[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 130 (Tuesday, August 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4670-S4671]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. PORTMAN (for himself, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. McCain, Mrs. 
        McCaskill, Mr. Cornyn, Ms. Heitkamp, Mr. Blunt, Mrs. Capito, 
        Mr. Casey, Ms. Collins, Mr. Corker, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Flake, Mr. 
        Graham, Mr. Isakson, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Lankford, Mr. Lee, Mr. 
        Nelson, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Brown, Ms. Murkowski, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. 
        Hoeven, and Mr. Cochran):
  S. 1693. A bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to clarify 
that section 230 of that Act does not prohibit the enforcement against 
providers and users of interactive computer services of Federal and 
State criminal and civil law relating to sex trafficking; to the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I would like to talk today about the 
criminal act of sex trafficking.
  Today we introduced legislation that is incredibly important to 
combating sex trafficking. The Senate also passed a resolution today by 
unanimous consent to provide information to the Justice Department that 
comes out of an investigation that we did in the U.S. Senate regarding 
sex trafficking. This is an important day in pushing back.
  Let me talk about this for a second in personal terms. Imagine, if 
you will, that your daughter is missing. You do everything you can do 
to find her. Finally, you see her picture on the internet, and she is 
being sold for sex. That may sound like a horror movie to you, but it 
is very real. Unfortunately, it is happening across our country.
  Families in Ohio and in your State have experienced this nightmare 
situation. Let me tell you about Kubiiki Pride. Kubiiki Pride gave 
powerful testimony before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 
in the Senate. Ms. Pride said her daughter had been missing for 9 
months when she found her picture on the top website for commercial sex 
activity--backpage.com. She was actually glad to have found her 
daughter. So she called backpage.com and said: That is my daughter. She 
has been missing for 9 months. She is 14 years old. Thank you for 
taking down the ad.

  Backpage.com said to her: Did you pay for the ad?
  She said: No. It is my 14-year-old daughter.
  They said: We are not going to take down the ad. You didn't pay for 
it.
  Imagine if this were your daughter. Imagine how you would feel.
  These traffickers are using the internet to sell girls and women. 
Congress has a responsibility to act. We have a responsibility to act 
because human trafficking is now becoming a national crisis.
  Human trafficking, including sex trafficking, is a $150 billion-a-
year industry. That makes it the second biggest criminal enterprise in 
the world, only behind the drug trade. And this ruthless, corrupt 
industry is growing significantly. Why? Because of the internet in the 
digital age. Victims of sex trafficking told me: Rob, this has gone 
from the street corner to the smart phone.
  Since 2007, the Polaris Project--a leading anti-trafficking advocacy 
group--received 33,000 reports of human trafficking through its various 
hotlines.
  By the way, Polaris endorsed our legislation, which I appreciate.
  In 2016 alone, Polaris-operated hotlines received 8,000 reports of 
human trafficking. Almost 25 percent of trafficking incidents reported 
to Polaris in the past decade happened just last year. Human 
trafficking reports through these hotlines went up dramatically--35 
percent--between 2015 and 2016. There is no reason to believe this 
trend will reverse unless we act.
  This is a 21st-century epidemic. The National Center for Missing and 
Exploited Children noted an 846 percent increase in reports of 
suspected child sex trafficking through its CyberTipline from 2010 to 
2015. In just 5 years, that is an increase of over 800 percent. They 
found this dramatic spike to be ``directly correlated to the increased 
use of the internet to sell children for sex.'' That is what is going 
on.
  How is this happening? People are being bought and sold on public 
domains accessible from a simple search. And the majority of online sex 
trafficking can be traced to one website called backpage.com. The 
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said 73 percent--
three-quarters of all suspected sex trafficking it receives from the 
general public through its CyberTipline comes from this one website.
  According to leading anti-traffic organizations, including Shared 
Hope International, service providers working with child sex 
trafficking victims have reported that between 80 percent and 100 
percent of the victims they help were bought and sold on backpage.com.
  My experience in Ohio is similar to that. I will tell you 
anecdotally, as I talked to women and girls who had been victims of sex 
trafficking, almost all of them tell me they have been sold on 
backpage. By the way, almost all of them tell me that they had become 
addicted in the process to an opioid, heroin, or prescription drugs and 
that is used to keep their dependency on their trafficker.
  In January of this year, a nearly 2-year investigation by the Senate 
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations produced a report finding 
backpage to be more deeply complicit in illegal online sex trafficking 
than anyone imagined. Everyone already knew sex trafficking was taking 
place on this website. It is there. But our report found that backpage 
actively and knowingly facilitated the criminal sex trafficking of 
women and children; then it covered up evidence of these crimes to 
increase its own profits. This is the information we have now provided 
to the Department of Justice.
  We also know from a recent Washington Post report that, despite its 
claims, backpage aggressively solicited and created sex-related ads to 
lure customers to its website. It claims it ``leads the industry'' in 
its screening of illegal activity, including sex ads for children, but 
that isn't true. To the contrary, it appears the industry backpage 
leads is online sex trafficking, valuing its profits more than the 
rights of vulnerable women and young children. They have known their 
site has been used for illegal sex trafficking for years, but instead 
of putting a stop to it, the company has actively facilitated these 
crimes.
  That is why Congress has to act. Last month, I, along with Senators 
McCaskill and Carper, launched a criminal review of backpage.com. 
Today, the Senate passed a resolution releasing materials from our 18-
month investigation to the Department. I hope the Department of Justice 
will join in this fight against backpage, but I believe achieving 
justice for these victims requires a legislative fix once and for all.
  There is a recent documentary, and I would encourage you to look at 
it. It is powerful and tough, but it is important. It is called ``I am 
Jane Doe.'' It chronicles the cases of three young girls who were sex 
trafficking victims bought and sold on backpage. In 2014, these girls 
brought cases against backpage, accusing them of knowingly assisting in 
their trafficking. The ads on backpage for each of these girls 
explicitly promoted their youth. These were underage girls.
  The court found that the victims made a strong case that backpage 
tailored its site to make underage sex trafficking easier, but the 
court ruled that third-party websites facilitating sex trafficking are 
immune from charges brought on by victims, no matter how complicit the 
website was in the crime, citing the blanket immunity granted by a 1996 
law called the Communications Decency Act, or CDA.
  Around the same time in Massachusetts, three young victims sued

