the department of health and human sfrss response to very serious instances confronting the field of child welfare. the practice of parents re-homing their adopted children and human trafficking. i'll start with re-homing. many of the students highlighted in the investigative series described parent who is are unable to meet the complex, emotional and behavioral needs that emerge from their children post-adoption. these parents turn to online forums to advertise and facilitate the placement of their children without the benefit of safety and criminal background checks or a home study to determine the appropriateness of the placement. the article advertised that these children are often placed in unsafe environments. parents have a legal responsibility to protect and care fr their children. dell gated to a potentially

unfit and unsafe individual through a power of attorney does not insulate parents from state laws regarding eminent risk of serious harm. i want to be clear. the practice of homing is unacceptable. it is clearly an act of abuse and neglect and should receive the full attention of child welfare agencies. many of the key legal requirements guard january ship and power of attorney, as well as adoption, are determined by states. federal law requires states have a process to receive and respond to all allegations of abuse and ne glekt.

>> support and posed adoption services for all adoptive families. through the im, we encourage states to review their laws that govern these areas to ensure that the issue that is arise through the practice of re-homing are adequately addressed. we also encourage states to promote the availability of post-adoption services and resources through various means of outreach and information sharing to the adoption community. most importantly, to provide support before families are in a state of pry sis.

i'd like to now turn my focus to the issue of child trafficking. hhs is committed to ensuring that victims of all forms of human trafficking have the access to the services and supports they need to foster health and well being. abused and neglected children are vulnerable to child trafficking. some are current or previous wards of the state. in order to better understand and serve child victims of human trafficking, child welfare agencies are strongly encouraged to build to capacity to work with victims of human trafficking. it should include areas as staff training, supporting policies and procedures, appropriate screening and assessment tools, resource development and data collection and analysis. with coordinated efforts in these areas, we hope to decrease

vulnerability and trafficking among children and youth. and to equip systems and services to identify and intervene early to address the needs of victimized young people. the children's service is greated committed to september of 2013, we published a guidance to states. and this year, we will award grant that is are designed to continue the development of child welfare systems response to human trafficking through infrastructure building and a multisystem approach with schools, law enforcement, juvenile justice, courts, run away programs and homeless youth programs. the administration looks forward to working with you to address both of these crucial issues and improve services to our most vulnerable young people. again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i'd be happy to answer any questions.

>> thank you, ms. chang. ms. english? >> good morning and thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning. my name is abigail english. the sex trafficking of children and adolescence represents profound violations of their human rights. in 2012 and 2013, i was privileged to publish comprehensive accord in 2013 confronting sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors in the united states.

in 2010 and 2011, i was a fellow for advanced study at harvard university conducting research on sexual exploitation and trafficking of adolescence. the iom committee's deliberations were guided by three fundamental principles. minors who are commercially orr sexually exploited should not be considered criminals. three, identification of victims and survivors and any interventions should do no further harm to any child or adolescent. the iom committee also with efforts to respond required better collaborative approaches and must confront demand and hold accountable the individuals who commit and benefit from these abusive acts and crimes.

although accurate nationwide prevalence estimates are not available, the iom committee concluded that the available evidence does suggest that commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors has been recorded in every region and state. and that victims come from diverse backgrounds. never the less, some populations of children are likely to be at heightened risk for victimization. these include children who have been sexually abused, youth who lack stable housing, sexual and gender minority youth, youth who have used or abused drugs or alcohol and youth who have experienced homelessness, foster placemented or juvenile justice involve vment. the iom found that health care

professionals can play an important role in the prevention and identification of children in adolescence who are victims or who may be at risk of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. such practice does exist which could provide a basis for developing ones of sexual exploitation and trafficking. health care professionals also have a role to play in treatment. in order to provide effective prevention identification and treatment for victims and survivors, health care professionals require specific

training and tools. similar to the ways in which school-based initiatives have been used to promote physical activity, promote healthy sexual behaviors, reduce dating violence and reduce alcohol-impaired driving. schools could develop prevention education initiatives drekted to the reduction and remediation of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. in order to ensure that prevention identification efforts do no harm, appropriate services must be available to which victims and survivors can be referred if and when they are identified.

more evaluation of the use of tra maw an long term housing are particularly scarce. without appropriate services, victims and survivors are at risk for reexploitation and repeat trafficking. finally, in a majority of states, it is still possible for prostituted, exploited and trafficked children to be arrested, prosecuted, detained and incarcerated for sexual offenses such as prostitution or for related offenses such as loitering or drug offenses, even if they were being exploited or trafficked. the growing number of states often refer to as safe harbor laws to redirect exploited children into the child welfare system or to other services.

the iom reports all instances for this purpose. thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, ms. english. >> thank you senator hagan, and the other members of the committee here today. i am kourntly an assistant principal in the high school district. i have spent my entire career developing and implementing programs and services to address the social and emotional needs of students, especially the most vulnerable and creating policies and service learning environments of all students. for the past six years, much of my attention has been on child and sex trafficking. it is an honor to be here. schools can and should be safe havens for students and even more so for some lives characterized by instability and

lack of safety or security. in these cases, connecting students to services. actions that can prevent trafficking and save lives. everyone who is part of the school community, administrators, bus drivers, food service workers, resource officers and others has the potential for human traficing. first, they must learn its warning signs and how to respond. we have developed a program to accomplish the above task. district policy and protocol for identifying suspected victim are

responding from a disclosure to a respected victim with law enforcement, child welfare, probation and social services. in february, 2008, committed to the concept of effective interagency and information sharing, our community worked with dr. james, law professor and recognized expert to create an information-sharing agreement. this information allowed to identify our first student victim of child sex trafficking. since that time, our partnership has identified countless victims of child sex trafficking. beginning in the fall of

2010, we developed a comprehensive training about the dynamics of child sex trafficking, the scope of the crime, warning signs, campus impact and a clearly defined course of action on how to respond. along with our partners, we developed a protocol for response when a staff member confirms or suspects a trafficking victim. we have trained our counselors on how to provide services and when to bring in outside experts to support a student impacted by sex trafficking. most importantly, we've developed for other stake holders while building upon others with relationships already in place. in closing, i would like to share actual quotes from sex trafficking survivors. i know that my teacher knew that something was wrong with me.

on a few occasions, she saw 34e getting out of my pimp's car before school. i would catch her looking at me as if she was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. i wish she had done something. quote, watch it and address it. we know you are aware it's happening. quote, edge kat all staff about the warning signs. if i knew i had someone to turn to, it would have done so. quote, don't give up on us when we get in trouble. work with us to figure out why things are happening. student victims need schools across a nation to be trained on identification and response. in many cases, the adults on campus are the last responsible aadulthoods to touch these victims' lives before they are victimized. thank you for the opportunity to speak today and i look forward to your question. . >> thank you for inviting me to testify today. starting in 2012, i began in

disrupted adoptions. during my research, i discovered a clandestined online world where some of these parents solicited new parents for children they no longer wanted. on yahoo and facebook, the quote\s were striking. quote, i'm totally ashamed to say it, but we do truly hate this boy. i would have given her away to a serial killer, i was so december prat. these parents weren't simply venting. they are actively off loading children. it's called private re-homing. a term first used by people seeking new homes for their pets. what we didn't know, what no one knew, was how often this was happening.

no government agency was involved. the federal government estimates that, overall, about 10-25% of adoptions fail. but no authority systemically tracks what happens to children after they are adopted domestically or internationally. we built a data base to help us process our findings. we discovered that over that five-year period, in this one forum alone, a child was offered to strangers on average once a week. the activities spanned the nation. many were said to suffer from miz kal, emotional and

behavioral problems. it was clear from the online descriptions that they are among society's most vulnerable. i traveled the country interviewing parents. these are three kparms of what i found. after determining that the three-year-old boy was too troubled to keep, a wisconsin mother solicited a new family for him on a yahoo group. i couldn't stand to look at him anymore, she told me. i wanted this child gone. without hours of posting the child on instagram, she handed him off in a parking lot.

