the c-span tour continues with the stops in columbia, atlanta, and montgomery. on each vision -- visit we will speak with state officials. at 9:30on january 16 a.m. eastern far stop in raleigh-north carolina. >> coming up, efforts to fight online sex trafficking. including legislation that would allow states and victims to sue specific websites. the house energy and commerce subcommittee hearing ran just under two hours.

>> we will now come to order. i'm sorry that we are a few minutes late, but we have this thing that we have to do around here called votes. we had a vote on the floor and in the middle of it a colloquy. i recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. we are here on what has turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous dc.in washington we are here to talk about a very , sordid subject, and that

is online sex trafficking. or it's the name of, as the organization describes it more bluntly, slavery. as the stings continue to proliferate, those that thought slavery was something that could never happen in 2017 america have had to confront the terrifying reality that not only is it happening, it's on the rise and in large part because the internet, the technological masterpiece of our time, has made it much easier to do. in both the house and the senate this year we are facing up to the challenge with a long overdue conversation driving towards effective action. with this hearing, it's my hope the communications and technology subcommittee, with our particular focus, will add valuable perspective about exactly what is going wrong and what is going right on the tech side as the lowest of the low harness the power of the internet to enslave and exploit our children. i am so very pleased that ms. smith and mr. winkal have been able to join us today to tell their stories of how tennessee has been impacted by the

abhorrent crime. like so many of the districts my colleagues represent, our home has been invaded by criminals luring in vulnerable women and children and forcing them into a life of sex slavery and unspeakable abuse. i know you both share my deep sadness that this is happening in our backyard and i cannot thank you enough for rescuing the victims, then helping them heal, while seeking justice for their abusers. you're doing a superlative job. for the fifth year in a row tennessee received an "a" in the protected innocence challenge. a comprehensive annual study of existing state laws, and this is compiled by shared hope international.

the challenge produces state report cards that rate how effectively each state responds to the crime of domestic minor sex trafficking. after four years of straight a's, tennessee outdid itself this year by leading the rankings -- number one in the country. what a testimony to the partnership between tennessee law enforcement and victim advocates that you have built and grown together over the years. we're honored that you're taking time away. the legislative debate this year has focused on amendments to section 230 of the communications decency act, which law enforcement has consistently identified as a barrier preventing effective prosecution of online entities that facilitate trafficking and adequate recourse for trafficking victims. today we welcome my colleague and

dear friend, ann wagner, who is leading this charge in the house. i look forward to hearing her testimony about her efforts to find an effective approach to attack and defeat this problem. she has been a passionate and tireless advocate and i'm proud to be a co-sponsor of her bill. i also want to welcome mr. souris and mr. goldman as we consider next steps. with so many women and children waiting on us and counting on us, doing nothing is not an option. at this time i yield back my time and i recognize mr. doyle for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair for holding this important hearing and thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us today. human trafficking in all its forms, and in particular sexual trafficking of children and adults, is an abhorrent crime. i want to thank the witnesses here today from national center

for missing and exploited children, and the tennessee bureau of investigation. this is hard work you all do and i know it carries a heavy burden. for my part, i want to thank you for your efforts and the efforts of your organizations. be assured this is an issue of great concern to all of us. i also want to thank representative wagner for testifying before us today. i understand that this is an issue you've been working on for sometime and that save act you wrote and has become law is starting to be used to combat online sex trafficking and in reference to the bill before us, your working on an amendment in the nature of a substitute to your bill -- i hope it will be marked up in the judiciary committee. i'm hopeful you'll be able to move your amended bill out of committee and before the full house for a vote. i also want to acknowledge the

good work done by senators with the permanent subcommittee on the investigations on the report they released on back page.com. this report is truly frightening. it alleges that "backpage" knowingly facilitated child sex trafficking. i'm deeply concerned about emails sent by "backpage" moderators seeking to limit the number of ads they were reporting on a monthly basis. they repeatedly altered ads by deleting word, phrases and images without reporting the ads to authorities. according to this report, these edits were done for the express purpose of concealing the illegal nature of these activities. "backpage" went so far as to deploy software that automatically deleted terms from ads such as amber alert, rape, young, and fresh.

this filter was apparently deployed for the purpose of concealing the true nature of the transactions that were occurring on the site. the report goes on to say that by their own internal estimates they were editing 80% to 70% of the ad on their site. backpage would go on to reject ads containing these words but they do so with a pop up that would include explicit instructions as to what the offending word or phrase was and how they could repost their ad to get around backpage's filters. they used similar techniques when advertisers posted ads identifying people as under 18, simply instructing them to change the posted age in order for the ad to be posted. this report indicates a vast criminal enterprise. i'm heartened by reports there are multiple investigations using insights from the senate report and an empanelled grand jury. my hope is justice be done.

i thank you for this hearing and i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. ms. brooks, you are recognized. ms. brooks: thank you, madam chairwoman and i'm very, very pleased to see our colleague and a leader in the house of representatives, who has, since we came in together five years ago has been a strong, strong voice fighting for the victims and educating the american people about "backpage" and other avenues of sex trafficking. i just want to take a moment to commend the state of indiana. i was involved as united states attorney from 2001 to 2007 and during that time the bush administration put a huge focus on exploitation and child exploitation. and we started an effort called "i path now," which is about protection against human trafficking, and it brings

together law enforcement, victim services, it puts in place protocols. but i'll tell you the perpetrators are always trying to stay one step ahead -- they are always trying to find ways to exploit children, women, and others in order to satisfy their sexual desires. it's difficult work. law enforcement work around the world to find victims and the perpetrators. we must continue to pursue with every avenue we possibly can. the victims and finally i just want to focus on the victims. the victims of this type of sexual exploitation, sexual trafficking can be found in every district in our country, from urban areas to rural areas to suburban areas and i think

people are often shocked when they read in our papers or -- i about the victims. i want to commend ann wagner and so many members on both sides of the aisle who have stepped up to really lead the charge and try and say that we cannot allow this type of human slavery in this day and age to continue. we must continue to fight it. i want to thank my colleague from missouri for being a leader. i yield back. membersere any other seeking recognition? recognizeme i want to --, who is not here. mr. doyle. mr. doyle: i need to add it to the record a letter from professor levy.

>> noted. we have ann wagner, will give her opening remarks on the issue. you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chairman and ranking member doyle and colleagues for hosting this committee hearing today. and for allowing me to give some opening remarks. i appreciate your commitment to addressing online trafficking and especially appreciate so many members of this subcommittee who have publicly co-sponsored hr 1865, stopping the victimization of america's children and adults, which is my top priority.

i know i have an ally in chairman blackburn. my initial piece of legislation concerning online trafficking was the save act which became law in 2018. it was a first step in addressing federal level prosecutions of websites. unfortunately it had not yet been used, presumably because the standard in the legislation knowingly is too high. moreover, the save act was federally focused and it did not enable states and local prosecutors to protect their communities. i have learned a lot since then, and this is why over a year 1/2 ago, i began working on hr 181565 that allows victims to fight online sex trafficking act.

the bill is written for victims, not only because it would allow them to pursue civil justice but because it would empower local prosecutors to take down websites that facilitate trafficking before they ever reach the size or the scope of backpage.com. the house understands that enabling vigorous criminal enforcement is mandatory in any legislation we pass. this is why over 170 of my colleagues cosponsored this bill, when i explained how websites can perpetuate modern-day slavery with impunity. why are they able to sell our children? because judges have ruled websites that exploit the most vulnerable members of society cannot be held accountable. congress's response to these rulings must be patently clear.

