Thune Bills to Combat Human Trafficking Signed Into Law

By: Senator John Thune (R - SD)



Washington, D.C. - January 11, 2017 - (The Ponder News) -- U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, issued the following statement after the president signed his bipartisan legislation to combat human trafficking, the No Human Trafficking on Our Roads Act (S. 1532), and the Combatting Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act (S. 1536), of which he was a cosponsor.

“Now that the No Human Trafficking on Our Roads Act and the Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act have been signed into law, they will aid in the ongoing battle against human trafficking,” said Thune.

S. 1532 and S. 1536 would (respectively):

Disqualify individuals from operating a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) for their lifetime if they used a CMV to commit a felony involving human trafficking.

Designate a human trafficking prevention coordinator at the U.S. Department of Transportation and would increase outreach, education, and reporting efforts at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.


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JANUARY IS NATIONAL SLAVERY & HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS MONTH

By Senator John McCain - (R - AZ)



Washington, D.C. - January 11, 2017 - (The Ponder News) -- U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement in recognition of National Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness Month:

“In recognition of National Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness Month, we must reaffirm our commitment to eliminating all forms of modern day slavery and human trafficking. These are horrific crimes that undermine the most basic human rights, and target the most vulnerable and at-risk individuals in our society.

“I commend the Senate’s work to combat modern day slavery and human trafficking, including through the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, which I am proud to cosponsor. I’m also proud of my wife Cindy’s longstanding effort to help victims of human trafficking and drive change both in Arizona and around the world.

“We have a long way to go to end this tragedy and restore the freedom of those exploited through these crimes. Let this month serve as a reminder that it is our duty to not only raise awareness, but to stop the victimization of all men, women and children.”


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CORTEZ MASTO ANNOUNCES SUPPORT OF BIPARTISAN BILL TO COMBAT SEX TRAFFICKING

Source: Senator Cathrine Cortez Masto - (D - NV)

Washington, D.C. - November 4, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) along with U.S. Senators Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) announced their support of the bipartisan Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), a bill to crack down on sex trafficking and ensure justice for victims.


“Sex trafficking is a despicable crime that is too often facilitated by nefarious websites like Backpage,” said the senators. “These companies knowingly profit off the pain of others and must be held accountable. This legislation ensures victims receive their day in court and empowers state attorneys general to seek justice. We applaud the hard work of the bill’s authors and are proud to join in support.”


SESTA was written in response to a two-year Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) inquiry which found that Backpage.com knowingly facilitated criminal sex trafficking of vulnerable women and young girls and then covered up evidence of these crimes in order to increase its own profits. The report from the subcommittee can be found here.


The bill would allow victims of sex trafficking to seek justice against websites that knowingly facilitated the crimes against them and eliminate federal liability protections for websites that assist, support, or facilitate a violation of federal sex trafficking laws. In addition, the law would enable state law enforcement officials, not just the federal Department of Justice, to take action against individuals or businesses that violate federal sex trafficking laws.

More news about the issues concerning Human Trafficking can be found at The Ponder News by clicking HERE

Underage Sex Trafficking Crackdown Leads to Recovery of 84 Minors

Washington, D.C. - October 19, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), announced that 84 minors were recovered and 120 traffickers were arrested as part of Operation Cross Country XI, a nationwide effort focusing on underage human trafficking that ran from October 12-15, 2017.

The FBI Omaha Child Exploitation Task Force recovered two minors and arrested two traffickers as part of operations based out of the Omaha field office.

This is the 11th iteration of the FBI-led Operation Cross Country (OCC), which took place this year in 55 FBI field offices and involved 78 state and local task forces, consisting of hundreds of law enforcement partners. This year’s coordinated operations took place with several international partners, including Canada (Operation Northern Spotlight), the United Kingdom (Aident 8), Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines.

“We at the FBI have no greater mission than to protect our nation’s children from harm. Unfortunately, the number of traffickers arrested—and the number of children recovered—reinforces why we need to continue to do this important work,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “This operation isn't just about taking traffickers off the street. It’s about making sure we offer help and a way out to these young victims who find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of abuse.”

The 11th iteration of Operation Cross Country, the FBI’s annual law enforcement action focused on recovering underage victims of prostitution, concluded with the recovery of 84 sexually exploited juveniles.

As part of Operation Cross Country XI, FBI agents and task force officers staged operations in hotels, casinos, and truck stops, as well as on street corners and Internet websites. The youngest victim recovered during this year’s operation was 3 months old, and the average age of victims recovered during the operation was 15 years old. Minors recovered during Cross Country Operations are offered assistance from state protective services and the FBI’s Victim Services Division. Depending on the level of need, victims are offered medical and mental health counseling, as well as a number of other services.

“Child sex trafficking is happening in every community across America, and at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, we’re working to combat this problem every day,” said NCMEC President and CEO John Clark. “We’re proud to work with the FBI on Operation Cross Country to help find and recover child victims. We hope OCC generates more awareness about this crisis impacting our nation’s children.”