she had no idea that the children had been removed after she suffered severe psychiatric problems. or that the man had an affinity for young boys that he would later share with an undercover agent. she believed they were good people with good intentions. in another case, a russian girl thought her adoption would bring a world of happiness. my picture was i'm going to have family, i going to school and have friends. less than a year after bringing inga home, her adoptive parents gave up trying to raise her. officials characterized her

troubles this way. substance abuse, domestic violence, separation from parents, sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, attachment issues and mental health department issues. my parents didn't want me, russia didn't want me, i didn't want to live, she told me. another girl was adopted from haiti at 13. she told me she also suffered suicidal thoughts. the first family to take nina lived in ohio. she says she was one of 33 children and that the environment was chaotic. the third family abruptly sent her away after she had sexual abuse brought to light. fill have found anyone to

advocate on their behalf. some parents fear they would be charged with abuse or neglect. to be sure, many of the people who take these children in are competent and kpash gnat caretakers, re-homing is a lot of abusers and others who escape scrutiny to easily obtain children. what are the obligations of these web sites on which these rehoming forms have taken place? it depends on who you ask. when i informed yahoo on yahoo user groups, the company swiftly took down the sites. face book allowed a similar forum to continue operating. is re-homing legal? the answer is complicated.

since our investigation, at least four states have enacted laws. the sbon southerly of the wisconsin bill called rehoming a gaping hole that allows children to be placed in unsafe situations with dangerous and life-threatening out comes. the congressional research service issued a report recommending ways congress could restrict re-homing. at the request of senator widen, expressed shock that advertising children on line does not seem to violate any federal laws. some child advocates say a federal law should replace restrictions of advertising

children to nonrelatives be approved by a court. they say different responses are inadequate. government support for struggling adoptive families: thank you for the opportunity to talk about this i shall shoe. unfortunately, i can only give voice to some of the young people affected by this practice. i thank all of you for your testimony. from the personal stories that ms. tui shared concerning the re-homing, it seems that families feel that they have nowhere to turn. when their adopted child

requires a different amount of support. can you tell me what hhs can do to share information about trauma-informed care with adoptive parents and front line workers including health care providers and educators. >> yes, thank you, senator. i think there's a lot that we can do to share information about what is effective and helping family who is have adocumentive children provide evidence-based intervention that is have been successful and helping deal with children with social and emotional, behavioral needs. i do think it's important to point out however, that most adoptive families and many of whom struggle with the same issues, do not feel like this is a choice they would ever have to make.

they do seek and find assistance for their children. >> certainly. and we're talking about those situations from story that is we've heard this morning or have read on the other end of that spectrum. one of the challenge social security the lack of data that would inform the work of state and locals to address child trafficking. what could be done of the data collection so that the state and local federal policyholders can better address this problem. also, how can the school pes nel overcome the challenges being afraid to disclose their stories. >> the iom committee identified

a number of different ways in which data gathering can be improved. first off, i'll say that there are several different kinds of data. we need to tailor identification tools and prevention strategy -- >> can you give an example? >> to those who are at greatest risk. so the committee, while it said that trying to refine a national prevalence estimate was probably not the most appropriate strategy, conduct iing research could be supported by the federal government and would enhance the development of

appropriate prevention tools. in addition, we do not have evidence-based tools for identification. and training. and there are a few examples of training efforts and tools for identification that have promising -- are promtsing, but we need much more evaluation of those and other tools. for example, in houston, there are efforts, training efforts under way. and in atlanta, there are specific child-oriented training efforts that have been implemented by a nonprofit coalition and the governor's office.

all of those efforts could benefit from further evaluation. and similarly, some of the tool that is have been developed by places like asian health services in oakland and other health care organizations and sites. >> thank you. ms. latrelle, you actually have set up a program. and you said shortly after you set it up with coordination between different groups, you helped identify your first victim. can you talk about how successf successful this program has been at your school. and what recommendations would you make to other school districts? what advice would you give them? and then sort of to wrap it up, how can the federal government help support the programs, the program that is you put in place at your school?

>> sure. thank you for the opportunity to clarify. with our school district and three law enforcement agents. >> six other district sfls. >> correct. >> once we developed that information-sharing agreement, that's when we immediately identified our first survivor of sex trafficking. all of the stake holders were able to talk openly and clap rate. >> one other point. obviously, these are children. so this is all private information. >> correct. >> we're all touching that young pirn's life, but we weren't discussing openly and collaboratively in a way to help us understand what we were seeing. once we developed that

information-sharing agreement, that's when we were first able to identify what was happening systemically at least in our community and what i've now discovered across the nation was child sex trafficking. once law enforcement really alerlted us to the pref lensz, the scope and hold up the age that you discussed earlier that this was happening, we started with the action. we, as a school district, did not want to wait until it was happening in our schools. we wachbt today be at the front line and keep this off of our cam puss. because of that, we worked with our partners, the experts, to create systemic comprehensive training for our campus supervisors, our nurses, what we discovered through research and our own experience that disproportionately was happening to children in the foster care system.

so we made sure those real vent staff were strained. not only on warning signs, but what to do. we know that our staff and schools are walking through the situation of what to do. >> so if we suspected -- if a teacher suspects that they might have a student that might be trafficked, they understand some of the warning signs. they then bring that concern to a staff member, typically a counselor, who's received more in-depth training on how to engage a potential issue, how to have engaged discussions, hopefully have that victim feel comfortable with what's happening. we've trained our administrator so when they're engaged with the student and they discovered some lingerie, when we're doing some of the standard businesses on businesses, we discover the warning signs. so we work with that student as best as we can.

we determine if we have a larger campus issue. if maybe the exploiter is approaching that student to and from school. we then, depending on the situation, work with the parent or guardian. we work law enforcement, hopefully, that that student will feel comfortable to share the information regarding the exploiter with law enforcement. we make sure that student is getting the appropriate services. >> thank you, my time is up. >> thank you, madame chairman. this has been fascinating. reading the testimony was also very interesting and, of course, in a lot more detail. but ms. chang, in your testimony, you mentioned adoption disz rupgss and

adoption dissolutions. can you explain the difference, please? >> sure, senator. typically, when we talk about adoption disruptions, we think about what happens during the process leading up to an adoption. so we think about children in foster care. the process to be adopted can take, you know, up to two years in some instances. and so sometimes, during that process of moving towards adoption finalization, there may be a disruption that prevents that adoption from being finalized. it may be due to the child's behavior. it means that they have needs that aren't equipped to handle. other times, adoms to solution occurs typically after an adoption has taken place. for whatever reason a parent decides that they are no longer able to care for that child.

so we talk about that as an adoption dissolution. thank you, ms. english. can you elaborate on that a little bit more. >> thank you, senator. what i was intending to clarify was that health care professionals are accustomed to identifying children who have been victims of child abuse and, also, victims of domestic violence. that those protocols and identification tools could be useful for developing similar

tools for the victims of trafficking. you have, however, raised an issue which i think is of great significance. and that is that health care professionals are currently mandated to report instances of child abuse to child welfare and/or law enforcement authorities. and there is some lack of clarity in the laws around whether child sex trafficking is or isn't reported. in some states, it dez extend to third parties.

