Senate passes Portman bill to fight Backpage.com sex trafficking, assuring Trump's signature

People opposed to child sex trafficking rally outside of the Washington state Supreme Court in 2014 during a case filed by three victims who said Backpage.com helped promote the exploitation of children. Backpage has said it was shielded by Internet law.(Rachel La Corte, Associated Press)

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to close an Internet law loophole that has shielded classified ad websites such as Backpage.com from liability when they ran ads for minors being offered as prostitutes.

The law this amends, the Communications Decency Act of 1996, was intended to foster an open Internet free of threats of lawsuits or prosecution for content some might dislike. But Backpage, posting ads linked to numerous cases of sex trafficking, has avoided prosecution and lawsuits by saying it was merely a Web host entitled to the protections of the act.

Despite claims to the contrary by police, prosecutors and members of Congress, Backpage said it was not acting in concert with pimps and predators but was simply posting third-party content, the same as Google or most other Web publishers or sites. A number of courts have agreed that Backpage was protected by the 1996 act.

The bill passed Wednesday, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, is intended to end that protection. It passed 97-2. The House passed its version of the bill in February and now that it has cleared its last legislative hurdle, President Donald Trump has said he will sign it.

Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and the new measure's main sponsor, said that if a website operator has reason to think it is hosting ads linked to sex trafficking, it will have to stop doing so or else could face prosecution by state or federal authorities and lawsuits by victims and their families.

The bill clarifies that previous acts of Congress "do not impair or limit civil action or criminal prosecution under state or federal criminal or civil laws relating to sex trafficking of children or sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion," says a Congressional Research Service summary. Online sex traffickers could face prison, with sentences varying by age of victim and the court venue. Federal sex trafficking law allows sentences up to life in prison.

The new law "will allow us to hold these evil websites" liable for prosecution, Portman said.

Backpage attorney Liz McDougall said in an email that the company will not be commenting on the Senate bill's passage. When summoned to appear before the Senate, Backpage executives have declined to testify and cited their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

An investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Portman, found that Backpage not only knew that sexual services of teenagers were being solicited on its city-by-city websites. The investigators said Backpage personnel or contractors also advised the pimps and advertisers to change their ads' wording or otherwise disguise what they were doing.

To Portman, his bill's lead co-sponsor, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and numerous supporters of the bill including Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, this made Backage complicit in child sex trafficking.

Blumenthal called the practice "modern-day slavery." Portman told stories on the Senate floor of girls who were abducted or had run away from home and found themselves marketed as prostitutes on Backpage's local websites. Some pimps moved their victims from city to city.

"This is evil, and this has been happening. And we've heard the stories," Portman said. "I talked about Yvonne Ambrose. We talked about Kubiiki Pride. We talked about Nicole S. We talked about some of these mothers and their daughters who have gone through this horrific situation. You heard earlier about Desiree. This was the 16-year-old who was being sold on Backpage, and on Christmas Eve she was murdered.

"Imagine getting that call as a parent."

Most trafficking cases prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office in Northern Ohio have involved Backpage, said Michael Tobin, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Justin E. Herdman. Pimps and traffickers have been sentenced to prison. But Backpage has avoided penalty.

It took several years for Portman's efforts to reach this stage, and the bill's passage Wednesday wasn't without objection. Some Internet advocates and civil libertarians warned the bill will have a chilling effect on free speech, with website owners and hosts overly cautious about accepting third-party content.

Portman said websites need not worry as long as they take reasonable steps to screen for illegal activity.

"Right now, under current law, there is a 'good-faith' exception. It is a 'Good 'Samaritan' exception under current law," he told colleagues on the Senate floor. "We actually restate it in our legislation to be actually clearer that if you're one of the good guys, a website online that wants to be sure that your site is not going to have these girls sold online, that you should be protected.

"However, this legislation, having restated the 'Good 'Samaritan' provision, also says that if you're one of the bad actors, you don't have that protection.," Portman added.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and Internet champion, contended that websites still could get in trouble if they screen for illegal content but somehow miss it. Wyden initially offered an amendment to assure fuller protection for websites that try to filter their content but somehow fail, but he withdrew it just before the full bill came up for a vote.

Wyden predicted, however, that the Senate will regret passing the Portman bill and that the matter is bound to wind up being settled in courts.

Wyden also said the Portman bill might drive prostitution ads off the open Web, where crimes are more easily detected, but it won't stop the underlying crime. Instead, Wyden said, "pimps and predators" will "go as fast as they can to the darkest corners of our society." They will use the dark web, a secretive series of Internet cloakrooms that are much harder for authorities to monitor.

Joining Wyden in voting no was Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.