▶ 0:18:08Chair Grassley: Good morning, everybody. Today's hearing will examine what we called the emerging issues involving child online exploitation and the evolving offenders. Seeking to keep up-to-date on everything they can do to harm.
▶ 0:18:38Chair Grassley: As technology changes, evolves, so do bad actors who use it to commit all types of crime. This is especially true in child exploitation space. Gone are the days of ordering child exploitation material from overseas by mail.
▶ 0:19:05Chair Grassley: Now, child exploitation material is readily available online through various filesharing platforms, through direct access to victims, and domestic and international websites, and groups such as "764." not only has technology changed, but today's online child offenders have changed as well.
▶ 0:19:43Chair Grassley: Today's online offender is more violent, cruel, and shocking than offenders just 20 years ago. Offenders will manipulate, pressure, harass, and seek to control vulnerable children through extortion, blackmail, and shame. That conduct is commonly called sextortion.
▶ 0:20:13Chair Grassley: Offenders extort children for money or other things of value, or to manipulate them to commit harmful acts, to livestream or record for others to watch. Today's offenders target younger children, many between the ages of 12 and 15, with some as young as five and six, and may be some cases even younger.
▶ 0:20:45Chair Grassley: Offenders exploit multiple victims, causing more pain, causing humility and degradation to more people than ever before. They leave families of victims in inseparable pain and despair and cause a lifetime of recovery for many victims.
▶ 0:21:12Chair Grassley: Offenders feel emboldened to carry out their illegal conduct on our children because of access to private, hit online groups of like-minded people who share their sick desire to harm and exploit children. Sadly, offenders often operate under the cover of secrecy, making it even more difficult for law enforcement to identify them and bring them to justice.
▶ 0:21:46Chair Grassley: They often focus on vulnerable populations such as those with mental health issues, lack of strong family or community ties, or other insecurities. Offenders will often disguise their true identity and pretend to be of similar age or background to their targeted victims in order to gain their trust.
▶ 0:22:13Chair Grassley: Offenders seek an online relationship with a child to exploit them for money, for sexual images, or to cause them to commit harm to themselves or to others. When offenders are eventually caught by law enforcement, prosecute and charge them with the most appropriate charges.
▶ 0:22:42Chair Grassley: However, there are no specific laws to address the terrible and shocking acts conducted by groups such as 764, those engaged in sextortion. Two of the three bills I will introduce today will address these offenders.
▶ 0:23:02Chair Grassley: My first bill called "ending coercion of children and harm online", echo for short, will address the horrific conduct that these groups do when they target children and commit violent acts like injury to animals, self-harm, suicide.
▶ 0:23:25Chair Grassley: The second bill called the "stop sextortion act" will hold these people who engage in online threatening acts of sextortion tour children accountable under the same law which addresses child sexual abuse material.
▶ 0:23:48Chair Grassley: Finally, when offenders are convicted of child sexual abuse material offenses, less than one third of the cases are sentenced within the current sentencing guidelines. Simply put, the current sentencing guidelines are outdated and disregarded by most federal judges because they do not adequately account for common offenders' characteristics that differentiate the bag from the worst online child exploiters.
▶ 0:24:22Chair Grassley: That bill has the title "sensing accountability for exploitation" or the safe act. It will require the sentencing commission to draft and require child sexual abuse guidelines to include many of the aggravating factors we now see with today's online predators.
▶ 0:24:47Chair Grassley: Those factors include encryption or other masking techniques, used, whether the offender was part of an online group to commit the offense, just to name a few.
▶ 0:25:05Chair Grassley: This bill will provide the much-needed guidance to the sentencing commission of our government to overhaul the child sexual abuse material guidelines in a meaningful way to distinguish offender behavior. Now to ranking -- ranking member durbin.
▶ 0:25:30Sen. Durbin: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Glad you're holding this hearing. The fact that you have held this hearing, we had similar hearings when I chaired the committee, I think, is a message to all following us, this is bipartisan, and it should be, start to finish. And we have a real task ahead of us. Senator grassley describes the legislation that is pending.
▶ 0:25:56Sen. Durbin: I can recall the hearing for ketanji brown jackson to the supreme court. One of the big issues brought up over and over again was the use of sentencing guidelines for abuses in this area that were written so long ago, they didn't reflect the reality of the extortion going on today.
▶ 0:26:19Sen. Durbin: The most conservative judges, most liberal judges come to the same conclusion, those don't work anymore. They were counting the number of offenses by images. That makes sense when you're talking about eight by 10 photographs. It makes no sense talking about the technology today and the videos involved. We have to update that ensure the reality of the situation. I think that is something we can all work on together. I learned something else.
▶ 0:26:50Sen. Durbin: We would get unanimous vote in this committee, if you remember. Republicans and democrats, legislation that would change things for the better. Then it disappeared between the committee and the floor. The same is happening now. We make great speeches here, sometimes enact great laws in the committee, but when it comes to taking them to the floor to enact them on the floor and eventually send them to the house, we drop the ball completely. That has to end.
▶ 0:27:21Sen. Durbin: There is no reason for that. To invite these witnesses, as compelling as they are, and ignoring their testimony when it comes to the floor, that is not acceptable. Let's decide, if you have the nerve to give a speech here on the subject, you ought to have the nerve to do it on the floor and repeatedly. Let's have a sense of urgency of what we are setting out to do.
▶ 0:27:42Sen. Durbin: I have worked with senator hawley and many others, survivors, law enforcement advocates come up to put together the bill and that takes a cover has a reproach to stemming the tide of online child exploitation. I have repeatedly said we must bring the same sense of urgency protecting kids in the virtual world as we do in the real world. But the landscape of online child exploitation is changing dramatically by the day.
▶ 0:28:08Sen. Durbin: Two trends in particular our inattention, financially motivated sextortion and sadistic online exploitation. What once was rare is now epidemic. In 2021, the national center for missing & exploited children received a total of 100 39 cyber tips involving financially motivated sextortion. 2021, 139 tips.