there's also some concern on the part of health care professionals that if they report young people who have been victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking, that may contribute to the distrust and reluctance that those young people have to disclose their victimization to the health care professional that is are treating them. >> thank you. ms. latrelle, in your plan, your point number 2 was educating parents and students on risks of realities. how do you go about doing that? is there reaction from the community against that kind of discussion? >> there's obviously a concern from the community when you're talking about their children and the potential harm of their children being sex trafficked. that's where our partnerships are really important. we, in the schools, as i shared

earlier, in what is happening 234 our local community. what does the rekrutment look like? how does the exploited youth be victimized? so we, as the schools, partner with law enforcement in hosting public awareness events and hosting some educational opportunities to alert if they have reports or they have concerns and are worried about either their child or one of their child's friends or other classmates. so we felt really, really strongly that the best is to be educated about whether every we receive a family coming forward or a student with disclosure, we're ready to move into action.

i'm sure this is new to a lot of people. it's pretty new to me. did you find examples of people rehoming their own kids? >> that's a great question. what i can tell you is the manner by which people re-home children is not something that would be limited to adopted children. anybody can basically, in most states, turn over a child to a stranger met on the internet with nothing more than a know tarized power of attorney saying the child is now in this stranger's custody. whether it's for months or until

the child turned 18. i didn't find a single offer of a child -- of a parent offering a buy logical child. it was primarily people who had adonted children from foreign countries and, also, people who had adopted children from the foster care system. did you have any sxs as a result? >> well, you know, as a journalist, my job is to collect the facts and report them. so certain things came out in regards to international adoption. this is an area that had been, you know, largely unregular lated until 2008 when there were the first federal regulations of some international adoptions that took effect. in those regulations, you had to

undergo 10 hours of training from certain foreign countries. for many of the other international aadoptions, there was no training requirement. that can be dozens of hours of training. and, as i understand it, some people can say you know, i've got a good, hard look at what's in store and i can't move forward. one of the thing that is has come up 1 the training requirements.

>> senator murphy? >> thank you very much. madame chair. you talked a little built about the fact that states are starting to amend their laws to provide some greater protection. can you talk about what you have found with your research to beginning the best practices at the state level when it comes to one of the easy things that would seem to be a common sense requirement. in order to get authorization to go through the custody process in the first place to get. what have you found are the best ways for states to deal with this issue? >> so you're correct.

in the course of my recording, i've discovered that in some states, there are descriptions on the internet for an adoption or other custody transfer. in other states, there are no restrictions on the advertising of children. and, you know, i would also point out that a lot of these state laws on the advertising of children, i believe, have assumed that the children being advertised are newborns. young moms don't want to keep the child or put the child right up for adoption after it's born. i don't think those laws were crafted with the understanding that, you know, in 2014, you'd have people advertising children who are 12 years old, 14 years

old. so, you know, the states vary when it comes to advertising children. and also the custody transfers of children. >> there are now state that is have enacted new restrictions on the custody transfers of children. this is another situation where you've had -- i think that the sfat laws were such that they assume if you're going to transfer custody of a child say through a know tarized power of attorney to another person while you were going to the hopt, that you'd be doing that to a trusted relative or close friend of the family. i don't think that those state laws, basically, took into acount that in 2014, you'd have people transferring custody of their child to a stranger that they met on the internet. so now you've got some states saying listen, if you're going to transfer custody of a child to a nonrelative for longer than a year, you have to go through the court and make sure that there's oversighted of that.

so those are two of the things that are now springing up at the sate level as a way to address this. as i say, there are other people child advocates have pointed out that this patchwork of varying state laws 1 never going to adequately protect children and that you need a federal law that's going to require federal uniform add ver tieings standards. >> so your testimony references the fact that this law is at the state level. but that certainly makes sense that it's crossing state borders. that that necessitates, even requires federal response. what do you think about that suggestion? >> i certainly agree with ms. tui. i think that the situation of rehoming by adoptive parents is something that most lawmakers never an tis pated. if we think about the rights of parents to care for their

children and make decisions about where they will live, where they will be placed. i don't think anyone an tis pated this. i certainly think there's a lot of confusion about what legal custody or power of attorney documents even mean. what kind of sfonsblety that confers and what responsibility parent haves to maintain. so i think guidance from the federal level about this new type of situation is certainly important. >> we talked about the fact that there are plenty of situations in which biological parents and transferring custody of their children, for a variety of reasons, there's no oversighted about it, the federal or at the state level. is there a reason to treat adoptive children differently than buy logical children when it comes to the transfer of custody?

i think the faktsd that whether adopted or not, fact that parents, whether or not clear, says this is inappropriate behavior. and i think that the creation of tools, like the internet, that

allow people to share information in this way, that promotes that this may be acceptable as a society to respond to that and that this is not appropriate behavior. >> you are encouraging states to review their laws. are you providing them with recommendations as to how to change their law sns. >> so in the information memorandum that i referenced, we don't have specifics in that. but we are certainly providing technical assistance and guidance to states. i'm having conversations with them. it's still early in the process of see what will go states are doing. ms. tui has referenced four state that is are in their laws. are are in the process of what might be best with this. >> i hope you'll keep open the possibility for the transfer custody of adoptive children. i think you're right. that we should approach this carefully and we certainly want to be careful not to adopt

differing standards. but the evidence suggests that the problem is specific to adon'tive children, then it may be that we need to tailor our response to that group of children, as well. thank you, madame chair. >> thank you, senator murphy. >> madame chair, thank you for this hearing. we're grateful for this opportunity to talk about a whole range of irn shoes. and i know i wasn't here for the testimony, but i've become familiar with some of the work. and the testimony that our witnesses have provided today. i wanted to focus in a broad way -- i've worked very hard in this area to bring more attention to these issues, the gaps in our child welfare systems, problems we have. i have legislation to speak up

and protect every abused kid act. it's really to focus on this problem that we have where we have varying degrees of what man dated standards instead of having one federal floor on what should constitute a mandate to report or protect, to report instances of child abuse or suspected instances. so all of this comes under a broad umbrella. i was particularly disturbed as we all are by some issues raised in your testimony. i wanted to start with associate commissioner chang on the question of -- and get your perspective when you have a delegation of authority in these instances, and when you have

that delegation of authority do you have the possibility or have you seen in your work that the child will have legal problems down the road? is that something you've spoken to already today or is that something you haven't been asked about? >> thank you, senator. it isn't something i've spoken to. certainly in our look into this process of delegating authority, that question does come up. i think that's one of the things that's troubling is that there is such variation among states about what that delegation of authority actually means, what responsibilities carry. we know that when we have legal guardianship that that does come with certain delegations of authority that comes with responsibilities, as well. a lot of what we, i think, are talking about is often done kind of outside the scope of legal scrutiny and authority. so there is a question that rises.

if you don't go through the court process to get a legal guardianship of a child, what responsibilities do you then have for that child? so i think it is something that states really need to think very carefully about. >> just on the subject of states, in your experience, have you seen whether or not many states have acted to expand access to post-adoption services following these reports of private rehoming? >> that's a great question. so we know that before the story came out, approximately half of all states have reported to us that they do regularly offer post-adoption services, not only to children who have been adopted out of the foster care system, but also those who have been adopted through private adoptions or internationally. the challenge remains that there are very limited dollars available to states to use to support post-adoption services. another way to think about post-adoption is really

prevention. right? these are services that are designed to help parents who are struggling with their children, whether they're adopted or biological. the reality is in our child welfare system, we do not invest as much in preventive services as we do after the crisis occurs. and so this is a real challenge across all states. >> i was going to get in a moment to some of your suggestions you may have already outlined. some of them bear repeating at a hearing like this. any cases that you're aware of where parents rehoming their children who are then criminally prosecuted, what's the basic metrics on that in terms of criminal prosecution? >> sure. it's a great question. it's one of the questions i asked miss twohey after i read her article.

