[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S85-S87]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, every day in America--the greatest
Nation in the history of the world--children, young women, and
teenagers are sold for sex. That is not a proud fact about America, but
it is the stark reality. Every day in America, young women, children,
and teenagers are trafficked, in large part because they are advertised
now on the internet, in the open, visibly, and obviously. Even though
code words may be used and sometimes doctored photographs, they are
sold for sex because the traffickers are able to do so using the
internet. We are here to stop it. We are here today to stop the
trafficking and, most importantly, to stop the advertising.
In support of a measure, known as the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers
Act, SESTA, we have a strong bipartisan coalition. This bill is about
as bipartisan as any bill is. I have worked on this legislation
together with my colleague and friend, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio,
from the very beginning. We have been joined in this effort by two
Democrats and two Republicans--Senators McCaskill, Heitkamp, Cornyn,
and McCain. We are passionate about this effort, and so are our
colleagues who have joined us, because it is about those victims--those
children, teenagers, and young women--who are sold for sex, who are
trafficked on the internet. We want to give those victims a voice and a
day in court, a right of action, a defense against this absolutely
heinous, atrocious, inhumane crime. It is a crime and it can be
prosecuted, but the victims deserve a day in court and a voice as well.
That is the fundamental, core purpose of this legislation. It is about
the victims.
We have been joined in this effort by advocates for those victims--
sex trafficking survivors themselves and a diligent, bipartisan
coalition of colleagues. In fact, more than 60 of our colleagues have
joined this as cosponsors. We are now at a critical milestone for this
bill. We have reached a point of momentum that makes this bill
unstoppable if those survivors are to be heard and heeded, and I urge
my colleagues to do exactly that. SESTA is really the product of
stakeholder consensus. It has the support of every major human
trafficking organization, of law enforcement, and of all of the major
tech companies.
In essence, SESTA would clarify that section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act was never intended to protect websites that
facilitate sex trafficking, and it would ensure that those survivors
get their day in court. It stands in stark contrast to a measure in the
House of Representatives that has been approved by the relevant
committee there, which would fail in that effort. Websites that
knowingly facilitate sex trafficking should be afforded no protection
under the Communications Decency Act. They should be given no harbor or
implicit approval, which is what the legislation now does. The House
bill, unfortunately, would fail to give those survivors and victims
their day in court and the voice that they so desperately need.
Senator Portman and I--and I am proud to be joined with him today on
the floor--have championed this cause as a result of what we have seen
and heard. In fact, in going back almost a decade, when I was attorney
general for the State of Connecticut, I saw firsthand the way that
websites can knowingly facilitate sex trafficking. I saw firsthand how
challenging it was for law enforcement to develop cases against sex
traffickers and employ anti-trafficking laws given the constraints on
their resources, especially when those sex traffickers were able to use
the internet to reach their customers. My experience in combating sex
trafficking as attorney general at the State level led me, in my
working with Senator Portman, to co-launch and co-chair the Senate
Caucus to End Human Trafficking so as to help find solutions to this
problem and others around the world whereby children and teenagers and
others are sex-trafficked and victimized.
As the State attorney general, I concluded that facilitating sex
trafficking must face repercussions. I was joined by the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which reported and has since
reported the numbers. For example, there has been an 846-percent
increase in reports of suspected child sex trafficking from 2010 to
2015--a spike it found to be ``directly correlated to the increased use
of the internet to sell children for sex.'' We have heard of some of
those instances, of some of the histories and the stories of these
young people.
In 2012, a 15-year-old girl ran away from home. Over the next 2
years, pimps trafficked her for sex through these ads. As a result, she
was raped over 1,000 times while she was moved from one site to another
with the aid of the internet. In 2010, another 15-year-old girl ran
away from a residential program. A pimp began to traffic her for sex by
posting online ads. As a result, she was raped 900 times over the next
2 years.