section 230 of the communications decency act was never intended to allow businesses to commit crimes online that they could never commit off line. when congress passed a communications decency act in 1996, it explicitly acted to prevent the internet from becoming a red light district and did not believe rape was a prerequisite of a free and open internet. congress cannot pass a bill that amends section 230 but is so narrow it could only be used to prosecute backpage.com. let me be plain. i support the recent action on my legislative proposal. i appreciate the complicated, strategic environment that senators and others are operating in, and i believe it is a step in the right direction. but the senate bill is not the full solution. backpage.com is the largest of

the websites that facilitate trafficking in america, but it is already under federal investigation and it is just a small, small piece, small piece of this growing criminal ecosystem. hundreds of advertising sites have jumped into the marketplace of illegal sex. escorts in college advertise as women close to and under the age of consent. massage troll is sadly popular in my district. a wealth of evidence against backpage.com has been discovered over the past year, and while it is still incredibly difficult to prove they knowingly assisted in sex trafficking violations, it

is now possible to gather this level of evidence or the hundreds of other websites that are profiting from the sex trade. i have spoken with prosecutors across the country who have asked the house to pass a practical solution that would allow them to take predatory websites off the internet. i am repeatedly told that any legislation that depends exclusively on the knowingly men's rea standard is merely a washington d.c. feel-good exercise. congress might pat itself on the back, but will have accomplished little to prevent the sale of victims online. fosta is centered on the reckless standard to open cases on bad actor websites and we must find a way to maintain a useful standard or at the very least, not raise a high bar they must already meet. if we are serious about helping victims, we must create laws

that allow for a robust state and local criminal enforcement. criminal enforcement means businesses will stay out of the legal sex trade. fewer people will ever become victims, demand will be reduced, and civil suits will be easier to bring. criminals who auction our children will be put behind bars. i believe in closing we can markup a bipartisan house bill that will provide meaningful tools to prevent future victimization, and i look forward to working with you to pass a forward facing solution that will disrupt the online trafficking industry. i thank you, madam chairwoman, i thank you all in the committee to for allowing me to give these opening remarks. >> we thank you for your opening remarks.

we will briefly recess at this time to get the new name plates up and welcome our panel to the table. >> at this time, we welcome our second panel of witnesses. we have the general counsel for the national center for missing and exploited children. ms. smith., mr. winkler, and mr. goldman. welcome.

we appreciate that you are here today. we are going to begin our testimony with you. every speaker will have five minutes. i ask that you move the you, touch the button in the center to activate the microphone. at the end of your five minutes, we will begin the questioning portion. ms. souris, you are recognized for five minutes. >> chairman blackburn, and members of the committee, i am honored to be here today on behalf of the national center for missing and exploited children, and join this discussion to ensure that america's most vulnerable

victims, have opportunities for justice against their traffickers, including those who participate in trafficking them online. i'd like to thank congresswoman wagner for her long standing dedication and tireless work to create meaningful change for these survivors. as part of our work as the congressionally designated resource center on missing and exploited children, we receive approximately 9,800 reports every year. over the past five years, 88% of these reports have involved a child being trafficked online. more than 74 of these reports from the public relate to an ad on backpage. we've learned an enormous amount

about the ruthlessness and profitability of the sale of children online. today, we're at a cross roads on how best to proceed with legislation that combats this heinous crime. courts have been unable to find their way around the current application of the cda, a statute over 21 years old and has created broad immunity. even for websites that support online child sex trafficking. these courts have called on congress to clarify that all facilitators of online sex trafficking, including websites, are not legally protected. the house of representatives and the senate have worked on parallel tracks to develop bills that respond to the recent court decisions and reconcile the cda with protections granted to victims under the federal trafficking statute. we believe these bills address the specific legal barriers faced by child sex trafficking victims. they coalesce around three legislative solutions.

first, ensuring that state attorneys general have the authority to protect children in their own states and can bring criminal and civil action against online entities that participate in sex trafficking. second, clarifying that sex trafficking victims can pursue civil remedies against everyone who participates in their trafficking, including websites. and third, defining participation in a trafficking venture under federal law as assisting, supporting, or facilitating sex trafficking. these broad legislative solutions specifically respond to what courts have called on congress to do, provide children with access to justice. and hold websites that facilitate sex trafficking accountable. it has assisted tens of thousands of children victimized by online sex trafficking.

behind the current debate about the particular details and standards within the legislative proposal are horrific experiences suffered by these children, who are defenseless against predators selling them for rape and sexual abuse online. it has worked closely with many sex trafficking victims whose cases have been dismissed due to the current broad interpretation of the cda's immunity. we have witnessed the anguish and heard children's hopelessness when courts dismiss websiteses against that facilitated their trafficking. victims who have been denied justice include a 14-year-old girl who was trafficked online for two years and advertised in sexually explicit poses. two 15-year-old girls, one who was raped over 1,000 times, while trafficked online for just

over a year, and a second girl who was trafficked online for two years and sold from five to 15 customers a day. cases like these are reminders of the suffering of victims and the urgency to move forward with legislation that addresses past cases and has broad support for all stakeholders, including the tech sector. what is outlined in my testimony will provide powerful tools to ensure the rights of child victims, while protecting current law that encourages a robust internet. we could not agree with you more is simplying by idly not an option. it is time that we hold companies accountable for their actions with they cross the line. we've been encouraged by the legislative progress, including the support of internet association and facebook. we are hopeful that a similar path forward can be accomplished here in the house.

in conclusion, we stand ready to assist the committee so a bill can move expeditiously for enactment into law. thank you. >> ms. smith, you are recognized for five minutes. ms. smith: thank you for holding a hearing on this important topic. it's an honor to offer testimony on the impact of technology on human trafficking victims and survivors. the sexual exploitation perpetrated against women, men, boys, and girls in the commercial sex industry is found all across the internet. there's no place for a survivor of human trafficking to hide, because their victimization is already on display for all to see. the public victimization exponentially complicates the healing process. in the early days of this work i met two girls from atlanta. they were deceived by a girl they thought was their friend,

held by child safety locks, and driven to nashville by their trafficker. the trafficker got a hotel room, popped an ad online and was in business within half an hour. i was struck how easy it was for him to sell those girls. as easy as advertising a bicycle or car for sale. i was also struck with how quickly men arranged to have sex with these young people as fast as ordering a pizza. in my years since i heard hundreds of variations of this story. at least three out of four of the survivors we served were advertised online and others were recruited and groomed online. thankfully, an undercover detective was answering online ads that day posing as a john. he came to the girls' room and ended their exploitation within days of its start. they were the lucky ones. once recovered, survivors still face threats from predators online who are waiting for them to surface. especially in the early days of

survivor recovery, our efforts to monitor online activity are more challenging than simply monitoring phone usage. there are temptations, dangers, and master manipulators ready to entice survivors back into exploitation. when the tennessee bureau of investigation began proactively attacking human trafficking, they called end slavery tennessee for assistance. first, they wanted to understand the technology landscape and how it affected victims. how were victims recruited, bought and sold across the internet? they needed firsthand information, and one of our young survivors was willing to tell them all she knew about being trafficked online. secondly, the t.b.i. wanted a more direct partnership during the undercover operations. that meant our survivor intervention specialist and case manager were on site during the operation. when c.b.i. identified a victim

she met with end slavery tennessee staff, they were offered service and a way out of exploitation that very day. some took the offer. others did not. but they did understand that the offer did not have an expiration date. the goal was to turn that scary and often negative interaction with law enforcement into one of hope. once a survivor comes to end slavery tennessee, the plan of care often depends on drug addiction, prior victimization, length of time enslaved and the age of the victim. we provided care and services to survivors from the age of 4 to 52, with the primary focus on minors through age 25 and in eight languages. in the past five years we've gone from operating out of one 10 by 10 office to a small suite of offices and now to a care center and three safe houses. we currently care for about 190 survivors a year in nashville, and the surrounding area.