it's one of the reasons, actually, we issued our information memorandum. because there seemed to be confusion among child welfare agencies about whether or not what these parents were doing even constituted abuse and neglect. when we looked at the minimum federal definition of abuse and neglect it seemed clear this behavior fell within that scope. so we wanted to make clear to states that that is how we saw these acts, that they needed to take careful look at their state laws to ensure that they were responding adequately. this is particularly important because if a parent is deemed to have abused or neglected their child because they engaged in rehoming, that means that they're going to be in the abuse and neglect registries. so if they try to go out and adopt again, that will then be a notice to any private adoptive agency as well as public child welfare agencies about the behavior of this parent. we think that's critical. >> i have one question of miss twohey, but i wanted the panel to go one by one, if you choose

to. in terms of the recommendations you have for next steps. often we have hearings and we explore an issue at great length and then we sometimes forget to come back and say, what are the two or three steps you hope we would take? sometimes the recommendations do something here but don't push on this end. anything the panel would want to offer in terms of steps you hope would result from this hearing? either -- especially, obviously, federal legislation or action. >> thank you, senator casey. i would like to see coming out of a hearing like this guidance from the federal government to states but also to other

entities at the state, local and in the private and commercial sector about the kinds of evaluation that needs to take place, of existing training and tools for the health care and educational systems, but also the development of further models and looking towards the child abuse and the domestic violence arenas for a basis for developing those models. so to the extent that the federal government can provide standards and guidance and ultimately funding for evaluation and development of models that would be a great step forward. >> guidance rather than unfunded mandates, huh? thank you. yes, miss latrell? >> i would like to make two suggestions. one, i would -- there's 15,000

school districts in our nation. while education is a state responsibility, the federal government has done a lot of leadership in the area of human trafficking. whether it's the blue campaign, we've worked with the department of education to write an educator's guide that will be distributed in the fall to schools across the nation. but anything we can do to incent vise or mandate for schools to make this a requirement as has been discussed by other panel members. it's very confusing for mandated reporters. all educators are mandated reporters, of what to do when they suspect a child is being a traffic victim. and what actions should be taken after that. so that goes to my next point. anything we can do in the area of grant funds or supports so communities can rally together cross-jurisdictionally, cross-disciplines to figure out what's happening in their community and what should happen in their community. for us it would be these student grants that allow this

initiative to begin. we've completely sustained it even though we lost the funds five years ago when they sunset it. anything to encourage this and then also provide some financial support. >> thank you. miss twohey? >> once again as a journalist, i can't share my opinion, i can only share the facts as i've gathered them. i think that in terms of what can be done to address rehoming, specifically, you're looking at sort of two things. one, what can be done to prevent it. and on that front you're looking at scrutiny, perhaps more scrutiny of prospective adoptive parents. the quantity and quality of training requirements for families who want to adopt. that's one of the things that experts and other child advocates have brought up. as well as the support services for struggling adoptive families. that those two things could really help prevent rehoming.

then you move on to the question of what happens when families decide that they are going to privately re-home. there you're looking at this what right now is a patchwork o. there you're looking at this what right now is a patchwork of state laws with regard to the advertising of children and custody transfers of children. there aren't any uniform regulations, aren't any uniform standards on how children can and should be advertised in print or specifically online. and there aren't any uniform standards here in this country on what should happen when somebody decides they want to transfer custody of a child to a stranger they meet on the internet. and so, you know, i think that -- you know, the congressional research report, congressional research services report, pointed out that congress does have an opportunity to act. that the interstate aspect of rehoming and the fact the internet is involved presents congress and the federal government with an opportunity to step in. and that's something child

advocates have called for. >> thanks very much. thank you, madam chair. >> senator casey, thank you for your questions and for your bill that you are also working on similar to this issue. miss twohey, i wanted to get back to you. did you actually have any of the parents that you might have spoken with in your research, did any of them receive charges of neglect or abuse in their advertising? >> yeah. that is a great question. and, you know, i've been looking at this issue for now more than two years. and have covered a similar right cases in which adoptive parents rehomed their child. cases that were either prior to my reporting brought to the attention of authorities, certainly came to the attention of authorities after my stories. and not in one single case has

an adoptive parent been charged with abuse or neglect or any criminal charge as a result of their rehoming activity. in some states where there are restrictions, and this includes states where there are laws that do restrict advertising of children and the custody transfers of children. lots of times local law enforcement has said they didn't know those laws existed. if they did exist they didn't have criminal sanctions attached to them, so they didn't feel like they could take action. >> thank you. miss latrell, in your school system and in the six districts you've worked with, have you had any cases of the rehoming that you're aware of? >> not that i'm aware of, no. >> okay. i know that in many instances, miss latrell, grandmothers end up taking over custody -- not really custody, but raising their grandchildren. because the daughters have drug

abuse or whatever situations might occur. in that case, it's my understanding that the school systems need to have power of attorney in that case. and i was just curious, in your situation, i would think that you would have grandmothers that are responsible for their grandchildren. can you elaborate on that? do you know what the school actually requires of a grandparent? to -- and then i'll give you the other question. >> sure. we actually have a variety of different family members who are raising family members for the whole range of reasons. what we require is proof that that parent or guardian has the legal right to register that student. >> which is what piece of paper? >> it's any kind of court order. it can be as simple as a caregaver affidavit, where the -- in this case a grandparent or aunt or whomever actually just has to sign and let us know that that parent has an affidavit and is saying that they are the legal guardian for the student in order to be able

to register them. >> that affidavit is not court sanctioned? >> correct.hem. >> that affidavit is not court sanctioned? >> correco register them. >> that affidavit is not court sanctioned? >> correct. >> i think in many cases some people are concerned that if we go through the process of requiring court approval on any case where they're raising the children, that if it's not an immediate family, that it has to be court approved, that there are just so many situations where that would prevent family members or friends from stepping in and helping. but at the same time, i think we've seen unbelievable examples of what you all have described today of what happens when there's advertisement or whomever might be the responsible person in this situation who really cannot help that young child, and obviously many numerous things happen. miss chang, do you have any suggestions on what states or school systems need to require

in this situation, and miss littrell, you also. miss chang. >> sure. we feel very strongly that state laws need to be clear about what the parent's responsibility is. even if they do transfer legal custody. and that is the care and custody -- care and protection of their child. 17 states have defined abandonment within their definition of neglect. 17 other states defined it separately from neglect. and so thinking about, you know, a parent might temporarily place a child with a friend because they're going overseas to serve in the u.s. military. but you would still expect that that parent has a relationship with that child, that they stay in touch with that child, they regularly communicate. and they are ultimately responsible for having placed that child in a safe, appropriate placement. i think that's one of the immediate things that we want to make sure states are thinking about. are they clear in their law

about what a parent's responsibility is to make sure that initial placement is safe and that they are maintaining regular contact. >> miss littrell? >> under mckinnie-vinto, we actually have removed some of the barriers that historically have been there. so if an unaccompanied youth walks in our doors we will work with him or her to get them registered immediately. if a family presents for it and they're homeless and they don't have any documentation, or that's the story they're telling us, they're homeless, and they don't have documentation, we will immediately get that student registered, again, following the mckinney-vin toe laws. >> were there any cases where you had spoken to parents and they had gone through training through their adoption agency on what they could do to improve the situation or do you know if they sought help before they began advertising?