▶ 0:28:36Sen. Durbin: In the first six months of this year alone, they have already received 23,000 of these tips, plus. Offenders often operated in coordinated criminal networks overseas, targeting teenagers in the united states. We will hear specific cases about that. They coerce them into sending a sexually explicit image and then threaten to release it unless money is paid. For too many families, this crime ends in tragedy.
▶ 0:29:09Sen. Durbin: We identified more than 36 young men in the united states who have died by suicide after being sextorted. We are joined by one of these families. Ms. woods, thank you for being here. She lost her son james 27 years old when he was targeted. She is here in her courageous capacity. Thank you for being here, transforming and a barrel of a loss into a call for action. That photo of your son in his track outfit tells the story. I am sure he was a wonderful young man.
▶ 0:29:41Sen. Durbin: You cherish his memory by being here today. Another disturbing trend is the rise in offenders, direct real-time torture, encouraging escalating violence, groomed children to produce csam and self-harm videos. Ncmec has identified this behavior as sadistic online exploitation. The members tell the story. This is an unsuitable systemic failure. What are we going to do about it?
▶ 0:30:10Sen. Durbin: We are going to have a hearing, had witnesses, we are going to live the situation. What are we going to do about it? Will there be a bill in the new session to say we are so overwhelmed with legislation on the floor we don't have time? It's a joke. We have more than enough time to do it right. This committee has a history of tackling the tough issues. Mr. chairman, it is up to you and me, senators on both sides of the aisle, to make it happen.
▶ 0:30:38Chair Grassley: Thank you. Now I will introduce our witnesses. We will hear from them and we will have questions. Ms. tamia woods and her husband tim are parents of james woods. James was a good student, year-round track and field athlete.
▶ 0:31:07Chair Grassley: At 17, james tragically took his own life, november 2022, after being extorted by somebody online for $300. James had sent the online abuser a compromising video of himself and was threatened with being exposed by the person if james did not pay the $300 ransom. Mrs.
▶ 0:31:33Chair Grassley: Woods and her husband are the founders of the do it for james foundation. The mission of the foundation is to create awareness for kids and their families to prevent similar tragedies. We thank you, Mrs. woods, for being here, to share a heartbreaking story. Jessica smolar is a former assistant U.S. attorney, western district of pennsylvania, with 30 years experience there.
▶ 0:32:05Chair Grassley: Ms. smolar handled a variety of criminal cases including cases involving child sexual abuse material, child exploitation, and cybercrime, national security. Ms. smolar has received several department of justice and law enforcement awards for her work as an assistant U.S.
▶ 0:32:29Chair Grassley: Attorney, including2022 attorney general's distinguished service award, united states attorney's victims advocates award for dedication and extraordinary contributions in the service of victims. Lauren coffren is executive director of the exploited children's division of the national center for missing & exploited children.
▶ 0:33:03Chair Grassley: She has been employed for over 20 years with the national center for missing & exploited children, serving in various roles. Ms. coffren oversees the exploited children's division which operates several programs including cyber tip lines and child victim identification programs. In addition, Ms.
▶ 0:33:25Chair Grassley: Coffren started the csam survivors services program, working to improve the responses to survivors of child sexual abuse material. We welcome all of you here today. It is our tradition to ask you to stand, to swear to this oath.
▶ 0:33:50Chair Grassley: Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? Thank you all very much. They all affirmatively responded. We will start with Mrs. woods. Don't forget to push the button. . Proceed chairman grassley ms
▶ 0:34:17Woods: Ms woods:, ranking member durbin, committee members, thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is tamia woods and I speak on behalf of myself, my husband tim, and for our beautiful child james timothy woods, for every age 17. I stand before you as a mother whose only child was taken by something so preventable, so cruel, and so ignored, it should shake every person in this room to the core.
▶ 0:34:43Woods: One of the messages sent to my son, "I am more determined to rot your life than to make it a waste, a trash, shame, dishonor, a hell, a real disaster, hell on earth. I remind you I am heartless. I have no pity to rot a life as yours." this is one of almost 200 messages sent to my child over the span of 19 point five hours between november 18 and 19, 2022.
▶ 0:35:11Woods: James was the victim of financial sextortion, and though he died by suicide, let me be clear, he was murdered. James was a beautiful young man with a soul like gold and a smile that would let up any room. He would give you the shirt off of his back. He could figure out anything. He was witty, thoughtful, kind, and love chess. James was a high school senior, wanted to major in prelaw and was months away from breaking a 40 --year-old record in the hurdles.
▶ 0:35:40Woods: Every time I speak of him, I smile because I'm grateful that god let me borrow his angel for 17 and a half years. But every day I am angry. A woman online befriended james on instagram. She created what every predator knows how to build, a safe space. She made him feel comfortable, seen, liked. She groomed him. Then she asked if you want to see her unclosed and exposed herself. She asked him to do the same.
▶ 0:36:08Woods: Like any innocent teenager who liked a girl and saw no danger, he did. That became her weapon. The attackers came, not one person, but what we believe is at least four. For nearly 20 hours, they attacked, threaten, terrorize, dismantle my child.
▶ 0:36:28Woods: Every time he tried to fight back and asked why are you doing this to me, please leave me alone, they escalated, sending his image to friends and families, telling him that he would be labeled a pedophile, telling him his future was over, that you should just kill yourself. In those last moments, my son, who had everything to live for, felt like he had no other choice. A day that started with laughter, college friends, and joy, and it with my husband fighting my child on a life at home in the middle of the day.
▶ 0:37:00Woods: Note parent should ever enter a room and see that. I stand here because 19 and a half hours is not a short time in the digital world, it's a lifetime. It's enough time for summer to intervene, flag and account, cancel messages, report this behavior, yet no one stepped in. No system protected him, no platform stopped him. My husband and I created the do it for james foundation.
▶ 0:37:25Woods: Since the day james died, we dedicated our lives to speaking out, teaching and fighting so that no other parent feels the pain that sits in our heart every single moment of every single day. Large corporations continue to argue for rights while receiving to take responsibility. We are asking you to put laws in place that gives multiple avenues to protect our kids because parental controls alone are not enough. Click here to opt out at age 13 is not protection.
