Senators target sites that boost sex trafficking

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation to remove the "immunity" an online site has used to hinder investigations into sex trafficking of women and children, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill said Tuesday.

The legislation was prompted by a two-year inquiry led by McCaskill, D-Missouri, and U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, into the operations of Backpage.com, a website some have called the Walmart of child sex trafficking.

"It will prevent Backpage from inappropriately hiding behind a federal law that they have used to try to keep information out of the hands of criminal prosecutors and others who want to hold them accountable," McCaskill said.

The legislation also is designed to prevent other online sites from engaging in similar activities, she said.

In a conference call to reporters, she said the Senate also approved a resolution Tuesday that clears the way for dissemination of documents obtained during the congressional investigation.

Josh Hawley

McCaskill said she will make the documents available to criminal prosecutors in Missouri and state attorneys general who are investigating the website, including Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley.

Hawley has launched an investigation into Backpage. The website has asked a U.S. federal court to block the investigation, accusing Hawley of acting in "bad faith."

In a federal court filing Tuesday, Hawley said "compelling evidence indicates that Backpage.com both creates and controls content of online ads for the sexual exploitation and rape of human-trafficking victims, including minors."

According to Hawley, Backpage has "garnered extraordinary profits from its role in facilitating sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation."

Backpage has said a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act protects internet sites from civil or criminal claims based on content created by a third party.

But the congressional inquiry found Backpage knew it was enabling child sex trafficking and knowingly concealed evidence of criminality by systematically editing its "adult" ads to mask the fact the site was selling children for sex, according to a news release from McCaskill's office.

McCaskill said the bill is designed to aid in prosecuting such crimes.

"These are just modern-day street pimps who are hiding behind the internet," she said. "We want to make sure that the internet is not a user-friendly place for people who are prostituting young women, especially children."

She cited one case in Missouri where a girl was taken from truck stop to truck stop along Interstate 44 and "sold" to truckers for sex.

The bill has 22 co-sponsors, including 13 Republicans and nine Democrats. U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R- Mo., is among those supporting the bill.

According to a news release from McCaskill's office, the bill would:

• Allow victims of sex trafficking to take legal action against websites that knowingly aided in the crimes
• Eliminate federal liability protections for websites that assist, support or facilitate sex trafficking
• Enable state law-enforcement officials, not just the U.S. Justice Department, to take action against individuals or businesses that violate sex trafficking laws.

According to McCaskill's office, Backpage has become so well known for its sex trafficking ads, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported "it first goes to that site when a child is reported missing."

The senator said many technology companies oppose the legislation. But she said that "too many innocent lives are being impacted by the ability of the bad guys, which are the Backpages of the world, to hide behind this particular (Communications Decency) statute."

McCaskill said online sites still would be protected from the posting of third-party content under this new legislation unless companies "knowingly participate in placing any information on their site or facilitate trafficking, or if they recklessly do it if getting paid for advertising."

McCaskill said evidence shows Backpage staff actively helped people "shape their ads" and did not call police "when people were using adjectives indicating that someone was underage."

The senator said, "This is not the selling of a timeshare. This is selling a child for sex."

McCaskill said Backpage executives invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at an earlier Senate hearing, and the company is "still trying to make egregious, immoral profit" from sex trafficking.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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