survivors need a plethora of wrap-around services to meet their every need. because trafficking victims suffer complex posttraumatic stress disorder, the restorative process can and usually does take years. to compound the trauma of trafficking, most victims were abused as children or suffer from a range of other adverse childhood experiences that made them vulnerable to exploitation in the first place. it's essential that an agency offer case management and a comprehensive array of specialized services until a survivor is ready to lead a productive and stable life. in tennessee, we use a single point of entry model with one agency in each of the four regions of the state whose entire focus is on providing intensive case management and restoration of victims. together we form the tennessee anti-slavery alliance. this approach ensures that quality, consistent trauma-informed services are

provided statewide in the most effective and efficient way possible, and that victims don't fall between the cracks. thank you for this opportunity to address the committee, and i will welcome your questions later. mrs. blackburn: mr. winkler, you're recognized for five minutes. mr. winkler: thank you for inviting me today. i'm special agent in charge with the tennessee bureau of investigation and co-director of the tennessee fusion center. one of my responsibilities is to oversee human sex trafficking and investigations. since 2011, thanks to our general assembly, our governor, and my boss mark wynn, we have been given better tools to combat this disgusting crime. we're proud that tennessee ranked number one on the report

card, and that's due in large part to our sustained focus of our state leadership. as i sit here talking with you, i am overseeing 66 human sex trafficking investigations with minor victims, in big cities and small towns across tennessee. in most of these cases, a sex trafficking perpetrator takes a child and forces, threatens, or coerces her. the victim is nearly always female, to engage in sex acts for money. in our experience, most cases involving the posting of ads for underage sex on backpage.com but -- but backpage is not the only site. to identify people seeking to engage in commercial sex acts with underage females, we use young appearing female law enforcement officers to post ads online offering sex acts. we see these ads with terms like new to town, that are code in that environment for underage

females. the undercover agents establish they are under 18 in phone and text conversations, which all have been men so far in our investigation. numerous men are not deterred by their juvenile status and eventually show up at the hotels where we set up encounters with undercover agents. agents meet with the men in a hotel room and engage in conversation that proves that offenders think they are under age. money is given to the undercover agents and the men are promptly approached by uniformed law enforcement officers who are waiting in the next room. for us, this is unfortunately a routine operation. the demand is staggering and we know we are not unique among states. our most recent undercover operation in a nashville suburb resulted in 21 men being apprehended over a three-day period when they came to a hotel room to engage in sex acts with undercover female agents who they believed were juveniles. to target traffickers of underage girls we use male

undercover t.b.i. agents posing as johns. our undercovers respond to advertisements that our fusion center intelligence analysts find on backpage.com. they use software called spotlight to help identify ads of a strong likelihood of being minors. rescuing victims of human sex trafficking is a priority for us. we have established strong cooperative relationships with nonprofit organizations in our state child protective services agency. the nonprofit organization end slavery tennessee is sometimes on site during our operations. they offer services immediately on scene to women who come to the hotels answering backpage ads. we've conducted operations and investigations involving numerous perpetrators and victims. the one constant we encounter in our investigation is the use of online platforms like backpage.com by buyers and sellers of underage sex.

before i close, i want to point out that human sex trafficking cases offer another example of a crime that is enabled through communications technologies, victims are marketed on sites like backpage.com, and traffickers and johns often use anonymous smartphone applications to facilitate and hide their negotiations over these children. this creates unique law enforcement challenges, which are sometimes referred to as going dark challenges. while we need tools to discourage online platforms from facilitating commerce in children, it is clear we also need a legal framework that ensures law enforcement can get additional evidence we need to investigate these horrible crimes. i appreciate the invitation to testify today and look forward to your questions. mrs. blackburn: the gentleman yields back. mr. goldman, you're recognized for five minutes. mr. goldman: thank you. chairman blackburn, ranking member doyle and members of the subcommittee, i applaud the efforts of congress and this subcommittee to combat the

horrible crime of sex trafficking. these efforts include the allow states and victims to fight online sex trafficking act of 2017, and i defer to experts in the sex trafficking advocacy community about whether this would help victims. based on my expertise in internet law, i'll discuss fosta implications for the law that says that congress enacted in 1996 that says websites aren't liable for third party content. section 230 ranks as congress' -- one of congress' most important policy achievements in the last quarter century. section 230 touches deeply each of our lives by enabling the internet services we rely upon every waking hour. it also advances free speech by helping ordinary people communicate with the global audience for the first time in history. furthermore, section 230 improves marketplace efficiency

across our entire economy and reduces entry barriers so new and innovative online services can keep emerging. section 230 is a global unique policy. no other country provides such strong protections for online publishers of third party content. this differentiation gives the united states a global competitive advantage for such services, which has helped create enormous social value here in the united states. congress enacted section 230 in response to a 1995 ruling that an online service could be liable for user content because it had removed other objectionable content. the ruling created the dilemma for all online services that moderate user content. online services had to choose between two strategies. one, exercise full editorial control over user content and accept liability for whatever legally problematic content they miss, or, two, minimize potential liability by exercising no editorial control over user content. some services can't afford to exercise full editorial control.

other services, such as tools for real-time communications, can't function with full editorial control. thus, failing to moderate content perfectly leads to liability, some online services will abandon efforts to moderate user content or even shut down. section 230 eliminated this moderator's dilemma. section 230 applies regardless of what online services do to moderate content or even what they know about user content. this means online services can deploy and experiment with a wide range of content moderation techniques without fearing liability for what they miss. this helps online services but it also helps people access publication tools that let them reach new audiences. fosta would reinstate the moderator's dilemma. for the first time in over two decades, it would have them question whether they should moderate content. some say it's too risky to do so.

if online services reduce or eliminate their moderation efforts, fosta may cause a net increase in sex trafficking promotion and all other types of anti-social content. section 230 does not give a free pass to online services to sell sex trafficking. section 230 does not limit federal prosecutions and the department of justice has prosecuted online services for publishing third party ads, including two -- at least two prosecutions against services that facilitated online prostitution. furthermore, in the 2015 save act, congress criminalized online sex trafficking and a phoenix grand jury has been investigating "backpage." congress can balance additional anti-sex trafficking initiatives with section 230's benefits by, one, ensuring that online services face a single standard liability rather than state-by-state variations that make it difficult to determine what law applies to them.

two, encouraging online services to continue performing content moderation efforts by facing liability on an online service's intent to facilitate illegal activities, not on what it knows, and expressly saying online services should not be legally penalized for their moderation efforts. i oppose fosta because it does not conform to either principles. thank you for the opportunity to address the subcommittee on this very important matter. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. goldman. the gentleman yields back. that concludes our testimony. at this time, i have several documents to enter for the record. shared hope international exodus cry, the national center on sexual exploitation, and the coalition against trafficking in women, submit a statement. we have a letter from shared hope international, an article from "the registered guard," and a letter written april 3, 2012,

that ms. maloney and i did to google. questioning backpage. so we've been working on this for quite a while. and then a letter submitted in testimony from mr. chris cox, partner from morgan lewis, and he's the outside counsel for net choice. without objection, so ordered. so let's begin our questions. and mr. winkler, i want to come to you to begin. you referenced the sting that you had conducted and we all know that this made headlines of course in tennessee, but also around the country. and we've looked at how tennessee is number one in shared hope international's study. and what i'd like to hear from you -- and i think everyone on this panel, democrat and

republican, would like to hear from you. what do you think has made the difference in tennessee? what do you use most within the law? what would you like to see changed? the partnership, ms. smith, you may want to weigh in on this, but you're doing something different. you're getting results. i'd like for you to begin, mr. winkler, and then ms. smith, for you to add to his answer. mr. winkler: yes, chairwoman. i think the continued commitment by the general assembly and the governor and the t.b.i. director to support human trafficking investigations and our partnerships across the state with a nonprofit organizations and our partnership with our state, child protective services agency, all those things combined have been a tremendous help in tennessee.