Operation Cross Country XI is part of the FBI’s Innocence Lost National Initiative, which began in 2003 and has yielded more than 6,500 child identifications and locations. For additional information on Operation Cross Country XI and the Innocence Lost initiative, please visit www.fbi.gov.

The FBI Omaha Division would like to thank the many agencies who assisted in this successful operation, including the Omaha Police Department (SOVS Unit), Council Bluffs Police Department, Douglas County Sheriff's Office, LaVista Police Department, Lincoln Police Department, Nebraska State Patrol, Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Office, Mills County Sheriff's Office, Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, and the Iowa Department of Narcotics Enforcement.

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Congresswoman Condemns Racist Rap Video

Washington, D.C. - October 18, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY) released the following statement regarding the rap video “Happy Ending” by hip-hop performer “Hopsin”:

“This video blatantly plays on racist and sexist stereotypes about Asian women and their sexuality. Not only does this offensive song and video demean Asian people, but it ignores the fact that many women in massage parlors like those depicted in the piece are human trafficking victims. Hopsin is essentially celebrating human trafficking and lampooning those who have been forced into prostitution. I encourage all online music platforms to stop carrying this offensive song and video.”

WARNING: THIS VIDEO NOT FOR YOUNG OR SENSITIVE AUDIENCES. FOUL MATERIAL

Legal Expert Urges Congress to Pass Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act

Source: Senator Rob Portman (R - OH)

Washington, D.C. - September 11, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) highlighted a new op-ed in The Hill from Mary Leary, law professor at The Catholic University of America, former Deputy Director for the Office of Legal Counsel at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and former director of the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse (NCPCA), detailing her support for the bipartisan Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act. The legislation, widely supported by dozens of Ohio and national anti-human trafficking advocates and law enforcement, will narrowly amend the 1996 Communications Decency Act to help state and local prosecutors hold accountable companies like Backpage that knowingly facilitate the trafficking of women and children online. Courts, as well as district attorneys and 50 attorneys general from around the country, have long urged Congress to fix this law to protect trafficking victims.

“This legislation is a test for Congress,” says Leary in her op-ed. “Will it side with common sense and agree that federal law cannot give immunity to active partners of human traffickers, or will it side with corporations that want the CDA to be left untouched and perverted to afford them broader immunity than ever intended.”

Excerpts of the op-ed can be found below and the full op-ed can be found at this link.

In Bid to Amend Communications Decency Act, Congress Must Side with Trafficking Victims

Mary G. Leary

The Hill

September 7, 2017

The courts cry for help and Congress holds the protection of trafficking victims in its hands. Just two weeks ago a California Court dismissed the pimping charges against the owners of Backpage.com for its role in allegedly knowingly collaborating with human traffickers to sell women and children online for sex. In so doing, it joined an increasing list of courts asking Congress to amend the so-called Communications Decency Act (CDA), which they have interpreted to provide immunity for such companies.

In closing his opinion, Judge Lawrence Brown made this shocking statement: “Until Congress sees fit to amend the immunity law, the broad reach of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act even applies to those alleged to support the exploitation of others by human trafficking.” That’s right – immunity for collaborators of human trafficking.

This is yet another common sense appeal to Congress to make clear that companies who actively partner with human sex traffickers to sell victims online are not immune from liability. Judge Brown’s opinion joins a growing chorus of countless human trafficking victims, law enforcement, and a broad coalition of non-profit organizations to amend the CDA.

The good news is that Congress has begun to listen.

This summer, Congress has acted in a bipartisan way with two widely sponsored bills in each chamber. The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 has more than 100 co-sponsors in the House and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 has nearly 30 co-sponsors in the Senate. These bipartisan legislative proposals demonstrate it is possible to draft a narrowly tailored, common-sense clarification to the CDA. The Senate bill, for example, provides for this simple proposition: a company that knowingly acts to assist human sex traffickers should not have immunity intended for Good Samaritan companies working in good faith to limit this material…

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Washington Think Tanks Live In Fear Of Google's Ire

Source: Consumer Watchdog

Santa Monica, CA - September 3, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- News that the New America Foundation shut down its Open Markets unit after the group expressed support of European antitrust enforcement action against Internet giant Google shows how Washington think tanks live in fear of incurring Google’s ire and losing their funding, Consumer Watchdog said.

The nonpartisan nonprofit public interest group warned that staunch opposition to bipartisan Congressional efforts to AMEND a key internet law that would allow rogue websites like Backpage.com to be held accountable for aiding sex trafficking may be motivated by a fear of losing Google money.

In an email to Barry Lynn, head of Open MarkeTs, New America’s President Anne-Marie Slaughter expressed concern that Google’s views wouldn’t be represented in a conference he was organizing.

“We are in the process of trying to expand our relationship with Google on some absolutely key points,” Ms. Slaughter wrote, according to the New York Times, “just THINK about how you are imperiling funding for others.”

New America has received more than $21 million from Google; its parent company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt; and his family’s foundation since the think tank’s founding in 1999, the Times noted.

The Times reported that Slaughter later told Mr. Lynn that “the time has come for Open Markets and New America to part ways,” according to an email from Ms. Slaughter to Mr. Lynn. The email suggested that the entire Open Markets team — nearly 10 full-time employees and unpaid fellows — would be exiled from New America.

