[Senate Hearing 115-6]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-6
BACKPAGE.COM'S KNOWING FACILITATION OF ONLINE SEX TRAFFICKING
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HEARING
before the
PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JANUARY 10, 2017
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
STEVE DAINES, Montana KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
Christopher R. Hixon, Staff Director
Gabrielle A. Batkin, Minority Staff Director
John P. Kilvington, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Bonni Dinerstein, Hearing Clerk
PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
STEVE DAINES, Montana GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
Brian Callanan, Staff Director and General Counsel
Margaret E. Daum, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey Stroud, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Portman.............................................. 1
Senator McCaskill............................................ 4
Senator Tester............................................... 6
Senator Lankford............................................. 7
Senator Heitkamp............................................. 7
Senator McCain............................................... 8
Senator Hassan............................................... 8
Senator Daines............................................... 9
Senator Harris............................................... 10
Prepared statements:
Senator Portman.............................................. 39
Senator McCaskill............................................ 43
Senator Johnson.............................................. 47
WITNESSES
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Carl Ferrer, Chief Executive Officer, Backpage.com............... 11
Andrew Padilla, Chief Operations Officer, Backpage.com........... 14
James Larkin, Former Owner, Backpage.com......................... 15
Michael Lacey, Former Owner, Backpage.com........................ 16
Elizabeth McDougall, General Counsel, Backpage.com............... 17
Nacole S., Mother of Jane Doe 1.................................. 20
Tom. S., Father of Jane Doe 1.................................... 24
Kubiiki P., Mother of Jane Doe 2................................. 25
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Ferrer, Carl:
Testimony.................................................... 11
Lacey, Michael:
Testimony.................................................... 16
Larkin, James:
Testimony.................................................... 15
McDougall, Elizabeth:
Testimony.................................................... 17
P., Kubiiki:
Testimony.................................................... 25
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Padilla, Andrew:
Testimony.................................................... 14
S., Nacole:
Testimony.................................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 48
S., Tom:
Testimony.................................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 51
APPENDIX
Staff Report..................................................... 56
Statement submitted by Sara Loe.................................. 109
Letter from Ropes and Gray....................................... 112
Statement submitted by Robert Corn-Revere........................ 114
Correspondence submitted by Senator Portman...................... 115
Statement submitted by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP....... 135
BACKPAGE.COM'S KNOWING FACILITATION OF ONLINE SEX TRAFFICKING
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Rob Portman,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Portman, McCain, Lankford, Daines,
Johnson, McCaskill, Tester, Heitkamp, Hassan, and Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN
Senator Portman. The Committee will come to order. We are
here this morning to address a very serious topic. It is about
sex trafficking. It is about selling children online.
More than 20 months ago, this Subcommittee launched a
bipartisan investigation concerning how sex traffickers use the
Internet to ply their trade. Experts, including many of the
victims I have spoken to in my home State of Ohio, tell us that
this crime has increasingly moved from the street to the
smartphone.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
(NCMEC) reported an 846-percent increase in reports of
suspected child sex trafficking from 2010 to 2015--a spike the
organization found to be ``directly correlated to the increased
use of the Internet to sell children for sex.'' Backpage.com
sits at the center of that online black market. This is a
large, profitable company: Backpage operates in 97 countries
and 934 cities worldwide and was last valued at well over a
half-billion dollars. According to an industry analysis in
2013, eight out of every ten dollars spent on online
commercial sex advertising in the United States went to one
website--Backpage.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
tells us that Backpage is linked to nearly three-quarters of
all suspected child sex trafficking reports that it receives
from the general public through its ``CyberTipline.'' And
according to a leading anti-trafficking organization called
``Shared Hope International,'' ``[s]ervice providers working
with child sex trafficking victims have reported that between
80 percent and 100 percent of their clients have been bought
and sold on Backpage.com.'' That has certainly been my
experience as I have talked to victims of sex trafficking in
Ohio.
Based on this record, our Subcommittee saw a compelling
need to investigate the business practices of Backpage,
especially the efforts it takes to prevent use of its site by
sex traffickers.
We thought that might be simple enough because Backpage
actually promotes itself as a ``critical ally'' in the fight
against human trafficking. The company says it ``leads the
industry'' in its screening of advertisements for illegal
activity--a process it calls ``moderation.'' In fact,
Backpage's top lawyer, Elizabeth McDougall, has described their
moderation process as the key tool for, and I quote,
``disrupting and eventually ending human trafficking via the
World Wide Web.''
Despite these boasts, Backpage refused to cooperate with
the Subcommittee's investigation. They defied our subpoena,
failing to appear at a November 2015 hearing or provide the
requested documents.
In response, the Subcommittee brought the first civil
contempt action authorized by the Senate in more than 20 years.
And in August 2016, the Subcommittee prevailed and secured a
Federal court order rejecting Backpage's meritless objections
and compelling the company to turn over the subpoenaed
documents.
It is now clear why Backpage fought so hard to withhold
this information. The Subcommittee published a staff report
yesterday afternoon that conclusively shows that Backpage has
been more deeply complicit in online sex trafficking than
anyone imagined. Without objection, that report will be made
part of the record.\1\
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\1\ The Subcommittee Report appears in the Appendix on page 56.
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Our report demonstrates that Backpage has concealed
evidence of crimes by systematically deleting words and images
suggestive of illegal conduct from advertisements submitted to
their website before publishing the ads. And some of those ads
involved child sex trafficking. Backpage's editing process
sanitized the content of millions of advertisements and hid
important evidence from law enforcement.
This story begins in 2006, apparently, when Backpage
executives began instructing staff responsible for screening
ads--known as ``moderators''--to edit the text of adult ads to
conceal their true nature. By October 2010, Backpage executives
formalized a process of both manual and automated deletion of
incriminating words and phrases in ads.
A feature known as the ``Strip Term From Ad filter'' did
most of the work. Backpage Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Carl
Ferrer personally directed his employees to create this
electronic filter to ``strip''--that is, to delete--hundreds of
words indicative of sex trafficking or prostitution from ads
before publication.
To be clear, this filter did not reject ads for illegal
activity. Backpage executives were afraid to cut into profits
and, in Ferrer's words, ``piss off a lot'' of customers.
Instead, the Strip Term From Ad filter simply altered ads to
conceal signs of illegality. They put profits ahead of
vulnerable women and children.
The evidence is clear that Backpage deliberately edited out
words indicative of child sex trafficking and other crimes from
the ads. This list of terms is chilling. Starting in 2010,
Backpage automatically deleted words including ``Lolita,''
``teenage,'' ``rape,'' ``young,'' ``little girl,'' ``teen,''
``fresh,'' ``innocent,'' ``school girl,'' and even ``Amber
Alert''--and then published the edited versions of the ads to
their website. Backpage also systematically deleted scores of
words that were indicative of prostitution.
Backpage claims their staff reviews ads to avoid child
exploitation, but these terms were stripped out before anyone
at Backpage even looked at the ad. And when law enforcement
officials came looking for more information about suspicious
ads--as they routinely did--Backpage had already destroyed the
original ad posted by the pimp or trafficker. The evidence was
gone.
Think about the real-world effect of this practice:
A trafficker submits an ad on Backpage.com containing a
word like ``Lolita'' or ``teen''--a pretty good clue that a
crime may be afoot.
But then Backpage's Strip Term From Ad filter would delete
the problematic term and the remainder of the ad would be
published.
Of course, this editing changed nothing about the real age
of a person being sold for sex or the real nature of the
advertised transaction.
But as one Backpage executive explained, thanks to the
filter, Backpage ads looked ``cleaner than ever'' to the public
eye.
We will never know for sure how many girls and women were
subject to abuse and exploitation that Backpage.com helped to
conceal. By Backpage's own estimate, the company was editing
``70 to 80 percent of ads'' in the commercial-sex section
either manually or automatically by late 2010. Based on our
best estimate, this means that Backpage was editing well over
half a million ads each year. It is unclear whether and to what
extent Backpage still uses the Strip Term From Ad filter, but
internal emails indicate that the company was using the filter
to some extent as recently as April 2014.
These are not the practices of an ``ally'' in the fight
against human trafficking. These are the practices of a
corporation intent on profiting from human trafficking--and
human misery--and profit they have, at the expense of countless
innocent victims.
Backpage has not denied a word of these findings. Instead,
several hours after the report was issued yesterday afternoon,
the company announced the closure of its adult section--
claiming ``censorship.'' But that is not censorship. That is
validation of the findings in the report.
As for this new development, I will just quote from part of
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's
statement about Backpage's closure of its ``adult'' site. They
said, and I quote: ``We are gratified to know that as a result
[of this closure], a child is now less likely to be sold for
sex on Backpage.com.''
Our Ranking Member, Senator McCaskill, will have more to
say about other key findings in our report. And I just want to
conclude by thanking her and thanking her staff for their
shoulder-to-shoulder work with my team at PSI on this
bipartisan investigation. I am also grateful to the Members of
the full Committee and the Subcommittee and the Senate as a
whole for unanimously supporting us as we pursued the
enforcement of the subpoena against Backpage.com.
In the weeks and months ahead, I intend to explore whether
potential legislative remedies are necessary and appropriate to
end the facilitation of online sex trafficking that
Backpage.com has pioneered. We will have more to say on that
later.
With that, I want to turn to Senator McCaskill for her
opening statement and to tell my colleagues you are welcome to
make a short, let us say two-minute opening statement before
the first panel. We will also have a second panel coming up
where you will be asked to participate.
With that, I would like to turn to Senator McCaskill for
her opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Chairman Portman. If this
hearing stands for anything, it stands for the fact that
congressional oversight matters and investigations matter.
Sometimes they are more powerful than a piece of legislation.
I hope this investigation serves as a very clear sign to
the American people that both parties can work together the way
that we have to address one of the most devastating issues in
our country. Not only have we cooperated in a productive way on
this Subcommittee, but the Senate as a whole affirmed the
importance of our investigation by voting unanimously--which,
by the way, is not a common thing these days in the U.S.
Senate--in a vote of 96-0 to compel Backpage to respond to our
reasonable, constitutional, congressional requests. The Senate
recognized that our investigation into the market leader in
selling sex online is a legitimate and important use of the
Subcommittee's authority.
As the Chairman said, Backpage is a $600 million company
built on selling sex, and, importantly, on selling sex with
children. And the company knows it. According to one former
moderator, his colleagues ``went through the motions putting
lipstick on a pig, but when it came down to it, it was what the
business was about.'' Several former moderators even told the
Subcommittee that certain Backpage employees contacted
prostitutes advertised on the site and used their services and
told about it. When moderators had the courage to point out
illegal activity, management came down hard on the employees.
After one moderator apparently concluded in the account notes
that a Backpage user was a prostitute, Andrew Padilla, the
Backpage Chief Operating Officer (COO), stated, and I quote,
``[l]eaving notes on our site that imply we are aware of
prostitution, or in any position to define it, is enough to
lose your job.''