a lot of emphasis has been placed on enhancements in the law to make it more punishable for both buyers and sellers of sex acts with juveniles, and i think all those things combined is what has really helped us in tennessee combat this problem. mrs. blackburn: ok. ms. smith. ms. smith: i agree. i think it takes all parts of the puzzle working together. so you have to have law enforcement, legislature, the courts, child protective services, and service providers all working together, communicating, and collaborating together. i think that's something we do very well. law enforcement does work we can't do -- investigate, prosecute the perpetrators, rescue. we can bring a survivor and an advocate perspective so they can work in a trauma-informed way. we can bring survivors on the scene at those stings to build trust and transfer that trust to law enforcement, so they are

lot more likely to cooperate. if you don't have services in place for the victims, they're not going to stick around to make a good case. so everything intersects together. mrs. blackburn: let me ask you this. how are you all working and educating health care professionals? ms. smith: we are right now working with one of the large hospital systems. they have been working with us for about a year to create training for all of their staff nationwide. we are doing a beta rollout now in our region to train everybody from e.r. staff to the receptionists at clinics. we have a protocol in place so they have a trauma-informed response so they know to call the hotline number. they know the protocol for service provision for mandatory reporting. in our case, we bring survivors on the scene from our staff to be there immediately to build their trust and to offer them services.

mrs. blackburn: ok. i want to go to you, ms. souras, and ms. smith, i did some reading in preparation for the hearing and looking at who is kind of the target victim for this. many times it seems it is young girls who are in state or foster care custody, if you will. i would like for you -- we'll begin with you, ms. souras, and then to ms. smith, to just talk about how these perpetrators of the crime go about targeting these victims and then add if there's anything you think we could do differently? ms. souras: absolutely. thank you, chairman blackburn. you're absolutely right that the location of the child often has great bearing on whether they are more vulnerable to being exploited. ncmec views this as a missing child problem. in our experience, and as an example just last year in 2016, one out of six runaways reported

to us were likely sex trafficking victims. of those, 86% were running from state care. so definite correlations between children who are running away and also where they're running away from and, again, their ultimate vulnerabilities. in our experience, the average victim is a girl, even though there are boys and lgbtq youth who are trafficked as well, but an average victim is a girl about 15 1/2 years old, between 15 and 17 is the general age range we see, and typically these are children who are experiencing an array of vulnerabilities. they are looking for something -- a parental figure, love and affection, someone to care about them. we often talk about children who are seeking really human basic requirements, safety, security, shelter. these are children who are not receiving that in their current home or social services setting.

so they're very susceptible to false promises. false promises of love, shelter, again security, very basic needs. and that really is how they're lured. these are children who are, you know, often seeking just the smallest remnant of kindness from someone. so that small extension of that from a trafficker and traffickers know who to extend that to and what that child might be looking for. that's often enough just, again, for them to feel like someone has done something kind to them. or something to care about for them. mrs. blackburn: ms. smith. ms. smith: i ditto that 100% and i'll say that foster care and the state custody system is a perfect pool for exploitation because you have those children who are vulnerable and we know lots of girls who are actually recruited within the system out of group homes.

there would be somebody who was recruiting on behalf of a trafficker. it's a system that sets things up for exploitation because these girls learn, oh, i have a family who gets paid to take care of me. that kind of mentality can transfer to a trafficker. well, he's going to take care of me. it's reasonable that he's getting money to do so. and i think i would add, though, that there is such a thing as familial trafficking. there are family members who traffic their children for money for drugs, usually, or for alcohol. and so in that state system when we're dealing with child services, there needs to be a track that's identifying those children and that's giving them the kind of specialized care they need. they can't just be lumped in with the truants and runaways and unruly children. there needs to be a track that quickly gets them into the services they need. mrs. blackburn: my time has

expired. at this time i yield to mr. doyle for five minutes. mr. doyle: thank you, madam chair. mr. goldman, in your testimony you mentioned two ways you believe congress can achieve a balanced solution. first by avoiding a patchwork of state laws, which websites would have to comply. and then secondly, by targeting a website's intent to facilitate illegal activities. i wonder if you've seen mr. goodlatte proposed amendment to mrs. wagner's legislation that involves targeting the facilitation of prostitution with a specific intent standard and carving out state criminal laws that would do the same thing? would such a proposal, serve that purpose of balance? mr. goldman: i have seen that proposed legislation and i think the effort to focus on specific intent to facilitate prostitution is a productive way of approaching the issue. i consider it to be superior

than the alternatives i have seen. mr. doyle: you know, i want to again applaud the good work of the senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, because they're bringing the details of this issue into focus. after reading their staff report, it is clear that backpage.com not only profited from online sex trafficking but that backpage.com also helped to develop content for online sex traffickers. now, professor goldman, it's my understanding section 230 does not protect the website when it develops content in this way. so could you explain for us where the courts have drawn the line between developing content which is not protected and allowing third party posts which is? mr. goldman: the statute excludes anyone -- it's protection for anyone who creates or develops content in whole or in part. so someone who develops content in part is not covered by the statute per its terms.

in my opinion, the courts have interpreted that to really say that the party doesn't qualify for the section 230 if they develop what is illegal about the content, and so there is a nexus between developing the content and developing what made it illegal and i think that's a helpful guidance for us to think about. mr. doyle: so if the facts that were laid out in the senate report were true, do you think backpage.com can continue to use section 230 as a shield? mr. goldman: i will not say the facts have raised a lot of questions about exactly how we interpret the statutory language and i'm eager to see what the courts end up doing with the facts that they have. certainly in backpage's case we have a lot of suspicious about the legitimacy of their motives, but some of what they were doing are common tactics on the internet and we need to make sure whatever happens to backpage doesn't also create problems for the other sites that might be doing similar things but with a much less pernicious objective.

mr. doyle: tell me about -- mrs. wagner's save act was recently passed into law and what tools does this give law enforcement in pursuing sites like backpage and how prosecutors and their investigators are starting to utilize it in their investigation? in pursuing sites like that page and the prosecutors are starting to utilize it in their investigation. knowinglyn: advertising sex trafficking. and it is a new crime that did not exist so it covers a new area that had not been covered by any other crime. int law was just passed 2015. i don't know what the typical turnaround crimes are. it is fairly early in the development of that particular law to gauge whether or not it has been effective. is a grand jury

investigation that has been investigating back page and phoenix. we don't know what is going on in the grand jury investigation because that is a black box to us and takes place under the cloak of secrecy. it would be logical to me that it would be one of the grounds on which the doj has asked the grand jury to investigate that age. >> mr. winkler, have you been able to utilize that act in any of your investigations or prosecutions? mr. winkler: no sir, i am not familiar on the details of that. >> the gentleman yields back, mr. guthrie, five minutes. ms. smith described how quickly

the online platforms have had in dealing with this. and i know section 230 was through a1996 republican congress and this committee. lightlot of of this had a regulation touch in a lot of ways. it has to be addressed. mr. doleoldman, when asked you about the good blood amendment, you said it was superior but do you think it is acceptable and would you like to see it passed into law? seegoldman: i would like to how the developments go very on tuesday, a back page challenge against the missouri attorney general investigation was with the court noting that section 230 may not protect