>> sure. that's a great question. some of the parents felt like -- some of the parents had undergone training. others had undergone very little training. sometimes they didn't feel -- in all these cases, the parents felt like they weren't prepared for the emotional behavioral problems that these children brought with them. >> but then did they get training, once these emotional behaviorals came forward, did they then seek training and help in the system? >> in some cases they sought therapy. in other cases, they did have interface with the child welfare system. they often felt like they got no help. and that if they wanted to relinquish their child to the state, that they were going to face -- that they would potentially face charges of abuse or neglect. one family didn't want to pay the child support that would be required to relinquish their adopted daughter to the government child welfare system. they were told if you do this you're going to have to pay child support until the child turns 18. the adoptive family didn't want to do that.

>> interesting, wow. thank you. senator mckenzie. >> thank you, madam chairman, this has been very enlightening. there has been some good suggestions for things we can do at the federal level. one thing i've worried about, if it's worth reacting to, it's worth overreacting to. there are some state concerns out there, i'm sure. miss littrell, how important is it for the local districts to have some flexibility in developing these plans that you had? >> i think there's definitely some best practices that should be followed across the nation. however, how a school district works with their local law enforcement, their local stakeholders, will really depend on what is present in their community. rural communities may not have the same level of resources or

the same number of resources as, say, urban communities. how recruitment and trafficking happens in one community also varies a little bit. but as i worked with the department of ed to write the guide for the nation on addressing sex trafficking in schools, what i found was actually there is a lot of commonalities. it's much more similar than dissimilar. the recruitment, the grooming, and what needs to happen in a community. so having said that, best practices i think should be offered to communities and some kind of guidance for who should be at the table and what steps should be taken can definitely assist those communities from having to reinvent the wheel or start at ground zero. >> very good. i look forward to seeing that report, too. miss english, in your testimony, you cited the oakland unified school district as a good example. can you give us a little more detail on what that school district is doing?

>> yes. thank you, senator enzi. the oakland unified school district has partnered with the school-based health center that is operated by the alameda county health department to provide both training to individuals in the school setting to begin identifying young people who are victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. and also to provide services including referrals for any students who are identified as being either at risk or victimized by sexual exploitation and trafficking. alameda county is one place in the nation that has developed some really fairly advanced services for the victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking, and the unified

school district partnered with local community resources to learn from those practices and to share them within the school district and also to make sure that their students get referred to appropriate services when they're identified. >> thank you. i'm the accountant in the senate, and i have a tendency to ask some detailed number questions, but i've learned not to do that in hearings. so i hope that we'll have an opportunity to submit some questions in writing so we can get some of the numbers that might help with the testimony that we've had. >> certainly. >> i thank you. >> thank you, senator enzi. miss littrell, i had one further question with you. in your experience with the situations of child trafficking, has law enforcement actually indicted a trafficker in one of your situations? >> multiple times. >> multiple times. good.

very good. i just want to thank all our witnesses for being here today, for traveling here, for your testimony, for your involvement in both the child trafficking issue and then the rehoming issue that has been brought to light. thank you to you, miss twohey. and i just -- we've heard from all of you, we've heard these issues. these exploitative issues specifically concerning our children and then the private rehoming. and they're such serious problems. and they're taking place right now, right here in our communities and in our country all across every state, and obviously to our children. so i want to also thank the many groups and the many individuals who contributed their experience and their expertise to this hearing. in particular, i want to thank the north carolina coalition against sexual assault, the on eagles wings ministry in charlotte, salvation army in raleigh, st. joseph's school in brooklyn, new york, and the alliance to end slavery and

trafficking. and the victims, obviously, the victims of both trafficking and rehoming that have been interviewed by my staff. this is -- these are serious issues. and i do think there are -- that numerous examples of what our states are doing to combat these issues and to work best within our current agencies to help not only the parents, but obviously the victims and then the coordination between the schools, the health care professionals and our law enforcement, to bring to justice the individuals who are committing these trafficking acts, then to really treat the young people who are being trafficked as victims and not criminals. this hearing will remain open for ten business days after today for any other senators to submit questions to you, to submit statements for the record.

once again, i appreciate everybody's time and attention to this very important issue. this meeting is adjourned. tonight on c-span3 a discussion on digital privacy laws. in an hour and a half, a senate subcommittee hearing examining europe's reliance on russia for its energy needs. and later, a look at what the state department is doing to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes in syria.

texas congressman ted poe took part in a recent discussion on digital privacy laws at the cato institute. the republican lawmaker is a co-sponsor of legislation that would require the federal government to show probable cause before accessing electronic communications. he was joined by privacy advocates and industry representatives for this hour and a half discussion. >> good afternoon and welcome to the cato institute, both to those joining us in the auditorium and those joining remotely via the magic of the moving pictures i'm told the

young people today enjoy so much. my name is julian sanchez, i'm a senior fellow here. we're here to discuss the path toward digital privacy reform. i refer not merely to unprecedented public scrutiny on government intelligence surveillance that has emerged over the past year as a result of leaks originating with former nsa contractor edward snowden. often i find in my experience speaking and writing about those issues that members of the public are shocked to discover that extraordinarily easy access to our most sensitive forms of digital information is not restricted to hypersecretive spy agencies chasing international terrorists and spies, but that smaller-scale versions of similar capabilities are enjoyed by local prosecutors and police departments on the trail of drug

dealers and tax evaders. certainly even collectively they can't quite compete with nsa for sheer magnitude, but the explosion of digital surveillance by law enforcement is nevertheless quite staggering, especially when we recognize that until extraordinarily recently, it has largely occurred out of public view. just to give you a taste of the information -- the scale of this that we've recently begun to become aware of using companies who we have representatives of here today and which have voluntarily begun providing some transparency on that score. google in the second half of 2013 alone fielded more than 10,000 requests for government information about more than 18,000 accounts. 4,000 of those accounts were the targets of search warrants. the rest subpoenas and other kinds of court orders subject to much lower standards. only 11 of those orders were

full-blown wiretap orders which require a fairly high standard of evidence. higher even than an ordinary search warrant. and which we do have public information about, because wiretap orders are aggregated and counted annually in a fairly detailed report. microsoft must be jealous. they fielded a measly 5,000 requests in the same six-month period at the end of 2013, covering some 13,000 accounts. again, as for other companies did not voluntarily begun providing transparency reports, we simply have no accurate picture of the scale of government access to either the contents of people's digital communications or equivalently sensitive metadata about their online activities. this is somewhat remarkable because the supreme court recently held in a unanimous ruling in riley v. california, search of a modern cell phone, the data on that phone, would typically expose to the

government far more than the most exhaustive search of a house. this is sort of bringing out the constitutional heavy ammunition, since the home is traditionally the most strongly protected domain of privacy. the court further observed showing they are somewhat clueful technologically, at least that increasingly this kind of sensitive information is as likely to be stored remotely as locally. and that as they put it cell phone users often may not know whether particular information is stored on the device or in the cloud, and it generally makes little difference. the court noted of course it makes little difference to the user. under federal statute, the 1986 electronic communications privacy act, it makes an enormous difference. under many circumstances the statute allows cloud-stored contents or metadata about people's internet activities so detailed as to be equally invasive, to be pursuant -- to be obtained pursuant to mere

subpoenas or other court orders with substantially lower standards than search warrants. certainly court orders in several districts -- court rulings in several districts, most notably the 2010 rorschach ruling have empowered providers to insist on warrants for content at least. this leaves us with an uncertain patchwork of rules leaving users, tech companies, and law enforcement all fairly uncertain about the scope of legitimate government authority to demand information about users. almost everyone at this point acknowledges this state of affairs is not tenable. more than half the members in the u.s. house of representatives have signed on as co-sponsors to legislation that would update privacy safeguards for the cloud computing era. even the justice department and fbi have effectively acknowledged the law is out of date and amendments requiring warrants for remotely stored content are appropriate. yet nearly 30 years after the