More troubling, documents produced to the Subcommittee also
show that Backpage often erred against reporting potential
child exploitation. In one email, for example, a Backpage
supervisor instructed moderators that ``[y]oung ads do not get
deleted unless they are clearly a child.'' ``Young ads do not
get deleted unless they are clearly a child.''
A Backpage supervisor also apparently hesitated before
believing reports from third parties concerning underage
escorts. In February 2010, for example, a detective alerted
Backpage to the fact that a 17-year-old girl featured on the
site had asked the company to remove her photos, but was ``told
they could not do that until enough people reported her as
`potentially underage'.''
As a matter of policy, according to internal documents,
Backpage will only escalate the review of an ad for child
exploitation when an individual claims they or an immediate
family member are at risk; uncles reporting, nephews or
grandmothers reporting grandchildren will not suffice.
And, remember--and this is very important--they did not
turn away ads selling children. We now know as a result of our
legal battle, based on their own documents, they did not turn
away ads selling children. They just tried to make it less
obvious and, worse, coached the traffickers and the pimps on
how to clean up their ads--not turning away their business.
Those children were still sold. They just tried to sanitize it.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the definition of ``evil''--
simply evil.
Throughout this investigation, I have spoken of a 15-year-
old girl who was sold for sex on Backpage across the United
States before seeking help, walking into an emergency room at
Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis. According to
court documents,
this young woman was walking down a street in Madison,
Missouri, a small town in my State, in June 2015 when her
future trafficker--a young man from Park Hills--approached in a
pickup truck. She was contemplating suicide after a fight with
her father, and in her distraught state she was coerced into
joining the young man and his wife as they sold her and
multiple other girls for sex over a six-week period. Earlier
this year, Chief Judge Michael Reagan of the Southern District
of Illinois sentenced the husband and wife perpetrators of this
crime to life in prison and 20 years, respectively. In handing
down those sentences, Chief Judge Reagan stated that the couple
had ``[stripped] an individual of the right to feel secure
[and] control and trust what she did with her own body.''
It is crucial that we keep our focus on this 15-year-old
girl and the experiences of countless other young girls like
her. The parents of two of these girls are here with us today
to discuss how their daughters were advertised and sold on
Backpage. Both girls found themselves trapped, not on a street
corner, but in an online marketplace that billed children as
``weekend specials,'' under less stringent rules than those for
ads selling motorcycles or pets.
One mother here today--then living in St. Louis with her
other children--was forced to take the unimaginable step of
buying time with her daughter through a Backpage ad in a
desperate attempt to save her.
These experiences remind us that this investigation is not
about curbing First Amendment rights--give me a break--rights
which are now more important than ever. This investigation is
about understanding how criminals systematically use online
platforms to transform normal American teenagers into sex
slaves. As part of this work, it is critical for the
Subcommittee to understand the efforts companies selling sex
online undertake to prevent trafficking--not to sanitize it,
not to clean it up, not to make sure they are making more
money, but to prevent it. And if our current laws are
inadequate to spur these efforts, we need to know this, too.
This is not a punitive, partisan campaign. This is
congressional oversight.
At our last hearing, I promised that Chairman Portman and I
would not go quietly into the night and simply give up in the
face of repeated roadblocks--lawyering up like no company is
capable of lawyering up--Backpage has raised against this
investigation. Working together, we fought Backpage all the way
to the Supreme Court to vindicate our right to receive the
documents we requested. We subpoenaed records from banks,
accounting firms, and court proceedings, and we spoke with
countless stakeholders and experts in the fight against
trafficking. And last night, Chairman Portman and I received
word from Backpage that, in response to our report, the company
has shut down its adult section across the United States
effective immediately. Only time will tell if this action is an
end to Backpage's role in online sex trafficking of children or
just a cheap publicity stunt.
In the meantime, I have another promise: I will continue to
do everything in my power to protect young women--and young
men--from being exploited and assaulted, on Backpage.com or
anywhere else. And I know all of my colleagues in the Senate
agree with me.
I look forward to getting answers from our panelists today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCaskill.
We will now recognize colleagues for brief opening
statements. Senator Tester, you were here first. If you have a
brief opening statement, you can see the clock has two minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER
Senator Tester. Well, thank you, Senator Portman. I want to
thank you and Senator McCaskill for having this hearing.
We have some statistics from Montana: a 100-percent
increase in human trafficking cases between 2015 and 2016; the
number of juvenile victims rescued in Montana between 2015 and
2016 increased by 400 percent. We have a problem out there.
I have two daughters, I have two granddaughters, and I
cannot imagine what the victims are thinking about that are
either here today or watching this online.
I am in the business of agriculture, and when I hear terms
like ``bought'' and ``sold,'' I think about cattle and hogs,
not people.
Twenty months ago this Subcommittee met, and we asked for
Backpage to come in and tell us their business model. They
refused. Senator McCaskill talked about the process that went
on since then. If you are so damn proud about your business
model, why weren't you here 20 months ago? Why weren't you here
to answer the questions?
We have a problem in this country. We do not need people
who enable pimps to buy and sell our children. Come in and
answer the questions, and hopefully you will answer the
questions today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Tester.
Senator Lankford.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator Lankford. I would like to thank the Chairman and
Senator McCaskill for holding this hearing and for not letting
go of the issue.
I worked with students for 22 years and families for 22
years before I came to Congress. There are many of us on this
dais, in the crowd right now, and people that are watching that
spend their time fighting for their families, understanding
that families sometimes fight and struggle.
It is abhorrent to me to think that there is a business
model looking for families that have fallen apart and so they
can then profit from families that fall apart rather than
fighting to be able to keep families together.
The thought that anyone would say that selling a 13-year-
old is something that fits within a business model is
astounding to me. And to hear someone--or to hear the
allegations and to be able to read the information about any
organization that would try to take words away, not to be able
to contact the seller and say, ``What are you doing? This looks
like an illegal act,'' but instead say, ``Hey, you cannot post
it quite that way. Let me help you with a way that you can sell
this 13-year-old that you can get away with''--that is a very
different business model than where most of Americans are.
So this conversation today is not just about Backpage. It
is about fighting for families, and it is about fighting for
the dignity of every single person. And it is about holding out
the opportunity that no one should be able to steal the life
and the future and the hope and the opportunity from any child.
That is happening today. Churches, nonprofits, families,
neighbors are all fighting for them, and it is a good thing
that we in Congress are fighting with them and alongside them
in that.
I look forward to the testimony today to be able to get the
rest of the details on this and to be able to discover what do
we do about it in the days ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Lankford.
Senator Heitkamp.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I want to
thank you, and our great Ranking Member. Without the tenacity
of you and your staff, we would not be here today. And,
unfortunately, we are here today. We are here today because
every person in this country has an obligation to protect
children. But we now have knowledge and understanding of a
business practice that is basically designed to do exactly the
opposite--to exploit children. And the audacity of a group of
American citizens wishing to hide behind the First Amendment
when they exploit children is beyond me. And maybe it eases
your conscience. Maybe it makes you feel like you are somehow
championing some good cause. You are not. Your company exploits
children--children all across this country, not just in places
like New York City or at a Super Bowl; places like Watford
City, places like Minot where we rescued a 12-year-old and a
14-year-old when their mothers discovered them on Backpage.
How in the world can we allow that to happen in our country
when a foundational piece of this democracy, as Senator
Lankford has said, is families and recovering families, helping
families? These are the most vulnerable children in America.
And shame on you. Shame on you for hiding behind the First
Amendment while you exploit children in this country and
destroy families.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Heitkamp.
Senator McCain.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize that I
am chairing a hearing on the Armed Services Committee, and I
thank you for your courtesy. I would like to thank you, Senator
Heitkamp, Senator McCaskill, and everyone who has been involved
in this issue for a long period of time.
For the past two years, the Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations has sought information pertaining to the role of
Backpage.com in the online buying and selling of children for
sexual exploitation. We all know that Backpage.com is the
market leader in commercial sex advertising, and the website
has been linked to hundreds of human trafficking cases. I was
gratified to learn of Backpage's announcement last night that
it will shut down its adult site. I am sure that was a pure
coincidence. And, again, it is a testimony to the work of this
Subcommittee.
We have to, all of us, not just this Committee but all 100
of us, do everything in our power to put an end to human sex
trafficking. It is so horrible that a lot of times we shy away
from discussing it. And as you know, Mr. Chairman, from your
work, our border States, including my home State of Arizona,
the trafficking back and forth across the border is a terrible
issue.
But I would like to thank the parents on our second panel
who are here today to discuss the real-life horrors that they
experienced when their own daughters fell victim to sex
trafficking because of Backpage's illegal facilitation of
prostitution and child sex trafficking. Your bravery, your
strength, and your love for your daughters and other victims is
essential in fighting this evil. We all thank you.
I would also like to thank my wife, Cindy, for her
uncompromising and tireless efforts to prevent human
trafficking and aid those who have fallen victim to this
unimaginable crime.
I thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCain, and we thank
Cindy McCain for her advocacy globally on this issue. And I
know she is in the audience with us today. Senator Hassan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you, Ranking Member McCaskill, for your tenacity and
determination.
I am new to the Senate, but I am not new to this issue. As
Governor, I worked with members of both parties in my home
State of New Hampshire to strengthen our laws against human
trafficking. So it is particularly difficult to come here today
and really begin to understand the lengths to which a private
business enterprise would go to circumvent those very efforts.
There are children in my State and throughout our country,
as you have heard from my colleagues, who are victims and now
survivors. And so I am particularly grateful to this
Subcommittee for the work it has done.
I will add to the comments of my colleagues that this is
not just about exploiting families who are struggling or young
people who are struggling. It is also about exploiting stigma.
And I am incredibly grateful to the parents who we will hear
from and who we have been hearing from for their strength and
bravery in coming forward, because the only way you keep people
from defeating stigma is to speak up and to talk about the
experiences of the young people who have been exploited and
victimized here.
And so I am grateful to all of the families, to the
survivors who will continue to speak up and help the American
people understand this for the devastating exploitation and
crime that it is.
My mom taught history at my high school, and she often said
that what kids need to know more than anything else is that
they have a grownup in their corner. I am proud today that the
U.S. Senate is being that grownup in the corner for all of our
children. I am astounded and horrified that a private business
enterprise would be the exact opposite in the United States of
America.
And so I am grateful to this Committee and eager to work
with all Members of this body and the American people and the
citizens of my home State to eliminate human sex trafficking.
Thank you.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Hassan.
Senator Daines.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAINES
Senator Daines. Thank you, Chairman Portman, Ranking Member
McCaskill. I am new to this Committee. I am not as new to the
Senate as my two new colleagues, and welcome to the U.S. Senate
and to this Committee as well.
Thank you for your tenacity for continuing to follow
through on this issue. I cannot imagine as a parent--and there
are a lot of parents here on the dais, and grandparents. We are
on this side of the dais, but to be a parent here today with
the courage to come and talk about what has happened to your
family and your children, I commend you for that and thank you
for your courage.