back page. we know right now things are taking place. my preference would be to see how that plays out. do you think we should just wait on the court? >> i respect that. the whole reason we are here is that you are in the decision to take advantage of the tools that you had to solve the problems that you see. i would think that the best call is to let the existing law that

congress enacted in 2015 and all the laws play out. if we are going to pursue legislation, like you said, that's what congress does, i do think that the two principles i mentioned would be the guiding principles for how i would consider legislation to be acceptable. in your testimony, you said that one of the issues is the past work of attorneys general. what is the issue of state by state vs. us addressing this? why wait for a state by state attorney general's process? >> thank you, representative guthrie. what we really have seen over the past four years is foreclosure of the state attorneys general in their ability to protect children trafficking in their own states. i'll point to the california attorney general's investigation and subsequent attempts to prosecute backpage not once but twice on pimping charges over the past two years. after a very

long investigation into backpage pimping and other related charges filed against backpage in sacramento superior court by the state attorney general's office the court dismissed all the pimping charges based on the broad interpretation of the cda. just before the attorney general harris moved to the senate, at the end of 2016, she had her office re-file those pimping charges with some additional facts developed to try to answer to the court's last order, and the judge, the new judge in the second case again dismissed the pimping charges again based on the communications decency act. we have at this point and what we've heard from the courts including the courts in california is really that congress needs to clarify the state attorney generals can join this battle, they can join federal prosecutors. i know you didn't ask about civil remedies and civil attorneys but it is

the same in that realm as well. currently, state attorney generals simply do not have the ability to get around the cda. >> thank you. and i actually have a bill that's passed the house and hopefully reauthorizing it as we go forward. i was going to ask you a question about that. i'll save that. i'm running out of time, just to say what your people in that building go through everyday, we're blessed as americans to have people willing to do that kind of work. it's disturbing to see but we have people there doing it. i'm sure, miss smith you're seeing the same and mr. winkler, the same. good to have people on the front lines to combat this. we need to give them the tools and be judicious and also give them the tools available to do it. thank you for being here. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back, mr. mcnerney, you're recognized for five minutes.

>> i thank the chair woman and witnesses today. this is a difficult subject and something that needs to be done. it's urgent. miss souras, in 2015, congress passed the stop exploitation save act. do you think the save act has been effective to give prosecutors the tools to bring down pages like backpage.com? >> thank you. i will piggyback on what mr. goldman said. he said it was enacted in 2015 and basically added advertising as one of the acts one could commit under the federal trafficking statute. one important thing to take into account it was enacted in 2015. that page immediately -- backpage.com immediately filed court papers in the federal court in the district of columbia to basically enjoin that statute, saying it was unconstitutional. they filed suit against the department of justice. that case was not resolved until october of 2016. even though it may feel as though the law has been around a

couple of years and no one has used it, i would provide a bit of a counter-view on that and say the law has really only been available to prosecutors out from under the spector what that court's decision might have been for just about a year simply is not a long time when you think of a federal investigation to be teed up and pursued. >> i was going to ask you, first of all, are we clear of court possible overturning the save act at this point? is the save act safe in legislative judicial terms? >> it was a curious decision that the dc district court issued. they did not actually address the substance of the constitutionality issue, they actually found they did not have standing and ruled on ancillary issues. one could view that act as still being susceptible, if it were used in a prosecution to

const -- constitutionality arguments. >> do you think that the congress needs to examine whether federal prosecutors and investigators have sufficient resources to combat online sex trafficking? >> i think that is always a valid measure. certainly, we have such close partnerships with federal and state law enforcement and we always are encouraged by discussions offering them more resources. what i would suggest what federal prosecutors need is not more resources or new law, they need more players on their team. by that i mean state attorneys general and civil attorneys. >> that was my next question. does the good law amendment allow state prosecutors to go ahead and prosecute cases as long as they comply with federal

requirements. >> so the language i have seen, which i understand is very much influx and has shifted again since i saw a draft of it, permits that in extremely limited ways. in our view, much more limited than the current bill or senate bill cessa. show goldman for, mr. coming out from the california area. does this section prevent sex trafficking? does section 2 protect those that actively engage in sex trafficking? >> no. in your written testimony, you said section 230 ranks as one of congress's most important policy achievements in the past 25 years, quarter century. what makes that section so important and gives it the teeth it has? >>

mr. goldman: it becomes the infrastructure for the entire internet ecosystem is the infrastructure for our entire society. the one little thing it does, publishers aren't liable for third party content creates a vast array of activity that wouldn't exist for any other reason except for the internet and its enablement except for section 230. what would the internet look like without 230? mr. goldman: we have examples of that and see what it looks like in other countries. they don't have the same kind of robust user to user activity we have in the united states. if they have it it's because it's provided by companies based in the u.s. >> basically, 230 is doing what it's suppose to do and we may not need to amend it until we find out if it's as effective as we hope it is? mr. goldman: section 230 is a very powerful statute. amendments to it have the potential for very dramatic effects.

>> thank you. i yield back. >> mr. olson, five minutes. olson: i thank my friend from tennessee from the bottom of my heart for having this important hearing. modern day slavery happens as was said in the first panel. it happens in my hometown of sugarland, texas. slavery for sex and labor. it's ugly, offensive, but it's real. it's so offensive and ugly some law enforcement people back home say it doesn't exist but it does. april 2016 back home, a high school senior, very attractive, disappeared at night, working at a local gym, 500 yards, from my official office, in the heart of sugarland. she had just turned 18 so she was a legal adult. her father knew unless he found her in 30 days she'd likely be gone

forever. luckily he had resources to hire former special forces, seals, green berets, reinforce recon and put a full social media. he got her back. that situation had been planned for two years. she befriended the so-called groomer when she was 16. he used snap chat to communicate with her, give her drugs, get her hooked and keep that from her parents. that family was lucky, they got their daughter back, and so was my family. last june, my daughter went to south africa on an overseas study program with her

college. she went to durbin, south africa. no one told us that was a hotbed of human trafficking. students had to walk about half a mile from their dormitory to the classroom. in the middle of a bright sunny day, 2:00 p.m., on the road, center divider, a car pulled up in front of my daughter and her new friend. three large men jumped out. one had a pistol in his left hand. my daughter saw the pistol. that man grabbed her shoulder, tried to take her in that car. luckily, she had her backpack hang with one strap on the one shoulder he grabbed. the backpack came off. that gave the new friend the time to grab her right arm and pull her away. they ran as fast as they could. my daughter said i heard