[[Page S4671]]

backpage after they were bought and sold on their website for sex. 
They, too, argued that backpage made sex trafficking easier. This case 
reached the First Circuit Court of Appeals, but backpage was once again 
spared of any legal ramifications because of the Communications Decency 
Act, specifically section 230 of that law--the clause courts credit to 
giving third-party providers blanket immunity from crimes committed 
through their website.
  Despite its ruling, the court recognized the immoral nature of 
backpage appearing to profit from online prostitution but maintained 
they couldn't do anything about it because the law protected these 
acts. The court opinion stated that in order to fix the problem, ``the 
remedy is through legislation, not litigation.'' That is who we are. We 
are the legislators. The court of appeals said: Congress, do your job.
  Numerous judicial decisions have suggested that Congress must act, 
before the courts, to bring justice to the victims and families of 
online sex trafficking. That is my intention in introducing this 
legislation today.
  I believe that we need to have free internet. All of us do. I believe 
that the Communications Decency Act is a well-intentioned law that has 
an important purpose. But the law was not intended to protect those who 
willingly facilitate illegal conduct, such as sex trafficking, and it 
wasn't intended to protect backpage.com. That is why today I, along 
with a number of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle, have 
introduced this bill called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act. It 
clarifies section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to ensure that 
websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking can be held liable 
and the victims can get justice. It is very narrow. You have to 
knowingly be involved in supporting, assisting, and facilitating sex 
trafficking. This will not be a broad net.
  The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act puts in place three narrowly 
crafted and commonsense reforms.
  First, it allows victims to seek justice against websites that 
knowingly facilitate crimes against them.
  Second, it eliminates the Federal liability protections for websites 
that assist, support, or facilitate a violation of Federal sex 
trafficking laws--laws already on the books.
  Finally, it will enable State law enforcement--not just the 
Department of Justice--to take legal action if these businesses violate 
Federal sex trafficking laws. Forty-seven attorneys general asked for 
this.
  The internet revolutionized illegal sex trafficking, and Federal law 
has not kept pace. It is time for this 21-year-old law to be brought 
into this century. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act is legislation 
our courts have been calling for, our attorneys general have been 
calling for, and most importantly, what victims and their families have 
been insisting that we do.
  Again, this law was never intended to protect sex traffickers who 
prey on the most innocent and vulnerable among us. This narrowly 
crafted bill gives law enforcement the tools they need to go after 
criminals who traffic women and children online for sex.
  There are some groups who have been critical of this effort to hold 
backpage accountable and stop this online exploitation. They have 
suggested that this bipartisan bill could impact mainstream websites 
and service providers--the good actors out there. That is false. Our 
bill does not amend, and thus preserves, the Communications Decency 
Act's Good Samaritan provision. This provision protects good actors who 
proactively block and screen for offensive material and thus shields 
them from any frivolous lawsuits. That is in the legislation and needs 
to be in there.
  This bipartisan legislation preserves internet freedom, while holding 
those who actively facilitate online sex trafficking accountable.
  I recently visited the Ranch of Opportunity in Washington Court 
House, OH. This is a place of hope for girls between ages 13 and 18 to 
find healing and recovery during a residential treatment program. Most 
of the girls at the ranch, I am told, have been victims of sex 
trafficking. As I heard heartbreaking stories from these girls who have 
had their most basic human rights stripped from them, backpage came up. 
As I said earlier, it almost always does. We can never take back the 
horrors they had to endure. What we can do and what this legislation 
will do is bring justice to these victims and their families.
  I am proud to stand with my 20, now 25, bipartisan colleagues, as 
well as 18 anti-human trafficking advocacy groups and law enforcement 
organizations around this country, to support this legislation as we 
fight against this abhorrent evil.
  In a letter of support, the president and CEO of the National Center 
for Missing and Exploited Children said: ``This bill will help ensure 
justice for child sex trafficking victims and clarify remedies 
available to civil attorneys and State attorneys general to assist 
victims in holding everyone responsible who participated in their 
trafficking.''
  That is what it is about. It is about securing justice for those who 
have had their most basic human rights taken away, and it is about 
protecting vulnerable women and children. Victims of sex trafficking 
know evil far worse than many of us can ever imagine. The trauma they 
go through is unbelievable. We owe it to them to fix flaws in the 
justice system that allow people complicit in these crimes to profit 
from human misery and suffering. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act 
will do that.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
                                 ______