Think about the tenacity of this Committee, and think about
William Wilberforce this morning who fought to abolish slave
trade, the British parliamentarian who fought a lifetime to
abolish the slave trade in England. In fact, the great hymn
``Amazing Grace'' was written by a slave trader who became--who
was a friend of Wilberforce, was influenced by Wilberforce's
work to abolish slave trade. This is what this is. This is
modern-day slavery we have in our country, except we are not
talking about adults; we are talking about children. And as my
colleague from Montana said, we use these terms when we talk
about animals, not people. We talk about rescues at the pound,
dogs and cats, not people. It is astounding.
So I want to thank again the parents, your courage. These
hurts will not go away. You get one childhood. And to have the
memories that these children have, they do not go away. Those
videotapes will play in their minds forever. And we are here to
stand up on behalf of those children, the most vulnerable, so
that children in this generation--future generations will not
have to be in such a hearing and have parents come and tell
their story.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Daines.
Senator Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRIS
Senator Harris. Thank you. I want to thank you, Mr.
Chairman, Senator McCaskill, and this Committee for the work
that you have done. As a career prosecutor, I have personally
handled human trafficking cases, and one of the obvious points
is that these are some of the most voiceless and vulnerable
members of our society, these victims. And I am heartened to
see that these victims have been given the power of the voice
of the U.S. Senate to expose what has been clear and pure
exploitation for profit.
To be clear, this is a crime. It is a crime that is rightly
punishable by incarceration in prison because of the nature of
the harm to the victims and the outrageousness of the conduct
that is predatory in nature.
I am also heartened to hear that these hearings have
exposed the fact that one cannot cowardly sit behind a computer
committing their crime and then suppose that the Communications
Decency Act (CDA) would shield them. Quite the contrary. These
individuals must be held accountable. These allegations must be
given voice. And we have to do all that is right to make sure
that we as a civil society protect always the most vulnerable
among us and not take advantage of them, assuming nobody will
care. These hearings have made clear we care.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Harris.
We would now like to call our first panel of witnesses for
today's hearing. Carl Ferrer is the CEO of Backpage.com.
Michael Lacey is a co-founder of Backpage.com. James Larkin is
a co-founder of Backpage.com. Elizabeth McDougall is the
general counsel of Backpage.com. And, finally, Mr. Andrew
Padilla is the chief operating officer of Backpage.com.
We appreciate your attendance at today's hearing, and I
would ask you to step forward. It is the custom of this
Subcommittee to swear in all witnesses, so at this time I would
ask you to please remain standing and raise your right hand. Do
you swear that the testimony you are about to give before this
Subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Ferrer. I do.
Mr. Lacey. I do.
Mr. Larkin. I do.
Ms. McDougall. I do.
Mr. Padilla. I do.
Senator Portman. Let the record reflect that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative. Please be seated.
I understand from counsel that none of you have prepared
opening statements to offer at this time, so we will move to
questions from the Subcommittee.
Mr. Corn-Revere. Mr. Chairman, might I be recognized to
make a brief statement on behalf of the witnesses?
Senator Portman. You may not. If you are interested in
being part of the panel and being sworn in, we might start a
third panel to hear from you. But, no, we would like to hear
from the witnesses today who have just been duly sworn in.
Mr. Corn-Revere. Could I then request that my statement be
made part of the record?\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The statement of Mr. Corn-Revere appears in the Appendix on
page 114.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Portman. Your statement will be made part of the
record.
Before we begin any questioning, I would like to address
all the witnesses about one important topic. Your lawyers have
advised that you may assert your Fifth Amendment right not to
answer questions that may tend to incriminate you. The
Subcommittee respects the constitutional rights of witnesses
that testify before it. I would ask you to listen to the full
question put before you should you choose to take the Fifth and
before you answer. You should clearly understand that any
statement in response to the question other than an invocation
of that privilege may be treated as a waiver of those Fifth
Amendment rights. The Subcommittee wants to be fair.
The first question I have is for you, Mr. Ferrer. As you
know, the last time you were subpoenaed to testify before us
was in November 2015. You failed to show up. I have some
questions for you about that, but first, just so everybody
understands what happened, let me recap it.
On October 1, 2015, we subpoenaed you to produce documents
and to appear in person to give testimony. The hearing was set
for November 19, 2015. Just three days before the hearing, on
November 16, your lawyers wrote us a letter and asked that you
be excused and for the first time revealed you had planned some
international travel during our hearing. Senator McCaskill and
I denied that request. You had been told in plenty of time to
make plans to appear on that date. Nevertheless, the day before
the hearing, your lawyers wrote back and for the first time
announced that you refused to show up.
Without objection, the correspondence I have described
below will become part of the record of this hearing.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The correspondence submitted by Senator Portman appears in the
Appendix on page 115.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So my first question, Mr. Ferrer, is really a very simple
one. Could you please tell the Subcommittee precisely where you
were and what you were doing during our hearing on November 19,
2015?
TESTIMONY OF CARL FERRER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BACKPAGE.COM
Mr. Ferrer. Is this live? Can you hear me now?
Senator Portman. Yes, I can.
Mr. Ferrer. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and Fifth Amendments.
Senator Portman. OK. I will move on to something else. Mr.
Ferrer, your company has repeatedly avoided liability by
invoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That
has been referenced a couple times here this morning. This act
protects websites who just post content created by third
parties. But our report issued today and posted yesterday
afternoon demonstrates conclusively that your reliance on this
Communications Decency Act section has not been accurate. It
has been a fraud, frankly, on the courts, on the victims who
have sued you, and on the public. Why do I say that? I say that
because Backpage took an active hand in creating the ads on
your site. As I talked about in my opening statement, you
systematically deleted words, phrases, and images submitted by
users that revealed that the posted ad is for an illegal
transaction, not just prostitution but also child sex
trafficking. Documents show that you called the practice
``stripping out'' content from an ad. You even maintained an
extensive Strip Term From Ad list of words that we talked about
earlier.
Let us talk about one of the words on that list:
``Lolita.'' ``Lolita,'' of course, is the title of a book about
a man who becomes sexually involved with a 12-year-old girl.
With that in mind, I want to call your attention to page 156 of
the appendix to the staff report. You should have that in front
of you, page 156. This is an email you wrote to Mr. Padilla
here on November 17, 2010, under the heading ``Items I intend
to implement,'' Item 1c. reads, and I quote, ``Lolita-ban or
strip out (it is code for under aged girl.)"
Let me read that again. It says, and I quote: ``Lolita-ban
or strip out (it is code for under aged girl.)"
Now let us look at page 158 of this same appendix. This is
an email you received from Mr. Padilla explaining that he was
preparing a spread sheet of, and I quote, ``the most current
list of coded terms set to be stripped out.'' We have a copy of
that spread sheet, and it appears in the appendix on page 161.
So my question to you, Mr. Ferrer, in the document in front
of you, you have highlighted one of the many words on that
list. Can you read that highlighted word on that list?
Mr. Ferrer. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and Fifth Amendments.
Senator Portman. OK. In that case, I will read it. The word
is ``Lolita.'' There are some other words on that list:
``teenage,'' ``rape,'' ``young.'' Just so everyone understands,
this is a document listing code words to be stripped out of
advertisements. And the ads were then posted on the Internet,
on Backpage, anyway. So consistent with what we talked about in
the opening statement, this was a way to edit these ads but
still take the payment and profit from the ads.
Next question, Mr. Ferrer: If an underage girl was being
sold for sex on Backpage and her pimp puts the word ``Lolita''
in the advertisement, stripping that term out of the ad does
not magically change the girl's age, does it?
Mr. Ferrer. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and Fifth Amendments.
Senator Portman. OK. We respect your right not to answer,
but let me answer for you. The answer is, of course, no. The
fact that these terms were stripped out through this screening
process does not mean that that girl's age was magically
changed. In fact, what you have done, of course, is to cover up
the fact that many underage girls were sold on your sites,
making it harder for law enforcement, parents, and committed
aid groups to find those kids who need help by stripping out
those words.
Let us move on to the next topic, and that is the ownership
of the company. Mr. Ferrer, our report shows that you own
Backpage.com through a series of Dutch shell companies.
Backpage's tax adviser told our lawyers that structuring the
transaction in that way has no tax advantages to you because
all the money flows back to you here in the United States. So
we wonder: Why did you structure the company in that way? Was
it structured in that way in order to obscure the fact that you
were the buyer of the company?
Mr. Ferrer. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and Fifth Amendments.
Senator Portman. OK. Mr. Ferrer, is it your intention to
invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege with respect to questions
on any topic?
Mr. Ferrer. Yes.
Senator Portman. OK. The Subcommittee, as I said, respects
the assertion of the Fifth Amendment rights, and on that basis
we will be excusing you at the conclusion of this panel.
I would like to turn the questioning over to Senator
McCaskill now.
Senator McCaskill. I am going to have a few questions for
Mr. Padilla.
Mr. Padilla, who is the chief operating officer of the
company. Let me start with a question about the seriousness of
the concerns raised by the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children with your company about child exploitation
on Backpage. This has been an ongoing effort because of the
almost three out of four children reported to the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children who were advertised
through Backpage. So, obviously, this group of people dedicated
to this heart-breaking issue had a great deal of conversation
in an attempt to help these children with your company.
The company's main priority with regard to moderation, even
after consultation with NCMEC, seems to have been combating
overreporting of suspicious ads rather than underreporting. The
documents that we subpoenaed uncovered an email you sent in
July 2011 to a manager of a moderating team stating, ``I agree
that over-cautiousness is as big of a problem as moderators
that miss a lot of violations.''
In fact, Mr. Padilla, an email from you to another Backpage
supervisor seems to imply that Backpage even artificially
limited the number of reports it made to organizations like
NCMEC. You stated, and I quote, in this email: ``If we do not
want to blow past 500 reports this month, we should not be
doing more than 16 a day.''
Now, to be clear, what you are saying is underreport
because we do not want them to know how bad it is.
Can you explain to the Committee what would be the
motivating factor for you telling the people on the front lines
that over-cautiousness when it comes to selling children for
sex could be a problem or why it would be a problem if you
accurately reported the number of ads you were seeing where
children were for sale?
TESTIMONY OF ANDREW PADILLA, CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER,
BACKPAGE.COM
Mr. Padilla. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the Fifth
and First Amendments.
Senator McCaskill. It also appears that when Backpage did,
in fact, take action to moderate adult ads, it did so to remove
evidence of child exploitation, as we have said in our opening
statements. In recent productions to the Subcommittee, Backpage
provided a spread sheet containing the Strip Term From Ad list,
which the Chairman has just referred to; 250 specific terms
were being told to be stripped, including terms such as, in
addition to the ones that the Chairman referred to,
``cheerleader,'' ``teen,'' and even ``Amber Alert,'' meaning
that Backpage has apparently removed certain words and phrases
indicative of child trafficking and child exploitation from the
ads that it then goes on to post.
In fact, in a 2011 email to Mr. Padilla, to you, about the
moderating practices, a Backpage moderator stated, and I quote,
``I had been operating under the assumption before that anytime
we saw the word `young,' we were to edit it out.''
Similarly, in an email to Mr. Ferrer regarding the term
``Amber Alert'' in Backpage ads, you stated, ``I have actually
seen that before, and we have edited it out.''