▶ 0:37:57Woods: Predators thrive when the risk is low but reward is high. Criminals are making billions by exploiting our children. Because we told our parents, monitor your kids better, bow platform refused to monitor predators at all. How dare we lay blame on the victims while criminals want free?
▶ 0:38:17Woods: Today, instead of checking on james' homework, instead of mailing and care packages, instead of cheering him on four track meets, I hold a picture of my sons photo, that he never had a chance to see. Because that is all I have left. 17 and a half years of memories but no new ones. I am begging you to stand with this, stand up and do something, help us save lives.
▶ 0:38:47Woods: We may not be able to save them all, but with the right laws, accountability, with real consequences, we can make it harder for predators to win. We can make it harder for another parent to bury their child. Please do it for. Do it for every child we never got a chance to learn. Thank you.
▶ 0:39:13Woods: >> good morning, chairman grassley, ranking member durbin, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify here today. My name is jessica lieber smolar, and I have the honor of serving as assistant united states attorney in the western district of pennsylvania for three decades. During my career as a federal prosecutor, I personally handled and oversaw hundreds of child exploitation and human trafficking investigations and prosecutions.
▶ 0:39:41Woods: When I first began prosecuting these events, investigations often centered around physical evidence and traditional mail-based exchanges. Over time, I witnessed a monumental shift in the types of child sexual abuse material, also referred to as csam, that offenders collected, as well as their methods of collection. This shift was not limited to the sheer volume and disturbing nature of the material. It also encompassed the tools offenders used to acquire, share, and conceal csam.
▶ 0:40:14Woods: Today, every child expectation case involves the criminal use of cellular phones and computers. Offenders use these tools to stockpile massive quantities of sexually explicit videos and images of children, frequently targeting prepubescent children. Violent depictions of infants and toddlers being sexually exploited were routinely collected by the defendants in my prosecuted. Offenders also increasingly use advanced technology and platforms for csam trafficking.
▶ 0:40:44Woods: They congregate in online communities and darknet forums solely devoted to child exploitation. They can now more easily concealed their crimes and identities through encryption, vpns, the darknet, and remote erasure software. The law has not kept pace with the rapid technological advances for involving sex offender behavior.
▶ 0:41:07Woods: United states sentencing guideline was designed when csam was distributed by mail, so it adds offense enhancements for actions common to all csam offenders today, like using a computer, possessing images of prepubescent minors, or amassing many images. The guideline enhancements apply broadly and no longer reflect bearing levels of offender culpability or risk. Legislation is needed to amend the csam guidelines.
▶ 0:41:36Woods: The sentencing commission's june 2021 report found section 2g2 is outdated, leading judges to exercise their discretion to reduce sentences for child sexual offenders. The commission data for fiscal year 2019 showed that less than 30% of nonproduction child pornography offenders were sentenced within the recommended guidelines. This statistic reflects a broad judicial satisfaction and leads to inconsistent sentencing nationwide.
▶ 0:42:07Woods: As federal prosecutors, my colleagues and I often considered plea offers to binding sentences to avoid the application of the insufficient sentencing guidelines and sentencing disparities. There are also emerging crimes that are not fully covered by existing criminal statutes, such as those committed by members of the violent online networks 764. The 76 more members different children sometimes as young as nine years old.
▶ 0:42:34Woods: Through popular online platforms and then coerce them into a escalating sexual, self-destructive and violent behaviors, compelling victims to document sex acts, harm siblings and family pets, cut and mutilate themselves, or attempt suicide. There are no federal statutes that adequately criminalize the course of conduct of 764 and similar groups.
▶ 0:42:57Woods: As federal prosecutors, we focused on proving more conventional statutory violations like csam possession or production, or distribution of obscenity to minors, to effectively prosecute these horrific crimes. Similarly, law enforcement age and have reported an alarming increase in sextortion cases. Children being coerced into sending sexually explicit images online, like james that we just read about.
▶ 0:43:24Woods: Perpetrators engage victims in flirtatious conversations on social media and gaming platforms where they feel comfortable to obtain explicit images. The offenders then use the sexually compromising images to blackmail images for more victims, or in the case of financial extortion, for money or gift cards. They threaten to widely publicize the image to the child's friends and family. Children suffer severe emotional distress as a result of such sexual extortion, and too many have engaged in self harm or suicide.
▶ 0:43:55Woods: As federal prosecutors, we found it challenging to effectively charge sextortion and financial sextortion. Existing statutes do not adequately address the full scope or severe harm of these crimes. Increasing public understanding of the evolving and destructive risk to children online is crucial. Legislation is needed to strengthen the legal framework and better support those responsible for protecting children. I welcome your questions. Thank you.
▶ 0:44:23Ms. Coffren: Good morning, chairman grassley, ranking member durbin, members of the committee. My name is lauren coffren, executive director of the exploited children division at the national center for missing & exploited children, ncmec. Ncmec is a nonprofit organization created in 1984 by child advocates to help find missing children, reduce child exploitation, and prevent child victimization.
▶ 0:44:50Ms. Coffren: I'm honored to be here today in order to share ncmec's perspective on online evolving sexual exultation crimes. Ncmec is congressionally designated to operate 16 programs related to missing and exploited children's issues. One of ncmec's core programs in the cyber tip line, the centralized mechanism for the public and online platforms to report incidents of child sexual exploitation. Through its work with the cyber tip line, ncmec has seen children sexually exploited online for decades.
▶ 0:45:21Ms. Coffren: Today, we are confronting alarming rates of emerging crimes were sexually exporting a child is not the final objective but a means of achieving a larger goal of financial gain or incitement of chaos. Ncmec shares the committee's deep concerns that offenders will continue to evolve and escalate their exploitation of children online unless we act now, to hold online platforms accountable when they facilitate a child's exportation, to ensure safety by design is incorporated into development of new technology.
▶ 0:45:52Ms. Coffren: Today, I like to share ncmec's insights about three especially alarming trends on how children are being sexually exploited online. One of the newest trends I'd like to highlight is related to online enticement, where reports grew by 192% last year. Specifically we continue to see a rise in financial sextortion, where an offender black me as a child for money or gift cards in exchange for not distributing nude or sexual images of the child.
