Rob Portman
Calling an increase in sex trafficking “a stain on our national character,” U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) urged a congressional panel on Tuesday to back legislation that he introduced to target enablers of online sex trafficking.
In testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, Portman explained that his Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act would enable victims of sex trafficking to seek justice from websites that facilitate sex trafficking crimes against them, and it would allow state officials to prosecute violators of federal sex trafficking laws.
“… The fact that instances of human trafficking and sex trafficking are actually increasing in this country — in this century — is an outrage. It’s a disgrace, and I believe history is going to judge us on how we respond to it,” Portman testified.
Portman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led a two-year bipartisan investigation of the website Backpage.com that found the website had been more complicit in sex trafficking crimes than previously thought.
“We were able to show that Backpage was actively and knowingly involved in illegal sex trafficking, and it covered up evidence of its crimes in order to increase its profits,” Portman said. “… We took it all the way to the Supreme Court. Thanks to the Senate, for the first time in 21 years holding a private actor in contempt of Congress. And we were successful in getting a million documents that showed clearly that they actively and knowingly were involved in illegal sex trafficking.”
Still, victims of crimes facilitated by the website have not been able to seek justice because of a provision of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Portman added, which gives websites like Backpage broad immunity under federal law.
“We all believe in free speech,” Portman said. “I think everyone on this panel believes that we ought to have internet freedom. But the Communications Decency Act was never intended to protect those that engage in illegal conduct, and it was certainly never intended to protect online predators and sex traffickers. In fact, nothing in the original text of this law suggests that there should be an all-encompassing immunity for websites like Backpage that knowingly engage in sex trafficking.”
The First Circuit Court of Appeals recognized Backpage’s role in sex trafficking but ruled that a legislative fix was needed, Portman added, and a court in Sacramento dismissed pimping charges against Backpage last month because of the Communications Decency Act.
“This knowing standard in our legislation is a high bar, as the lawyers around this panel know,” Portman said. “They have to be proven to have knowingly facilitated, supported or assisted in online sex trafficking to be liable in the first place. Because the standard is so high, our bill protects good tech actors and targets rogue online traffickers like Backpage. Our bill also preserves the ‘Good Samaritan’ provision in the law that protects good actors who proactively screen for offensive material. I believe Google, Facebook and other legitimate websites do and they should have that Good Samaritan protection. And that’s in the law.”
Numerous companies and anti-human trafficking advocacy groups have supported Portman’s bill, including Kenneth Glueck, senior vice president of Oracle. “Your legislation does not, as suggested by the bill’s opponents, usher the end of the Internet,” Glueck said. “If enacted, it will establish some measure of accountability for those that cynically sell advertising but are unprepared to help curtail sex trafficking.”
Yvonne Ambrose, whose daughter Desiree Robinson was trafficked on Backpage and murdered, testified that her daughter’s death should not have happened and sex trafficking of minors shouldn’t be taking place in the United States.
“Taking advantage of our children on the internet has become such a common thing in our country that people turn the other cheek because they don’t want to believe this is actually happening right in their backyards,” Ambrose said. “This is not a race, gender or economic problem, this is a people problem, a human problem. If there were stricter rules in place for postings on websites then my child would still be alive with me today.”