-- my daughter said i was waiting to hear gunshots and being shot and dying in south africa. luckily, god was with her, they got to safety and she came home. but she came home different. those thugs took my daughter's innocence and trust, and it's a pain that will never ever go away from my family. as i mentioned, especially with the girl from the gym, sex traffickers use technologies to help them obtain an advantage and stay hidden from law enforcement and families. as i mentioned, snapchat example, six second video pops up, pops away. bitcoin for online transactions. my question for the entire panel -- i'll start with you, mr. smith, if i can make you the

king, the queen for one day to end human trafficking, what would you do? i'd take whatever the chairman gives me. >> first, let me say my heart goes out to you. i sit across from parents with some regularity who didn't have an almost, whose children were trafficked, and it's one of the hardest things in my job to do. so i'm glad your story was an almost. you know, from my perspective, i see the devastation and lives of young girls primarily girls. i see even after they come out of trafficking, the fear they have that their images are still up online and who might find them and who might see them. parents have those fears, too, when there are parents involved. even looking ahead as we're trying to help them heal, they're worried about whether their employer is going to see those some day or

their children or potential spouse. they're just tentacles that go out in this technology. i think you have alluded to some of those things. the anonymity, it has to be shut down. i heard someone tell the story if you take it out of the internet and say, in that hotel over there, we are going to have children raped and sold so we can go and find them, use them as live bait, so to speak, we would be appalled. but we're okay with doing that if it's on the internet. somehow that's different. we've got to have mandatory privacy controls. as long as we don't have those privacy controls predators are going to exploit our children. children are going to lie about their ages to get accounts. we've got to have that. get rid of the anonymity. i'm a big believer in free speech but not in letting people rape our

children. that's a simplistic answer. >> i am out of time to yield back. one final comment, those guys were so bad on snapchat they would send this young girl, okay, the drugs are on the car tire in the school parking lot on the fifth car that's a red impala on the back rear tire. that would pop up for six seconds where you can't track it. they're devils, absolute evil devils. thank god for you to stop this thing. it has to stop, has to stop. my daughter was lucky, she came home. as you mentioned, most daughters aren't that lucky, they don't come home. that's terrible terrible terrible. thank you for coming today. i yield back. >> thank you. five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair woman and thank you to all the witnesses that are here today. special welcome to professor goldman from home, from santa

clara university that we're all very proud of. professor goldman, when i read the reports about backpage.com, i was really absolutely disgusted by their business model. i think we need to be enforcing the law to the fullest extent when it comes to websites promoting sex trafficking. with that in mind, i want to clarify something about section 230. i read your testimony and much of it is centered in and around section 230. under that section does anything stop the department of justice from bringing a criminal case against sites such as backpage.com? are there other ways besides civil cases victims can seek, redress, my first

question. >> the first part is that, no, nothing would restrict the department of justice from bringing in an action against any one, back page or any of the sites. we have the grand jury investigation taking place in phoenix. we don't know what the results of that is because of the nature of the grand jury investigation. it seems safe to say it's on their radar screen, but how that translates into a prosecution decision is beyond my expertise. >> we don't know that yet. can you make any suggestions to us about how websites and tech companies can take it upon themselves to be proactive and find other ways to be proactive about fighting sex trafficking? isn't that what 230, civil

immunity is designed to and sent? t? incen mr. goldman: it does. i'd like to have a reference, it takes all players to combat sex trafficking and we need everybody on the fight including technology companies. to get their willingness to undertake initiatives requires they aren't held accountable for making mistakes or for not being instantaneous in their response, or for the other kinds of things that are natural in an environment users are posting lots and lots of content. section 230 is an integral part of the solution by making sure we have provided a legal framework that motivates the companies to do the work we want them to do. that our colleague is obviouslyfy on intended to reduce the placement of antisocial content like sex trafficking ads online. but

beld, in your view, it counter-productive, increase the appearance of such content? can you explain in a little more detail how that would work? i appreciate the opportunity to clarify that. because it's counter-intuitive, you would think if we ban content and make more people liable for them we would get objectionable content. that assumes the existing services continue to do the work they're already doing. if we change the liability structure on them they might decide the best thing for them is to do less policing and moderation work we're already counting upon. while we might be able to take care of some players by driving them out of

existence, we might also create other players that choose to do little or none of the work we expect them to do. if that's the result, if those players turn off their policing efforts, they create more environments where it can occur. >> do you know of any environments where they have used the flexibility granted by 230 to help combat online sex trafficking or similar crimes, and if so, how effective these these efforts have been? i don't have the details on that. some of my co-panelists might have more information. >> miss soares, do you know? soares: yes, absolutely. we can certainly attest to the tremendous value our technology partners provide, especially in the child sexual exploitation or child pornography realm. the developments of tools hashing

and ability to utilize very advanced analytical comparisons and connections images and data video has definitely not only increased our report load tremendously, but it means more and more content relating to child sexual exploitation has been reported to us. that work and the bulk of it came after the mandatory statute was put into place requiring technology companies to report apparent child pornography to us. show you, my time has expired and i yield back. thank you to the witnesses. >> we thank the gentle lady. mr. bilirakus, five minutes. >> thank you. i appreciate the hearing and the appreciate the testimony of the panel. miss wagner is doing an outstanding job on this issue. i appreciate her priority. in response to the sex trafficking around the world and the tampa bay area in

florida. our leaders established the pasco county commission on human trafficking in 2014. they have helped educate over 500,000 floridians, trained over 3,000 community members and saved many victims from their captor. recently the mission of this committee was to address online sex trafficking partnering with local universities and the pasco county sheriff agency office, they are gathering data on local networks in the tampa bay area, a big problem in our area. my first question is to miss smith. based on your experience, what recommendations do you have for communities around the country beginning to target the online aspects of sex trafficking and are there experienced organizations they should reach out to as they move forward?

: thank you for the efforts in your home state. i think that a lot of people are well-intentioned and go in and just have knee-jerk reactions, so it's important that there be a professional approach to this as with any other, so that there's a needs assessment that you have the professionals in place who are best qualified to address each of the components of the problem you're tackling, whether that's internet or not. you need the kind of collaboration we talked about in our state, where legislators are getting educated, law enforcement, where there's a unified system not at crossroads, where you're defining what your issues are and not comparing apples and oranges. there's foundational work i think you have to do around the issue of trafficking

before you can even move to the online aspects. i think it's important you have survivor voices talking about their lives and concerns and issues they're facing. i think some of my colleagues here might be in an even better position. >> sure. miss soares, would you like to begin? soares: thank you. i certainly agree with everything miss smith related. i think -- you know, one of the things that's important and we always say this, sex trafficking is a multifaceted problem and requires a multifaceted solution. the community awareness and the use and listening to survivors and what they have gone through and peer counseling and those who have gone through those experiencesos

we can learn how to better educate on prevention and awareness and signs of trafficking to everyone that comes into contact with children in addition to the judicial system and healthcare system as well. beat this together and it has to be a collaborative effort. no question. i wish everyone could respond but i want to move on to my next question because i don't have very much time. while technology has been a facilitator to traffickers it also has put innovation into the hands of law enforcement. mr. winkler, you mentioned your use of the spotlight software to help identify traffickers in a crowd of online posts. can you expand how this technology works and its success for the bureau, as it might benefit our commission on human trafficking as they begin online monitoring for this illegal behavior. show winkler: yes, sir. my

understanding of spotlight is it's an algorithm or overlay that looks for ads posted online, there is a strong likelihood they have been posted by minors or somebody has posted ads for minors. it is a tremendous tool for us in law enforcement. our intelligence analysts and agents assigned to conduct human traffic investigations use that tool almost on a daily basis in an effort to identify human trafficking victims. so any type of technology like spotlight that would help us in the furtherance of our investigations, in the furtherance of our efforts to combat human sex trafficking would certainly be welcome. >> thank you. thank you, madam chair. i want to thank the

witnesses for obviously participating today and protecting our nation's vulnerable population. i urge bay encourage tampa residents to vote learn more about pasco on facebook or twitter to learn more about what the community is doing to combat these predators. thank you very much and i thank my community for taking action. >> mr. rush, you're recognized for five minutes. mr. rush: i certainly want to thank you, madam chairman. for your courage, in terms of having this hearing and i want to commend you for your work and leadership on this particular

matter. child exploitation in this nation -- the seedy down side of our culture. i want to proceed from a different perspective. what role does child marriage play in this crime? it seems to be in areas of this crime that really don't get discussed at all. then, there's child marriages to occur. do you find or can you speak to this issue at all?