Mr. Padilla, can you confirm that Backpage and its
moderators routinely edited out ``Amber Alert,'' a term
referring to an emergency alert of a child abduction, from
adult ads?
Mr. Padilla. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the Fifth
and First Amendments.
Senator McCaskill. Mr. Padilla, am I to understand from
your responses that you will invoke your Fifth Amendment right
in response to any and all questions posed to you here today?
Mr. Padilla. Yes.
Senator McCaskill. Let the record reflect that you have
availed yourself of the privileges afforded you under the
Constitution under the Fifth Amendment to not give testimony
that might tend to incriminate you. The Subcommittee respects
your constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment to decline
to answer the questions, and you are excused from the witness
table.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCaskill.
Mr. Larkin, I have a couple questions for you. You said
publicly that you sold Backpage in 2014. Who did you sell
Backpage to?
TESTIMONY OF JAMES LARKIN, FORMER OWNER, BACKPAGE.COM
Mr. Larkin. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and the Fifth Amendment.
Senator Portman. Back in 2014, it was reported that
Backpage was sold to a mysterious Dutch entity, as you know. We
now know that mysterious Dutch entity is actually Mr. Ferrer,
who is here today. We have uncovered that and also information
that you and Mr. Lacey loaned him about 600 million bucks to
buy your company from you. Until he pays off that loan, we also
uncovered that you and Mr. Lacey continue to enjoy significant
control over the company.
Mr. Larkin, do you not still exercise substantial direction
and control over Backpage?
Mr. Larkin. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and the Fifth Amendments.
Senator Portman. OK. Let us talk about the role that you
and Mr. Lacey have played in the concealment practices we have
reported on this morning. As you know, we have reviewed over
one million pages of Backpage's internal documents now. Many of
those documents include extensive discussion of editing
advertisements. Inside the company, that certainly was not a
secret. But it appears that you instructed Mr. Ferrer and
others to make sure it stayed a secret from outsiders.
Backpage's official public statements and public interviews
usually given by Ms. McDougall, whom we will hear from in a
moment, said nothing about Backpage's real moderation system,
deleting words that reveal illegality, posting the
advertisement, and taking the money.
It is not hard to guess why you did not want anybody to
know about that, which brings me to an email you wrote in 2011
to Carl Ferrer. This is on page 432 of the appendix, which you
have before you. You wrote this: ``I want you to think about
any of the information in this being made public. We need to
stay away from the very idea of `editing' the posts, as you
know.''
So, Mr. Larkin, is the reason you needed to ``stay away
from the very idea of `editing' the posts'' that you knew that
editing posts means that you really do not have this protection
under the Communications Decency Act, the immunity that you
have been selling to courts all around the country, meaning
that you could be sued and prosecuted for Backpage's conduct
just like anyone else? Is that the reason that you needed to,
as you said, ``stay away from the very idea of `editing' the
posts''?
Mr. Larkin. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and the Fifth Amendments.
Senator Portman. Mr. Larkin, is it your intention to invoke
your Fifth Amendment privilege with respect to questions on any
topic?
Mr. Larkin. Yes, sir.
Senator Portman. Again, the Subcommittee respects that
assertion of the Fifth Amendment, and on that basis you will be
excused at the conclusion of this panel.
I would now like to recognize Senator McCaskill to ask
further questions.
Senator McCaskill. Mr. Lacey, our investigation reveals
that Backpage knows that there are illegal activities on its
site and is well aware that illegal activity takes place on the
site. Mr. Padilla, for example, threatened with termination an
employee who noticed occurrences of prostitution during his
moderation, threatening his job for leaving notes about
prostitution on the account.
Similarly, Mr. Lacey, notes from a meeting between you and
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2011
State that when the issue of adult prostitution was raised,
you--``lit into me with a vengeance. He said his company agreed
to eliminate underage kids on their site being sold for sex,
but said that adult prostitution is none of my business.''
Given these communications, Mr. Lacey, do you admit that
illegal behavior forms the cornerstone of user activity on
Backpage?
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL LACEY, FORMER OWNER, BACKPAGE.COM
Mr. Lacey. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and Fifth Amendment.
Senator McCaskill. This one is a good one. Mr. Lacey, in
response to an article in 2012 involving a child victim
advertised on your site, you stated in an email that, ``This is
only the second case developed by the Attorney General,'' and
that ``two cases is not yet a tsunami of underage
trafficking.''
You further stated that, after prosecuting these cases and
treating the victims, people should stop ``pandering to
yahoos.''
Yet, according to NCMEC, suspected child sex trafficking
has increased by 846 percent in the last 5 years, and the vast
majority of the child sex trafficking tips they receive involve
Backpage.
Through media reports alone, this Subcommittee has done the
frankly big job of identifying all of the underage cases in
public media of trafficking of children on Backpage. We have
identified more than 400 cases in 47 States linked to Backpage
advertising. And when this illegal activity occurs, Backpage
moderators are not always up to the task.
At the risk of being labeled another ``yahoo,'' Mr. Lacey,
do you acknowledge today for the record that child sex
trafficking is a serious problem on Backpage?
Mr. Lacey. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and Fifth Amendment.
Senator McCaskill. As shown in its document productions,
Backpage routinely hears from concerned parents, relatives, and
friends about ads featuring underage or trafficked loved ones.
But while Backpage employees responded to many of these
complaints, some moderators expressed disbelief toward the
individuals reporting suspected underage ads.
In February 2012, for example, when a moderator asked if
she could delete an ad based on a parent reporting that her
missing underage daughter had been forced into prostitution,
Mr. Padilla stated, and I quote, ``Yes, I think that is doing
enough. We do not always want to remove ads based on user
complaints, but she is not being dramatic.''
Mr. Lacey, I understand that reporting guidelines at
Backpage were vague, but is it a requirement that parents not
be dramatic in order to have ads featuring their underage
children removed from your site?
Mr. Lacey. After consultation with counsel, I decline to
answer your question based on the rights provided by the First
and Fifth Amendment.
Senator McCaskill. Mr. Lacey, am I to understand from your
responses that you will invoke your Fifth Amendment right in
response to any and all questions posed to you here today?
Mr. Lacey. Clearly.
Senator McCaskill. Let the record reflect that you have
availed yourself of the privileges afforded you under the
Constitution's Fifth Amendment not to give testimony that might
tend to incriminate you. The Subcommittee respects your
constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment to decline to
answer questions, and you are excused from the witness table.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCaskill.
Ms. McDougall, I have a few questions for you. Backpage
argued in the courts for the better part of last year that the
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was seeking, and I
quote, ``constitutionally protected documents'' through a
subpoena that ``strikes at the heart of Backpage's editorial
decisionmaking.''
I would like to direct you to a couple documents about that
so-called editorial decisionmaking. The first is the spread
sheet at Appendix 000158. Andrew Padilla in this document
described as the ``most current list of coded words to be
stripped out of adult ads,'' including ``Lolita,'' ``teenage,''
``rape,'' ``young.''
The second document is the spread sheet attached to the
email at Appendix 000329, which outlines additional words that
Backpage stripped from these ads, including ``little girl,''
``teen,'' even ``Amber Alert.'' These are the words Backpage
scrubbed from the ads on its website.
Ms. McDougall, Backpage has argued to the Subcommittee and
again in Federal court the documents we subpoenaed were all
protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution. I went to
law school, so did Senator McCaskill, and we do not remember
learning that instructions to cover up a crime are protected
speech. But you argue that they did.
Ms. McDougall, I would like you to look at the two
documents I just mentioned, the documents about stripping words
like ``rape'' and ``little girl'' from ads before publication,
and tell me whether it is still your opinion that they are
protected by the First Amendment.
TESTIMONY OF ELIZABETH MCDOUGALL, GENERAL COUNSEL, BACKPAGE.COM
Ms. McDougall. After consultation with counsel, I decline
to answer your question based on the rights provided by the
Fifth and the First Amendments, and to the extent any
particular question might require the disclosure of protected
attorney-client communications or attorney work product, I also
decline, relying on the common law privileges.
Senator Portman. Ms. McDougall, do you believe that
Backpage is entitled to immunity under Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act for ads which deletes these kinds of
words?
Ms. McDougall. After consultation with counsel, I decline
to answer your question based on the rights provided by the
Fifth and First Amendments, and to the extent any particular
question might require the disclosure of protected attorney-
client communications or attorney work product, I also decline,
relying on the common law privileges.
Senator Portman. OK. Ms. McDougall, in a sense we are here
today because of your testimony. On June 19, 2015, when you sat
down for an extended interview with our lawyers, you said under
questioning that Backpage sometimes edits out offending words
and images from advertisements. As far as I know, this
Subcommittee is the first to report that information. You never
disclosed that to law enforcement, as I understand it, and you
certainly did not disclose that to the victim plaintiffs in the
many lawsuits against Backpage.
As general counsel since April 2012, you have been
responsible for the company's litigation. Recently, the First
Circuit Court of Appeals, in an opinion joined by retired
Supreme Court Justice David Souter, said that ``a persuasive
case'' had been ``made that Backpage has tailored its website
to make sex trafficking easier.'' But then the court affirmed
the dismissal of the lawsuit under the Communications Decency
Act for the familiar reason that Backpage was just publishing
third-party content and that Congress had made it immune for
that.
My question is this: When Backpage filed its briefs in the
First Circuit case under your supervision, were you aware of
Backpage's practice of altering the content of adult
advertisements by removing evidence of criminality?
Ms. McDougall. After consultation with counsel, I decline
to answer your question based on the rights provided by the
Fifth and First Amendments, and to the extent the particular
question might require the disclosure of protected attorney-
client communications or attorney work product, I also decline,
relying on the common law privileges.
Senator Portman. Ms. McDougall, can you tell us if your
outside litigation counsel in that case was aware of your
editing practices when they signed and submitted the briefs in
that case, convincing the court to throw out the lawsuit on the
theory that Backpage just posts whatever it receives, other
people's content?
Ms. McDougall. After consultation with counsel, I decline
to answer your question based on the rights provided by the
Fifth and First Amendments, and to the extent any particular
question might require the disclosure of protected attorney-
client communications or work product, I also decline, relying
on the common law privileges.
Senator Portman. OK. Well, let me ask you one more
question. I would like to ask you about Backpage's cooperation
with law enforcement. You all talk a lot about that. Here is
what you said, and I quote: ``Accommodation for Backpage.com's
responsiveness and thoroughness with law enforcement
investigations and stings are replete in our records.
Backpage.com responds to law enforcement requests within 24
hours or less in most cases.''
I think one thing is very clear, and it comes out in the
report, and that is that what would assist law enforcement in
their investigations is to have the original unedited
advertisements for the sale of a trafficked child or adult
prostitute as opposed to the altered version that appears on
your website, so providing law enforcement the actual ad that
you received.
Ms. McDougall, when responding to law enforcement requests
or grand jury subpoenas, did you ever tell law enforcement that
ads reported to them may have been sanitized?
