, and they do great work,
and they deal with the victim side. And one of the neat things
I have seen in our community is that they have brought law
enforcement into the tent and have educated them about what is,
I mean, what--these folks are victimized and what is happening
to them. And they have formed a collaboration where Sheriff
Parnell McNamara, the sheriff of McLennan County, has set up a
sting system like the ones that you all talked about--like Mr.
Winkler talked about. And, unfortunately, business is booming,
but it is making a dent. From what I understand, the
traffickers are no longer stopping in Waco, Texas, but that
doesn't mean that they have gone away. They are just in other
areas.
So I want to continue with you, Ms. Smith. We have heard a
lot today about the terrible consequences of how easily victims
can be lured into sex trafficking, but we haven't talked a
whole lot about what can be done to stop exploitation in the
first place. So can you talk about your organization's
prevention efforts and how technology can be used to stop
exploitation before it starts?
Ms. Smith. Great question. Thank you. We are doing a lot
around prevention. We have reoccurring small groups facilitated
by a therapist and a survivor with the high-risk kids, you
know, interactive groups with middle-age--middle school and
high school students. But I think when we are talking about
prevention, what we have to be talking about is demand
reduction. And so because TBI does what they do, in our State,
if somebody picks up the phone to call for sex, they know on
the other end of the phone might be law enforcement, whether
they are in the city, the county, suburbs, small towns,
wherever they are. They know that are laws are strong, and they
know that their picture might go out on a press release, and
their wife and their boss and the people they go to church with
might see that. Those are strong deterrents.
I know some sites--law enforcement sites actually put out
the pictures so everybody can see. You know, that is the kind
of thing we need to have happening if we are going to actually
prevent this.
And then we have just got to limit the marketplace, just as
we have been talking about. As long as there is anonymity, as
long as these exploiters can get by with what they are doing,
prosecutors don't have the tools to go after them; law
enforcement will lose motivation if there is not a legal
process that works. That is what we really to have do, I
believe.
Mr. Flores. We have got about 30 seconds, but what can be
done from a technology perspective, do you think, to help stop
the exploitation? Do you have a feel for that? That was for
you, Ms. Smith. I am sorry.
Ms. Smith. I am sorry. Would you repeat----
Mr. Flores. So what can be done from a technology
standpoint to stop the exploitation?
Ms. Smith. Well, you know, some of the things we have been
talking about are the privacy controls, the anonymity that is
allowed online. I think we haven't talked about the fact that
there are new sites popping up constantly. It is hard to even
keep track of them. I believe we need to have the resources to
keep on top of that and what is being done. But also law
enforcement needs the resources to be able to get what they
need for making good cases and getting perpetrators.
Mr. Flores. Again, thank you all for your testimony today.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. Blackburn. Mrs. Walters, 5 minutes.
Mrs. Walters. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you to our witnesses for being here today. It is
deeply upsetting that these issues exist in today's society,
but I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss how we can put
an end to this modern day slavery. I have worked on human
trafficking issues since I served in the California State
legislature since 2004. And while we have taken steps to curb
this horrific practice over the last 13 years, much, much more
must be done.
Trafficking is a big problem throughout California, as I am
sure you are very aware. And a recent report by Polaris found
that, in 2016, California had over 1,300 incidents of human
trafficking, nearly double of any other State.
This heat map that I have shows the cases in California
that were reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
But this map is just part of the picture, because it only
reflects cases in which the location of the potential
trafficking was actually known.
This year, in southern California, investigators have
uncovered several large-scale international human trafficking
rings that were using the internet to sell sexual services. And
thousands of ads were tracked through the website that we are
all familiar with, Backpage.com, including ads selling minors
for commercial sex. Sadly, one of those rings was located in
Irvine, which is right in the heart of my district.
The problem is so bad in Orange County that a group of law
enforcement departments, Government agencies, nonprofits, and
community organizations banded together to establish a task
force to conduct antitrafficking efforts. In 2015, the Orange
County Human Trafficking Task Force assisted 225 victims. Of
the 225 victims, 61 percent were new victims, 168 of those
victims were used for sex trafficking, 48 of those victims were
minors, 47 of whom were used for sex trafficking. And the stats
go on and on.
I am proud of the work that the task force has done and
will continue to do so. With that, I would like to get to some
questions.
Ms. Smith, you mentioned in your testimony that when the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigations began investigating human
traffickers, they called on your group for assistance. Do you
think State law enforcement agencies have the expertise and
resources to combat this problem on their own?
