[Senate Report 118-123]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Calendar No. 267
118th Congress} { Report
SENATE
1st Session } { 118-123
======================================================================
COMBATING CARTELS ON SOCIAL MEDIA ACT OF 2023
__________
R E P O R T
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
TO ACCOMPANY
S. 61
TO REQUIRE THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY TO
IMPLEMENT A STRATEGY TO COMBAT THE EFFORTS OF
TRANSNATIONAL CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS TO RECRUIT
INDIVIDUALS IN THE UNITED STATES VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
PLATFORMS AND OTHER ONLINE SERVICES AND ASSESS
THEIR USE OF SUCH PLATFORMS AND SERVICES FOR
ILLICIT ACTIVITIES, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
December 11, 2023.--Ordered to be printed
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia RICK SCOTT, Florida
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
LAPHONZA R. BUTLER, California ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
Christopher J. Mulkins, Director of Homeland Security
Moran Banai, Senior Professional Staff Member
William E. Henderson III, Minority Staff Director
Christina N. Salazar, Minority Chief Counsel
Kendal B. Tigner, Minority Professional Staff Member
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Calendar No. 267
118th Congress} { Report
SENATE
1st Session } { 118-123
======================================================================
COMBATING CARTELS ON SOCIAL MEDIA ACT OF 2023
_______
December 11, 2023.--Ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Peters, from the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany S. 61]
[Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]
The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, to which was referred the bill (S. 61) to require the
Secretary of Homeland Security to implement a strategy to
combat the efforts of transnational criminal organizations to
recruit individuals in the United States via social media
platforms and other online services and assess their use of
such platforms and services for illicit activities, and for
other purposes, having considered the same, reports favorably
thereon with an amendment, in the nature of a substitute, and
recommends that the bill, as amended, do pass.
CONTENTS
Page
I. Purpose and Summary..............................................1
II. Background and Need for the Legislation..........................2
III. Legislative History..............................................3
IV. Section-by-Section Analysis of the Bill, as Reported.............4
V. Evaluation of Regulatory Impact..................................6
VI. Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate........................6
VII. Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported............7
I. PURPOSE AND SUMMARY
S. 61, the Combatting Cartels on Social Media Act of 2023,
directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to implement
a strategy to combat the efforts of transnational criminal
organizations (TCOs) to recruit individuals in the United
States to participate in illicit activities via social media
platforms and other online services. Specifically, the bill
directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit to
congressional committees an assessment describing TCOs' use of
social media to recruit minors and support illicit activities,
and existing governmental and law enforcement efforts to
counter TCOs. The Secretary must also develop and implement a
strategy to address recruitment on social media by TCOs,
including proposals to improve cooperation and coordination
across foreign, federal, state, tribal and local government
agencies; recommendations to centralize information about TCOs
use of social media; and activities to facilitate increased
intelligence analysis for law enforcement purposes.
II. BACKGROUND AND THE NEED FOR LEGISLATION
Mexican TCOs, commonly referred to as drug cartels or
cartels, pose the greatest drug trafficking threat to the U.S.
according to the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) annual
National Drug Threat Assessment.\1\ These TCOs control the
market and movement of a wide range of illicit drugs destined
for the United States, and they regularly participate in human
smuggling and arms trafficking. According to state and local
officials near the border, the cartels have recently used
social media to recruit children in support of their illicit
activities. For example, in April 2023, this Committee's
Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border Management
held a hearing in which the mayor of Sierra Vista, Arizona, a
city near the border with Mexico, testified that cartels were
recruiting young people to travel south to the border to pick
up migrants, and transport them north in exchange for money.\2\
The mayor explained that the cartels encourage the drivers, who
are often teenagers, to drive recklessly through the city to
discourage pursuits, and that they pose a very real danger to
residents and visitors.\3\ Arizona State Troopers have
similarly reported an increasing trend of cartels using social
media to recruit youth for smuggling operations, and noted that
the actions endanger the youth involved, the smuggling victims,
and local communities.\4\ Further, Cochise County Sherriff Mark
Daniels has told reporters that this type of recruitment is
common.\5\
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\1\Congressional Research Service, Mexico: Organized Crime and Drug
Trafficking Organizations (R41576)(June 7, 2022).
\2\Senate Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border
Management, Hearing on Examining the Effects of Increased Migration on
Communities Along the Southern Border, 118th Cong. (Apr. 26, 2023)(S.
Hrg. 118-XX).
\3\Id.
\4\Arizona Department of Public Safety, ALERT: CARTELS RECRUITING
YOUTH FOR HUMAN SMUGGLING (June 16, 2023).
\5\Cartels using social media to recruit teens for drug smuggling
and human trafficking, 12NEWS KPNX-TV Phoenix (June 21, 2023)
(www.12news.com/article/news/local/cartels-are-
recruiting-teens-for-human-and-drug-smuggling/75-39b0cab6-a1a4-44cd-
9e6a-d9fdff7890b7).
