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Floor Speech
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Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, let me tell you two brief stories.
A high schooler takes from the internet a picture of a female classmate, then uses artificial intelligence to ``nudify'' that young girl, and shares this deepfake sexually explicit image with the rest of the school on social media. The classmate--mortified and humiliated-- doesn't want to show her face at school. She is afraid. She spends a week begging her parents not to force her to go back. Her parents, futilely, report the images to the social media company, but they never hear even a word back. Meanwhile, everyone at the school knows who distributed this sexually explicit image of this 14-year-old girl, but he faces no consequences.
Here is the second story: A teenage boy begins a relationship online with a young girl. He is smitten, and they decide to swap explicit photos with each other, but it turns out the teenage girl is a scammer, and he has just fallen prey to sextortion. The scammer repeatedly messages the young man, demanding payment or the explicit photos will be sent to his friends via a social media network. The young man-- embarrassed, mortified, thinking there is no way out--dies by suicide. His name was Gavin Guffey.
His father is here today advocating to hold Big Tech accountable. On my lapel, I am wearing the heart emoji that Gavin texted his family moments before he took his own life.
Where do these stories take place--in Texas? New Jersey? South Carolina? Washington? California? Illinois? Florida? Sadly, the answer is all of them.
American high schools are experiencing an explosion of AI-generated sexual images, and in many cases, there is no consequence and no recourse for the teenage girls or boys like Gavin. There have been thousands and thousands of cases of sleazebags using nonconsensual, intimate images to extort victims both sexually and financially.
In fact, the FBI just issued a warning this year about the growing threat of sextortion for minors online. There are dozens of families across the country whose children have taken their own lives because of their fear of these images being released. There are hundreds of high schoolers targeted, often by their own classmates, who are experiencing incredible psychological harms in knowing that these images exist and are still out there.
And your child's images aren't just targeted while they are in middle school or in high school. In New York, a young man right out of high school took images of his former classmates from their social media profiles and used AI to alter the images in a sexually explicit manner. He then posted them for the world to see, along with their personal identifying information, encouraging violence and harassment against those he was victimizing. He was convicted only of a misdemeanor, and he faced zero charges for the deepfake explicit images. I would venture to guess some of the victims tried and failed to get these fake images removed by the tech company.
I have spoken to these victims and their parents, including two 14- year-old girls who were victims in the same month, with the same story, on opposite sides of the country. These girls were scared; they were hopeless; but they also wanted justice and relief from these images so they took action.
Elliston Berry of Texas and Francesca Mani of New Jersey bravely spoke up about their experiences and how the TAKE IT DOWN Act--my bipartisan legislation with Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar--would have protected them and afforded them justice for these horrific acts. Both Elliston and Francesca testified at a field hearing for the Senate Commerce Committee, bravely sharing their stories.
There are 29 States that have not criminalized deepfake revenge porn. Thus, law enforcement in those States cannot prosecute the slimeballs who peddle this lifelike, yet fake, smut. That is justice denied for these teenagers and other victims.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act empowers victims across the entire United States. It makes it a felony for these creeps to use AI to create and publish fake, lifelike pornographic images of real people.
Just as importantly, our bipartisan bill requires Big Tech to have a notice and takedown process so that every American--not just the Taylor Swifts of this country who are famous enough that they can get the images taken down but every American and every teenager in junior high and high school who is victimized--like Elliston and Francesca and Gavin--can get these disturbing images taken offline immediately. I don't want to see another family suffer such a fate, which is why I am on the floor today, trying to pass the TAKE IT DOWN Act.
This bill is overwhelmingly bipartisan. There are nearly 20 Republican and Democrat cosponsors of this bill. Over 80 organizations, including victims' advocates, including unions, including law enforcement are backing this bipartisan legislation. The TAKE IT DOWN Act passed the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously. Every Republican, every Democrat on the committee voted for this legislation. The House companion, likewise, has strong bipartisan support.
The Senate acted on parts of this issue earlier this year in having passed two complementary pieces of legislation 11 weeks ago. However, neither of these other bills empowers victims to get their explicit images--real or fake--removed from websites. In a moment, unfortunately, you will be hearing an objection from my colleague, the Senator from New Jersey, who previously supported both of these complementary bills.
One of these bills is the SHIELD Act, authored by Senator Klobuchar-- the coauthor of my TAKE IT DOWN Act as well. The SHIELD Act was significantly modified at the request of my colleague from New Jersey before he would allow that to pass. The TAKE IT DOWN Act deliberately adopted the exact same language that the Senator from New Jersey requested in the SHIELD Act--everything he requested--from the same sentencing provisions to the same intent provisions, to the same exceptions to the bill. Now it appears the Senator from New Jersey no longer supports the language he voted for and the language he negotiated and helped draft.