Ms. Smith. No, I believe it takes the expertise of a number
of players working together. So law enforcement does things I
wouldn't dream of doing, investigating, researching,
prosecuting, but I think we have to work together to have an
approach that doesn't frighten the victims away, that meets
them where they are, that brings survivors to the operations,
for example, to build that trust. We have to have the services
in place to keep a victim in place long enough to prosecute.
When I first started this work, I had a detective who said
he was so frustrated with picking up the same 14-year-old girl
all the time, and then he didn't know what to do with it. He
lost his motivation. But now he is one of our most robust
supporters because the system is working because all the pieces
are in place. And so, you know, law enforcement is going out,
and they are finding people. The community is getting educated
so that they are being recognized by first responders. The
services are in place that they need to heal. When that
happens, it is a game changer.
Mrs. Walters. So what you are saying is that different
partnerships are being formed in order to have that
communication in order to make it work?
Ms. Smith. Absolutely.
Mrs. Walters. And then, Professor Goldman, I have a couple
questions for you. First, what evidence would a civil attorney
need and expect to rely upon to establish that a website knew
the individual advertised on the site was a minor?
Mr. Goldman. I don't have an answer to that question in
part because we haven't seen that issue thoroughly tested.
Because section 230 doesn't turn on a website's knowledge, we
are unclear how a different legal regime might interpret that
information.
Mrs. Walters. OK. We will see if you can answer my next
question. I don't know if you will because, along the same
lines, what evidence would a civil attorney need and expect to
rely upon to establish that a website knew the individual
advertised on the site was an adult sex trafficking victim?
Mr. Goldman. Yes, I would answer it the same.
Mrs. Walters. OK. Thank you.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. Blackburn. Mr. Costello, you are recognized 5 minutes.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
First, I want to thank the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, who partnered with the FBI recently
conducting their 11th Annual Operation Cross Country law
enforcement action focused on recovering underage victims of
sex trafficking. This cross-country sting was an operation,
including 55 FBI field offices, 74 FBI-led child exploitation
task forces, and 400 law enforcement agencies throughout the
country, leading to the recovery of 84 sexually exploited
minors and the arrests of 239 traffickers and other
individuals, including 9 in my congressional district.
Now, I understand why the CDA provided immunity to ISPs in
the first instance. I think there is an intellectual
appreciation for why that was the case. But I, like some others
on this committee, I am sure--and I have met with a mother
whose daughter was advertised. And when you hear what these ads
are and what is said, it really hits you in a way that compels
you to say that is simply not acceptable, and we need to create
a standard by which an ISP and others can be liable, or they
have more of a responsibility than has thus far been required
of them.
And so the question that I have is, can you talk about the
successful efforts that were taken online during the operation
and how, if at all, we can revise section 230 of the CDA to
improve these efforts? I would point specifically to the
reckless disregard standard that the information is in
furtherance of a sex trafficking offense. I think that that is
very helpful language in Mrs. Wagner's bill, as well as--and
normally, we are a little hesitant to give State investigative
authorities or State law enforcement jurisdiction over really
internet-type related crimes because sometimes different States
do different things at different times. But here, I think, by
freeing it up and giving States more tools to do that, it is a
good thing.
So, Ms. Souras, and anyone else on the panel, can you speak
to that collaboration between local and Federal law enforcement
and how the proposal may best aid them in rooting this out even
more effectively than we have been able to do?
Ms. Souras. Thank you very much for the question,
Congressman. And thank you for the recognition regarding the
Operation Cross Country. It is an amazing operation that has
been undertaken, as you noted, with a large variety of
partners, local, State, and Federal. NCMEC provides some
recovery services, as do local groups, in addition to some
analytical support, and we are extremely proud to partner with
law enforcement on that operation.
I think what you see in that operation and the numbers that
you quoted, especially the numbers from your State of
Pennsylvania, are really indicative of the scope of the
problem. There could be an Operation Cross Country every week,
every month, and the numbers would be the same. You know, I
will defer to Mr. Winkler, certainly, to how there can be
better resources put in place for law enforcement. But the way
to really provide assistance and to cut those numbers are--and
I will just repeat a little bit of what I said before--are to
take this on from the highest level, to realize that there is a
commercial marketplace where these children are commodities.
And that is why there are so many children who are recovered
and rescued during Operation Cross Country. It is why they are
lured back in--you know, I think what Ms. Smith said, some
children seven, eight times. That is also similar to what we
see at NCMEC, because somebody can make money off of them.