▶ 0:46:21Ms. Coffren: Unlike offenders who are normally sexually motivated, these offenders are driven by financial gain. As we heard from tamia woods, this crime targets teenage boys and too often the outcomes are tragic. High-performing boys with large social circles like james are becoming victims of coerced suicide as a result of this crime.
▶ 0:46:44Ms. Coffren: Offenders use incessant, aggressive threats of public exposure, shame, arrest, as if the targeted boys failed to comply with the demand for money. The second trend ncmec has identified in the past year is sadistic online exploitation. This trend has led to the most egregious exploitation that ncmec has ever seen.
▶ 0:47:07Ms. Coffren: Violent online offenders work in groups, targeting and manipulating vulnerable children, some as young as 12 years old on popular online platforms and gaming sites to create and share sexually explicit content, to cut themselves, carving offenders names into their bodies, to harm, kill animals, to physically or sexually abuse other children including their younger siblings, and even to commit suicide.
▶ 0:47:34Ms. Coffren: These offenders lure children into online relationships, then terrorize them with rapidfire threats to kill the child's family or disclose personal information if they don't comply with their demands. Reports of these brutal victimizations grew by 200% last year and continue rising. The third trend I would like to know today is the use of generative artificial intelligence, gai, to sexually exploit children.
▶ 0:47:59Ms. Coffren: Ncmec believes we are just begin to see the true impact of gai on child exploitation. Offenders use this to create new sexually abusive content, to alter known child sexual abuse images, to nude-fy images of children. In the first half of the year, ncmec received over 400 thousand reports connected to ga and we expect to have over one million reports by the end of this year.
▶ 0:48:30Ms. Coffren: These three trends tragically affirm that online offenders are using evolving technology to exploit children in new and more extreme ways. This exploitation will not stop until congress passes laws that close legal gaps of companies to adopt safety by design, and provide essential tools to better protect children.
▶ 0:48:47Ms. Coffren: Ncmec appreciates that congress acted decisively to pass laws like the report act and the take it down act, and supporting newly introduced bills like stop csam act, enforce act, as a cloud storage act, and the guard act. We need to ensure that these pending bills are passed and our laws to protect children keep pace with the technological advances. Thank you for allowing ncmec to share our insights with you today.
▶ 0:49:15Ms. Coffren: We look forward to continue our work with this committee, to share information, craft legislative solutions, and keep children safer online.
▶ 0:49:31Chair Grassley: Children have committed suicide. Also people that were severely harmed because of sextortion and online groups like 764. Is there any objection? I hear in non-peer that will be done. Mrs. woods, I will start with you.
▶ 0:49:53Chair Grassley: Recently, there have been several news reports of sextortion cases and how quickly bad actors can manipulate children into sending sexual images, then engaging in a campaign to threaten towards the children, placing them in impossible situations. Many of those children think that suicide is the answer. You promoted changes in various state laws to make sextortion illegal after the tragedy of your son.
▶ 0:50:25Chair Grassley: From a parent's point of view, why is it important to make these sextortion illegal under federal law?
▶ 0:50:32Ms Woods: A number of things. First of all, we have to look at sextortion as what it is. Our children are being sexually exploited, a sexually exploited victim. Most people in general never speak out, less than 30% actually speak out about being victimized.
▶ 0:50:52Ms Woods: We have to make sure that not only our children see that we have their backs on these issues, but we have to make sure that they know there are resources and laws that back them up, as well. Advocates need to know that. Jane never spoke to anyone. He had a wonderful community that had his back, yet, he never spoke up.
▶ 0:51:20Ms Woods: It is laws like this that would back our children, influence them to speak up, let them know that they are being victimized. And people need to be held accountable on top of that. They need to know -- they shouldn't be comparable to the things they are doing. Right now, they are comfortable, and you see more people being victimized because of that.
▶ 0:51:43Chair Grassley: Ms. coffren, you have been with the center for 20 years in a variety of positions involving online child safety. Describe the recent trends involving these 764 violent groups like 764, how they operate and target children online?
▶ 0:52:05Ms. Coffren: Thank you so much for the question. The statistic online exportation, online groups go by various names. We have heard the referenced. Most often, they are motivated purely by chaos. Their goal is to be able to take -- weaponizing our nation's children to be able to create terror, to be able to show just how harmful they can be.
▶ 0:52:32Ms. Coffren: And they do that often times by seeking out to target the most vulnerable. Children who may already be demonstrating mental health issues, who may be indicating they have thought about how self-harm, perhaps eating disorders. Those children may be looking for solace, comfort, for advice and online platforms and spaces where they can find a community.
▶ 0:52:58Ms. Coffren: Unfortunately, these offenders are infiltrating and targeting those communities to create relationships with those children, and then to be able to push boundaries, test them, to see if they can hold up a sign with your name on it. Maybe hold up a sign with a signal or logo. By doing this, they are testing boundaries to see how far they can push the child. Can they get them to put their name on their body, carve a name into their body? That incrementalization can lead to tragic results.
▶ 0:53:29Ms. Coffren: Each step along the lake and be weaponized against that child. What we see is a swarming effect from multiple offenders, going after the same child at one point in time. The imagery, videos, chats we are seeing and reading are the most graphic I've ever seen in my 20-year history. We are hearing from law enforcement in the field who have said this is the most disturbing content as well. You are talking seasoned professionals who are meeting their match with the new and evolving exploitations that we are seeing.
▶ 0:54:00Chair Grassley: Ms. smolar, I am going to get my lead in because my time is running out. Can you share why we need federal legislation specifically to address these core groups and other individuals who engage in sextortion? Share your experience with us, working with investigations involving these groups.
▶ 0:54:32Ms. Smolar: Congress has already provided so many important tools to those of us in the field like mandatory minimums for crimes, like receipt and distribution of child pornography, or production. We need those tools in order to properly hold these types of defendants accountable. Right now, when we charge crimes like sextortion or 764, across the country, we all charge them differently.