These two young women and a third mustered the courage to tell their
stories and to bring a lawsuit against backpage.com, which is the
website that has profited most prominently from these online ads. These
advertisements graphically emphasized the survivors' and victims' youth
and other characteristics in trafficking them for sex. Yet the courts,
understandably and perhaps rightly, have held that backpage.com and
these internet sites generally have no legal responsibility. The First
Circuit Court of Appeals found that backpage.com was immune from civil
liability because of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Websites that facilitate sex trafficking unconscionably and
intolerably are now immune from legal action by survivors. That is
unacceptable in America. No matter how terrible the harm they cause, no
matter how horrific the consequences to these young people, they are
protected by a shield from moral and legal responsibility. In a sense,
these women were victimized as much by backpage.com and the internet as
they were by the pimps who more directly sold them.
Senator Portman and I, through SESTA, would implement three key
reforms: No. 1, allow victims of sex trafficking to seek justice
against websites that knowingly facilitate their victimization; No. 2,
clarify that it is illegal to knowingly facilitate a violation of the
Federal sex trafficking laws; and No. 3, enable State law enforcement
officials, not just the Federal Department of Justice, to take action
against individuals or businesses that violate Federal sex trafficking
laws.
If websites are not knowingly facilitating sex trafficking, they
should have nothing to fear from the law. If
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websites are doing their best to avoid facilitating sex trafficking,
they have no worry about their liability. Yet, if they knowingly
facilitate, they ought to face survivors and victims in court, and they
ought to acknowledge and recognize their legal and moral
responsibilities.
I want to be very blunt with my colleagues here about the House bill
because my feeling is that we owe it to those survivors and victims to
give them not just nice words and rhetoric but real rights. Congress
must not only pass an online sex trafficking law; it must pass real sex
trafficking internet protection. Unfortunately, the House Judiciary
Committee recently passed legislation that fails to accomplish that
goal.
My colleagues should not be fooled--the House bill is in no way an
adequate alternative to SESTA. It is, unfortunately, completely
insufficient in protecting survivors and victims and giving them that
day in court and that voice they now lack. The difference between the
House and Senate bills is stark and clear, like night and day. The
Senate bill gives victims of trafficking their day in court. The House
bill does not give a single survivor or victim access to justice. It
fails to open the courthouse doors; it leaves them shut. In fact, it
may even deny victims and survivors their right to file legal action.
The Senate bill has the support of every major human trafficking
organization, as well as of all of the major stakeholders. The House
bill is supported by none--zero--no major group. In fact, 47
organizations and more than a dozen survivors and family members
recently sent a letter that calls for the House bill, as it is
presently written, to be rejected.
I strongly urge my colleagues to join this bipartisan group of more
than 60 of us who are supporting SESTA to help pass this essential
legislation as soon as possible. We owe it to those survivors and
victims. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to America.
I am proud to yield to my friend and colleague who has joined in this
effort and has been such a steadfast champion, Senator Portman.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I want to thank my friend and colleague,
Senator Blumenthal, for his commitment to this issue. We started this
caucus to end trafficking 6 years ago, and during that time period
there has been some significant progress made here in the Senate and
the House. We have been able to pass legislation to help crack down on
trafficking.
Unbelievably, in this century in this country, sex trafficking is
increasing, not decreasing, despite our good efforts. We have increased
the penalties on those who purchase sex from underage children. We have
changed the dynamic of how the Federal Government and HHS look at this
issue and these girls who get engaged in trafficking and get trapped
into the system and to treat them like the victims they are rather than
as criminals.
We have done more to increase awareness of this issue. We have
required for missing kids, which are probably the most vulnerable of
all, that there be a photograph or another identifier, which,
unbelievably, for the most part there was not prior to that. We have
made some progress.
Senator Blumenthal and I have written legislation with regard to
Government contractors who overseas engage in human trafficking--and
our tax dollars go for that. So we have made some progress, but it is
still increasing.
Why? Senator Blumenthal talked about it. The experts are unified on
this. The main reason we see an uptick is because of the dark side of
the internet. The Senator quoted the statistic earlier about an 850-
percent increase in reports of sex trafficking over the last several
years prior to 2015. The reason that was true was because we saw the
emergence of these companies like backpage.com, which probably has
about 75 percent of the commercial sex traffic on one site, and the
ruthless efficiency of the internet getting engaged on this issue. So
we have to address this issue.
Here is the tragic part of this. Not only are more and more lives
being ruined and there are more and more heartbreaking stories, but it
is because of a Federal law that provides immunity to these websites.