Ms. McDougall. After consultation with counsel, I decline
to answer your question based on the rights provided by the
Fifth and First Amendments, and to the extent any particular
question might require the disclosure of protected attorney-
client communications or attorney work product, I also decline,
relying on the common law privileges.
Senator Portman. Ms. McDougall, is it your intention to
invoke your Fifth Amendment privilege with respect to questions
on any topic?
Ms. McDougall. Yes, it is.
Senator Portman. OK. Again, the Subcommittee respects your
assertion of the Fifth Amendment rights, and on that basis we
will excuse you, along with the rest of the panel. That
concludes the questioning of this panel.
Senator McCaskill. If I could, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Yes.
Senator McCaskill. I certainly would invite you to stay and
listen to the testimony of the second panel.
Senator Portman. This concludes the questioning of this
panel. You are excused from the panel based on your assertion
of your Fifth Amendment rights. And, of course, you are welcome
to stay. We encourage you to stay to listen to the next panel.
[Pause.]
We would now like to call our second panel of witnesses.
The second panel represents really the heart and soul of the
Subcommittee's investigation. Before us will be three parents
of survivors who were advertised on Backpage.com. I am only
going to use their first names at their request.
First we have Tom and Nacole S.----
Mr. Pfau. Mr. Chairman, they are in another room and are
being escorted here.
Senator Portman. Yes, we will certainly be patient and
await their entrance. In fact, I am going to wait to describe
them and their interaction with the Subcommittee until they
have arrived.
Mr. Pfau. Thank you.
[Pause.]
Senator Portman. We are now going to call our second panel
of witnesses. Again, I thank the witnesses for joining us here
today. This second panel, as I said earlier, really is the
heart and soul of the investigation of this Subcommittee. We
are going to hear from three parents of survivors. Those
survivors were advertised on Backpage.com, as we have talked
about earlier.
I am only going to use first names today at the request of
the parents and the survivors. We have Tom and Nacole S. with
us. Tom and Nacole are the parents of a young girl we will call
``Natalie.'' Natalie ran away from home at age 15. Shortly
after running away, Natalie was recruited for prostitution and
advertised on Backpage.com. It was a horrific ordeal, but
eventually the local police department was able to recover and
return their daughter to them.
Also on this panel is Kubiiki P. Kubiiki is the mother of a
survivor of online sex trafficking who was also advertised
through Backpage.com. When she was 14 years old, Kubiiki's
daughter ran away from her home in Missouri. Nine months after
her daughter disappeared, Kubiiki discovered ads online selling
her own daughter. It was on Backpage.com. Kubiiki contacted the
website numerous times requesting that they take down the ads
with her daughter, pleading with them. The ads remained on
Backpage for a month and a half.
I really appreciate you all being with us today and being
willing to share your stories. The courage that you have in
speaking up will help other girls, other women, other boys to
be able to avoid the plight that you and your families have
gone through, and I thank you for that.
Without objection, we will also make part of the record the
written testimony submitted by Sara Loe, a pseudonym used for
the mother of another survivor from Massachusetts.\1\
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Loe appears in the Appendix on
page 109.
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I will also enter into the record a letter submitted by her
attorney detailing yesterday's decision by the Supreme Court
denying her petition to review the case.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The letter from Ms. Loe's attorney appears in the Appendix on
page 112.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would ask the witnesses now to please come forward and
remain standing. It is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear
in every witness, and we appreciate your raising your right
hand to be sworn in. Do you swear that the testimony you are
about to give before this Subcommittee will be the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Ms. Nacole S. I do.
Mr. Tom S. I do.
Ms. Kubiiki P. I do.
Senator Portman. Let the record reflect that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative. Please have a seat.
To the witnesses, let me say that your written testimony in
its entirety will be printed in the record, and we would ask
you to limit your opening statement, to about five minutes.
And, Nacole, if it is OK, we are going to start with you. So
thank you for being here, and we look forward to hearing from
you.
TESTIMONY OF NACOLE S.,\3\ MOTHER OF JANE DOE 1
Ms. Nacole S. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and esteemed
members of the Subcommittee.
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\3\ The prepared statement of Ms. Nacole S. appears in the Appendix
on page 48.
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My name is Nacole S., and I want to thank you for the
opportunity to be here today and represent myself and my
family. I also hope I can be a voice for the countless other
families not present here today, but whose lives have been
forever changed by Backpage.com and similar websites that make
their living hiding in the shadows of the law.
Before I get any further, let me first say that I am truly
honored to be addressing you as Members of the U.S. Senate.
Neither I nor my family felt fully equipped to be testifying
here today. We are not lawyers nor politicians. And our
experience with the English language is not nearly as poetic or
profound as other testimony you may hear. But after a lot of
thought and a lot of prayer, we realized that this testimony is
not about poetry. It is about telling a story, our story, and
hoping that what you hear today makes a difference.
It is also about keeping a promise to our daughter to bring
justice to everyone that had wronged her. So instead, for a
moment, let me address you not as politicians, but as mothers
and fathers, aunts and uncles, and grandparents (if you have
been so blessed as I have). These are the credentials that I
can relate to, and you are the people that need to hear my
story.
In 2010, we were a close, loving family. We were realizing
our American dream. We had built something for ourselves more
valuable than money, more important than a big, new house or
new cars in the driveway. We had built three lives, our great
kids, ready to come into their own and make a difference in
this world. Passionate about our children, we wanted and
expected the best. I remember a conversation with a school
guidance counselor who was chastising us about how we were
going about filling out college applications for our son. The
counselor was convinced that our son, a first-generation
college student, would be best served by applying only to local
schools. We, ever reaching, were convinced that he was better
than that. It felt like our stubborn optimism and belief was
rewarded when our son was accepted into a prestigious private
engineering school in New York. We were not surprised at all.
We were so proud of all three of our children, each national
honor roll students, and at the top of their game. Little did
we understand how dramatically our lives would change. In just
a few short months, our American dream would be exchanged for a
Third World nightmare and lead us to question everything.
Our youngest, our baby Natalie, was something special. She
was always the most energetic of our three children, so full of
life and promise. She participated in varsity soccer,
wrestling, and played the violin for her high school
orchestra--all in her freshman year. That was Natalie. She
tried to experience everything. And she was taking high school
by storm in her light-hearted way. She was one of those kids.
And only a family with one of those knows what that means.
Natalie wanted to do everything at once--high energy, and
nothing could contain her zest for life.
Challenging as she was, she was exceeding every possible
expectation a parent could have. It was amazing to be a part
of, and none of us could have predicted that her innocent,
carefree attitude was about to take her down a path that would
shake our family to its very core. At the time, our family
dynamic had changed, our son off to college, and her older
sister was distracted by her own concerns. Natalie was
struggling to find her place in her new world.
Looking back, we understand that our daughter was burning
the candle at both ends, struggling with all of the sudden but
inevitable changes that were occurring. While they were good
things to us, they were confusing and difficult for her. All we
saw was an exceptional young lady doing exceptional things. But
Natalie, in her own way, was sending out signals. It is easy to
see now because of all the painful retrospection that comes
with a tragedy, but impossible to see then.
She made the implausible decision to leave the safety of
our home. She wrote a letter, five pages long, telling us how
wonderful her family was and that she loved us. But ``finding
herself'' was the gist of the letter, and, of course, for us
not to worry. Not certain of her choice, Natalie shared the
letter with a friend, and like a sick game of telephone, it
circulated the school. Now it was not just a letter, but a
dare. It was her reputation at stake. So, backed into a corner,
she left.
Making her way to Seattle, she found herself in a teen
homeless shelter. A woman there, 22, and posing as a teen, must
have immediately noticed Natalie as an easy target. As smart as
Natalie was, she had no idea of the danger she was in. And as a
parent, it is hard to talk about what happened next. I cannot
imagine her fear and bewilderment at what was happening to her
as she was repeatedly raped, beaten, threatened, and treated
like a sexual object every day, all while being posted on an ad
on Backpage. I honestly try not to think about it. I can only
tell you that when we finally got Natalie back for good, months
later, the young girl we found was not the same Natalie that
had left our home months earlier. I literally did not recognize
her. Her appearance had changed so much. Her hair was cut and
dyed. Of course, she was wearing different clothes. She did not
even sound like herself anymore. Everything she was saying was
incomprehensible to me. Our Natalie was gone. That was the
beginning of our six-year odyssey to get here, to our new
American dream.
Our new dream is simple: to live in an America that does
not stand aside while little girls like our daughter, Natalie,
at 15, are sold online like a commodity, purchased with all the
same convenience you would expect from an order on Amazon and
always returned as damaged human beings, forever changed by
their tragedy.
It is time to accept that child sex trafficking has entered
the digital age and has been embraced by it. The loose moral
code and ``sisterhood'' of the streets is gone. There is no
protection or accountability, and no escape. The same speed and
anonymity that attracts so many to the Internet has made it a
hotbed for the ugliest human behaviors, at the forefront of
which are websites like Backpage.com. Backpage and similar
sites have changed the rules of engagement for people who
purchase children for sex. Any semblance of risk has been taken
from the process. All the dark street corners have been
replaced with the familiarity and comfort of the computer
screens, and these men now make their illicit transactions from
the safety of their homes, secure in the fact that no one is
watching.
While Backpage may wish to pretend that they are simply the
virtual street corner in this metaphor, inanimate and
blameless, that simply is not true. They are complicit. They
are more like the corrupt authority figure, paid to look the
other way--and paid well, I might add--reporting a few
suspicious advertisements every year to feign compliance or
concern, all while letting thousands of others slip by. We have
reason to believe that their level of involvement goes further
still to enable and streamline the process of illegal
prostitution and child sex trafficking on their website, and
yet so far they have gotten away with it.
The question is: How? How could such a horrific, morally
bankrupt business model find success in our America? Backpage
and its facilitators continue to operate as they do because
they feel the same level of immunity as the purchasers of
children for sex sitting behind their computer screens, because
they also believe they are protected. Hiding behind old laws
and the mantra that somehow any action on the Internet is free
speech, they carry on unabashedly while children like our
daughter are repeatedly raped day after day. They claim to be
protecting First Amendment rights, while at the same time
allowing my little girl, a young bright-eyed resident of an
all-American neighborhood, to be sold on their website as a
``Weekend Special.''
I ask you now: Where were her rights to be heard? What
immunity was there from these unspeakable acts or from the
damage that it caused her and our family? It is time to admit
the truth to ourselves that this was never about protecting the
Constitution. This is about abusing constitutional protection
for greed and gain, no matter the consequences. In reality,
Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer is no warrior for free speech. He is
just another pimp, one who happens to have a lot of expensive
lawyers on retainer.
My family believes in a just America. We believe that, in
time, our government and our people will realize that the moral
cost of the current path is too high. We would like to ask this
Subcommittee, the parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents
present here today: How long? How long until the changes are
made to prevent what happened to our daughter from happening to
another child? Because it has been six years for us. And while
my family has not rested, neither has the evil that took our
Natalie from us. Please do not let another innocent child be
sold in America in an online advertisement and let their spirit
be crushed.
