Ann Wagner: “I thank the gentlewoman from Alabama, my friend, Mrs. Roby, for her fearless leadership and support on this issue. Today…”

“I thank the gentlewoman from Alabama, my friend, Mrs. Roby, for her fearless leadership and support on this issue. Today we bring, Mr. Chair, H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, to the floor, finally. Mr. Chair, I want to thank my partners on the other side of the aisle, my dear friends, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, for their tireless support on this effort. The sad truth is that sex trafficking is a crime as old as the Nation itself. Over the past few years, Congress has routinely taken bipartisan action to fight it, yet sex trafficking seems to continue unabated. This is largely because the methods of recruitment and sale of sex trafficking victims have evolved with technology, and U.S. laws have remained stagnant. Today, when the House votes on FOSTA, we will be sending a clear message: businesses that sell human beings online can no longer do so with impunity. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act explicitly allows enforcement of Federal criminal law, but courts have mistakenly found that it does not allow robust enforcement of State criminal law. Last summer, 50 State attorneys general called on Congress to untie their hands to allow them to bring justice to the websites that sell our children and the victims. Empowering our State and local prosecutors is in the best interests of the American people.…”