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Social media provides the TCOs access to a wide range of
potential recruits. According to the Pew Research Center, more
than 70 percent of Americans use social media, and 95 percent
of U.S. teens use online platforms.\6\ In addition to Arizona,
officials have seen cartels use social media to support their
smuggling operations in other states. For example, the El Paso
Division of the DEA, which covers West Texas and New Mexico,
reported the cartels are using social media applications--like
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat--to coordinate
logistics.\7\ Additionally, a Homeland Security Investigations
agent reported that young kids--including first year drivers
and some without a driver's license--in Dallas, San Antonio,
and Austin have been recruited on social media to smuggle
migrants across the southwest border.\8\
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\6\Pew Research Center, Social Media Use in 2021 (Apr. 7, 2021)
(www.pewresearch.org/
internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/); Teens, Social Media and
Technology 2022 (Aug. 10, 2022) (www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/
10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/)
\7\Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA Operation Last Mile Tracks
Down Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartel Associates Operating within the United
States (May 8, 2023).
\8\Images reveal social media recruitment tactics of suspected
human smugglers, ABC News (Dec. 23, 2022) (abcnews.go.com/US/images-
reveal-social-media-recruitment-tactics-suspected-human/
story?id=95672672).
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S. 61 is intended to specifically address DHS's response to
this dangerous trend by requiring DHS to assess how the cartels
are using social media to recruit individuals under the age of
18, as well as federal government efforts to counter this
recruitment. To ensure that this approach is holistic, the bill
directs DHS to collaborate with other federal agencies,
including the Departments of Health and Human Services and
Education, as well as governmental and non-governmental
representatives of border communities and experts in civil
rights and civil liberties, online privacy, humanitarian
assistance for migrants, and youth outreach and rehabilitation,
in the production of a ``National Strategy to Combat Illicit
Recruitment Activity by Transnational Criminal Organizations on
Social Media and Online Platforms.''
The platforms that will be covered under the bill include
not only social media platforms but also mobile or desktop
services with direct or group messaging capabilities that are
used by TCOs for recruitment purposes if they are not solely
text messaging applications; as well as digital platforms with
real-time interactive communications between multiple
individuals, including multi-player gaming services and
immersive technologies.
Considering the wide usage of social media, the bill
includes important language focusing the DHS assessment and
strategy on TCOs who seek to recruit minors for the cartels'
activities rather than the minors themselves or any other
individuals. To ensure that DHS only targets TCOs, S. 61
requires that the strategy include a detailed description of
the measures used to ensure privacy rights, civil rights, and
civil liberties protections, especially protections for minors
and constitutionally protected activities. The strategy must
also ensure that law enforcement and intelligence activities
that focus on TCO recruitment target the activities of the TCOs
and not the individuals being recruited. Further, the bill
directs the DHS Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,
in coordination with the DHS Privacy Office, to provide the
appropriate congressional committees a report assessing
measures to protect civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy
within 2 years of the strategy's issuance.
III. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) introduced S. 61, the
Combatting Cartels on Social Media Act of 2023, on January 24,
2023, with original cosponsors Senator James Lankford (R-OK),
Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN). The
bill was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) and Senator
Thomas Tillis (R-NC) joined as additional cosponsors on May 18,
2023.
The Committee considered S. 61 at a business meeting on
June 14, 2023. At the business meeting, Senator Sinema and
Senator Lankford offered a substitute amendment to the bill as
well as a modification to the substitute amendment. The Sinema-
Lankford substitute amendment as modified defines ``criminal
enterprise,'' ``illicit activities,'' and ``transnational
criminal organization.'' The Sinema-Lankford substitute
amendment as modified also specified that DHS's assessment
should address the exploitation of children; struck language
stating the strategy should include activities to facilitate
proactive law enforcement, such as engaging individuals in an
effort to preempt the commission of criminal offenses; required
that DHS's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, in
cooperation with the DHS Office of Privacy, assess the strategy
and its implementation; and clarified that nothing in the bill
shall be construed to expand the statutory law enforcement or
regulatory authority of DHS. The Committee adopted the
modification to the Sinema-Lankford substitute amendment by
unanimous consent, with Senators Peters, Hassan, Sinema, Rosen,
Padilla, Ossoff, Paul, Lankford, Romney, Scott, and Hawley
present. The Sinema-Lankford substitute amendment, as modified,
was adopted by unanimous consent with Senators Peters, Hassan,
Sinema, Rosen, Padilla, Ossoff, Paul, Lankford, Romney, Scott,
and Hawley present.
Senator Paul offered an amendment to the bill directing the
Comptroller General, instead of the DHS Secretary, to implement
the assessment; prohibiting federal employees from coercing,
compelling, or encouraging a social media company to censor
speech; terminating all overt intelligence collection at DHS;
and requiring agencies to provide records of communications
between agency employees and social media companies even if the
records are classified or would otherwise be protected. The
Committee did not adopt the Paul amendment by a roll call vote
of 2 yeas and 13 nays, with Senator Paul voting in the
affirmative, and Senators Peters, Hassan, Sinema, Rosen,
Ossoff, Lankford, Romney, Scott, and Hawley voting in the
negative. Senator Marshall voted yea by proxy, and Senators
Carper, Padilla, Blumenthal, and Johnson voted no by proxy.