▶ 0:55:02Ms. Smolar: Sometimes we charge them as online threats. Sometimes if we are lucky, we find csam come and we charge them that way. There is no consistency that allows us to properly address the specific harm that these actors are committing. In addition, a lot of these actors are overseas. It would be extremely helpful for those of us who want to extradite people here to the united states to hold them accountable, to have a felony statute that specifically speaks to this harm.
▶ 0:55:31Ms. Smolar: Unfamiliar with a case where a defendant was in germany. Germany had a coercion to harm statute but we did not. They were able to charge that 764 offender there, we could not charge him here. That shouldn't happen. We should be able to charge these offenders, hold them accountable, deter them from continuing to hurt our children.
▶ 0:55:52Chair Grassley: Thanks all three of you. Senator durbin.
▶ 0:55:56Sen. Durbin: Thank you. Ms. smolar, we have considered the issue you raised in your testimony so many times, so many different ways, because it can be characterized by some, that if you don't follow the strict sentencing guidelines, you are soft on crime, that you don't care enough to impose the adequate sentence.
▶ 0:56:20Sen. Durbin: What you tell us is, less than 30% of nonproduction child pornography defendants were sentenced within the recommended guidelines, reflecting broad judicial satisfaction, 70%, inconsistent sentencing nationwide. You say as federal prosecutors, my colleagues and I often considered plea offers to putting sentences to avoid the application of the insufficient sentencing guidelines and disparities. Tell me a little more, what are you talking about here?
▶ 0:56:51Ms. Smolar: Especially in cases where you are talking about possession of csam, where there is no mandatory minimum sentence, often times, my colleagues and I, not just in the western district of pennsylvania but nationwide, with the sentences that we thought were insufficient. When you're talking about possession of csam, you are talking about a real child being harmed in the most seriously way possible.
▶ 0:57:20Ms. Smolar: I believe sentences for people who are collecting that type of material should be significant, in order to protect victims and to deter others from collecting it. So it's important that the sentencing guidelines are useful.
▶ 0:57:40Sen. Durbin: I understand part of the problem was a numeric issue. Initially, so many instances of objects that a person had led to a certain sentencing guideline. Now they are being collected in video form, different technology form. Counting numbers doesn't really tell the story, is that your impression?
▶ 0:58:05Ms. Smolar: We are talking about math. It is not about math, this is about real offenders and cabability of risk. What you are referring to is one video is 75 images under the sentencing guideline. You start adding up videos to get to 600 images and you get a five-point enhancement. Use of a computer is a two-point enhancement. Prepubescent children, two point enhancement.
▶ 0:58:35Ms. Smolar: That doesn't tell the story of these offenders and how dangerous they potentially are. Legislation will be needed to address, are they on specific darknet for rounds talking about how to abuse children? Are they using multiple platforms to try to get to children or to share this material? How severe are the images, how many victims are in them?
▶ 0:59:02Ms. Smolar: That is not necessarily encompassed by the sentencing guidelines right now, so legislation is needed to address offender risk.
▶ 0:59:08Sen. Durbin: Ms. coffren, I was interested with the chairman's question that you responded, sometimes the object of this exploitation is chaos, not financial. Tell me a little more about that. What is the value of this perpetrator wasting all of these hours, leading to the self-harm of a young person or worse?
▶ 0:59:32Ms. Coffren: Thank you for the question, senator. What we are seeing is these loosely coordinated groups that you have been referencing like 764, some of these others that we are referencing as sadistic online, are fueled and motivated by having clout and notoriety for the impact of their actions. This means it extends far beyond csam. It is how can they use children to harm themselves or others, harm the community, as well?
▶ 1:00:02Ms. Coffren: We also see children being coerced into planning school shootings are threatening their communities, also offshoots of this type of work. Child sexual exploitation has actually been hijacked as one methodology for a larger way of trying to be able to use children against the community, for shock and awe. The more that we talk about this, unfortunately, we feed their desire for that notoriety, for the impact they are having.
▶ 1:00:38Ms. Coffren: Sometimes called nihilistic violence groups as well come is really fueled by something that we are not very familiar with operating with, pure chaos.
▶ 1:00:43Sen. Durbin: Ms. woods, how do long do you think your child was being exploited before he took his life?
▶ 1:00:51Ms. Woods: 19.5 hours. He received 200 messages in that 19.5 hours with what we believe were four different people attacking him at one time.
▶ 1:01:01Sen. Durbin: Any idea where the source of these attacks were?
▶ 1:01:06Ms. Woods: His murderers were in the ivory coast. Of course, we are told we are never going to receive justice for james.
▶ 1:01:15Sen. Durbin: I am so sorry for that. Thank you for being here. All three of you.
▶ 1:01:25Sen. Graham: Thank you, Mr. chairman for another emotional hearing about a topic that we constantly talk about and you little about. I am perplexed. I can understand having differences on health care, taxes, you name it. All of us agree on this pretty much. What is going on in the senate and the house, where no matter who is in charge, nothing really happens? I said this when I was chair.
▶ 1:01:56Sen. Graham: Here we are in 2025, this 764 group. Ms. smolar, I want to acknowledge the fbi, district of columbia, U.S. attorney's office brought a case against two people. That is a good start, right? Kash patel is focused on this group. Should they be domestic terrorists under U.S. law?
▶ 1:02:25Ms. Smolar: It's a good question, senator. I can tell you within the fbi, there are cross programmatic focus is on this group.
▶ 1:02:38Sen. Graham: Do you think they should be domestic terrorists? If these people are not domestic terrorists, who would be? Y'all just told us they are trying to bring down society by harming our children and exploiting them. Why shouldn't they be domestic terrorists?
▶ 1:02:56Ms. Smolar: I know they have been charged and at least one case as domestic terrorists.
▶ 1:03:01Sen. Graham: I would like to put a list. Ms. coffren, are you ok with putting these groups as to Mr. terrorists?
▶ 1:03:09Ms. Coffren: We can see how groups are weaponizing our children. A lot more research has to be done.
▶ 1:03:15Sen. Graham: Not really. No. This phone, do you think is a dangerous product for children, Ms. woods?
▶ 1:03:23Ms. Woods: Yes, I do.
