Extending the Undertaking Spam, Spyware, and Fraud Enforcement with Enforcers Beyond Borders Act of 2006
Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I just want to say in the Senate, in my time in this body, this is one of the most stunning abuses of power I have seen in my time of public service.
I think my colleague knows that I was sitting until 5 minutes ago in the Ways and Means Committee, where I was invited to testify about Social Security, and I was given a message that the Senator from Missouri was going to stand up and basically try to throw in the garbage can a bipartisan law that I and a conservative Republican, former Congressman Chris Cox--well known to conservatives--wrote because as we thought about the formulation of technology policy, our big concern was for the little guy, for the person who didn't have power, the person who didn't have clout.
We were picking up accounts that if they were just trying to come out with their invention--might be something they put up on a website or a blog--they could be held personally liable for something that was posted on their sites that they had no idea about.
So we said: We can't do that to the little guy. We can't strip them of their voice.
By the way, my concern about the little guy that led to the passage of this law is something I continue to focus on today.
This law is hugely important to movements like Me Too and Black Lives Matter because it gives Americans the opportunity to see the messages they want to get out. We all see the videos. Frankly, establishment media wouldn't even run a lot of it because they would be sued.
So the original interest in this was making sure that the little guy had a chance to be heard. That is the interest today. That is what the Senator from Missouri wants to throw in the trash can. That is No. 1.
No. 2, the effect of what the Senator from Missouri wants to do--and for colleagues who have just come in, I just learned about this 5 minutes before the Senator from Missouri came to the floor. The net effect of this is that Donald Trump can force social media--and he is already working the refs--to print his lies.
The thing that concerned me right at the outset was the lies about vote-by-mail. He wanted to force Twitter to print his lies about vote- by-mail. That, too, is something that we sought to constrain in the bipartisan law. And many people think the 26 words really began a policy of empowering the little guy to be heard.
Now, I am going to wrap up with just one point. Colleagues, the Senator from Missouri talks about how he wants to take on Big Tech. That is his concern. Let's take on Big Tech.
If you want to take on Big Tech, you can go on my privacy bill. It is called the Mind Your Own Business Act. It is the toughest bill on the table with respect to Big Tech. It says that if an executive, a CEO, of one of the big companies, lies and lies repeatedly, they could be held personally liable, including the prospect of prison time
So if the Senator from Missouri is serious about taking on Big Tech, I have a bill to do it. That is not what the interest is here. This is all about Donald Trump wanting to force social media to carry his political water and to print his lies.
For that reason--and I would have more to say had I been given some semblance of a courtesy to be able to prepare remarks on this, I would speak in more detail, but for those reasons, at least those three, I object.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am told the Senator from Arkansas is up, and I will be very brief. I appreciate his courtesy.
Once again, the Senator from Missouri is getting it all wrong. He talks again about how this law--this bipartisan law--is basically not for the little guy, but he is taking on the big guys. Well, the reason that is factually wrong is that on this floor, a previous effort was made to deal with sex trafficking. It was called SESTA and FOSTA, and the desire was--we are all against this horrible smut online. We are all against it. The desire was to block it.
As the debate went forward, I and others said: You are not going to be able to block it. You are going to be able to block Backpage, like what eventually happened under existing law, which I supported--not under this new thing.
Well, guess who supported this SESTA-FOSTA deal that is pretty much like the Senator from Missouri--it was Facebook. Facebook supported the last effort. Last time I looked, they are a pretty big company. So the Senator from Missouri is just getting it all wrong here.
I come back to the proposition--I see my friend from Vermont, who has been really the tech expert here--that what we have always been about is the little guy, and you see it every day with Me Too, Black Lives Matter, and so many voices from the community that, because of this law, can be heard.
I do not--not just on this, because I have objected, so it can't go forward--I do not accept this idea that this somehow is the path to solving problems in communications, because under SESTA-FOSTA, which is really the kind of model the Senator from Missouri is talking about, the only thing that happened was the horrendous people involved in sex trafficking went to the dark web, and so now we have an even bigger problem.
Mr. President, I don't expect this will be the last time we talk about it, but I would like to repeat to the Senator from Missouri that if the roles were reversed here and I had an idea that I wanted to advance, I would extend a courtesy to give him an opportunity to prepare remarks.
Thank you, Mr. President.
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