I have heard it said many times that the Communications
Decency Act does not need a rewrite to prevent another tragedy
like the one that befell my family, just a few words, carefully
crafted. A few words to end online child sex trafficking in our
country, so that we can honestly and with pride say that we
live in the land of the free.
I would like to thank you for your time on behalf of my
family, and I would also like to thank the dozens, if not
hundreds, of people who have helped to get us this far over the
years. Only with their help have we had the strength to
continue this cause.
Thank you.
Senator Portman. Nacole, thank you, and I would say to your
statement earlier that your statement was not going to be as
poetic or profound as others, I do not think we have had a
witness before this Subcommittee that was as profound as that.
And it was poetic in your own way, and thank you for your
willingness to testify to a lot of pain that your family has
gone through.
Tom, we would like to hear from you.
TESTIMONY OF TOM S.,\1\ FATHER OF JANE DOE 1
Mr. Thomas S. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and esteemed
Members of the Subcommittee.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Tom S. appears in the Appendix on
page 51.
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I am a husband, father, and grandfather. I am a simple man,
raising his family. I now find myself in this fight, mainly in
support of my wife and daughter. Until today I have been in the
background, but I am here today because I do not see any future
prospect of living a life where we do not have to mention this
ordeal we have been living at least once a day.
I can tell you that I was very intimidated and awestruck
thinking about what to say here today to our American
leadership. How can I tell you anything, describe anything in a
way that could make a change? I am humbled at that idea. I have
watched my wife with respect and pride, trucking along in this
incomprehensible battle against long odds, a true David and
Goliath fight. I am not as optimistic and hopeful as she is,
and let me tell you why.
During this six-year nightmare, two things have struck me:
First, that somehow children have become a bargaining chip.
They have become bystanders in the outcome of a fight that has
been labeled as being about Internet freedom and they are just
collateral damage in the huge industry of modern convenience
that we all enjoy online. I cannot bring myself to accept that
these kids are just the cost of doing business in today's
world.
Second, I have been disgusted and shocked by the commitment
and stance that Backpage has taken, that Backpage somehow
thinks it has the right to sell my child, and that the First
Amendment gives them the right to do so and there is nothing
anyone can do about it. And this is not just their business
opinion. They are shouting this argument from every court in
the country. I cannot believe the contempt and lack of humanity
they have taken. Not only do they admit to selling kids and
human beings, they have doubled down to protect their right to
do so. They are committed to selling people on the Internet.
How can it be that we are even debating this here today?
Backpage hides behind the Communications Decency Act, and
they collect their money, all the while pretending to support
the lofty, high-minded principles of the First Amendment. Even
more amazing is that they usually win.
In my mind, it is simple. What happened to my daughter on
Backpage.com is criminal. What happens to every child sold for
sex on Backpage.com is criminal. Children are not acceptable
collateral damage. They are our hope, our future, America's
conscience.
Now that I know you have heard our story, I know you can do
something to prevent any more children from paying this
horrible price.
Thank you.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Tom. I appreciate that, and we
will have a chance to have further dialogue in a moment here
with the Senators.
Kubiiki, thank you for being here. We look forward to
hearing from you.
TESTIMONY OF KUBIIKI P.,\1\ MOTHER OF JANE DOE 2
Ms. Kubiiki P. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and
esteemed Members of the Subcommittee.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Kubiiki P. appears in the
Appendix on page 53.
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In 2009 and 2010, when my daughter, M.A., was 14 years old,
she was sexually trafficked on Backpage.com. The Backpage ads
of my daughter had nude and sexually explicit photos of her.
The ads were posted on Backpage to advertise my daughter for
sex with adults.
Backpage was aware that explicit and pornographic
photographs were on its website. They also knew that some
escort ads on their site were for children, like my daughter,
who were being trafficked. I know this because after my
daughter was recovered, ads with her photos continued to be re-
posted on Backpage, causing her significant distress. I called
Backpage numerous times and explained that I was the mother of
the child pictured in these sexually explicit ads. And I
explained that my child had been sexually and physically abused
by being trafficked on Backpage. And I begged for them to
remove the photos. Eventually, the ads were no longer posted,
but Backpage did not remove them immediately after I called
those numerous times.
My daughter was trafficked on Backpage for months at a
time, and what she went through on a daily basis is still
unimaginable to me. And it would be unimaginable to most of us
in this room. Still, it was not until after she was recovered
and brought back home to me that I started to realize the full
extent of the trauma she suffered and the impact her suffering
from being trafficked on Backpage would have on my entire
family.
In 2010, when my daughter was recovered, I was living in
St. Louis with my other children. M.A. had been missing for
nine months, and then all of a sudden we had her back. But what
was happiness initially turned into a world of craziness
because we found ourselves in a world without adequate support
and professional resources to help us. At that time, there were
no resources for child sex trafficking victims in the general
area where I lived. I feel so fortunate that I was able to
connect with smaller organizations from other parts of the
country who supported my daughter and me. They were a lifeline
to me at this time, but their resources were limited. And I was
able to benefit from their help only because I was lucky enough
to find their services. But I think of all the families who
were not so lucky.
Even with the help I did receive, the pain our family
suffered was immense. My other children did not know how to
process what had happened to M.A. or how to help to support
her. Our community did not understand the exploitation she
suffered. The news reports of the arrest and trial of my
daughter's trafficker further publicized her trauma.
This continuing trauma that was caused by my daughter's
very public trafficking on Backpage kept her from having a path
forward to heal when she came home to us. She turned inward
instead, to silence and self-blame. And I quickly realized that
if my family was going to have a chance to heal together, we
needed to move to a new city and a new State where we could
find resources for my daughter and more support for me as a
mother to help my daughter and my children to move forward.
We are still in the process of healing, even now eight
years later. But I am here today and still talking about our
experience because it is so important for everyone to
understand what we went through and to talk about what can be
done to help children like my daughter.
First, there must be stronger laws to protect children
against exploitation. There is no other way to state this: The
laws must be strengthened. If there are loopholes or if the
laws are outdated or misinterpreted, then these gaps must be
fixed. No child should ever have to endure what my daughter
went through. And I say this because I know that even now,
eight years, later children continue to be trafficked for sex
on Backpage.
But we just do not need new laws. We need more coordinated
support for victims and their families at the Federal, State,
and local level. This includes coordinated support from
government agencies and private social services. When my
daughter was recovered, I could not easily find the right
services to help her heal. And I know these services would not
have undone the damage that was done or the trauma she
suffered, but they would have helped her start a path to
recovery that even now, as an adult, she struggles with on a
daily basis.
We also need a more coordinated legal process among
Federal, State, and local prosecutors when a child is
trafficked. We need new laws and processes to make sure that
every child that is a victim of trafficking and is exploited
receives restitution from everyone who harms them. The limited
process for court-ordered restitution that exists today does
not work.
My daughter's trafficker has been in and out of jail. The
court ordered her to pay restitution to my daughter, but she
has paid nothing, and there is no process to help me collect
this restitution. As you know, when I tried to get restitution
from Backpage for being involved and profiting from the escort
ads of my daughter's body being sold for sex, they rejected my
case. Like the trafficker who was paid from the sale of my
child's body, Backpage was allowed to pocket all the money from
this crime, but my daughter has never received any restitution
for her victimization.
Another rarely discussed issue is the need for more social,
psychological, and emotional support for the exploited children
and their families. My family was so isolated after this
happened, and it was devastating. The family of a child who has
been trafficked and exploited needs a lot of help to manage
their economic needs, family dynamics, and emotional
functioning.
Today my daughter is back home with me. I cherish the
ability to hold her and help her as she works through
challenges toward a better future. But I still do not have any
answers to explain why this happened to her or why everyone
responsible for hurting her and causing her trauma has not been
held responsible. Meanwhile, I know children continue to go
missing, are lured and run away, and too easily can become
another escort ad on Backpage.com.
When I first started to talk about my family's experience,
I was depressed and taken aback to find out how little the
public knew about child exploitation. They did not understand
that child sex trafficking happens here and everywhere in this
country. They did not realize that every child can be
vulnerable at one point or another. And it scares me that
children are not taught how vulnerable they are to this crime
and what they can do to protect themselves.
We need real prevention and awareness programs on
trafficking and exploitation. Anywhere that children and
parents interact--including schools and churches, hospitals,
community centers, police and social service agencies--should
disseminate prevention and awareness information. We need the
public and children to understand that the crime of child sex
trafficking happens. It can happen to children everywhere. And
it is never a child's fault when they are forced into
trafficking. Prevention and awareness would increase empathy in
our communities and help children like mine and families like
mine feel supported in their time of greatest need.
I would like to thank you for your time today and also
thank you on my daughter's behalf. Having lived with this issue
for the past eight years, I can tell you that we still need
real changes to help our children and to make sure no child is
ever sold again on Backpage.
I hope you will continue your efforts.
Senator Portman. Kubiiki, thank you for your willingness to
share your family's story, and to each of you, Tom, Nacole, and
Kubiiki, thank you for your advocacy for not just your
daughters but for children everywhere. And as Kubiiki talked
about, advocacy, prevention, awareness, treatment, prosecution,
Tom talked about these are kids, not collateral damage;
Kubiiki, you talked about how we cherish our children. That is
ultimately what this is about.
Your testimony also helps us as a practical matter to
understand how the current laws are affecting families and our
constituents, and reference was made to the Communications
Decency Act a lot today in the earlier panel and in our opening
statements. That is an example of that.
What I am going to do is turn to my colleagues for
questions. I will be around here until the end, and a lot of
them have patiently listened today, and I want them to have the
chance to talk a little bit and to ask questions of you all.
Again, it was profound, Nacole, and we appreciate your being
here.
With that, I will turn to Ranking Member McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. First, I want thank the three of you
from the bottom of my heart. There is no harder task than
feeling helpless when your child is in the kind of pain that
your children have been in. And I think you have been
incredible role models to the rest of the country today, and
your courage is very admirable.
I also will turn over the questioning to my colleagues. I
will also be here until the end. But I do think it is important
that we provide some input today on the resources that are out
there, because right this moment there is a family somewhere
who cannot find their daughter, does not know where she is, and
has the worst sinking feeling that the very worst, unimaginable
things are happening to her. And if we can do nothing more
today than hold the people accountable on the first panel and
give more information to families with your testimony today,
then I think we have put in a good day's work here. And you are
huge part of that, so thank you very much. And I will also
defer to the other members of the Subcommittee.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCaskill.
The order that we have from arrival at the hearing is
Senators Hassan, Tester, Heitkamp, Harris, Daines, Johnson. We
will start with Senator Hassan.
Senator McCaskill. She left.
Senator Portman. I should have looked over there. Senator
Tester.
Senator Tester. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank
you and Senator McCaskill. But, more importantly, I thank you
guys. The strength and power of your testimony is amazing to me
you are able to sit here and do this, because of the pain, the
hatred, the anger, the concern, all these emotions that have to
be flowing through your heads at this time.
But what I really want to say is that the solution to these
problems, since you have been through it, unfortunately, is
doing what you have done today and continuing to tell your
story so that we as policymakers can do things like work to get
you the resources you need when these horrible things happen,
and do everything we can do to prevent them from happening
initially.
