Test test test test test test test after a very long investigation into back page pimping and other related charges were filed by the state attorney general office. The Court Dismissed all of the pimping charges based on the broad interpretation of the cda. Just before that at the end of 2016 she had her office refiled with additional facts developed to try to answer to the courts last order. The new judge in the second case dismissed the pimping charges. We have at this point and what we heard from the courts in california is really that Congress Needs to clarify the state attorney generals can join this battle. They can join federal prosecutors. I know you Department Ask about civil attorneys but it is the same in that realm as well. Currently state attorney generals simply do not have the ability to get around the cda. Thank you. I have a bill that passed the house and i was going to ask a question about that. Ill say that im rupinning outf time. We are blessed to have people willing to do that kind of work. We have people there doing it. Im sure youre seeing the same. It is good that we have people on the front lines trying to combat this. We need to be judicious and need to give them the tools available to do this. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. This is a difficult subject and something that feeds to be done. Its urgent. Do you think the save act has been effective giving prosecutors the tools to bring down pages like that . Thank you. Ill piggie back on what he said. It basically added advertising one could commit urnder the federal statue. Back page immediately filed court papers in the federal court here to basically join that statute saying it was unconstitutional. That case was not resolved until october of 2016. It may feel the law is trying to get around for a couple of years and no one used it i would provide a bit of a could wanter. It simply is not a long time when you think of a federal investigation to be teed up and purs pursued. I was going to ask you, first of all, are we clear of court possible overturning the save act at this point . Is this save act safe in judicious terms . It was a curious decision they issued. They did not address the substance of the constitutionality issue. They found it did not have a standing and they ruled on some ancillary issues. One could view that to constitutionality arguments. Do you think that the Congress Needs to examine whether federal investigators have sufficient resources to combat online sex trafficking . I think it is always a valid measure. I think we have such close partnerships and we always are encouraged by discussions around offering them resources. What i would suggest is what federal prosecutors need is they need more players on their team. By that i mean state attorney general. That was my next question. Does it allow state prosecutors to go ahead and prosecute cases as long as they comply with federal requirements . The language that i have seen which i understand is very much has shifted again since i saw a draft of it permits that in extremely limited ways and much more limited than the senate bill. Thank you. It is for any other reason except for the internet and the enablement. What would it look like without 230 . We have an example about that. We dont have the same kind of user. If we have it it is for the u. S. It is a very powerful statue. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. Olson, five minutes. Modern day slavery. It happens in my hometown, sugarland, texas. Slaving for sex and labor. It is ugly, offensive but real. Law enforcement people back home say it doesnt exist but it does. April 2016 back home. A high school senior, very attractive disappeared at night working out at a local gym 500 yards in the heart of sugarland. She had just turned 18. She was a legal adult. Her father knew unless he found her in 30 days she would likely be gone forever. Luckily he had resources to hire seals, green berets and put a full on onslaught on social media. He got her back. That situation had been planned for two years. She befriended the so called groomer when she was 16. He used snap chat to kmcommunice with her, give her drugs, get her hooked, keep that from her parents. He was lucky they got their daughter back and so was my family. Last june my daughter went to south africa on an overseas Study Program with her college. No one told us that was a hot bed for Human Trafficking. The students had to walk about half a mile from the dormitory to the classroom. In the middle of a bright sunny day 2 00 p. M. Four lane road a car pulled up in front of my daughter and her new friend. Three large men jumped out. One had a pistol in his left happened. My daughter saw the pistol. That man grabbed her shoulder, tried to take her in that car. Luckily she had her backpack on her right shoulder. The back papack off. It gave the her friend time to grab her right arm and ran away. She said i was afraid of hearing gunshots and dying in south africa. Luckily god was with her and she came home but she came home different. Those thugs took my daughters innocence and trust and its a pain that will never ever go away for my family. As i mentioned, especially with the girl from the gym, sex traffickers use it to help them attain an advantage and to stay hidden from Law Enforcement and families. Snap chat, 6 second video pops up and pops away. Bitcoin for online transactions. If i could make you can queen to end Human Trafficking for one day what would you do . First let me say my heart goes out to you. I sit across from parents who departme didnt have an almost, whose children were trafficked. So im glad youre story was an almost. I see even after they come out of trafficking the fear they