anybody? i'm interested because i have some legislation i'm addressing to deal with the standard for child marriages, there's so many different standards state by state, trying to create a common standard through legislation. do you have any -- can you respond at all, anybody? i'm sorry. i'm getting older and hard of hearing so i may have missed some parts of that, but you were asking about child marriage? >> i'm asking about child marriages. and trafficking. i would say that we've had limited experience with that. it's typically a foreign national victim. we do have a current survivor we're serving who was sold at the age of 14, to be

married, and her husband brought her here and trafficked her. it was an out-and-out trafficking situation. she managed to escape. we're providing her services. but in the years in which i have worked here, i did work internationally and came across that issue quite a bit, but domestically, it's a relatively small percentage, in my experience. mr. rush i have heard in some of : our researchers said it is very common that young girls, particularly, are forced into marriages in order to satisfy

the laws that prohibit in-state trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation. and so child marriages is an issue in certain parts of our nation. let me ask you another question. is there -- have you noticed, is there a racial component to sexual exploitation of youngsters? is there a racial component? >> i don't have those figures at my fingertips. i'd be happy to get the information and send to -- and send it to you later. i know there is a higher percentage of african-american victims. we certainly see lots of latina, but i'm sorry, i don't have the percentages and i don't believe any of us probably do. our nation in recent

days have been highly focused on sexual harassment in the workplace and also in professional settings. it seems as though there's a prominent -- -- there is a predominance in the news today and in recent days about sexual exploitation and harassment in the workplace and in professional settings. how is this affecting our national focus on children? in most instances are far less powerful and are more vulnerable because they are voiceless. are you seeing any kind of or lessening of the attention on child sexual harassment because of these prominent news on

harassment in the workplace and or professional settings? >> congressman, what we handle is obviously a much more severe type of child sexual exploitation. i will say i think the public attention, the media is obviously a much more severe accounts, as you noted, around this issue, do create an environment for additional discussion we can have with our children, with vulnerable populations, again, just regarding communication, being open to reporting. we are seeing some of these same trends with adults in professional settings. i think perhaps it's too early to know how that might filter down into some of the vulnerable populations that we work with here. >> i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. five minutes.

>> thank you, madam chairman. this is a tough hearing to sit through. what's the rate or do you have any statistics on the rate or recidivism, you're talking mostly girls in this, i know there are some lbgtq whatever, mostly girls trafficked. you say they mostly come from state homes, correct? from the state system. so mr. winkler goes out there and busts them with his program. where do they go from there? they don't go to a house with a white picket fence and dog in the yard and have apple pie that night. is there recidivism? do we know anything about that? >> i can just speak -- i can just speak

experientially from our state. if you're counting recidivism of returning to that life of exploitation. >> right. that's what i'm asking, how do you break that cycle for those age people and the next coming? how do you rescue them from that, which we all want to do, then what happens? >> i think that we found a terrific model in our state. currently, we have an 89% success rate for the people that we serve not going back into exploitation. i'm not going to say it's not incredibly difficult. i believe i read that the national average is that a girl typically runs back to exploitation seven times. thankfully, our rates are much lower than that. seven times? >> >> seven times. there's complex trauma going on here. >> i know. that's part of the -- >> thankfully, i think some of the reasons we've had success or have survivors on staff who build that trust and mentor, who show visibly, this does not have

to define your life. i'm a professional woman, i'm married, i have children, i have a college degree, this does not have to define your life. that's the first step. the fact we keep very small caseloads because these girls typically are looking for relationships. they were exploited because they want love and acceptance -- things all of us want and they have that deep need. you can provide services all day long but if you don't build that community of other survivors they live with and support groups and the relationship with staff and starting to build their outside support system, they're going to go back to have that need met in the only way they've ever known. i think those are keys to success. i think it takes time. we can't rush this. we tend to do that in especially child services, two months, three months, that's all there's funding for.

>> let me give each of you about 45 seconds to answer. start with miss soares. what are the top two or three things we as congress need to do to help you? soares: i think the number one thing is the topic of this hearing. there need to be legal tools that can effectively break the commercial market. the commercial market these girls run back to, as miss smith indicated they're lured back into to be trafficked and the same market feeding between 9000 and 10,000 reports of child sex trafficking a year. there is no decrease in those reports. something at a high level needs to happen so these websites can be taken down. >> ok. go ahead. >> add with a little vignette, i have a 15-year-old this week who just got her privileges online because we have a tiered system for that. the same day she got those privileges and a

40-year-old man was reaching out to her. she said, i'm a minor and he said, that's fine. i concur. >> this backpage.com, i've heard of it a million times, i never looked at it. you buy bicycles and couches and refrigerators there and there's also a trafficking section? how does it work? it's not all trafficking, right? >> no, it's not all trafficking but hidden under euphemisms, buy a girl for 40 roses. everybody knows that means $40. it's very blatant. the pictures are very sexualalized, not really much attempt to hide what's going on. >> ok. mr. winkler? winkler: anything that encourages innovation and technology that would assist us in conducting the investigations that we conduct, that would assist us furthering those investigations, helping us to

identify trafficking victims. anything, what that's targeting funding or whatever, anything you could do along those lines. goldman, i'm over time but i will yield myself 45 seconds that i don't have because i want to hear from you. gentleman yields back and did not use the 45 minutes he asked for. >> i appreciate that. i do defer to the experts on this. i think if we could clone my three panelists here that would be a big step forward.

>> i hope that means i get 5:30 minutes. thank you, madam chair and i want to thank the panel for being here today. i have to echo mr. long's comments. this really is a sad hearing to go through this. i do appreciate you being here to talk about this ugly blight on american society. mr. winkler, i will follow up on one of the questions mr. bilirakis introduced. he talked about your use of the tool, spotlight. from what i understand the trafficking business is moving from text and photos to livestreaming and video. it's my understanding the technology, the spotlight types of technology have not kept up. does that present -- what sort of challenge does that present to you? winkler: i don't know specifically if challenges we're faced with yet. i do know there is a shift from the text format to video and streaming. that is certainly something that is on the horizon, if it's not already here. like i said before, anything that you can do that would assist in fostering innovation in that area would be

most helpful. >> i have to agree with you. i think that's one of the things we as policymakers need to do, but not through legislation necessarily but through encouragement, to help get the best and brightest in silicon valley and technology ecosystem to help develop tools to help you stop this terrible crime that's being inflicted on our young people. miss smith, i appreciate what you do. there's a group that started in waco, texas, called "unbound." they do great work. they deal with the victims' side. one of the neat things i have seen in our community, they have brought law enforcement into the tent and have educated them about -- the way these folks were victimized and what's happening to them. they have formed a collaboration where sheriff parnell mcnamara, sheriff of mccleanny county set

up a sting system like you talked about, like mr. winkler talked about. unfortunately, business is booming. it is making a dent from what i understand. traffickers are no longer stopping in waco, texas, doesn't mean they've gone away, they are just in other areas. i want to continue with you, miss smith. we heard about the terrible consequences how victims can be lured into sex trafficking but we haven't heard about what can be done to stop sex exploitation in the first place. can you talk about your organization's prevention efforts and how technology can be used to stop the exploitation before it starts? ms. smith: great question. thank you. we are doing a lot of prevention. we have reoccurring small groups facilitated by a therapist and survivor with high risk kids, interactive groups with middle age and high school

