SESTA-FOSTA Vote Set for Wednesday
With Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., opposed, anti-sex trafficking legislation (see 1803150039 and 1803080039) is slated for debate and a vote on the Senate floor Wednesday. The Senate 94-2 Monday approved a motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to SESTA-FOSTA (the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers-Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking package). The House version of the bill, which includes Senate bill language and two amendments introduced by Wyden, will be up for Senate debate.
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Wyden told reporters after the cloture vote that the legislation is flawed in the same way as the Communications Decency Act, which he described as a “very bad bill for a good” purpose. “My concern is that’s what’s being done again,” he said. One amendment ensures “these monsters” are prosecuted, “something real, not something that makes politicians feel good,” Wyden said. The second amendment includes a “Good Samaritan” provision, which ensures that companies moving “aggressively to police their platforms” aren’t penalized, Wyden said. The latter is what worries Wyden about the bill as written. The amendments are “common sense” measures, said Wyden staffer Keith Chu.
Asked for his thoughts about Wyden’s amendments Monday evening, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told us, “I haven’t seen them.” Portman’s office circulated letters Monday from anti-trafficking and law enforcement organizations that support SESTA-FOSTA and oppose Wyden’s amendments. The list of groups included the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, FBI Agents Association, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, National District Attorneys Association and National Sheriffs’ Association. Portman and Paul’s offices didn’t comment Tuesday.
On the Senate floor Tuesday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged decisive action on the bill: “It’s designed to close a loophole in existing law that allows websites to avoid responsibility even as they knowingly facilitate trafficking.” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the majority whip, also supported the legislation: “Free speech can't be used as an excuse to offer young people into sexual servitude, and the internet cannot be a safe place for terrorists and child sex traffickers.”
NCMEC wrote to “strongly urge all Senators to support a clean bill without amendments.” The group expressed concern the amendments might create “an unnecessary shield” for companies monitoring and filtering illicit content and open the possibility of increased funding at DOJ to investigate and prosecute website operators: “After many months and careful negotiations, any additional amendments to the House passed package will create bad public policy and be a poison pill if sent back to the House.” A group of 10 law enforcement organizations at the federal, state, county and local levels raised the same issues to Senate leadership, writing that the bill would be “dead on arrival if sent back to the House.”