have that their images are still up online and who might find them and who might see them. Parents have those fears too. Even looking ahead as we are trying to help them heal they are worried about whether their employer will see them or their children or potential spouse. There are at the present titent in this. I heard somebody tell me the story, if you take it out of the internet and you say in that hotel over there we are going to have children being raped and sold so that we can go and find them, use them as live bait so to speak, we would be appalled. We have to have mandatory privacy controls. Children will lie about their ages to get accounts. Im a big believer in free speech but not letting people rape our children. The guys were so bad with snap chat they would send the drugs are on the fifth car thats a red impal impala. It would pop up and go away. They are devils. It has to stop. It has to. It has to stop. My daughter was lucky. She came home. As you mentioned, most respect th arent that lucky. It is terrible. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. Thank you to all of the witnesses that are here today especially welcome to professor go goldman from home. When i read the reports about backpage. Com i was really disgusted by their business model. I think we need to be enforcing the law obviously to the fullest extent when it comes to web sites that are promoting sex trafficking. With that in miend i want to clarify something. I read your testimony and much of it is centered around section 230. Does it stop it from backpage. Com. Are there other ways victims can seek . No. Nothing would restrict the department of justice from bringing action against anyone, back page or any of the other sites that have been referenced. Have they . We have the grand jury investigation. We dont know what that is because of the nature. It seems safe to say it is surely on their radar screen. Isnt that what it is designed for . It does take a partnership to combat sex trafficking. We need everyone including the technology companies. To get their willingness to undertake initiatives require they are held acould wantable for making mistakes or not being instantaneous in their response or where users are posting lots of content. It is by making sure we have provided the kind of legal frame work that motivates companies. The bill that our colleague came to testify on is to replace social content online. And while in your view it being counter productive, can you explain how that would work . Yeah. It is could wanter intuitive. It assumes that existing Services Continue to do what they are already doing. If we change liability structure they might decide the best thing is to do the moderation work. While we might be able to take care of some players by driving them out we might also create other players that choose do little or none of the work we expect them to do. If they turn off their policing effort they create more environme environment. Do you know any where its to help combat online sex trafficking, similar crimes and if so how effective these efforts have been . I dont have the details on that. Do you know . Yes. Absolutely. We can certainly attest to the tremendous value that our Technology Partners provide. The development of tools, the ability to utilize very advanced comparisons and connections between images and data and video has not only increased our report load tremendously but it means that more and more content has been reported to us. That work came after the mandatory statute. Thank you. My time is expired. I yield back. Thank you to the witnesses very much. We thank the gentle lady. Five minutes. Thank you for holding the hearing. I appreciate the testimony of the panel. She is doing an outstanding job on the issue. I have a couple of questions. In response to increased sex trafficking around the world and in the tampa bay area, our local leaders the commission on Human Trafficking in 2014. Over the last three years it helped and trained over 3,000 members and savered ma saved many members of their captors. Partnering with local universities in the Sheriffs Office they are gathering data own local online trafficking that works in the tampa bay area. So my question is to miss smith. Based on your experience, what recommendations do you have for communities around the country that are beginning to target the online aspects and are there experienced organizations they should reach out to as they move forward . Thank you for your efforts in your home state. I think that a lot of people are well intentioned and go in and just have kneejerk reactions. It is important there be a professional approach with this as with any other so theres a Needs Assessment that you have the professionals in place who are best qualified to address each of the components of the problem youre tackling. You need the kind of collaboration that we talked about in our state where Law Enforcement is getting educated. Youre defining what your issues are. There is foundational work i think you to do around the issue of trafficking before you can move to the online aspects. It is important that you have Survivor Voices and the effects on their lives and their concerns, the legal issues they are facing. Some of my colleagues might be better positioned. Sure. Would you like to begin . Yes. Thank you. I think one of the things that is important is it is a multifaceted problem. It requires a multifaceted solution. You know, the Community Awareness and use of peer counseling and learning from and using the experiences of those who have gone through that so we can learn how to getter educate on prevepntion and awareness an signs of trafficking in addition to the judicial system as