▶ 1:03:25Sen. Graham: What is more dangerous, this or smoking?
▶ 1:03:30Ms. Woods: The phone.
▶ 1:03:32Sen. Graham: Agree with that? I don't think kids should smoke. Why don't we label this a dangerous product and at least inform consumers better? >> I agree.
▶ 1:03:44Sen. Graham: There are so many ideas and I want to complement this committee who is often divided, for coming up with one good idea after another, from senator hawley, blackburn, all of us, everyone is working together. No has a better on this than senator durbin. February is the 30th anniversary of section 230. Are you familiar with section 230, Ms. woods?
▶ 1:04:11Ms. Woods: Yes, sir.
▶ 1:04:15Sen. Graham: Sen. graham: you cannot sue anybody involved in helping to murder your son. Do you a book -- believe it is time to revisit section 230? Do you believe it is time to open up the court rooms to people that have been harmed by this behavior? >> yes.
▶ 1:04:32Sen. Graham: Do you agree that section 230 gives a legal path to some of the most bizarre harmful behavior in the country and 30 years later we should revisit? >> yes.
▶ 1:04:45Sen. Graham: Me, too. So what are we going to do? I will write a letter to senator thune, senator schumer, both good men, and in february we should have a social media week, where we take all of these good ideas and dedicate a week or two weeks to doing nothing on the floor but this, to try to take all of these law that everyone is coming up with, put them in a big package, and put us all on record.
▶ 1:05:15Sen. Graham: Are we all talk or are we willing to act? Do you like that idea? We will have a couple of months to let the country know, to an end in february. We are going to do some things to protect your children and see where the senate is on this. Would you support that idea? >> yes.
▶ 1:05:31Sen. Graham: I would like my collar to think creatively what should be on that list. February, other 30th anniversary of section 230, I would like to have an effort on the floor of the senate to deal with the darkside of section 230. I think that would be very helpful. Now, the cost of doing business.
▶ 1:05:57Sen. Graham: Do you agree with me, the more likely are to go to jail, a lot of people will avoid that area? >> yes.
▶ 1:06:03Sen. Graham: Agree you are more likely to get sued if you put a bad product, the more likely you are to change that product? >> yes.
▶ 1:06:12Sen. Graham: Do you agree that as a nation be miserably failed our children, that we have hearings and we talk, and we have done very little to protect them as of this date? >> yes.
▶ 1:06:27Sen. Graham: That is a damming indictment of all of us. Thank you.
▶ 1:06:36Sen. Hirono: . Thank you to our panel for testifying. Ms. woods, our hearts go out to you for the tragic loss of your son. As I look at this issue -- and as mentioned by my colleagues -- we have been wrestling with child exploitation which is only getting worse, not getting any better, getting worse.
▶ 1:07:00Sen. Hirono: Acknowledged by all of us, a sense of frustration, because this is an issue that receives bipartisan focus, desire on our part to do more than we have done so far. I'm looking at this issue by focusing on, I think there is a prevention aspect to it, there is a prosecution aspect to it. As Ms. smolar says, the laws have not kept up with all of the kinds of ways that these exploiters are coming up with ways to avoid prosecution.
▶ 1:07:31Sen. Hirono: Then I would say there is a civil remedies part which is really looking at section 230, removing the kind of immunity, total immunity that section 230 provides. If I look at the prevention side, what can we do to prevent the kind of tragedy that overtook james?
▶ 1:07:56Ms. Woods: It's a number of things. From the do it for james foundation come over the last five years, we averaged less than $10,000 in grants. We are not even getting approved to do the prevention. It is all on the backs of -- my husband and I have given hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to make sure that we do so. That is one. Two, we have to make this a demand to talk about it in schools.
▶ 1:08:25Ms. Woods: My husband and I have talked to well over 200,000 children, and because we made them aware of something they knew about but didn't know that was illegal, nor did they know what it was called, they led to four arrests , hundreds of kids being saved from died by suicide.
▶ 1:08:47Ms. Woods: We have to make sure that not only are you all educated, not only our law enforcement educated, but our children need to be included in this education , so that we know what to do if we were ever presented by these murderers out there, we can let the kids know that they need to call ncmec and make sure they have references that they need, resources.
▶ 1:09:13Sen. Hirono: Couldn't agree with you more because it is the children being targeted for exploitation. If our children are not aware that if this happens to them and they are targeted, there are places to go. I would think that your child, you don't want to talk about it. You are trying to hide whatever is happening.
▶ 1:09:36Sen. Hirono: With the three of you agree that we need to do a lot better to get the communities and the children much more able to call out what is happening to them? What is it that we need to do? Do we provide grant to the department of justice, make sure the doj and homeland security pay attention to these horrible crimes that are happening, rather than focusing so much of their resources on immigration, that they ought to?
▶ 1:10:08Sen. Hirono: Du j at home and security should have the resources to go after this kind of exploitation. I just wanted to get the sense from all three of you, what specifically should we be doing on the prevention side of the scale? Ms. smolar, what can we do to provide law enforcement better tools to prosecute these crimes. Do you want to share some of your grants to organizations? Any other ideas on the prevention side?
▶ 1:10:38Ms. Woods: We cannot prosecute -- Ms. smolar: we cannot prosecute our way out of this. We need the tools to properly prosecute these crimes but education is key. I cannot tell you how the people I told I was coming here today to talk about 764 and a look at me blankly, they don't know what it is.
▶ 1:10:58Ms. Woods: We need more publication of children, teachers, coaches, clergy, people who interact with children who can maybe look at their arm, see if there are strange cuts, see if they look different, acting differently. Psa's are important. Fbi has issued a number of psa's on this group but I don't think that is enough. We need more public education in the schools, in the places where children congregate, so that they are not afraid to come forward and report these crimes.
▶ 1:11:29Ms. Coffren: Prevention is also detection. But we need to see is companies able to detect some of these keywords happening in chats, flagging for that, making these reports, allowing law enforcement to investigate this before offenders are able to go ahead and create new profiles and blackmail, sextort other children. Looking at the guidelines as to what it takes to report.