You never quit loving your kids. It does not matter if they
are newborns or 25 years old. Just they are always your kids.
And I just cannot thank you enough for what you are doing. The
truth is that we all need information. This is something nobody
wants to even think about. It is horrible. But you being here
today and being able to talk about what is happening to you and
your family and your children is going to be helpful in finding
a solution to preventing this from ever happening again and
making sure that you have the kind of resources you need.
I just have one question for you, Kubiiki, and it dealt
with your statement. You said that you approached Backpage with
getting you resources, because all that stuff costs a ton of
money, and it was rejected. Was it rejected by Backpage or was
this a court rejection?
Ms. Kubiiki P. This was a court rejection. In 2010, I filed
a lawsuit against Backpage.com asking them to--first, I must
tell you that the lawsuit never would have come about had they
removed the pictures of my daughter when I called and asked.
Senator Tester. Right.
Ms. Kubiiki P. And because they did not, I sought out legal
help to make them remove the photos. Only then did I realize
that this is what child trafficking is. Only then did I
understand that. But it was in the court of law that my case
was denied.
Senator Tester. OK. I just think that every one of us up on
this rostrum believe strongly in the Constitution and the
protections it gives, but it should never be a document that is
used to protect child traffickers or prostitution. And so we
hear you. This will not be resolved tomorrow, but I think if we
work on it all together, we can get resolution to this problem,
at least in part.
Thank you all very much for your strength.
Senator Portman. Senator Heitkamp.
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you so much, and thank you so much
for your courage and for your advocacy for not just your
children but children across America. That is who you are
sitting there representing today, not just your child but all
the children that we as adults promise we will fight to
protect, because they are all our kids.
One point that I want to make, because I think sometimes
people maybe do not appreciate, but there but for the grace of
God goes anyone in this room who could be in your chair. You
are not unique. This can happen in any family. And until we
really get people to appreciate and understand that, we will
not build the army that we need because Backpage is a small
part of this. If Backpage goes away tomorrow, which we would
all love, there will be another Backpage. There will be another
run at this. And if we do not stay vigilant together, if we do
not walk together, if we do not fight together, if we do not
believe that we can conquer this problem together, we will not
do our job as adults in America.
And so we sit here with no greater power than those of you
who sit at this table and those of us who are in this room. No
one has greater power. But together we have the most power to
prevent this from ever happening. And the invisibility--I
think, Nacole, you said it so correctly. This is no longer the
street corner where we can look, where law enforcement can
drive by and say, ``I do not think that is a kid that is
volunteering to be out here.'' This is no longer the street
corner. The street corner now is digital. And until we start
exposing all of the wrong that happens to children in this
digital media and stop standing behind inappropriately
important constitutional protections in this country, we will
surely fail.
And so I want to tell you that we are in this fight with
you and no one here is giving up. No one from the McCain
Institute is giving up; Cindy is not giving up. Kamala is not
giving up. We are not giving up, because there is a way to do
this. And as smart as their lawyers think they are, we are
pretty smart, too. And we have a whole lot of people behind us
who are thinking how we are going to get this done.
But we need to figure out the second piece of this. There
are two other pieces: prevention and recovery. And you all have
spoken so eloquently today about recovery and about services.
We have been trying to reauthorize the Runaway and Homeless
Youth Program because a critical piece of this is making sure
kids--Nacole, tragically, I am so upset at how your daughter
was courted and got into this was in a shelter. So what do we
need to educate shelter workers that this can never happen,
that they have to be more vigilant about preventing this. What
can we do to get more kids off the street? What additional
resources do you think would be valuable in the prevention
side? And I would ask anyone on the panel.
Ms. Kubiiki P. Well, I would say as far as prevention,
every kid has a cell phone now. Every kid has access to this
evil and this evil has access to them. Prevention would
probably start with educating them about the way that predators
are able to contact them and to ease their way into their
lives.
Just the other day, some grown man comes into my daughter's
Snapchat DM. It is very easy for people to pick and choose.
When social media sites post the pictures, you are choosing to
post your pictures, and then there is a predator on the other
side behind that screen that is preying on these kids. But if
you do not teach your children--because that is Ground Zero
right there, teaching the children and teaching them at an
early enough age--just like sex education, you are teaching
that in school. Why not offer an Internet class to teach these
children how to navigate through this world that we are all
still trying to figure out, we are all still having a problem
with it? But we can do all we want, but they are the victims.
And so you have to educate them at that level.
Ms. Nacole S. I would agree that earlier prevention
techniques at a much younger age, because you have children as
young as eight or nine that are getting cell phones. Even
though there are parent protections on there, children are very
smart and can find their way around that, so starting
prevention at a much younger age.
Also, first responders. My daughter in my case was arrested
twice prior to being recovered, both times held in adult jail
and both times released back to her trafficker. So first
responders, people that come in contact with these young girls
or young men in hospitals or on the street need to be educated
on what they are looking for.
Also, having in place--in my case, upon recovery, she was
taken immediately to the emergency room for all the testing
that you would find reasonable--AIDS, sexually transmitted
diseases, pregnancy. And the resource I was given at that visit
was a pamphlet on domestic violence and told to have a nice day
and there was nothing they could do for me. ``I am sorry. She
has had too many partners. We cannot do a rape kit.'' OK. This
was not domestic violence. There was no resource outside of
that in my community that was given to me that said you need to
call this person. That is where the case was left, right there.
Senator Heitkamp. Right. If I can just indulge, Senator
Collins and I have a bill called SOAR, which is to do better
training for emergency room and medical responders. But every
suggestion that you have, every thought that you have is
valuable as we navigate not just the enforcement piece of this,
but as we navigate the prevention and recovery piece of this,
which we all have to be in together.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for indulging some extra time.
Senator Portman. Senator Harris.
Senator Harris. I just want to thank you all for the
courage that you have shown. One of the points that you have
made so clearly and must be made continuously is these are
children.
The images that are depicted on Backpage are purposely
presented in a way that suggests that they may be adults. But
as any of us know who have children, even if that girl is
physically developed, as soon as she starts talking, you know
she is a child. And the reality of it is that, as Senator
Heitkamp said, these are not only your children; they are the
children of our community. They are all of our children. And so
we all have a responsibility to protect them as children.
Your voices as their parents are so important to making
that point clear. And as difficult as it is for you to have the
courage to expose yourselves and your family's story by sharing
with us what has happened, you are being a voice for so many
others out there that cannot be in this room, do not know where
this room is, do not know this room might be a safe place for
them. And in that way, you all are doing the work on behalf of
people who are never going to know your name, people you will
never meet.
So keep fighting. And no matter how big Backpage might
pretend itself to be--they walk around thumping their chest--we
are bigger, and there are more of us who are on this side of
it. So let us keep fighting. It is an uphill battle to be sure,
but we are always on the side of right when we are fighting to
protect our children.
And, yes, this is a new world because of technology. This
stuff usually happened on the street. It now facilitates,
because of technology, coward both in terms of those who
traffic and those who buy other human beings who are children.
And so we are going to have to adjust to this new world
with our laws, with our procedures and policies and practices,
but you all as the parents of these children are going to
continually give us a reminder and a conscience and the courage
to fight for what is right. So I just want to thank you. I
really do thank you.
Thank you.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Harris.
Again, to our witnesses, you are here talking about
Backpage, but you also have the opportunity to speak to this
broader issue of how do we help with prevention and increase
awareness, which I think this hearing has done just by us
talking about these issues, and how do we improve recovery
services and be sure that people are held accountable.
One of the things that I found most disturbing about your
testimony was the fact that you saw your daughter online, that
you knew it was your daughter. And yet the website, Backpage,
refused to take down the ad. So as a father and an uncle, I
just cannot imagine the frustration, the pain you must have
felt. And I am not going to ask you to recount anything that
you are uncomfortable with, but if you could just talk a little
about what happened. When you called them and said, ``My
daughter is on your website being sold for sex, my 14-year-old
daughter,'' what did they say? What happened?
Ms. Nacole S. I am going to defer to Kubiiki because in my
case we were looking at the wrong website. I had never heard of
Backpage.com.
Senator Portman. Most people have not.
Ms. Nacole S. We were looking on Craigslist because we were
at the end of 2010 and Craigslist was still up. So although my
husband was checking Craigslist, we were on the wrong website.
So I never contacted Backpage about my daughter being exploited
there, but I know she did, and I am going to let her speak to
her experience.
Senator Portman. Kubiiki, tell us what happened.
Ms. Kubiiki P. I do not remember the date, but maybe it was
about 4:00 in the morning, and I had used Backpage on a regular
basis like the classified ad site that it is or that I assumed
it to be, and I had sold old toys, and items that my kids never
really liked, clothes. And so I was familiar with Backpage but
had never even paid attention that they had that escort
section. And it was only when my husband asked me if I went
through the pictures on Backpage that I began to look, and it
shocked me because what I had seen on Craigslist, even though
they shuttered their escort section, I still knew that there
was human trafficking going on on that site.
But to look at the way Backpage had made it look so pretty,
they give the options to put bows and buttons and smiley faces
to give the appearance that it is a young person without saying
so. I got to the third ad on the page that I pulled up and knew
that it was my daughter even though I had not seen her face. I
knew because of a tattoo that when I saw her at the grocery
store while she was missing, trying to catch her, I said,
``What is that on your hand?'' And she snatched away. So I knew
when I saw this tattoo that it was my daughter. But it was not
until the third day when the new pictures came up with her
face, her body nude with an adult woman, that I realized
exactly what was going on, because I could not wrap my brain
around it at first. And I called Backpage and I spoke to a lady
that answered the phone who asked me what she felt were very
important questions, if I had proof or identification that this
was my daughter, if I knew that this was my daughter, how did I
know that this was not someone else. They assumed this to be an
adult--all while I am trying to keep my composure and say to
them, ``Hey, please, take these pictures down. This is my baby.
She is hurt.''--We can talk about the physical damage that she
suffered when she came home to me, my daughter had been burned
maybe about 60 percent of her back with cigarette butts. Her
scalp had been burned. Her hair had been shaved. We can talk
about all of that. But right now, eight years later, the pain
is so intense. There has been no true healing. And the way that
the programs are set up--and I would say that I was there kind
of at the beginning when there were no programs. But to see how
far it has come and to realize that you are still missing key
elements. You are still missing that when this damaged child
comes back home, the community that surrounds this child is
still not educated, so they are placing blame. The children
inside this home, the siblings to this victim, do not
understand because they are not educated. The parents feel
guilt. A lot of people place blame on the fathers because they
are not educated.
So if there is anything to be said of this whole situation,
it is that knowledge is the key component that is keeping us in
this clutch of people going back and forth, because they do not
truly understand. But if you make them understand--I see how
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, how that campaign just kind of
went everywhere and people understood, and it is like, hey, we
are all on the same team. But there are so many people that
still make the statement, ``Well, a person should have the
choice to sell their body,'' when we are not even talking about
adults, we are talking about children. So, clearly, there is a
disconnect. There is not enough conversation about what our
future is going to look like if we keep destroying our
children. And Backpage, they are playing a very large role in
that. And not saying that it is not going to happen again, not
saying that it is not going to happen on a different site. Just
saying that if you make people feel the fear of the
repercussions from the damage that they do, then maybe they
will think about it, because Backpage is not thinking about it.