well. Mr. Winkler, can you expand on how this works . Yes, sir. My understanding of spotlight is its an overlay that looks for ads that are posted online. There is a strong likelihood somebody that has posted ads for minors. It is a tremendous tool for us in Law Enforcement or intelligence am analysts. They use it in an effort to identify Human Trafficking victims. So any type of Technology Spotlight that would help us in the furtherance of our efforts to combat human sex trafficking would certainly be welcomed. Thank you. I want to thank the witness for participating today and protecting our nations population. I encourage tampa bay residents to visit facebook or twitter to learn more about what the kpl community is doing to combat thesepredators. Thank you. Gentleman yields back. I want to thank you for having this hearing. To proceed from a different perspective. What role does Child Marriage play in this crime . There is some that doesnt get d discussed at all. Can you speak to this issue at all, anybody . Im interested because i have some legislation that im dra drafting for our nation to have for Child Marriages. There are so many different cente centers. Do you have any can you respond at all, anybody . Im sorry. Im getting older and hard of hearing. I may have missed part of that. Youre asking about Child Marriage. I would say we have limited experience with that. We do have a current survivor who was set to be married and her husband brought her here and trafficked her. She managed to escape. We are providing her services. In the years in which i have worked here i did work internationally and came across that issue quite a bit. Doe mesical do domestically it is a small percentage. I hear it is very common in some parts of our nation. [ inaudible ]. Is there a racial component to Sexual Exploitation of youngste youngsters . Is there a come poepponentcompo . I dont have that information at my fingertip. I could send it to you. There is a higher percentage of African American victims. We certainly see lots of latina, but im sorry, i dont believe any of us have the percentages. Our nation in recent days have been focused on sexual hara harassment in the workplace and in professional settlingsetting. It is harassment in the workplace and in professional settings. How is this effecting our focus on children when in most instances are powerful and are more vulnerable because they are voiceless. Are you feeling that on child Sexual Harassment because of the news on harassment in the workplace and or professional settings . Congressman, what we handle is a much more severe type of child exploitation. I will say that i think the public attention, you know, around this issue, do you create an environment we can have with our children with vulnerable populations again, just regarding communication, being open to reporting, we are seeing some of these same trends with adults. It is too early to know how it might filter down. Gentleman yields back. This is a tough hearing to sit through. Whats the rate, or do you have any youre talking about mostly girls, lets say, that are in this. I know there are some lgbtq but mostly girls that are trafficked. You say they mostly come from state homes, correct . From the state system . So mr. Winkler goes out there, where do they go there . They dont go to white picket fence and have am pie that night. Do we know anything about that . I can just speak from our state. It depends on if youre could wanting that as returning to that life of right. Thats what im asking. How do you break that cycle for those people . How do you rescue them from that which we all want to do. I think we found a terrific model in our state. Currently we have an 89 success rate not going back into exploitation. Im not going to say its not incredibly difficult. I think i read that a girl typically runs back to her exploitation seven times. Thankfully our rates are lower than that. Seven times . Yes. There is complex trauma going on here. I know. Thankfully we have survivors who mentor and build that trust and show visibly this does not have to define your life. Im a professional woman. Im married. I got a college degree. This does not have to define your life. Thats the first step. I think the fact that ke keep very small case loads because they were exploited because they want love and acceptance. You can provide services all day long. If you dont build that km community and the support groups and the relationships with staff and starting to build their outside support system they will go back to have that need met in the om wnly way they have ever known. I think it takes time. We can want rut rush this. Let me give each of you about 45 seconds to answer. What are the top three things we need to do to help you . I think the number one thing is really the topic of this hearing. There needs to be legal tools that canfe effectively break Th Commercial market. They are lured back in to be trafficked and the same market that again is feeding between 9 and 10,000 reports a year. There is no decrease in those reports, something at a high level needs to happen so that these web sites can be taken down. Okay. Go ahead. I have a 15yearold this week who just got her pref livis back online. The same day she got those privileges a 40yearold man was reaching out to her. She said im a minor. He said thats fine. We see that over and over. This backpage. Com. I have heard of it is a million times but do you buy bicycles and refrigerators there and theres also a trafficking section . Yeah. Its not all trafficking, right . No. It is hidden under euphemisms. The pictures are very sexualized. Theres not much attempt to hide whats going on. Anything that encourages innovation and technology that would