-- with middle school and high school students. when we're talking prevention, we have to be talking about demand reduction. because tbi does what they do, in our state, if somebody pickups the phone to call for sex, they know on the other end of the phone might be law enforcement, whether in the city, county, suburbs wherever , they are, they know our laws are strong and their picture might go out on a press release and their wife and boss and people they goo to church with might see that. those are strong deterrents. some law enforcement sites put up the picture so everybody can see. that's what we have to have to limit this and limit the marketplace we've been talking about. as long as there is anonymity, they can get by with what they're doing, prosecutors don't have the

tools to go after them, law enforcement will lose a motivation if there's not a legal process that works. >> 30 seconds left, what can be done from a technology perspective to help stop the exploitation? have a feel for that? that was for you, miss smith. ms. smith: i'm sorry. >> what can be done from a technology standpoint to stop the exploitation? ms. smith: some of the things we've been talking about are the privacy controls, anonymity that's allowed online. we haven't talked about the fact there are new sites popping up constantly, hard to keep track of them. we need to have the resources to keep on top of that and what's being done. also, law enforcement needs the resources to be able to get what they need for making good cases and

getting perpetrators. >> thank y'all for your testimony today and i yield back the balance of my time. >> miss walters, five minutes. walters: thank you, madam chair and thank you to your witnesses for being here today. it's deeply upsetting these issues exist in today's society. i'm grateful for the opportunity to discuss how to put an end to modern day slavery. i worked on human trafficking issues since i served in the california state legislature since 2004. while we have taken steps to curb this practice over the past 13 years much more has to be done. trafficking is a big problem in california as i'm sure you are aware. a recent report said california had over 1300 incidences of human trafficking in 2016, nearly double than any other state. this heat map i've got shows the cases in california reported to the national human trafficking

hotline. but this map is just part of the picture that only theects cases where locations where potential trafficking was known. this year in southern california investigators have uncovered several large scale human trafficking rings using the internet to sell sexual services. thousands of ads were tracked through the website we're all familiar with, backpage.com including selling minors for sex. one of those was in irvine in the heart of my district. the problem is so bad in orange county a group of law enforcement agencies and nonprofits and community organizations banded together to establish a task force to conduct anti-trafficking efforts. in 2015 the orange county human trafficking task force assisted 225 victims. of the 225 victims, 61% were new

victims. 168 of those victims were used for sex trafficking, 48 were minors, 47 of whom were used for sex trafficking and the stats go on and on. i'm proud of the work the task force has done and will continue to do so. with that i'd like to get to some questions. miss smith you mentioned when the tennessee bureau of investigators began investigating traffickers, they called on your group for assistance. do you think state law enforcement agencies have the expertise and resources to combat this problem on their own? smith: no, i believe it takes the expertise of a number of players working working together. law enforcement does things i wouldn't dream of doing, investigating, researching, prosecuting. but i think we have to work together to have an approach that doesn't frighten the victims away, meets

them where they are, brings survivors to the operations, to build that trust. we have to have the services in place to keep a victim in place long enough to prosecute. when i first started this work, i had a detective who said he was so frustrated picking up the same 14-year-old girl all the time and he didn't know what to do with it. lost his motivation. now, he is one of our most robust supporters because all the pieces are in place and law enforcement is finding people and the community is educated and recognized by first responders. the services are in place they need to heal. when that happens, it is a game changer. >> you're seeing different partnerships formed in order to have that communication to make it work?

ms. smith: absolutely. >> professor goldman, i have a couple questions for you. first, what evidence would a civil attorney need and expect to rely upon a website knew the individual advertised on the site was a minor? i don't have an answer to that question in part because we haven't seen that issue thoroughly tested because section 230 doesn't turn on a website's knowledge. we're unclear how differential a regime might interpret that information. >> let me see if you can answer my next question. i don't know if you will. what evidence would a civil attorney need to respect and rely upon that an individual advertised on the site was an adult sex trafficking victim. i'd answer it the same. >> thank you. i yield back the balance of my time.

>> mr. costello, you're recognized for five minutes. castillo -- mr. costello: thank you. first, i want to thank the national center for missing and exploited children who partnered with the fbi recently conducting their 11th annual law enforcement meeting. this cross country sting was 55 field offices. 75 child exploitation task forces and 400 law enforcement agencies across the country leading to the recovery of 84 sexually exploited minors and arrests of 239 others including nine in my congressional district. i understand why the cda provided immunity to isps in the first instance. there's an intellectual appreciation for why that was the case. but i like some others on this committee and i have, met with a mother whose daughter was advertised. and when you hear what these ads are and what is

-- and what it said it really , hits you in a way that compels you to say, that's simply not acceptable and we need to create a standard by which an isp and others can be liable or they have more of a responsibility than has thus far been required of them. the question i have is can you talk about the successful efforts that were taken online during the operation and how if at all we can revise section 230 of the cda to improve these efforts? i would point specifically to the reckless disregard standard the information is in front of a sex -- is in furtherance of a sex trafficking charge. i think that's very helpful language of ms. wagner's bill as well -- normally we are hesitant to give , state investigative

authorities, state law enforcement jurisdiction over internet type related crimes because sometimes different states do different things at different time. by freeing it up and giving states more tools to do that, it's a good thing. miss soares and anyone else on the panel can you speak to that collaboration between federal and local enforcement, how the proposal may best aid them rooting this out even more effectively than we have been able to do? soares: thank you for the question, congressman and the recognition regarding operation cross country. it is an amazing operation undertake within a large friday of partners -- local, state, and federal. we provide services as do local groups and we're extremely proud to partner with law enforcement on that operation. think what you see in that

operation, and the numbers you quoted especially from your state of pennsylvania are indicative of the scope of the problem. there could be an operation cross country every week, every month and the numbers would be the same. i'll defer to mr. winkler how there can be better resources put in place for law enforcement. the way to provide assistance and cut those numbers, i'll repeat what i said before, take this on a little bit of what i said before, take this on from the highest level, realize there is a commercial marketplace where these children are commodities and why there are so many children recovered and rescued during operation cross country and it is why they're lured back, i think miss smith said some children, seven or eight times. that is similar to what we see at ncmic, because somebody can make money off of them.

and it is how we are able to introduce some laws. sa bill currently pending in the house and the bill from the house to the senate currently with 52 co-sponsors insenate, both of those bills are, you know, approaching the issue from the same framework, adding more resources, state attorneys general and civil remedies. that is what you're really going to start to see with new initiatives of those sort, that is going to cut down on the number of children being lured. because if it's too hard nexteak into, the backpage.com -- or whatever is the next 1 -- >> real quick, how important is it for state and local prosecutors to be able to hold to websites accountable? how much does that enable? soares: it is a tremendous

benefit. i mean state attorneys general in every state, i imagine, will look at this issue. many have spoken to nick mick whereby and they simply can't proceed right now. show >> thank you, i yield back. the gentleman yields back. and we thank you so much for the testimony you have given today. as we conclude i have two more submissions for the record. the opening statement of our ranking member frank pollone. an op-ed i wrote this week. without objection so ordered. pursuant to committee rules i remind members they have ten business days to submit additional questions for the record. and i ask if they do submit them to you, that you answer those questions within ten business days. and seeing no further business to come before the committee and the fact we are now being called to the floor

for votes, i adjourn the subcommittee. so ordered. thank you. >>. on c-span, "washington journal" is next, live with your phone calls and a look at today's headlines. withis followed by a forum women in government and business. and then a look at celebrity activists and their celebrity as and their causes. on today's "washington journal," our author series continues with

jessica bruder, whose book "nomadland" looks at the societal impact of the 2008 recession. later, philip wegmann talks about the republican legislative priorities in 2018. ♪ host: good morning. it is saturday, december 30, 2017. we are nearing the end of the year, in which the u.s. military has seen a number of successes, including key tactical victories in the fight against the islamic state. the defense secretary told reporters yesterday that the caliphate is "on the run." the pentagon also faces challenges, including a naval fleet officials say is straining fleet demand and lingering questions on an ambush in niger that left four u.s. service membersea