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US Senate Holds Backpage.com in Contempt for Refusing to Cooperate in Child Sex Trafficking Investigation

Senator Claire McCaskill says she's "damn mad" after the site refused to comply with a subpoena, but the company believes the courts — not Congress — should decide the case.
Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

Last July, a 15-year-old girl wandered into a children's hospital in East St. Louis, Illinois, with a terrifying story.

Almost two months earlier, she had been walking down the street when a man told her he could help her to become a model, and asked her to get into his truck. Inside were four other girls, between the ages of 12 and 18 years old. All five girls were sold for sex across at least four states by the man and his wife, who were arrested last summer. According to the girl, who has not been named in court documents, one of the other girls died in her arms during the ordeal.

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According to a US Senate committee investigating the issue, the girls were trafficked using ads on Backpage.com, the second largest classifieds website operating in the United States, and now the first company to be held in contempt of Congress in more than 20 years.

Backpage has long been embroiled in controversy over its "adult" section, which is not only widely used to advertise prostitution, but has also been used to traffic both adults and minors. The site has been accused for years of turning a blind eye and is now at the center of a US Senate investigation into human trafficking.

Backpage, for their part, have argued that counter to the accusations against them, they are actually a "critical ally" in fighting human trafficking, arguing that the site "aggressively monitors for and traces potential trafficking cases, and promptly reports to and cooperates with law enforcement."

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But congressional investigators argue that whatever measures Backpage has in place to monitor the ads on its site are not working. Republican Senator Rob Portman, who is leading the investigation alongside Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, was atypically searing in raising skepticism about the site's monitoring practices on the Senate floor on Thursday.

Portman described one case in which an ad on Backpage advertising sex with a minor actually included a photo of the child's missing poster.

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"That poster had the child's real name on it, real age, real picture and the date that she went missing. The other pictures in the ad included topless photos," Portman said. "We'd certainly like to know what supposedly market-leading screening and moderation procedures missed that one."

'I am disgusted that any company would not participate and cooperate in an investigation into the trafficking of children.'

McCaskill and Portman successfully brought a contempt of Congress vote to the Senate floor on Thursday, after Backpage refused to answer its subpoena for documentation of the site's review process. The legislation also holds CEO Carl Ferrer, who didn't show up to a hearing on the investigation last month, in contempt.

The contempt vote passed unanimously on Thursday and will soon head to court, where the US District Court for the District of Columbia will decide whether or not Backpage is required to comply and turn the documents over. If the company were to refuse the court's order, they could face fines and potentially prison time.

Backpage actually welcomed the contempt vote, as the company believes that the courts, not Congress, should decide how far its First Amendment rights extend.

"For nine months, Backpage.com has respectfully, and repeatedly, asked the Senate to take the steps necessary to permit Backpage.com to obtain a review of the constitutional issues by judges, rather than by the same political figures who issued the subpoenas," Steve Ross, a partner at Akin Gump who is representing Backpage, said in a statement.

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Another lawyer for Backpage, Liz McDougall, has compared the congressional investigation to Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt for Communists in the 1950s.

A furious McCaskill said in February that she was "damn mad" that the company refused to comply with the committee's subpoena and at the "notion that this company can call Sen. Portman and me names and try to smear our reputations and hide behind the First Amendment."

"I think all of us have deep and abiding respect for the First Amendment," McCaskill continued. "But I am disgusted that any company would not participate and cooperate in an investigation into the trafficking of children."

On the Senate floor on Thursday, McCaskill told the story of the 15-year-old who was trafficked, calling the company's refusal to comply with the committee's subpoena "the height of arrogance and the height of thumbing one's nose at our laws in this country and I think it shakes the foundation upon which we all sit."

But she argued that the issue at hand for the Senate is not just the safety 15-year-old girl and others like her, it is demonstrating that a private company and its CEO cannot just ignore Congress.

"If we ignore Backpage's refusal, what does that say to companies in the future where we need information in order to do our job? That you can give the back of your hand to the United States Senate and there will be no consequences?" McCaskill asked, urging her colleagues to support the contempt vote. "Obviously that's a slippery slope that I don't think we should go down."

Follow Sarah Mimms on Twitter: @SarahMMimms