▶ 1:11:58Ms. Coffren: Our technology companies required to be transparent about what they are doing behind the scenes, as well? All of those efforts can help to save lives if we know what steps are taken behind the scenes.
▶ 1:12:10Chair Grassley: Senator cornyn.
▶ 1:12:15Sen. Cornyn: Thank you for being here. This is the third here and we have had on this topic. Appreciative of the chairman for scheduling it, but it strikes me that we actually have to do something, do something more. The problem is, Ms. smolar, you mentioned all of the different sources of this information, csam and others, including the dark web.
▶ 1:12:48Sen. Cornyn: As you just said, we cannot prosecute ourselves out of it. Senator graham said maybe we ought to create an opportunity to sue. Could you briefly describe the challenges including international sources of this information, jurisdictional, other legal constraints that make that impractical?
▶ 1:13:09Ms. Smolar: There are a lot of challenges in handling these cases. The darknet, vpns. The smarter, more sophisticated offenders are able to hide their identities through encryption and through vpns. It's a huge challenge for law enforcement to identify the perpetrators here. In addition, resources is always a problem.
▶ 1:13:39Ms. Smolar: International offenders is an issue. We had international offenders in a lot of the cybercrime cases I handled, and we would get together with law enforcement in many, many countries and discuss these matters. That doesn't always happen in this area. It is something that should. These crimes are international in scope. These offenders are coming outside of the U.S.
▶ 1:14:04Sen. Cornyn: Ms. woods, your son's murderer was from africa?
▶ 1:14:08Ms. Woods: Yes. Ivory coast. We don't have an exhibition treaty. Treaty, they stated they will never hand over any of their natural born citizens.
▶ 1:14:24Sen. Cornyn: It seems like we are trying to play technology ae are trying to play technology ad are trying to play technology as are outpacing us every turn. I know senator hawley has a bill to deal with chatbot's.
▶ 1:14:43Sen. Cornyn: For folks not familiar with that name, this is technology that simulates human interaction so someone actually thinks they are talking to a human being and we can only imagine the uses to which that technology can be put to damage our children or cause them to hurt themselves or take their lives.
▶ 1:15:11Sen. Cornyn: Australia has passed a law that says children under the age of 16 cannot get access to social media accounts. What do you think about that? I know your son was 17. Do you think it would help.
▶ 1:15:31Ms. Woods: Yes. Yes. Tim did an article for australia in 2023 when our son passed and did not have the actual law in place. Since then they made sure they had a law. Even though our son was 17 years of age we have to look at -- we allow him to be online before that age.
▶ 1:15:59Ms. Woods: What if we would have had these laws in place? It would have still made a difference. Even though we lost our only child that does not mean I will not stand here and stand up for anybody else's kids. Your kids are my kids so I'll make sure things get done.
▶ 1:16:15Sen. Cornyn: God bless you for doing that. Ms. coffren, when it comes to child exploitation do you think congress should consider a law banning the use of social media for children 16 and younger?
▶ 1:16:34Ms. Coffren: That is one tool that would be in the arsenal to address this. We have to look at the different types of age restrictions, age assurances, there is a lot of complexity that goes into that. We have to look at ways of holding the social media companies and online platforms responsible as well as the device or the app store as well as ensuring there is better parental controls.
▶ 1:17:03Sen. Cornyn: We have technology that I struggle to understand. They would be in the best position to know what is happening on their own platforms?
▶ 1:17:13Ms. Smolar: Correct. I will state that in a lot of these crimes the offenders will find a child, for example on snapchat or instagram but then they will move them to a different application like signal where we have no control over that.
▶ 1:17:29Sen. Cornyn: Ms. coffren, if senator grassley will allow me you mentioned something that intrigued me when you said some of the information or individuals are inciting chaos. What did you mean by that?
▶ 1:17:44Ms. Coffren: They are motivated by exploitation of the child. They are not the traditional pedophile we might think about. Their goal is to cause disruption in our communities, to have us holding hearings today talking about how difficult it is to think about our children being harmed for shock and awe. When that is the new type of offender we need new types of tools.
▶ 1:18:12Ms. Coffren: Looking at the types of signals that exist on the social media platforms, how people are operating will be really essential to try to stay current to these evolving statuses of new offenders and new motivations.
▶ 1:18:27Chair Grassley: Thank you. Senator blackburn?
▶ 1:18:33Sen. Blackburn: Thank you Mr. chairman and as I spoke with each of the three of you I am so grateful for your work and your commitment and your willingness to talk about this. It has been so interesting to me as someone who has worked to protect children and to focus on what was happening with technology in this virtual space.
▶ 1:19:03Sen. Blackburn: It is astounding to me that there are laws in the physical space that protect children. You cannot endanger a child. You cannot sell them alcohol, you cannot sell them tobacco, you cannot expose them to pornography. If you are a liquor store and you are selling to kids they would take away your license. In the virtual space our children are vulnerable 24/7, 365.
▶ 1:19:34Sen. Blackburn: I think during the covid pandemic many parents realized what was happening with the phone and their child. That is why you are seeing bell to bell, no phones in schools. That is why you are seeing other laws taking place. Ms. woods, I am heartbroken for you as a mother and a grandmother and having teenage grandsons.
▶ 1:20:02Sen. Blackburn: This is a fear, and absolute fear that parents have because the sextortion schemes and the targeting of young boys is like something that happens in a matter of hours and days. I appreciate your comment about your son being murdered. He was targeted and he was literally cyber bullied to death.
▶ 1:20:32Sen. Blackburn: This is why we need to pass the kids online safety act. This is why my report act -- Ms. coffren, you mentioned that -- was signed into law. More needs to be done to protect children in the virtual space. Ms.
▶ 1:20:50Sen. Blackburn: Woods, I want to come to you and give you a minute to talk about why these platforms should be required to force safety by design and to put that burden on the social media platforms to root out these bad actors.
▶ 1:21:09Ms. Woods: There is a number of things I would like to say with that. Social media and different applications save face. They say they have parental controls. Did anyone know that on google if your child is 12 years old and once they turn 13, google directly messages your child and tells them they no longer need parental control and they can click here to opt out. That is what I mean by parental controls are not enough.