passage, reform remains stalled. today we're going to explore why that is and what we might do about it. before i introduce our panel of experts to discuss this, i'm very pleased to say we have with us congressman ted poe to deliver introductory remarks. congressman poe represents the second district of texas. apparently the first republican to hold that honor. came to congress from a long career in law including eight years as a felony prosecutor and two decades as a harris county judge where his wikipedia page will tell you he became famous or notorious for creative sentencing, though representative poe assures me many of those colorful stories should be marked "citation needed." more relevant today, has he been a powerful advocate for privacy reform with his colleague he co-sponsored online communications and geo location

protect act, which as he put it in an op ed last year aims to revise to protect internet users from intrusive and unwarranted government surveillance. i'm very pleased to welcome congressman ted poe. >> thank you, julian. thanks for the invitation to be here. it's good to see all you all this afternoon. as julian mentioned in my other life before i came to congress, i spent 30 years down at the courthouse in houston, criminal courts building, which i dubbed the palace of perjury. i spent that time as a prosecutor and then as a judge, a felony court judge, hearing criminal cases, everything from stealing to killing and everything in between. because of that experience, i spent a great amount of time dealing with the u.s. constitution, primarily the bill of rights and primarily the fourth amendment. to give you a little background

and address specific issues that we have here today, back in colonial days, the british were determined to make sure that goods brought into the united states were not smuggled. because if they were smuggled, they didn't pay -- the colonist didn't pay the tax that was due the king. so they came up with an idea to search the colonists, primarily their businesses and their hopes, to see if any of that smuggled goods came in without paying the tax to the king. they invented this document called the writs of assistance which was a flowery term for a general warrant for the british military to go into someone's residence or business and look for really anything but primarily looking for smuggled goods where people didn't pay the tax that was due the king.

this irritated the colonists a great deal. after all, they did have a war of independence. one of the reasons was because of the writs of assistance. after the war was over, got our independence from britain, wrote a constitution, then came up with a few bill of rights, ten of those that really had their founding and purpose to prevent government from intruding the right of privacy of specific individuals under the new country called the united states. which led to the enactment of the bill of rights, primarily the fourth amendment. i have it up here on the podium. i guess if i was high-tech enough i would have it here on the screen but it's on a poster. i will read to you the fourth amendment. you can look at it. there's a lot of provisions in it. volumes of legal treatises have been written about the fourth amendment, volumes. we're not going to have a law

school indoctrination about the fourth amendment. let's just read it and see how it applies to today's society in 2014. the right of the people to be secure in their persons, their houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated. and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by an oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. what this means is this. if law enforcement wants to search something in your residence or in your effects or in your property, the officer that wants to do the searching must go before an independent magistrate, the buffer between law enforcement and the citizen,

and swear out an oath, under oath, a warrant to search a specific place for a specific thing or person. that's on the back end of the fourth amendment. it has to be very specific. it has to be specific enough under our law that if the judge signed the warrant, the judge could give the warrant to a different person and that law enforcement officer could read this warrant, know exactly where to go, know exactly what he's supposed to be seizing, and who he should be arresting if there is an arrest. that's how specific the warrants have to be today. and that was the reason the fourth amendment was written the way that it was written. but the purpose is to secure privacy of the individual. so let's use a hypothetical. not a specific -- it's not

specific -- really too specific, but it's a general hypothetical that i would like to just talk about. we have two notorious outlaws in texas. that's where i'm from. one is ollie oglethorpe and the other is bobby joe oglethorpe. they are bad guys, they are bank robbers, they rob people, they rob banks. let's say that they decide to come to washington and they plot and scheme to rob the congressional credit union over in the longworth building. they go inside. they rob the place, take the loot, and they make away their escape and get away. and they hide somewhere in washington, d.c. that's all we know. they're not captured. but we know probably that the two individuals are somewhere in washington. so if law enforcement decided, okay, we're going to go get ollie oglethorpe and bobby joe

oglethorpe, we know they're in washington, they would go to a judge. they would say to the judge, we know they're in washington. we know they're in zip code 20003. but that's really all we know. we would like a warrant to go into all of the places in zip code 20003 and find bobby joe oglethorpe and his brother ollie and most importantly get the loot. there is not a judge that would sign the warrant to allow law enforcement to go into every building and residence. we all know that's absurd. there is no way that would occur. because the residence or the place in the warrant is not specific enough to go to that location and find the oglethorpes and or the money. that would be a general warrant. that would be warrants that

maybe the british would have imposed back in colonial days. because the fourth amendment prohibits that type of conduct. however, let's assume the oglethorpes have spent some time on the internet discussing this criminal activity, discussing where they're going to hide, where they hid the money, and some of their other criminal enterprises. if law enforcement had probable cause to believe that occurred, then they could go to the appropriate judge and get a specific warrant and maybe go to one of these folks here and get that information, their e-mails. but let's say they don't have probable cause. they just don't have enough information to convince a judge they have probable cause to believe the information is there that they're looking for. so what do they do? they wait six months. all of a sudden on six months and one day, without the use of

a warrant stating probable cause, they may seize that information without probable cause because the law says you can seize it. one would think that that's absurd, that just because it's six months and one day that the warrant requirement should not be required. but that is currently the law. because the law was written too long ago to keep up up with modern technology. the electronic communications privacy act as julian said was written in 1986. the internet and all our electronic knowledge and storage has changed since then. because of that, zoe lofgren and myself and others have sponsored one piece of legislation, and there's other pieces of

legislation members of congress have signed on to, to fix that problem and guarantee the right of privacy. if e-mail storage is over six months old. stored in the cloud somewhere. will the supreme court, independent of this legislation, will the supreme court rule that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy if your e-mails are stored over six months in the cloud? i don't know how they would rule. i really don't. that's why it's up to congress has the responsibility to legally state there is an expectation of privacy, because that is the key phrase under our law and under the fourth amendment. what is the reasonable expectation of privacy of the citizen whose information or property or papers is being seized.

i don't know what the judges and supreme court would rule. they may say, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy. there's people in law enforcement say, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, we're going to seize all that information. then there's others who say, yeah, there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy. we can debate that issue theoretically forever. congress must come in and say, yes, there is a legal expectation of privacy when your e-mails are stored in the cloud. go back to the situation with regular mail. now called snail mail i guess is what it's called. some of us still use snail mail. you know, of course, if you're writing a letter to someone and you seal the letter and put the stamp in it, over it, you actually give that letter to government. and government sends that letter all over the country until it finally reaches your mother-in-law's house. but there is a general

expectation of privacy in the contents of that letter. sure there are exceptions. we're not going to talk about the exceptions. but there's a general rule, government cannot go into that letter and read what you're writing to your mother-in-law. can't do it. what if the government hangs on to that letter for six months? does that change your reasonable expectation of privacy? probably not. and this is going to not a private company, it's going to government has the duty to protect your right of privacy. e-mails, they're not going to the government. they're going through a server through a private enterprise. through a private corporation. that should be even more protected. not less protected than regular mail. why? because it's not in the possession of the government, it's in the possession of a private entity. but yet if government waits out the six months, then they can

seize all of that information through the cloud. i think that's a violation of the fourth amendment and i certainly think congress should weigh in on this issue to make sure it's a protected right under our constitution and legislatively. there are other examples. you have a safe-deposit box. you take over your birth certificates or whatever people put in safe-deposit boxes. you take it over to the bank and you leave it there. is your right of privacy, the right that you must require government to get a warrant to search your safe-deposit box, forfeited after six months because it's six months old? i think not. yet for some reason because of the way the law was written, the when all of this high-technology didn't exist, the law allows for that seizure of information. not only is it seized, the citizen doesn't know it's seized.