So it comes right back here, right to these desks, right to this
Congress, right to us as legislators to fix this problem, not to try to
smooth it over but to actually fix the problem, which is that some of
these online trafficking sites are immune from prosecution because of a
Federal law. It was a well-intended law that was written 21 years ago,
I think. It is the Communications Decency Act. Ironically, it was put
in place to make it a crime to send pornography to kids online, but it
has been twisted and used by these trafficking sites to provide them
the ability to say: You can't touch us; you can't go after us. That is
so because part of what the law says in trying to promote the internet
is that if you post somebody else's material on your site, you are not
liable. All we are saying is that if you know this involved
trafficking--and Senator Blumenthal talked about his experience as a
prosecutor; this is a high bar, a known standard--then you can't get
away with this. The standard we use, by the way, for Federal
trafficking is the Federal law. So we allow victims to have their day
in court, but they can't get it now.
The stories are really sad. Let me tell you one. We spent 18 months
investigating this in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and
what we learned was truly tragic. You had girls who were trafficked on
these sites. In one case a mom testified that her daughter had gone
missing for about 10 weeks, as I recall--missing. This is a 14-year-old
girl. What would you do as a parent if your daughter was missing for 10
weeks? You would go crazy. She tried everything, and someone finally
told her: There is this website called backpage.com; you might want to
check it out.
She did, and she was aghast at what she saw, but she was relieved by
one thing. She saw a photograph of her daughter, knowing, then, that
she was still alive. So she picked up the phone and called backpage.com
and said: I just saw my daughter. She has been missing for 10 weeks. I
saw her on your website. Thank you for taking down that ad that is
trying to sell my daughter for sex online. This is my daughter. She is
underage.
Do you know what the backpage operator said at the other end of the
line, according to this mom? They said: Did you pay for the ad, ma'am?
She said: No, I didn't pay for the ad. This is my daughter. They said:
Well, we can't take down the ad. We can't take down the ad.
What kind of evil is behind that kind of a business practice? Well,
what we learned, as we increasingly dug into this issue, is that it is
all about profit, and you can imagine this is a very profitable
business. Profits came first, to the point that people would place ads
with backpage that indicated that it was for an underage girl, and
backpage would then get to the purchaser of the ad and say: You know
what, we need to change your ad a little bit. You need to edit out this
word ``schoolgirl'' or ``cheerleader'' or ``Lolita,'' referring to a
novel about an underage girl. So they knew these ads were being run by
people who were advertising underage girls, and they not only ran the
ads but they sanitized the ads first.
That just shouldn't happen in this country. It shouldn't happen
anywhere in the world, but certainly not with a Federal law providing
protections for organizations like that.
That is all we are saying. We want Congress to pass a law that says
that if you engage knowingly in facilitating this kind of activity, you
are subject to liability. You have to be held to account. Is that too
much to ask?
Senator Blumenthal talked about it as a former prosecutor. We allow
State prosecutors to go after these sites, which they cannot now. They
have to use the Federal standard. So we are not trying to create a
whole new area of law. It is a Federal standard that has been passed by
this body.
When these victims go to court, they are rebuffed: Sorry, ma'am. In
one court last August, a Sacramento judge basically invited our
legislation. He said to Congress: The way that law reads, even somebody
who exploits women and children online has immunity. Congress, this is
your job.
So that is all this legislation does.
Senator Blumenthal talked about the House legislation. There was
strong House legislation that was introduced
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that still bears that same H.R. number. Then it was changed in the
Judiciary Committee. Look, I am glad that there is more awareness and
consciousness about this issue and that both the House and Senate want
to act, but let's not water this legislation down. Let's not take away
this core element of our legislation that simply says that under the
Communications Decency Act, we should have the opportunity to allow
people to sue and allow prosecutors to go after these evil websites.
We can set up new causes of action. That is fine. We can do more
things as we have done in this body. As I said, over the last 5 or 6
years, we passed a number of important bills to try to raise the
consciousness and to try to help on this issue, but if we don't deal
with this internet part, we will continue to see an increase, which is
a stain on our national character--that at this time in our Nation's
history, we are seeing an increase in people being sold for sex online,
often underage.
