[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 13065]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER'S FAILURE TO PROTECT AMERICA'S CHILDREN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 1, 2013

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to submit a letter I sent earlier 
this week to Attorney General Eric Holder once again urging that the 
Department of Justice prioritize the issue of human trafficking and 
specifically go after Web sites like Backpage.com which serve as a 
conduit for the buying and selling of human beings.
  In multiple letters to the Department over the last year I've 
implored the Attorney General to tell Congress if federal law 
enforcement does not have the necessary tools to take legal action 
against such web sites--sites which time and again feature prominently 
in horrific stories of abuse and exploitation of the most vulnerable 
among us.
  These requests have gone unanswered. The exploitation persists. 
Attorney General Holder is failing.

     Hon. Eric H. Holder, Jr.,
     Attorney General, Department of Justice,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Attorney General Holder: Many Americans were 
     undoubtedly heartened to learn yesterday that authorities 
     rescued 105 children from 76 different cities across this 
     nation who had been forced into prostitution, and arrested 
     150 pimps who were intimately involved in the exploitation of 
     these minors--children ranging in age from 13 to 17. But I 
     suspect that just as many Americans were shocked to learn of 
     the scope and reach of human trafficking in our own back 
     yard. For under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act any 
     minor used in a commercial sex act is a victim of human 
     trafficking.
       I applaud the impressive work of the FBI; its local, state, 
     and federal law enforcement partners, including the Fairfax 
     County Police Department and the Loudoun County Sheriff's 
     Office, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited 
     Children (NCMEC). As you know, I have long supported efforts 
     locally and in the annual Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) 
     appropriations bill to elevate this issue as a law 
     enforcement priority. In fact in the CJS bill which recently 
     passed the House Appropriations Committee included language 
     instructing U.S. Attorneys to maintain their human 
     trafficking task forces and undertake proactive 
     investigations of persons or entities facilitating 
     trafficking in persons through the use of classified 
     advertising on the Internet. The bill also directs the U.S. 
     Attorney General to submit a comprehensive report on all DOJ 
     anti-trafficking activities, including legislative proposals 
     that may advance any efforts, no later than 60 days after the 
     bill is signed into law.
       While the details of this campaign, Operation Cross 
     Country, are still emerging, not unsurprising, Backpage.com 
     featured prominently in the announcement of the crackdown. In 
     fact, a CNN story this morning cited the assistant director 
     of the FBI's criminal investigative division, as saying, 
     ``This seventh iteration of Operation Cross Country also was 
     the most successful, with a 30% to 40% increase in 
     `identifying both victims and pimps' compared with previous 
     operations.'' The story continued, ``He credited the success 
     in part to an expansion of the probe to websites such as 
     www.backpage.com, which he called a forum `where pimps and 
     exploiters gather.'''
       An NBC news story following the raid reported, ``Search for 
     `Backpage.com' on the FBI's main website and up pops eight 
     whole pages of press releases and public announcements naming 
     the classified advertising site as a tool for sex criminals, 
     particularly those selling children, sex and prostitution.'' 
     Case after case shows that as long as web sites like 
     Backpage.com operate with impunity, impervious to public 
     shame, law enforcement will simply be playing catch up.
       In that vein, just last week, an overwhelming majority of 
     state and territorial attorneys general sent a letter to the 
     chair and ranking members of the U.S. Senate Committee on 
     Commerce, Science, and Transportation and House Committee on 
     Energy and Commerce. The letter indicated that ``Federal 
     enforcement alone has proven insufficient to stem the growth 
     of internet-facilitated child sex trafficking,'' and pleaded 
     that, ``Those on the front lines of the battle against the 
     sexual exploitation of children--state and local law 
     enforcement--must be granted the authority to investigate and 
     prosecute those who facilitate these horrible crimes.''
       I couldn't agree more, which is why in April 2012, well 
     over a year ago, I wrote you a letter making clear that 
     classified Internet advertising was the latest front in the 
     battle against sexual exploitation and trafficking of minors. 
     Specifically I wrote, ``... if DOJ is of the mind that there 
     are insufficient laws on the books to prosecute this 
     activity, I respectfully request a broader legal analysis and 
     recommendations to Congress of legislative initiatives that 
     may be undertaken to fully equip law enforcement to tackle 
     this problem.'' This was the first of several letters I've 
     written on the topic.
       On June 8 2012, I wrote, ``... I continue to believe that 
     unless there is the very real prospect of criminal liability 
     that Backpage.com will fail to change ... I recognize that 
     these are complex legal questions but surely we can agree 
     that this is not a complex issue. Children ought not to be 
     bought and sold online. Those who facilitate and enable this 
     practice should have to face consequences. I welcome the best 
     legal analysis the Department can provide in how to ensure 
     that this happens.''
       And again, on March 27, 2013 I wrote you, this time 
     including a series of recommendations provided by NCMEC that 
     Backpage.com and similar Web sites used for trafficking could 
     voluntarily adopt to reduce the sexual exploitation of 
     children online. I urged you, as the nation's chief law 
     enforcement officer, to press Backpage.com to immediately 
     adopt these practices and said that if they fail to do so you 
     should ``... take legal action against Backpage.com.''
       These last two letters have gone unanswered. The legal 
     analysis has never been provided and the exploitation of 
     innocents continues.
       Human trafficking has rightly been deemed the slavery issue 
     of our time. It isn't simply an international tragedy, it's a 
     national and local outrage. For years, the back of my office 
     door featured a giant picture of William Wilberforce--the 
     remarkable abolitionist, and man of faith, who labored 
     tirelessly for decades to ban the slave trade in the British 
     Empire. Wilberforce was part of a broader transatlantic 
     abolition movement dating back to the 1700s. He served as an 
     inspiration for the abolitionist cause on our own shores, 
     laying the foundation for the likes of Frederick Douglas, 
     Harriet Beecher Stowe and even Abraham Lincoln, who 150 years 
     ago this year issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
       Wilberforce, famously said, ``Having heard all this, you 
     may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say 
     that you do not know.'' We know that our nation's children 
     are at risk of horrific exploitation that almost defies 
     imagination. We know how pimps and johns use specific Web 
     sites to profit from and prey on their vulnerability. Will 
     you continue to look the other way?
       Best wishes.

  Think of all the women and children that could be helped. You could 
make a difference if you act.

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