And until we are able to introduce some laws--again, the
FOSTA bill, you know, currently pending in the House; the SESTA
bill that will soon be coming over to the House from the
Senate, currently with 52 cosponsors in the Senate--most of
those bills are, you know, approaching the issue from the same
framework: adding more legal resources, State attorneys
general, and civil remedies. That is really what you are going
to start to see. You know, with new legal initiatives of that
sort, that is going to be the solution to cut down on the
number of children who are being lured because if it is too
hard to break into the next Backpage, whatever that website
might be--and Representative Wagner said there are hundreds. It
is our experience as well, hundreds of----
Mr. Costello. Real quick. How important is it for State and
local prosecutors to be able to hold bad-actor websites
accountable? How much more in the way of resources does that
enable?
Ms. Souras. It is a tremendous benefit. I mean, State
attorneys general in every State, you know, I imagine will look
at this issue. Many of them have spoken to NCMEC, and they
simply can't proceed legally right now.
Mr. Costello. Right. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Mrs. Blackburn. The gentleman yields back.
And seeing that there are no further members wishing to ask
questions, we thank you all so much for the testimony that you
have given today.
As we conclude, I have two more submissions for the record.
The opening statement of our ranking member, Frank Pallone. And
an op-ed that I wrote this week that was printed in The
Tennessean.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mrs. Blackburn. Pursuant to committee rules, I remind
Members that they have 10 business days to submit additional
questions for the record, and I ask, if they do and submit them
to you, that you answer those questions within 10 business
days.
And seeing no further business to come before the committee
and the fact that we are now being called to the floor for
votes, I adjourn the subcommittee.
So ordered. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 4:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
While most of us spent this past holiday weekend with
family and friends, victims of human trafficking and their
families were forced to live a waking nightmare. Every day
traffickers are forcing their victims-many of whom are
children-to commit unspeakable acts. And while this practice
seems like something from the ancient past, the situation is
actually getting worse.
According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, human
trafficking cases increased by more than a third between 2015
and 2016. More than 2,300 of these cases last year involved
trafficking children.
Even though this is a global issue, those statistics are
not from far-flung corners of the world. Criminal sex
trafficking is getting worse here in the U.S. In New Jersey
alone, we had 83 cases reported so far this year. And the
actual number of cases is probably much higher than what gets
reported as traffickers move their activity to hidden corners
of the web.
The internet undeniably has made the problem of sex
trafficking worse. The same efficiency that can make the
internet a powerful force for good in many ways can turn brutal
when it is used in the sex trade. Some victims report
traffickers forcing them to commit unspeakable acts 20 times a
day. This simply should not be happening in this day and age. I
salute my colleagues in both the House and Senate for proposing
changes to existing laws to do more. Because more must be done.
A number of bills have been introduced in both chambers to
combat online sex trafficking. Most proposals would modify
Section 230 of the Communications Act-also called the
Communications Decency Act. That's the section of the law that
exempts websites from civil liability for third-party content
posted on their site. Unfortunately, certain rogue websites use
that section of the law to escape paying for the damage caused
by their contributions to human trafficking.
I look forward to hearing today about which approaches work
best to combat this terrible problem. And I welcome input on
whether there are any ways to improve these proposals.
I know that some people worry that these bills may have
unintended consequences. They correctly point out that the
Communications Decency Act has allowed the internet to thrive.
It has allowed web companies to aggressively police their sites
for harmful content without fear of legal repercussions.
That's why the critics of altering the law worry that if we
are not careful, we could undermine small businesses and
unnecessarily harm startups that have nothing to do with human
trafficking. Worse, they allege that if Congress does not act
in the right way, we could unintentionally undermine the
internet as we know it.
I understand these concerns, and I take them seriously. But
we cannot ignore the fact that people around the world are
being harmed everyday by this trafficking. The consequences are
too severe.
That's why I welcome the help from the tech companies that
have engaged productively in solving this issue and helping the
victims. We all can and should do more. It's simply not
acceptable to try to stop work on all legislation in the name
of avoiding liability. We owe it to the victims. But more than
that, we owe it to the people-adults and children-who will be
victimized in the future if we do not act now.
Thank you, I yield back.
Prepared statement of Hon. David B. McKinley
While the internet and e-commerce have revolutionized our
lives in many ways, the staggering growth in this sector has
allowed illicit activities to proliferate. Despite the majority
of good actors online that are beneficial to the way we shop,
communicate, and obtain information, we must pay more attention
to companies and individuals involved in trafficking and
smuggling of illegal goods and services. The rise of human
trafficking and the online sex trade is a particularly
abominable practice operating in the shadows--it is time for
Congress and the Department of Justice to shine light on these
bad actors to protect the victims of this industry from
exploitation and enslavement. I commend the efforts of those
testifying before the committee today and encourage Congress to
continue working on legislative solutions that improve our
ability to fight human trafficking and the sex trade. By
modernizing our laws and enforcement power to reflect changing
technology, we can better position the United States as leaders
in the fight against these crimes against human dignity.
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