Another story came not from testimony before the permanent
subcommittee where we spent 18 months studying this, but it came before
the Commerce Committee, and Senator Blumenthal was there for part of
this. This woman came forward. By the way, you could have heard a pin
drop in that room when she talked about her 16-year-old daughter who
was sold on backpage.com and was sold to a man who murdered her on
Christmas Eve of 2016. This is what this mom said: My daughter never
should have been on that site; that should never be allowed. She is
right. It should never be allowed. How can we allow that to happen?
So Senator Blumenthal and I introduced this legislation. We had 24
cosponsors almost right away, and it was bipartisan from the start.
This is not a political or partisan issue. As of yesterday, I think we
had 64 cosponsors. These are thoughtful Members, including the
Presiding Officer today, who looked at this legislation. They have
heard the arguments from both sides. The other side of the argument is
from the tech community, some of whom are supporting our legislation,
some of whom are not. But for the people in technology who are
concerned about this, I just have to state: I don't get it. This is
very narrowly crafted for this issue. We are not trying to affect the
freedom of the internet--just the opposite.
If you don't start cracking down on this obvious crime against
humanity, which is what I believe trafficking is, I think we are going
to see much broader legislation to deal with the internet. This just
says: If you are violating a Federal law on trafficking and you are
doing it knowingly, you are facilitating it, you are assisting it, then
you have to be held liable and held to account.
In fact, we keep in the law a Good Samaritan provision that says if a
website wants to clean up its site, it is protected. The good guys
should be protected. We want them to clean up their site. We want to be
sure that we continue to have freedom of the internet, but we don't
want to allow--nor do I think it was ever intended in this law to
allow--criminal activity to occur that affects our children and our
constituents over the internet without any sense of accountability or
responsibility. It is narrowly crafted. It is focused on a real issue
that affects real people.
On Friday I was back home in Ohio, and I was at a drug treatment
center. I had an opportunity to meet some of those who are recovering
addicts. As often happens when I am in those kinds of settings, it
turns to what kind of treatment options are out there for trauma. Why?
Because there is a link between opioids--particularly heroin and
fentanyl--and trafficking. This is what has been told to me many times
by some of these women, sometimes underage: Senator, trafficking has
moved from the street corner to the iPhone, from the street corner to
the cell phone. That is a reality.
I met a woman on Friday who was going through treatment, and part of
it is to treat the trauma that is associated with this. Drug treatment
is one thing, but the trauma associated with sex trafficking, repeated
rapes is a course that is a deeper and even more difficult road to
recovery. I believe she will recover. She has a great attitude. She
gets it. She is going to have to focus on it and dedicate herself to
it.
I will just tell you that this is a real issue in our communities
today. It is affecting every single State in this body, and we cannot
continue to ignore the reality that while the internet has brought a
lot of good things to us and the internet has helped our economy to
grow, there is a dark side and this dark side of the internet is why we
think it is so important for us to address this issue and address it
now so that the next mom who is out there right now wondering, ``Where
is my daughter? She has gone missing,'' will not find that she has been
advertised online to multiple men, that her life is forever changed,
and that she will never achieve her God-given potential in life because
of the trauma she has experienced. That is happening right now today.
We have to pass this legislation. It will help. I am convinced it
will help. It will help to avoid the reality today, which is that these
websites in your communities don't care and they are not going to care
until we make them accountable.
This month is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention
Month--January. President Trump just wrote a beautiful proclamation
about it. It was a call to action. President Obama did previously.
Thursday is the day in which a lot of the advocates will be here in
town talking about this issue. I just urge my colleagues and their
staff, if they are listening today, please sign up on this legislation
if you haven't already. To our leadership, let's get this to the floor
for a vote. This should not be an issue that we drag out. Let's deal
with it. We spent years studying this. We know what the issue is. We
know what the problem is. Then, to my House colleagues, let's work
together to actually solve this problem.
For those in the tech community who continue to oppose this
legislation, I ask you to look into your hearts and think about the
impact this is having on families all across the country. Yes, we all
want a better world, and that is part of what many of these internet
companies are professing to want, and many of them, by the way, have
spent considerable resources in fighting trafficking. But if you don't
get at this issue--it has moved from the street corner to the
smartphone. If you don't get at this issue, I don't believe we will see
the progress that all of us desire.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). The Senator from South Dakota.