They are just saying, because of my Fifth Amendment rights I am
not going to say--you know what I am saying? It is like they do
not care, there is no remorse. But all of you have the power to
start the programs and to lead this into a different direction.
Senator Portman. Kubiiki, as we talked about, based on the
evidence that we were able to uncover finally, it is all about
the money. It is all about the profit. So my understanding is
when you first called and you talked to that woman on the
phone, didn't she also say to you, ``Did you post that ad?''
Ms. Kubiiki P. Yes, she said, ``Did you pay for it? Do you
have the credit card that paid for this ad?''
Senator Portman. And she basically was saying, ``Unless you
paid for the ad, we cannot take it down.'' And, wow, after a
mother calls and says, ``That is my baby,'' the response is,
``Did you pay for this ad?'' Is that what happened?
Ms. Kubiiki P. Yes, sir. And they hung up numerous times. I
called many times, going off, being very angry. I understood
the reason why they stopped answering my calls. I got it. But
it still did not make them take the pictures down. So they did
not get it.
Senator Portman. This is, again, a hearing focused on
Backpage. As you say, they are a big player in this. Probably
80 percent or more of the commercial sex business is on this
one site now. And the fact that they took down their adult
section last night, as the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children said last night, that will save some kids.
That will help. But it is not the ultimate answer because even
if they continue to keep this site down, other sites will crop
up, including some other sites that are connected to Backpage.
And so we have a broader responsibility here.
There is an increased awareness here in the U.S. Senate, as
Senator Heitkamp, Senator McCaskill, Senator Harris, and others
have talked about, and that is good. We have a caucus now on
human trafficking. We have more Senators who understand it. We
have some good legislation that was passed about a year and a
half ago now on prosecution of those engaged, increasing that
level, more resources for recovery, treating these victims as
victims, not as criminals, which is just a paradigm shift. But
it is also expanding, I would say even exploding. It is the
dark side of the Internet, right? And the victims I talk to
almost to a person tell me, ``Rob, it has gone from the street
corner to the iPhone.'' And this is where you see this huge
increase. And drugs play a big role, too, in my home State, and
specifically making young people dependent on drugs. And that
is part of the human trafficking, modern-day slavery aspect of
this, is that dependency, and not just on drugs. It goes beyond
that. But this is why I think we need to do new things both on
the community front in terms of the prevention, awareness, and
the better recovery services and educating the first responders
and those who are dealing with this issue day to day in
emergency rooms and others, but also in terms of the legal
environment.
And so we will talk about this in the closing in just a
moment, but Senator McCaskill and I are committed to continuing
this effort, not just this one specific goal of uncovering
information that was not previously known about Backpage that
will help us to be able to pursue actions against them and keep
them accountable, but this broader effort of, as Nacole said at
the start, looking at the laws differently because we have a
different environment now, and the laws have not kept up in my
view.
With that, I will turn it over to Senator McCaskill for
questions.
Senator McCaskill. I actually do not have any additional
questions, but I would take a moment at this point in time, Mr.
Chairman, to make just a few closing comments. Most
importantly, I want to put on the record a couple of phone
numbers. The National Human Trafficking hotline is 1-888-373-
7888, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children is 1-800-THE-LOST, 1-800-843-5678.
I should also mention the McCain Institute. It does a lot
of work in this area and would be happy to help anyone who is
in that incredibly dark place where they have lost their child
and do not know where to turn.
I certainly know that my office and the other Senators'
offices are always available to try to help and make sure that
the right resources are made available, and I really appreciate
the point you all have made about resources after the fact. I
mean, Humpty Dumpty is on the wall. Humpty Dumpty falls off the
wall. And then no one is there to help put Humpty Dumpty back
because it is hard and it takes extended time and effort, and
many families are just not ready to handle that burden because
they do not know the right thing to do. They do not know
whether to wrap up their child in cotton batting and make sure
they never go anywhere or to be more open and accepting. It is
just really tough, and we have found this over the years with
so many sexual assault victims that the lack of resources is
really a huge problem. And I remain committed to making sure
that we are doing everything we can from where I sit on that.
I also want to make sure today, as we near the end of this
hearing, that people read this report who are in the field, and
not just the Executive Summary. There is a treasure trove of
evidence in this report. As someone whose job it was for many
years to make sure I had enough evidence to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that someone had committed a crime, I want to
send a very clear message to police, to local prosecutors, to
U.S. Attorneys, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
to Attorneys General across this country that there is evidence
in this report that can assist you in holding people
accountable for what has gone on to young women and young men
across this country. What we have been able to do is put in one
place a lot of information that would have caused a different
result in lots of lawsuits across this country and lots of
decisions that were made by local prosecutors as to whether or
not there was an actionable file in terms of criminal
prosecution.
So I hope that this is not one of these reports that goes
quietly into the night. I hope this become a go-to resource for
prosecutors, police, and other people that enforce our laws
across this country. I am confident that there is sufficient
evidence here to hold some of the people responsible for this
accountable in ways that have been very frustrating to the
families.
And then, finally, I want to thank the staff. Sometimes it
is hard when you are working in a bipartisan way because, I
have ideas and I tell my staff this is what I want, and Senator
Portman has ideas and tells his staff this is what he wants.
And sometimes it is not identical, and you have to keep talking
and you have to keep communicating and you have to work out
differences. And particularly because this was challenging in
terms of the roadblocks we faced, I just want to commend the
staff. Keep in mind, someone looked at over a million pages of
documents. They did not get consumed by some software program.
There were people who put in long hours on this staff, both
Republican staff and Democratic staff, to produce this report.
And I stand in awe of their public service. I am sick and tired
of everybody who works for the government being a bad guy.
There are some amazing, dedicated public servants that work and
get paid by your tax dollars, and this is a great example of a
group of them that have worked hard and done the right thing,
and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCaskill. And, again,
I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today on this last
panel. You have made a nice contribution to the inquiry and,
more importantly, your testimony is going to help to inform us
going forward on some of these legislative challenges that we
have here.
This concludes our fact finding on the Backpage matter, and
it is a fitting finale for Senator McCaskill who you just heard
from as the Ranking Member. As you may have heard, she is
moving up in the world. She will now be the ranking Democrat on
the full Committee, and so we are going to lose her as Ranking
Member of the Permanent Subcommittee. But I am proud of the
important work we have done together. She has been a good
teammate. As she said, we may not always agree in terms of some
of our objectives, but we have managed to come together and
figured out ways to get things done in a number of
investigations, including this one. I am looking forward to
working with our new Ranking Member, who will be Senator
Carper, the former Ranking Member of the full Committee. And he
and I are committed to maintaining PSI's reputation for
rigorous, bipartisan fact finding wherever it leads.
And I think this investigation has been a great example of
that. Two years ago, Senator McCaskill and I set out on this
mission. We knew that online sex trafficking was a serious and
growing problem. To be frank, we did not know enough about how
it worked, nor did anybody, because so much of it had been
hidden. And now, thanks to this investigation, we know that the
largest online marketplace for trafficking, as we heard today
in the summary of our report, has done a number of things. It
clearly was done to conceal criminal activity. Advertisements
were deliberately sanitized to conceal evidence of
prostitution, to conceal evidence of child trafficking.
We know Backpage has hid its systematic editing practices
from the public for years while convincing the courts and
Congress it was just a host for third-party content, entitled
to an immunity under Federal law for that reason.
We know now that Backpage's claims to be cooperative with
law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children were misleading.
We know now who really owns Backpage--its CEO and original
founders still do--and that it is widely reported sale to a
Dutch entity was really just a ruse, probably designed to
simply launder the money that Backpage was making on illegal
advertisements through a Dutch company.
All this will help us and help our colleagues enormously as
we consider these changes to Federal law, Federal spending
priorities, as we talked about today, as we continue this
obvious need to combat the challenge of child trafficking
online.
But I must tell you this. It seems likely that Backpage has
been breaking the law as it exists right now, so, I do not
think we have to go and reform legislation in order to find
culpability here. Based on the evidence we have collected and
the testimony we have received at our two hearings on this
subject, Senator McCaskill and I will promptly consider whether
to refer this matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and to
State Attorneys General across the country for further
investigation.
Before we close, I have something to say--and I think
Senator McCaskill agrees with me--about the conduct of the
lawyers who have appeared before the Subcommittee in this case.
As you know, subjects and witnesses in an investigation have an
absolute right to hire lawyers to represent them zealously,
represent their interests, defend their constitutional and
legal rights, as we saw today. We respect that. But I will say
that Senate committees also have the right to expect something
of the bar as well. We expect candor. And in this case, it has
become apparent that many of the lawyers for Backpage carefully
arranged matters so that none of them was ever in possession of
a straight answer.
Let me give you one example. It may seem like a small one,
but it is illustrative.
On December 30, just a week or so ago, the counsel for
Backpage wrote to Senator McCaskill and me asking that Mr.
Ferrer, Mr. Lacey, and Mr. Larkin be excused from appearing
today on the grounds that they were required to be in
California for an arraignment tomorrow morning. We thought that
sounded reasonable enough until we learned that three days
before, on December 27, the California Attorney General's
office had confirmed in writing to the defense team that, in
the event of a conflict with PSI's hearing, the defendants
could get a continuance of their arraignment. The lawyers did
not disclose that, obviously a material fact, in their letter
to us. Then just last night, after being warned about it,
counsel once again repeated the same misrepresentation in a
letter to all Members of this Committee--again, without
disclosing the Attorney General's agreement to excuse the
defendants from appearing in the event of a conflict.
I just raise that as one example of what we have been
through in this investigation. Sadly, it is the sort of conduct
we have come to expect in this case. We are left to conclude
that counsel has not been appropriately candid with this
Subcommittee. Lawyers have to take care to ensure their
representations are true to the best of their knowledge after
taking reasonable steps to make sure they are true. As we go
forward with this Congress, Senator Carper and I will discuss
how we can improve PSI's rules to reinforce that duty of
candor.
Again, as Senator McCaskill said, we owe a lot to the
staff. I want to acknowledge their hard work, both the majority
and minority staff. This investigation spanned nearly two
years, a lot of hard work, a lot of late nights. They did
review over one million documents. We are very grateful for
their efforts and very proud of them.
I would like to give particular attention, if I might at
the end, to a staff member who is leaving us after this
investigation. Brian Callanan, who is the Majority Staff
Director and General Counsel, is leaving the Senate soon to
reenter the private sector. He has ably led the staff of PSI
for the last two years and previously served as a key policy
adviser to me. He leaves very big shoes to fill. We are pleased
that Matt Owen, our current Counsel, will be succeeding him.
But I would like to thank Brian for his wise counsel to me over
the years and for his remarkable service on this Subcommittee
and to the Senate and the public. We wish him the best of luck
in his new endeavor.
With that, the record of this hearing will remain open for
15 days. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20, the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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