In 2009 a Google lobbyist in Washington DC, Bob Boorstin, tried to get the Rose Foundation to stop funding Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project. Rose rebuffed the effort and gave Consumer Watchdog another grant.

Click here to view the email exchange between Google’s Boorstin and Rose Foundation’s Tim Little.

Consumer Watchdog noted that virtually all groups opposing amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act get Google money.

The current interpretation of CDA Section 230 enables rogue websites like Backpage.com, which facilitates sex trafficking, to use the law as a shield. This interpretation, pushed by the tech industry, keeps child sex trafficking alive and allows websites like Backpage to avoid accountability to victims and their families.

Consumer Watchdog said the bipartisan Senate bill, S. 1693 the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 introduced by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) with 27 co-sponsors and Rep. Ann Wagner’s (R-MO) H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 with 111 co-sponsors, would amend the law and let Backpage be held accountable.

In May Consumer Watchdog, DeliverFund, Faith and Freedom Coalition, The Rebecca Project for Justice, Trafficking in America Taskforce and Nacole S., a sex-trafficking victim’s mother, released a comprehensive report detailing Backpage’s wrongful activities and how Google has spent millions to fund efforts to thwart any changes in Section 230. As detailed in the report, major recipients of Google’s money are two nonprofit organizations, The Center for Digital Democracy (CDT) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As documented in the report, CDT and EFF have frequently jumped to aid Backpage as it faced various legal challenges.

Google, CDT, EFF and other tech industry representatives may claim to be protecting free speech and Internet freedom, but their activities have done little more than protect a notorious sex-trafficking hub from being held accountable by its victims, Consumer Watchdog said. Backpage’s abuses and the fight by its victims to hold it accountable are the subject of a new documentary film, "I Am Jane Doe". It is now available on Netflix or can be downloaded from Google Play, iTunes or Amazon.

“Internet freedom must not come at the expense of children who are sex trafficked,” said John M. Simpson, Con sumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director. “Just as the First Amendment does not allow you to shout fire in a crowded movie house, or to assist hit men and drug dealers in their criminal activity, CDA Section 230 must not be allowed to protect an exploitative business that is built on child sex trafficking.”

Brown Joins Portman to Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Ensure Justice for Human Trafficking Survivors

Washington, D.C. - August 1, 2017 - (The Ponder News) -- U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) joined U.S. Sen. Rob Portman’s (R-OH) bipartisan bill to ensure justice for victims of sex trafficking and ensure that websites like Backpage.com, which knowingly facilitate sex trafficking, can be held liable and brought to justice.

“We need to bring all traffickers to justice – no matter how they carry out this heinous crime,” said Brown. “With evolving technology, we must ensure the law keeps pace with this modern-day slavery. I am pleased to join Senator Portman in making sure law enforcement can protect Ohioans from online predators.”

“Stopping trafficking is one of the great humanitarian and human rights causes of the 21st century,” said Portman. “Our bipartisan investigation showed that Backpage knowingly facilitated sex trafficking on its website to increase its own profits, all at the expense of vulnerable women and young girls. For too long, courts around the country have ruled that Backpage can continue to facilitate illegal sex trafficking online with no repercussions. The Communications Decency Act is a well-intentioned law, but it was never intended to help protect sex traffickers who prey on the most innocent and vulnerable among us. This bipartisan, narrowly-crafted bill will help protect vulnerable women and young girls from these horrific crimes.”

The bipartisan Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act would clarify Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to ensure that websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking can be held liable so that victims can get justice. This narrowly-crafted legislation offers three reforms to help sex trafficking victims. The bipartisan bill would:

Allow victims of sex trafficking to seek justice against websites that knowingly facilitated the crimes against them;

Eliminate federal liability protections for websites that knowingly assist, support, or facilitate a violation of federal sex trafficking laws; and

Enable state law enforcement officials, not just the federal Department of Justice, to take action against individuals or businesses that violate federal sex trafficking laws.

A full summary of the bill can be found here, a section by section here, and the text here.

Brown has also been working on the Abolish Human Trafficking Act to support survivors of human trafficking and help local, state, and national law enforcement on the front lines of the fight against human trafficking. The bill was voted favorably out of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in June. The next step to passage is a vote in the full Senate. The Abolish Human Trafficking Act includes a provision based on a bill Brown introduced earlier this year which would create a Human Trafficking Coordinator in each of the country’s federal judicial districts and a National Human Trafficking Coordinator at the Department of Justice to help the Department better coordinate its efforts to prevent and prosecute human trafficking cases. This would help improve public outreach to raise awareness of human trafficking; ensure that data on human trafficking is properly collected; and collect restitution for survivors

Sex Trafficking

Wagner Introduces Bipartisan Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017
Ann Wagner (R-MO, 2nd)
April 3, 2017
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 has been wrongly interpreted to shield websites that participate in sex trafficking from any criminal liability. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has said that it is Congress’ role to clarify the intersection between Section 230 and sex trafficking laws. This legislation would provide that urgently needed clarification while safeguarding the freedom of the Internet.
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