they're not informed that it was seized or what was seized. going back to the search warrant requirement. now the search warrant requirements giver from state to state but they all require an affirmation or oath by the person who wants to do the searching. but in many warrants, criminal warrants, for example, in the state of texas, those warrants are returned to the judge and the judge gets to review what is in the return. what was seized by government. eventually those warrants can become public record so everybody is on notice as to what was seized. plus the person the property was seized from gets a copy of what was seized. that's how important warrants are, except in the area of receiving information through e-mails. you not only don't know that

your property, e-mails, were searched. you don't know what was taken by government. further, government keeps that information forever. you may never know about that, even if you're an innocent bystander. let's go back to ollie oglethorpe and his brother bobby joe oglethorpe. in their e-mail train of criminal activity, if you wait six months, the government can seize without warrant all of their e-mails. not just between each other and their criminal enterprise but to whoever they were sending e-mails to, or communicating with back and forth. that third party, innocent party, let's assume, certainly doesn't know about that. my personal opinion, that's a violation of the fourth amendment right to be secure in your persons and your papers and your effects under the fourth amendment to the constitution.

so what does this do, it basically applies the changes in all the legislation, applies the fourth amendment standard to e-mails. there's a lot of reasons why that should happen. first, it puts people on notice as to what the rules are going to be. not wait for the supreme court or other courts to make maybe different opinions down the road as to whether it's lawful or unlawful now. put them on notice. congress has that responsibility to do so. but also, we have a disadvantage -- i say we. american companies have somewhat of a disadvantage because this rule, people know that this is what occurs, so other companies, other countries compete against the united states where people go to some other server where they don't have this problem with the right of privacy.

who would have thought that this nation, being the nation that's supposed to be the most democratic, freedom-loving, protects the right of people to be secure in their houses, right of privacy, would be second to countries that supposedly don't have that issue, supposedly, but yet protect that right on their servers. so that puts our american companies at a disadvantage. get a warrant. that's the bottom line. get a warrant. if you don't have probable cause to get a warrant, you can't seize the information. that's what the standard should be. it should be -- it's been that way since we enacted the fourth amendment of the u.s. constitution. and it should be that way indefinitely. some say that the constitution is archaic, it doesn't apply, you can't make this work based on the constitution. i think it applies quite easily. the general rule to get a warrant if you want to seize the information that belongs to individuals. whether it's in snail mail or

whether it's in e-mail or whether it's a lockbox at some bank. now, where is this legislation going? well, i hope it goes and passes this year. it is a bipartisan piece of legislation. all this legislation is bipartisan. it's in the house, it's also in the senate. passed the judiciary committee of the u.s. senate. a piece of legislation to protect the right of privacy, get a warrant if the e-mails are over six months of age. i would hope -- i'm on the judiciary schedule -- i would hope we could get this through committee and on the floor this year. this is actually something i think will pass. it will pass the house, it will pass the senate, in a bipartisan way. the president indicated some months ago now that he thought there should be some epca reform as well. so i think that's something that

ought to happen, something that ought to continue -- we should continue to work on with other members of congress and move out of the judiciary committee in the house, then get a floor vote on the house bill and get a floor vote now on the senate bill as well. now, i will stop at this point and take a couple questions, see what's on your mind, or comments if you wish. yes? >> my question is [ inaudible ] -- treating what i call the disease rather than the symptom. using the fourth amendment to protect privacy, it's a symptom of a bigger disease of government doing things that it shouldn't be doing, passing thousands upon thousands of criminal statutes that it just shouldn't be doing. so my question is, is there anything that combines the two?

>> i think i heard most of your question. i'll try to respond to the parts i heard. you can correct me if i didn't get it correct. yes, this is just one issue of government oppressiveness of citizenry. law enforcement always seems to push the envelope as to whether they can do what they're doing to get information, especially on what they think is criminal conduct. based on my experience at the courthouse, based on what we've seen. they will always interpret the law to the extent that allows them to seize the information. that's why when we draft this legislation, it has to be very specific so they know you can do this and you cannot do that. but it's not just with what's stored in the cloud. you could talk about the nsa, for example.

the massive amounts of data that have been seized on americans from the nsa in violation of the patriot act. they still have that information. we don't know all the information they have because they're not telling us what they have on individuals. i will say this, it's always in the name of national security. nothing wrong with national security but that's the argument. we have to give up rights is what we're told in the name of safety and security. that argument that been used by governments always. unfortunately people historically, whether it's a democracy or not, have been kind of willing to give up their personal liberty in the name -- hoping to get protection and safety. nsa, let me give you one

comment. we had the undersecretary of the justice department before the judiciary committee. and i asked him, of all the information that has been seized by nsa, all of it, how many people have been prosecuted upon this massive seizure of information in the name of national security? do you know what he said? make maybe one. so actually what they're saying is not making us any safer.ybe . so actually what they're saying is not making us any safer. they're not getting the information that protects us from the bad guys because only one person maybe has been prosecuted. but they store this information on americans. i think it's wrong. i think it's a violation of privacy. it certainly also was a violation of the patriot act. that's why week before last many of us got an amendment to make

it more specific on what nsa can seize and what they cannot seize. it is a symptom of a bigger problem of government seizure of information on citizens in violation of the law and the spirit of the fourth amendment. does that answer your question? >> i think we can probably squeeze in one more. i think we have microphones if we have any further -- >> one problem we've heard for many decades now is enforcing the fourth amendment is that the only remedy provided when the fourth amendment has been violated is excluding the evidence, which means if the fourth amendment rights of an innocent person have been violated, there's no remedy. i was wondering, does your legislation try to address that, provide some remedies to enforce, you know, in case -- in

case those seizures that you're making illegal, in case they are made, no judge is reviewing the evidence but also protecting innocent people? >> excellent. excellent comment. you're exactly right. the united states has come up with the philosophy of the exclusionary rule, which means if evidence that's unlawfully seized under fourth amendment in a criminal case, that evidence is excluded and government may not use that evidence if a judge determines that it was unlawfully seized. whether it's fourth amendment or whether it's a confession. any lawful -- that's the remedy under our law. i think your point is well taken. as we move forward on epca, there has to be some other remedy besides exclusion as to what we do with that information. certainly i think we ought to eliminate that information if it's unlawfully obtained. we need to have that debate and that discussion. i don't know the exact answer on

what it should be but it should be something else besides the evidence is excluded. that doesn't help the individual who's the innocent person out there. it may help bobby oglethorpe and ollie oglethorpe, but it doesn't help the innocent person whose information was seized and is still stored by government. good point. we need to add that into legislation before it gets out of our committee. one more question or are we done? >> one more quick one. >> quick question. technology [ inaudible ] -- >> hang on for a second. >> you have social media and things like secure portals that companies use to exchange information with each other, things like that, that are all out in the cloud. so what's your next step once you get the e-mail protected? >> we have to address all of those issues as well. right now we want to solve the e-mail issue with epca.

i think for passage we ought to deal specifically with e-mails so that we can get something and then amend it as we progress through technology, keeping in mind the spirit of the fourth amendment as well. all right. well, thank you very much for your attention. i appreciate it. thank you. >> thanks again. i'll invite our panel members to join me on the stage here. we have i think -- as formidable a panel as one could ask for for an event like this. joining me here we have, greg newjames hoy know quite well who's senior counsel for the head of project on freedom, security, technology as well as co-chair of american bar

committee on american civil liberties. before that an attorney in private practice and director of legal services for the american arab discrimination committee as well as legislative counsel at the american civil liberties union. a veteran of the fight for digital privacy and also one of the driving forces behind the digital due process coalition. we actually have several members represented onstage. also to my left we have nick jones, who is an attorney at the legal and corporate affairs group at microsoft where he provides legal and policy advice on a range of issues related to legal compliance and government access to data. he's also been on the other side. before joining microsoft he was director for counter-terrorism of the national security council staff at the white house and also previously counsel to the assistant attorney general in the national security division at doj. he's also spent more than seven years working on capitol hill including five and a half at counsel for the senate judiciary committee.

