Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am proud to be here as a former U.S. attorney and the chief Federal prosecutor in Connecticut.

I have been involved in law enforcement for most of my career, and I am proud to stand here now in this Chamber, following the chairman of the Commerce Committee, whose dedication to this cause has brought us to the finish line, and my colleague Senator Portman, whose leadership on this bill is invaluable.

I wish to second a number of points that have been made by Senator Portman and Senator Thune, most especially about the very collaborative effort involved in this bill--a bipartisan championing of a cause whose time has come--and, particularly, about our colleague John McCain and his wife Cindy McCain, whose energy, spirit, courage, and strength have really been an inspiration to all of us. I also want to thank Senators McCaskill, Heitkamp, and Cornyn, because their contributions have been enormously valuable as well.

There is a face to human trafficking in this country. Here is one of the faces. Desiree Robinson, whose story you just heard from Senator Thune, is one such face. Her voice is still. Her voice could not be heard directly, but her mother, Yvonne Ambrose, came to our committee and talked about her beautiful daughter, whose life was lost as a result of sex trafficking. She was killed after she was raped and after she was sold. Her story alone helped us to achieve unanimous approval in the Commerce Committee for this bill, and I hope it will lead us to an overwhelming vote today on the bill before us.

I hope, as well, that it will lead us to defeat amendments that would, in effect, kill this bill--amendments that may be well intentioned, but, in fact, have an effect contrary to their stated purpose.

This bill is completely bipartisan from beginning to end. It is the result of tireless work of advocates, sex trafficking survivors, and a bipartisan coalition of our colleagues. It now has 68 cosponsors. Its companion legislation passed in the House 388 to 25.

It is the product of stakeholder consensus. It has the support of every major human trafficking organization, every major law enforcement group, and every part of the tech community--if not unanimous, at least of many of its leaders.

This bill would clarify section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was never intended to give websites a free pass to aid and abet sex trafficking. It was never intended to immunize completely those websites so they could knowingly facilitate sex trafficking. Those words are in the bill--``knowingly facilitate.''

The purpose of our measure, very simply, is to give survivors their day in court. Right now, the courtroom doors are barred to them, as a recent court of appeals opinion remarked, outrageously so. It would also open avenues of prosecution to law enforcement where they are currently roadblocked.

My experience combating sex trafficking at the State level led me to colaunch and cochair the Senate Caucus to End Human Trafficking with Senator Portman, seeking to find solutions to this problem. As a State prosecutor, I was told that I could not pursue actions again craigslist or other sites nearly a decade ago because of that section and the interpretation.

Clearly, the websites that facilitate this, knowingly encouraging and profiting from sex trafficking, must face repercussions in the courtroom. For law enforcement to succeed in combating sex trafficking, there have to be consequences. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported an 840-percent increase in reports of suspected child and sex trafficking from 2010 to 2015 alone. It found that spike ``directly correlated to the increased use of the internet to sell children for sex.''

Those numbers fail to tell the full story. In fact, this picture is worth a thousand words. This picture of Desiree shows her as a young girl, smiling. In fact, her mom told us that her smile could light up a room. She was a successful student who dreamed of becoming a physician in the Air Force.

When she was in high school, a series of men reached out to her on social media. They pressured and manipulated her into letting them sell her for sex and then advertise her on backpage.com. Her mom, Yvonne, told us what happened next:

On December 23, 2016, a 32-year-old man by the name of Antonio Rosales was looking through Backpage.com for a child to have sex with, just like countless others before him. . . . He knew Backpage.com was a site to go to in order to find young underaged girls to have sex with. During his search, he came upon a picture of my 16-year-old daughter under the posting, ``New girl in town looking to have fun,'' which was posted by her pimp. Desiree was driven to Antonio's residence by the pimp with the intent of having sex with this 32-year- old man, a man twice her age.

This was the last night of my daughter's life. . . . On Christmas Eve, December 24, 2016, Desiree, my baby, was brutally murdered, and now my life has changed forever. She had been beaten, raped, strangled, and if that wasn't bad enough, he slit her throat, all because she said, no, she didn't want to do this again. She screamed for help, and there was no one around to help her.

Yvonne Ambrose had the courage to come testify before us, and I have repeated this part of her testimony not because it is ennobling or pleasant, but because it is the hard, ugly truth about sex trafficking. It is the reason that we must pass this measure. It is also the reason why we need to defeat the amendments that would send this measure back to the House and its possible demise.

Every one of the groups I mentioned earlier, including Desiree's lawyer, have urged us to defeat these amendments. I will read just one or two sentences from a letter that I received today from Desiree's lawyer about the so-called moderation amendment:

At first glance, it appears that the Moderation Amendment is disguising itself as a good Samaritan amendment. However, in a nutshell, its effect is a really bad faith Samaritan immunity.

This measure is narrowly tailored. It would ensure that State and local law enforcement can join the fight against these criminal websites. It provides survivors a right of action that would not only be a source of relief for them but also a means of remedy. The Good Samaritan amendment, unfortunately--perhaps, unintentionally--would simply protect the websites.

The people who complain and take action certainly deserve protection. It is in the current law. One of the reasons why we want to defeat this amendment is that it would probably have unintended consequences in protecting websites that identify sex trafficking ads and then leave them up in order to continue profiting from them.

I think the letter from the attorney for Desiree Robinson's estate, Gina DeBoni, objecting to this amendment is a powerful reminder that we need to stick to what we have and what we know will work.

However, in a nutshell, its effect is really a bad faith Samaritan immunity.