assist us in conducting the investigations we conduct, that would assist in helping us to identify Trafficking Victims, anything whether thats targeted funding or whatever, anything you could do along those lines. Im over time but i want to yield myself 45 seconds that i dont have because i want to hear from you. I do defer to the experts on this. I hope i get five and a half minutes. I want to thank the panel for being here. I want to echo the comments. I want to follow up on one of the questions that he introduced. He talked about your use of the tool spotlight. From what i understand, now is the trafficking business is moving from text and photos to Live Streaming and video. Its my understanding that the technology, the spotlight types of technologies have not kept up. What sort of a chal challenge does that bring to you . I know there is a shift from the text format video and streaming. It is certainly something that is on the horizon if its not already here. Anything you can do that would assist in fostering innovation in that area would be most helpful. I have to agree with you. I think its one of the things we as policymakers need to do through encouragement is to get the brightest throughout the Technology Eco system to help develop tools, to help you stop this terrible crime thats being inflicted on our young people. I appreciate what you do. Theres a group that started in waco, texas. They do great work. They deal with the victim side. One of the neat things i have seep in o seen in our community is they have edge kaucated them about w happening to them they have formed a sting systems like the ones you talked about. Unfortunately business is booming. It doesnt mean they have gone away. They are just in other areas. We have heard about the the tere consequences. We vice presidehavent talked an be done in the first place. The you talk about how technology can be used . Great question. Thank you. We are doing a lot around prevention. I think we have to talk about demad demand reduction. If somebody picks up the phone to call for sex they know the other end of the phone might be Law Enforcement. Whether they are in small towns, where ever they are, they know our laws are strong. They know their picture might go out on a press release and their wife and boss might see that. Those are strong deterants. They put it up so everybody can see. Thats the kind of thing we need to have happening if we are going to prevent this. Then we have just got to limit the marketplace as we have been talking about. As long as theres anonymity, as long as these exploiters can get by with what they are doing prosecutors dont have the tools to go after them. Law openforcement has to lose me vase. Motivation. What can be done to help stop the exploitation . You a feel for that . That was for you. Im sorry. What can be done to stop the exploitation . Some of the things we have been talking about are the privacy controls, the anonymity allowed online. I think we Vice President talked about the facts that there are new sites popping up constantly. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. It is deeply upsetting that these issues exist in todays society. Im grateful to discuss how we can put an end to this modern day slavery. I worked on Human Trafficking issues since i served in the california state legislature. While we have taken steps to curb this horrific practice much more must be done. Trafficking is a big problem throughout california as im sure youre very aware. A recent report found california had over 1,300 incidents, nearly doubling any other state. This heat map shows the cases in california that were reported to the national Human Trafficking hot line. This is part of the picture pause because it only shows where it was actually known. They have uncovered several large scale rinks. Thousands of ads were tracked including ads selling minors for commercial sex. Sadly one of those is right in the heart of my district. The problem is so bad that a group of Law Enforcement departments, Government Agencies and Community Organizations banded together to establish a task force to conduct anti trafficking efforts. In 2015 the task force assisted 225 victims. Of the 225 victims, 61 were new victims, 168 of those were used for sex trafficking. 48 of those victims were minors, 47 of whom were used for sex trafficking and the stats go on and on. Im proud of the work the task force has done and will continue to do so. With that i would like to get into some questions. You mentioned that when it began investigating human traffickers they called on your group for assistance. Do you think state Law Enforcement have the ability to combat this problem on their own . No. I believe it takes the expertise of a number of players working together so Law Enforcement does things i wouldnt dream of doing. I think we have to Work Together to have an approach that did you want frighten the victims away, that meets them where they are, that brings survivors to the operations to build that trust. We have to have the services in place to keep a victim in place long enough to prosecute. When i first started this work i had a detective who said he was so frustrated with picking up the same 14yearold girl all of the time and that he departmeidw what to do with it. Now he is one of our most robust supporters because all of the pieces are in place. Law enforcement is going out and they are finding people. The kmcommunity is getting bett. The services are there to heal. So different partnerships are being formed in order to make it work . Absolutely. What evidence would a civil attorney need to establish that a web site knew the individual a advertised on the site was a minor . I dont have an answer because we vice presidehavent tested. It did you want turn on a web sites knowledge. We are unclear how differently a regime might interpret that. Okay. Along the same lines, what evidence would a civil attorney need to establish that a web site knew the individual advertised was an adult sex Trafficking Victim . I would answer that the same. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Costello, youre recognized for five minutes. First i want to thank you for partnering with the police for Law Enforcement action focused on recovering you recolleundera. Now, i understand why the cda provided immunity to isps in the first instance. There is an intellectual appreciation of why it was the case. I have met with a mother whose daughter was advertised. When you hear what these ads are and what is said it really hits you in a way that compels you to say thats simply not acceptable and we need to create a standard by which an isp and others can be liable where they have more of a responsibility than has been required of them. So the question i have is can you talk about the successful efforts that were taken online during the operation and how, if at all, we can revise section cda to improve these efforts . I would point to the reckless disregard standard. I think it is very i think thats very helpful language of miss wagners bill as well as we are hesitant to give state investigative authorities, state Law Enforcement jurisdiction over internet type related crimes because sometimes different states do Different Things at different time. By freeing it up and giving states more tools to do that, its a good thing. Miss soares and anyone else on the panel can you speak to that collaboration between federal and local enforcement, how the proposal may best aid them rooting this out even more effectively than we have been able to do. Thank you for the question, congressman and the recognition regarding operation Cross Country. It is an amazing operation undertake within a large amounts of partners. We provide services as do local groups and were extremely proud to partner with Law Enforcement in that operation. The numbers you quoted especially from your state of pennsylvania are indicative of the scope of the problem. There could be an operation Cross Country every week, every month and the numbers would be the same. Ill defer to mr. Winkler how there can be better resources put in place for Law Enforcement. The way to provide assistance and cut those numbers, ill repeat what i said before, take this on from the highest level, realize there is a commercial marketplace where these children are commodities and why there are so many children recovered and rescued during operation Cross Country and why theyre lured back, i think miss smith said some children, seven or eight times. That is similar to what we see at ncmic, because currently pending in the house and the bill from the house to the senate currently with 52 cosponsors in the senate, both of those bills are approaching the issue from the same framework, adding more resources, state attorneys general and civil remedies. That is what you will start to see with new Legal Initiatives of that sort. If it is too hard to break into that backpage, there are hundreds how important is it for state and local prosecutors to hold bad actor websites accountable . How much more in the way of resources does that enable . It is a tremendous benefit. I mean state attorneys general in every state, i imagine, will look at this issue. Many have spoken to nick mick whereby and they simply cant proceed right now. Thank you, i yield back. Gentleman yields back. And we thank you so much for the testimony you have given today. As we conclude i have two more submissions for the record. The Opening Statement of our Ranking Member frank pollone. An oped i wrote this week. Without objection so ordered. Pursuant to Committee Rules i remind members they have ten Business Days to submit additional questions for the record. And i ask if they do submit them to you, that you answer those questions within ten Business Days. And seeing no further business to come before the committee and the fact we are now being called to the floor for votes, i adjourn the subcommittee. So ordered. Thank you. A former Senior Adviser to Hillary Clinton will discuss the 2016 campaign. The Trump Administration and the 2020 president ial election cycle. Live coverage begins at 11 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan 2. In the afternoon, new York Governor Andrew Cuomo delivers his state of the state address at the Empire State Plaza conventionen center. Thats live at 1 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Sunday on cspans q a i propose action instead of words. I propose action now before it is too late. I propose it for the sake of a better world, but i say again and again is and again that i propose it for our own american selfinterest. A book arthur vandenberg, the man b in the middle of the american century. He finds himself in opposition when fdr is elected and the democrats in the early 1930s take majority in the the senate, hes in. Opposition for the next dozen years. And that means to get anything done, which often meant resisting some of Franklin Roosevelts initiatives, they are needed to be a coalition. He had to reach across the aisle. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan. A British Parliamentary Committee in london held a hearing on Sexual Harassment in the workplace. The attitudes and behaviors that lead to harassment and sexism in culture. Conservative member maria miller chaired this 90minute hearing. This session today will look at the wider picture in the workplace and other public spaces. And this may be an issue that the