my immediate left, david leiber, privacy policy counsel for google where he works on privacy and data security issues. i hear occasionally those come up at google. previously he was an associate at e-commerce and privacy company and worked as legislative aide to dick durbin. to my right, katie mcauliffe, americans for tax reform and executive director of their digital liberty project. she researches not only privacy but impressively geeky issues such as spectrum allocation and internet taxation. she previously was a staff reporter for congressman sterns and a radio professional, both u.s. and abroad. her commentary has appeared in a dizzying array of national publications. she holds a master's in mass communication and telecom policy from the university of florida. so please welcome our panel. i want to again -- i want to

begin with greg because -- i know really few people who are more well-schooled in the intricacies of epca. so before we discuss current challenges in any reform it's certainly important to have as clear an understanding of that byzantine statute as is possible before we talk about the needed changes. so i want to ask greg to maybe begin by sort of giving us a quick thumbnail sketch of how epca works now and why at one time people thought that made sense. >> thanks, julian. again, center for democracy and technology. i want to thank the cato institute for hosting this event and julian in particular. thank you very much. so ecpa is a statute from 1986. and just to put a little flesh on the bones of 1986, i imagine some people in the room weren't yet born in 1986. one of the leading car models was the ford maverick.

i didn't have one, i couldn't afford one. but that was one of the leading car models. we had just put away our eight-track tapes and that governs privacy on the internet was born. when we first were using internet, a lot of us used aol, america online, downloaded e-mail from aol servers to computers. storage was expensive. you know what you did? you printed that e-mail out because it was too expensive to save. aol would only save it for a few days after you had downloaded it. fast forward to today. storage is cheap. companies are out there saying, why would you ever delete anything? people don't delete stuff. they leave it forever. it's really cool. you can access it wherever you are. you can use this little device

and access information in the cloud no matter where you are. you can be in germany and do it. it's really amazing how much technology has progressed. but the law didn't. the law stuck back in 1986, so it reflects its time. so for example, because the aols of the world would not save your e-mail for you for six months, if an e-mail was that old, six months old and still on aol servers, it was their property. that's how it was looked at. you had basically abandoned it. it had become a business record of aol, and it was available to law enforcement with a subpoena. that's the way the statute is written. if it's newer, a warrant aplies to get that e-mail. and ecpa didn't account for things in common use at the

time. these little guys, cell phones. there were cell phones. you know who had a cell phone in 1996, captain kirk had a cell phone. and so the statute doesn't reflect, didn't set a rule for law enforcement access to the location information that this little guy generates. every few seconds he pings off a tower. i'm here, if the call comes for greg, send it here. that's what this phone is doing every few seconds. and a record is made that the phone is registering on that tower. what does ecpa stay about reference to access to that information? nothing. the reason it doesn't say anything it was not an issue to be resolved back in 1986. and now we have to face these issues and judge poe in his credit has got legislation to

face those issues in a very good way. >> so, i'll address that to perhaps david in tandem, you can divide these up if you want. but we've had an array of court decisions beginning to address these problems. as we mentioned, location. we now have two at least federal district courts, federal appellate courts holding historical software information does actually act, because it's not a dial phone number. it's information that your phone is sending automatically with or without your knowledge. it doesn't fall under the third party exempting them basically from fourth amendment protection. but you guys are dealing with some of the practical questions that arise as a result, not just the federal statute, but involving court decisions, a

decision called rorschach, holding it that it does apply to e-mail as long as it's stored. there's a whole range of visual-type contents. the u.s. now, those companies across the board require a warrant in forms of content, in terms of transparency. but i'm wondering to what expanse you still get requests for content or other kinds of information without a warrant. and also an attempt how you draw that thorny line between content and metadata and content online. it's not always clear what is content and what is metadata. you go to a web page, and it tells you what the content is, is that content or metadata. i'm unclear, what kind of problems, what legal puzzles arrive and what kind of pushback

do you see from law enforcement. >> yeah, i mean, thanks, julian. you alluded to the case in 2010 where the 6th circuit held that users do enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy in their e-mail. notwithstanding what ecpa says and the distinctions that it makes which candidly frustrates the expectations of users that take advantage of our services. and the court went a little further in warshack to the extent that ecpa does not require a warrant for content it's unconstitutional. and i know google and microsoft and others have relied on that decision. i think at least perceptually, that application is aggressive. but i would submit it wasn't so much our application of the warshack that should be the focus, but rather, the

application of the 4th amendment outside of the 6th circuit. the court's decision in warshack, really sort of rested on, you know, core fourth amendment principles. i don't think we've seen in recent years since the warshack decision, a lot of pushback. we've heard periodically there would be efforts to challenge the notion that a warrant should be applied from all circumstances. when i see the issue crop up at least from the google side, it comes from state and local law enforcement agencies, which of whom are not as familiar with the warshack decision, they will file, or issue a subpoena for content, will remind them or at least make them aware of the warshack decision or don't come back to us or they will come

back to us with a warrant. we haven't seen a lot of pushback on that. one of the bigger risks is not so much the googles and microsofts of the world will gather content. it's smaller provider, some of whom have thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of users but are still sort of fledgling businesses that don't have necessarily the resources or the legal acumen to recognize the differences between what ecpaization and the fourth amendment. and maybe follow it as closely so they'll see an official-looking subpoena that demands content based on the subpoena. and they will provide it. so those are the bigger risks from the public policy perspective which i think underscores the importance of codifying the warrant for content requirement. >> i agree with everything that david said.

and i would add a couple things. one is, you know, we're operating in a global marketplace, right. where people have less familiarity with the legal requirements in the u.s. and particularly, less familiar when you're talking about case law and how that's being implemented. so explaining to people and reassuring them that a warrant is actually required for content is sometimes difficult when you're dealing with people who are less familiar with our legal system and applicable law. so i think there's a significant interest that we all have in making sure that this is clarified in the law. you know, the second thing i would say, i think what we're seeing here and what we're all talking about is trying to make sure what the law and the protections afforded to it under the constitution. keep pace with not just technological development. and the way people use that technology, the things that are stored in the cloud. you know, i think we're seeing important steps taken by the

court. those thing, helpful. we're not getting a lot of pushback on those things but while the court's been a leader in recent weeks and months and with warshack, certainly, there's a problem that we still have, where it's not a comprehensive solution, it does leave a lot of gaps where we know what the law is what we're supposed to be doing or not doing. we've got a case in new york, facebook does as well. both of which raise important questions about what providers legal rights are to challenge things when they receive them. and, you know, the geographic scope of u.s. legal process. and whether or not congress actually meant warrant when it said warrant, and what the implications of that are, in terms what the tick alert requirement which congressman poe talked about and all the other aspects. >> you mentioned the global market in competing. i'm curious what extent you see

this raised. particularly with customers, i know if you're sort of a large corporation, potentially dealing in regulatory agencies or, you know, global u.s. attorneys who might be looking into what another company is doing, you might really prefer that it a request for information come to your in-house counsel, rather than someone's else's attorney. >> yeah. >> to what extent domestically and internationally do you have a sense that there is a weariness of moving to the cloud for all that it entails because of the practicalness of being to assure all of that data? >> yeah, it's a huge issue. it's probably one of the things i underappreciated when i took this job, just how much time i would spend dealing with customer concern on the enterprise side. and to sort of use an example to sort of illustrate this, i think this ian