Not only does the amendment strip the ``good faith'' requirement (that is already accounted for in the current CDA), it creates a new and very expansive immunity for companies charged with all crimes--not just sex trafficking. This is in sharp contrast to CDA's original intent and does nothing but immunize bad actors.

I significantly limits evidence that could be used in any federal criminal action against a website. Because almost every company uses some form of moderation system, the immunity would apply in every case brought under Section 230 going forward.

The CDA has already been crafted to provide immunity to those that are truly using good faith in their screening. This amendment undoes that and instead, creates a new bar to liability.

Moreover, it does not make sense in the real world and has the potential to create devastating consequences. As you know, we represent Yvonne Ambrose, the mother of Desiree Robinson, who was just 16 years old when she was murdered on Christmas Eve 2016. Desiree was not much different than any other 16 year old girl. She was loved by all, and had dreams like all. Like all children, Desiree was vulnerable. It did not take long for her to fall victim to a man who preyed upon her and sold her for a finder's fee to her pimp, Joseph Hazely. Hazely sold Desiree for sex on Backpage.com to Antonio Rosales--her killer. Desiree's case has both a criminal and civil component--Desiree's traffickers and killer have been charged criminally and are awaiting trial. We are pursuing a civil wrongful death action against all that played a part in her death, including Backpage.com.

You heard from Yvonne who testified before the Senate Commerce Committee. There is no better advocate for the passage of SESTA than a mother who lost her child. Desiree represents hundreds of 1000s of children who are knowingly trafficked on Backpage.com. The proposed Wyden amendment cuts Desiree's claim off at its knees, giving bad actors, who are not acting in good faith, a way out--giving them a clearly defined immunity to hang their hat on. It is such a drastic departure from that of the Good Samaritan, taking good faith out of the equation entirely. It will create an insurmountable challenge for lawyers who are fighting on behalf of victims of sex trafficking, not to mention, any victims of any other crime, whether criminal or civil, brought under Section 230.

In practical application, in a case such as Desiree Robinson, this is how it plays out:

We know that Backpage makes an effort to identify and flag ads that are objectionable through its strip word feature. It then affirmatively edits ad that it knows are selling children for sex on its website. Under this amendment, even though Backpage knowingly facilitated trafficking of children when it edited the ads, it would be immunized because it took steps to identify this content, even though it didn't remove it. Surely, immunizing bad actors such as Backpage cannot be the intent of this Congress and all the co-sponsors of this bill.

We know from the Senate report and information obtained via our subpoena to Co-Star Group that Backpage's moderation is relevant and intrinsically connected to their knowing facilitation of sex trafficking. This amendment removes the consideration of the direct evidence of criminal activity because the amendment broadly excludes all evidence of this nature. In fact, it broadly excludes this type of evidence for ALL civil and criminal matters regardless of the type of crime.

Companies such as Facebook, etc, that have the largest risk or burden are supportive of the SESTA language as is. This amendment is not geared towards good actors but rather companies that are not acting in good faith. The Commerce Committee report clearly provides for good faith moderation-- ``an ICS would not have their good faith efforts to restrict access to objectionable content used against them.'' Good faith moderation is already protected by the CDA and the passage of SESTA does not negate that.

For the above reasons, we respectfully encourage Senator Blumenthal to vote NO on the Wyden Amendment. I am available any time this weekend or on Monday to discuss further.

Thank you for your consideration. Regards, Gina Arquilla DeBoni,

Attorney for the Estate of Desiree Robinson Managing Attorney, Romanucci & Blandin LLC.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Finally, there is a funding amendment that has been offered. While well-intentioned, it would, in effect, derail this legislation. It would provide money through Attorney General Sessions to investigate and prosecute websites that criminally facilitate human trafficking.

This amendment, too, is opposed by law enforcement agencies. Yesterday, I put their letters into the Record. Every major law enforcement representative agency opposes it because ``the funding amendment is a poison pill that is dead on arrival if sent back to the House.''

I will conclude simply by saying that I believe this measure accomplishes some powerfully important purposes. It would not criminalize the so-called harm reduction communication--information designed to ensure that women and men wrapped up in commercial sex trade can avoid violence, prevent HIV, and access community and support services.

H.R. 1865 was not designed to target websites that spread harm reduction information, and the language of the bill makes that clear. The purpose of this bill is much more narrowly focused: A website user or operator must intend to facilitate prostitution. If their goal is to save lives by providing lifesaving information, they have not violated the law.

Finally, I want to make absolutely clear, this legislation is not intended to prejudice the rights of anyone who has been victimized by a crime online other than sex trafficking. For example, I disagree with the courts that have held that the Communications Decency Act immunizes online firearm sales--like Armslist--for facilitating illegal gun sales. While this legislation does not address those cases, nobody should infer that Congress believes they were rightly decided.

Again, my thanks to all of my colleagues and most especially to Senator Portman for his hard work, his leadership, and his courage in tackling this tough problem, which should bring all of us together. Making SESTA the law of the land will help save lives. It will spare others the fate of Desiree Robinson. It will make sure that more parents see justice, that survivors have their day in court, and that law enforcement has the right to pursue these wrongdoers.

Mr. President, I yield back to Senator Portman.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I say thank you to my colleague Senator Portman for his hard work. When we began this legislation, no one gave us a chance because of the entrenched and powerful interests against us. This measure will unlock the courthouse doors to survivors and to law enforcement who can stop sex trafficking--a scourge, modern- day slavery in this country. I thank so many of my colleagues for cosponsoring it and for helping to lead this effort that will make a difference in the lives of countless young girls and women and men who are victims and survivors.

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