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Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to join Senator Durbin and Senator Graham--thank you for organizing this--Senator Cornyn and Senator Hawley and others who believe it is long past time to update and change our laws in this digital world.

As my colleagues know, I have been trying to do this in the area of competition policy. We had a setback this week with losing the increased antitrust fees that were supposed to go to the Justice Department. But we carry on and hope that won't be the same next year and then join our colleagues across the aisle to try to change the law. If we are not going to give the resources, we better change the laws.

For too long social media companies have turned a blind eye when children joined their platforms and built algorithms that pushed harmful content out to kids. Despite hollow apologies and empty promises, these companies haven't fixed the problem.

The problem has gotten worse and every single parent knows it and every single person in this room. You don't even have to have a kid or grandkid to know it. You heard it from your friends, and we certainly heard it in testimony before our Judiciary Committee.

That is why I support Chair Durbin's bill, the STOP CSAM Act--I am a cosponsor--the EARN IT Act that Senator Blumenthal and Senator Graham have, and that is why I am working with Senator Cornyn to pass the SHIELD Act.

I am going to focus on the SHIELD Act because that is my bill, but I support these other bills.

In 2016, 1 in 25 Americans reported being threatened with or being a victim of so-called ``revenge porn.'' Now, just 8 years later, studies show that 1 in 12 people report being a victim. Yet there is no current statute addressing these serious privacy violations, violations which have enormous social, emotional, and even financial impacts on victims.

According to one survey, 93 percent of victims report suffering significant emotional distress due to having intimate images shared against their will; 13 percent report difficulty getting a job or getting into school because these images are on the internet; and more than half experienced suicidal thoughts as a result of the violation.

FBI Director Wray--if you don't want to believe us--FBI Director Wray testified that the Bureau has recently reported an increase in sextortion scams, which in 2022 alone resulted in at least 20 victims committing suicide--20 victims committing suicide--including Jordan DeMay, a high school senior and straight A student who took his life after he was blackmailed with the threat of distributing nude photos over Instagram.

What happens is these kids think they have met a girlfriend or a boyfriend. They give them a photo, and it turns out to be a scam. And then they threaten them that they are going to put the pictures online, and these kids don't know who to turn to. They are just dumb kids--and they commit suicide. It is that straightforward. The Washington Post has done a review of a number of these cases.

So are we just going to sit there and let this get worse and worse and worse? I just don't think that is the answer. The Stopping Harmful Image Exploitation and Limiting Distribution, or, as it is known, the SHIELD Act, gives law enforcement the tools it needs to stand up for victims of serious privacy violations.

Our bill establishes Federal criminal liability for people who distribute or threaten to distribute others' explicit images online without consent. It also fills in gaps in existing Federal law so that prosecutors can hold all those who share these images intentionally of these kids accountable.

Let me make clear that we have--of course, as a former prosecutor and as the Presiding Officer is from the great State of Nevada--we understand that you have to narrowly define these bills and these laws. That is what we have done, and we made many changes after the markup of this bill. We listened, and we made changes to the bill. I have worked to refine the bill to address the concerns, and I continue to work with my colleagues to do so. But at some point--this was last May, and we are still sitting here. So that is why I join my colleagues in asking to get these bills through now, not tomorrow, not a month from now-- now.

When that Boeing plane lost a door midflight in January, nobody questioned the decision to ground the planes to see what was wrong. No one thought that it was the mom who should have done something and checked out those bolts ahead of time or that it was the kid who should have been able to figure out that something was going wrong here.

We have laws on the books. As Senator Durbin said, we have the ability to sue. We have laws on the books. These companies are no longer little companies that started in a garage and that should be shielded from all liability and that should have no rules applied to them. If we just want to leave the status quo and leave it to parents and see how it works out for these kids, I am not going to go that path. That is why I am joining my colleagues across the aisle to get these bills done, and when they do their unanimous consent, I will join in that as well.

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