It cannot be that the Senator from New Jersey is concerned about free speech matters, because he has already agreed to pass two bills that deal with this very same issue and using the same language. I certainly hope that the Senator from New Jersey doesn't actually believe that realistic child pornography, as we have described here today, is somehow protected speech under any of our legal precedents. It is not.
The only difference between the two bills that, perhaps, the Senator from New Jersey can possibly point to is that the TAKE IT DOWN Act criminalizes the publication of deepfake revenge porn--an issue this body has not yet addressed--and that the TAKE IT DOWN Act requires big tech companies to remove these heinous images upon notice from the victims in order to protect the victims. Neither of these positive changes are good reasons to hold up the bill, but they are essential to bringing justice to our constituents from Francesca to Elliston.
So, if the Senator from New Jersey objects, teenage girls like Francesca Mani of New Jersey, like Elliston Berry of Texas, or teenage boys like Gavin Guffey will have no protection from sextortion or from having fake sexual abuse materials--images and videos, literal child pornography--being publicly shared by predators and sex offenders. If he objects, the next Francesca, the next Elliston, the next Gavin won't be able to force Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok to step up and take down this abusive content.
For the folks at home, I want you to listen very carefully. Sometimes Senate procedure can be confusing. If he doesn't say those two words, this legislation will, right now, this evening, pass the U.S. Senate 100 to nothing.
On behalf of Elliston Berry, on behalf of Francesca Mani, on behalf of the memory of Gavin Guffey and his family who still grieves his loss, on behalf of the countless teenagers and others who have been victimized by real and by deepfake explicit images, on behalf of the thousands more teenagers and women who are likely to be victims of this abuse in the future, I urge my colleagues to come together with a simple, bipartisan, commonsense step and pass the TAKE IT DOWN Act.
Therefore, Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of S. 4569 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the Cruz-Klobuchar substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. CRUZ. I have to tell you, I am saddened that the Senator from New Jersey chose to give no explanation for his objection; chose to give no reason to Francesca, why she is being denied; no reason to Elliston; no reason to Gavin.
He had an opportunity to explain his objections. Do you know what he said? Nothing.
Nearly 2 weeks ago was when I circulated this amendment to both sides of the aisle, and it cleared 99 Senators. He had a week and a half to object. Yesterday, this legislation was about to pass, and an hour before it was going to pass, the Senator from New Jersey raised his objection. He said last night: Ted, I haven't had time to read the bill.
It had been circulated to his office 2 weeks earlier, but he said he hadn't had time to read the bill.
I said: Great. I will delay this for a day so you can read the bill. The language in the bill is word for word verbatim the language you agreed to, you have voted for, and you negotiated.
He said he had numerous substantive objections. If he does, we heard none of them, not a word of it.
It makes me sad that he doesn't feel his constituents deserve any explanation for blocking legislation as important as this.
Madam President, it is not lost on anyone that this is an election year. And I will say, absent a single substantive objection, the obvious inference is that this objection is being made because we have got an election in less than 6 weeks.
I consider the Senator from New Jersey a friend. I sure hope he is not standing up here denying victims of this abuse relief simply to score partisan political points. I would like to think he wouldn't do such a thing.
But in order for me to believe he wouldn't do such a thing, he needs to actually explain some reason for his objection, which at least, so far, he has not bothered to do.
I will tell you, we had an agreement negotiated with the majority leader to pass an entire package of bills--Republican bills and Democrat bills--that have passed the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. All of that package was going to pass yesterday until, at the last minute, the Senator from New Jersey came with his midnight objection and no reasoning whatsoever.
So I am now going to give this body the opportunity to pass the package that had been negotiated in a bipartisan manner, that had been agreed to, and we are going to find out if the Senator from New Jersey will not only object to providing relief to the victims of this abuse but will object to multiple other bills that are bipartisan bills supported by Members of this body, because he wants to play partisan politics instead. I hope he does not.
Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills en bloc: S. 4569, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, Cruz-Klobuchar; Calendar No. 473, S. 275, the Rural Broadband Protection Act of 2024, Capito-Klobuchar; Calendar No. 474, S. 1570, the Bottles and Breastfeeding Equipment Screening Enhancement Act, Duckworth and Daines; Calendar No. 285, S. 1153, the National Manufacturing Advisory Council for the 21st Century Act, Peters and Rubio; Calendar No. 480, S. 3475, Strengthening the Commercial Driver's License Information System Act, Peters and Young; Calendar No. 479, S. 3277, the Marine Debris reauthorization, Sullivan and Whitehouse; Calendar No. 513, S. 4212, the American Music Tourism Act of 2024, Blackburn and Hickenlooper; and Calendar No. 485, S. 4107, the Think Differently Transportation Act, Duckworth and Capito; further, that S. 4569, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to; that the bills, as amended, if amended, be considered read a third time and passed en bloc; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.
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