The bill, as amended by the modified Sinema-Lankford
substitute amendment, was ordered reported favorably by roll
call vote of 9 yeas and 1 nay, with Senators Peters, Hassan,
Sinema, Rosen, Ossoff, Lankford, Romney, Scott, and Hawley
voting in the affirmative, and Senator Paul voting in the
negative. Senators Carper, Padilla, Blumenthal, Johnson and
Marshall voted yea by proxy, for the record only.
IV. SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS OF THE BILL, AS REPORTED
Section 1. Short title
This section establishes the short title of the bill as the
``Combating Cartels on Social Media Act of 2023.''
Section 2. Definitions
This section defines the terms ``appropriate congressional
committees,'' ``covered operator,'' ``covered service,''
``criminal enterprise,'' ``department,'' ``illicit
activities,'' ``Secretary,'' and ``transnational criminal
organization.''
Section 3. Assessment of illicit usage
This section states, not later than 180 days after
enactment, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit to
the appropriate congressional committees an assessment
describing: (1) the use of covered services by TCOs or criminal
enterprises to recruit individuals, including individuals under
the age of 18, to support illicit activities; (2) the use of
covered services by TCOs to engage in illicit activities, such
as narcotics smuggling, human smuggling, and human trafficking;
and (3) the existing efforts of the Secretary and relevant
government entities to address the aforementioned usage of
covered services.
Section 4. Strategy to combat cartel recruitment on social media and
online platforms
Subsection (a) states, not later than 1 year after
enactment, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit to
the appropriate congressional committees a strategy to be known
as the ``National Strategy to Combat Illicit Recruitment
Activity by Transnational Criminal Organizations on Social
Media and Online Platforms.''
Subsection (b) establishes that the strategy's elements
shall include, at a minimum: (1) a proposal to improve
cooperation between the Secretary of Homeland Security and
relevant law enforcement entities; (2) recommendations to
implement a voluntary-reporting process on TCOs' recruitment
efforts involving covered services; (3) a proposal to improve
coordination between DHS and state, tribal, and local
governments; (4) a proposal to improve coordination between DHS
components; (5) activities to facilitate increased intelligence
analysis for law enforcement purposes; (6) activities to foster
international partnerships; (7) activities to increase
engagement with youth in border communities about TCOs'
recruitment tactics; and (8) a detailed description of measures
to ensure law enforcement and intelligence activities focus on
TCOs rather than individuals being recruited; and protections
for privacy rights, civil rights, and civil liberties. This
subsection also states that the strategy shall not include
legislative recommendations.
Subsection (c) requires that the Secretary of Homeland
Security, at a minimum, consult with the heads of relevant DHS
components--including the Under Secretary for Intelligence and
Analysis, the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, and the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties--as well as interagency partners, governmental and
non-governmental representatives of border communities, and
subject matter experts, in drafting and implementing the
strategy.
Subsection (d) requires the Secretary of Homeland Security
to commence implementation of the strategy not later than 90
days after the strategy is submitted to Congress. It further
requires that 180 days after the strategy is implemented, and
semiannually for five years thereafter, the Secretary submit a
report describing implementation of the strategy to the
appropriate congressional committees. This report should
address (1) the implementation of the strategy's
recommendations; (2) the activities of government as part of
the strategy; and (3) the threat landscape, including new
developments. Further, this subsection requires a civil rights,
civil liberties, and privacy assessment of the implementation
of the strategy from the DHS Officer for Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties and DHS Privacy Officer 2 years after the strategy is
due.
Section 5. Rule of construction
This section states that nothing in this bill shall expand
the law enforcement or regulatory authority of DHS.
V. EVALUATION OF REGULATORY IMPACT
Pursuant to the requirements of paragraph 11(b) of rule
XXVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee has
considered the regulatory impact of this bill and determined
that the bill will have no regulatory impact within the meaning
of the rules. The Committee agrees with the Congressional
Budget Office's statement that the bill contains no
intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and would impose no costs
on state, local, or tribal governments.
VI. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE COST ESTIMATE
S. 61 would require the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) to report to the Congress on the use of social media by
transnational criminal organizations for recruitment and other
illicit activities and on a strategy to combat those
organizations' efforts. The bill also would require the
department to begin implementing the strategy to combat those
efforts within 90 days of submitting the report. Finally, S. 61
would require the Office for Civil Rights and Privacy Office at
DHS to assess the strategy and report to the Congress.
Based on the costs of similar activities, CBO estimates
that implementing S. 61 would cost $1 million over the 2024-
2028 period. Any spending would be subject to the availability
of appropriated funds.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Jeremy Crimm.
The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy
Director of Budget Analysis.
Phillip L. Swagel,
Director, Congressional Budget Office.
VII. CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW MADE BY THE BILL, AS REPORTED
This legislation would make no change in existing law,
within the meaning of clauses (a) and (b) of subparagraph 12 of
rule XXVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate, because this
legislation would not repeal or amend any provision of current
law.
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