Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Montana, like much of the United States, is suffering from the rise in human trafficking. I am grateful that Montana's attorney general, Tim Fox, has taken this issue head-on. In fact, Montana has had three times as many human trafficking cases in 2017 as we had in 2015--a threefold increase. Unfortunately, this number will likely continue to rise in the coming years, and online platforms are a driving force for it. Like so many things, the internet has tremendous power for good as well as for evil. Having spent 12 years building a startup cloud computing business in my hometown of Bozeman--a business we grew to over 1,000 employees. We took the company public. This became a large, global business. I understand the power of the internet for good. But I also believe we must and can have better safeguards to protect our children, our families, and our neighbors from sex trafficking, while at the same time protecting innovation on the internet. Unfortunately, a startup business--your business--has the potential to be used for terrible reasons without your awareness. Even more upsetting, it is also possible that online platforms do know that bad actors are using that platform and they do nothing about it. During my first hearing on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, we investigated one of these platforms: backpage.com. Bad actors like backpage.com must be held accountable.…”