▶ 1:21:42Ms. Woods: We are made to have a responsibility as parents to protect our children in every way. There are other obstacles involved that intervene in us parenting our child in the most appropriate way. The other thing is that by social media actually making sure we have laws in place like the social media act, parental act, is making sure we can monitor our kids better.
▶ 1:22:11Ms. Woods: When there are acronyms like when my son said I am going to kill myself, it would have alerted me, it would have alerted any parent that had lost their children's lives, it would have told me something is wrong. I wish that even today three years later I would have known half of the things I would've had for even be put in a position where I could taught my son to come to us. Whatever he needed.
▶ 1:22:43Ms. Woods: Our social media platforms took the time to not say anything.
▶ 1:22:51Sen. Blackburn: What advice would you give to parents right now sitting there today -- parents of teens?
▶ 1:23:00Ms. Woods: My advice I would give to parents is to talk to your children about sextortion or any other exploitation. I knew nothing about it. Any other parent that has a child has a privilege I did not have. It is free. Let's talk about it and let's educate our children. What I would say to children is be vulnerable one more time. One more time.
▶ 1:23:30Ms. Woods: You may not have made the best decision. We are all that way. You matter and all three were mistakes. I don't care what it is. We can make sure we have your back no matter what. I would give anything to have my son back and if they have to see james face, if they have to see my tears, I will make sure it happens if it means I can save your grandchildren I will do it.
▶ 1:24:02Chair Grassley: Senator blackburn, thank you. Senator whitehouse.
▶ 1:24:08Sen. Whitehouse: Thank you, chairman, thank you for this hearing. I want to thank all of the witnesses. Ms. woods, I am sorry this is so personal for you. There is not much that is worse than what you've been through and I admire the way you talk about it. It cannot be easy and I'm grateful to you. Ms.
▶ 1:24:32Sen. Whitehouse: Smolar, as a former united states attorney I am always impressed by the assistant united states attorney and Ms. coffren, thank you for your wonderful advocacy. I want to pick up a little bit on where I understand senator graham was with respect to getting rid of section 230.
▶ 1:24:59Sen. Whitehouse: I strongly believe section 230 has long outlived its use. It is now a real vessel for people that needs to end. The laws that section 230 protects these big platforms from our very often laws that go back to the common law of england that we inherited when
▶ 1:25:30Sen. Whitehouse: This country was initially founded. These are long-lasting, well tested, important legal constraints that have met the test of time, not by the year or the decade but by the century and yet because of this crazy section 230 these ancient and
▶ 1:26:04Sen. Whitehouse: Highly respected documents do not reach these people. It makes no sense. And if you do the exact same thing and you're a publisher you get treated a completely different way.
▶ 1:26:23Sen. Whitehouse: I think the time has come, I think it is pretty widely known there were a core four of us ready to proceed with a bipartisan bill and a lot of work, important work, good work, valuable work has gone into making sure other members of the committee and other members of the senate have a chance to look at that and decide whether they want to join or not.
▶ 1:26:54Sen. Whitehouse: I am at the stage where I think we just need to go. We just need to file that bill and start moving. Everybody else to make their decision whether they want to join or not. The delay on whether to deliberate whether people join or not, I already had plenty of time. This is fish or cut bait time. I hope very much we can proceed.
▶ 1:27:22Sen. Whitehouse: I hope there are more than core four, I hope it is core eight or core 12 or perhaps even unanimous on the committee. It really makes no sense and stories like Ms. woods's stories like Ms. woods' and like the story of the rhode island family affected show how alone and stranded people are when they do not have the chance to even get justice.
▶ 1:27:52Sen. Whitehouse: It is bad enough to have to live through a tragedy. It is bad enough to have to bear for the rest of your life that loss. To be told by a law of congress you cannot get justice because of the platform, not because the law is wrong, not because the rule is long -- not because rule is wrong, not because this is anything new, but because the
▶ 1:28:22Sen. Whitehouse: Wrong type of entity created this harm. I look at what was done with a lawsuit by the connecticut families whose children were killed in grade school and the accountability of a loudmouth for having whipped up a false theory that that whole thing was staged, that they were props,
▶ 1:28:54Sen. Whitehouse: That their children were not actually killed. You are never going to make that get better for those parents. At least they know the world listened. They at least know they got the chance in an honest courtroom and they know they got a victory out of it, they got a win.
▶ 1:29:18Sen. Whitehouse: The person responsible for that really vile misconduct had to face an enormous civil judgment that he is still being pursued over. That is not nothing. That is my statement. Let's hope we can finally get this 230 think moving this committee. Thank you.
▶ 1:29:43Chair Grassley: Now senator hawley.
▶ 1:29:46Sen. Hawley: Thank you to the witnesses for being here. Ms. woods, I want to say to you and your husband thank you for your courage and your advocacy and thank you for sharing with us just a little piece of the life of your beautiful son. I am a father of three myself, two boys and a little girl, and my oldest boy is now a teenager, just turned 13. As I look out of the landscape e is coming into in social media I am terrified by it.
▶ 1:30:17Sen. Hawley: I know parent to parent your son's life is changing the world. He is changing the world. You giving him voice as you and your husband are doing, that is the only thing that will make change in washington, D.C., I can tell you. Who currently has a hammer hold on the united states senate are the technologies companies that spend money to control the senate.
▶ 1:30:45Sen. Hawley: We may as well put a sign on the floor of the senate that says property of big floor, nothing they do not want. They spent money to control and by access and influence in the only thing that will break that is the truth of experience like yours and the voice of your son.
▶ 1:31:05Sen. Hawley: To confront lawmakers with the fact that unless we act and do something, unless we stand up to these corporate interests, more and more children like yours will lose their lives, will lose their futures. I want to say thank you because you are the tip of the spear, you are what is making the change.
▶ 1:31:27Sen. Hawley: I noticed in your written testimony, him, no platform stop it and then you point out meta has features that flagged inappropriate language that happens instantaneously but as you said no one flagged anything for you, none of those systems were deployed to help your son.
▶ 1:31:54Sen. Hawley: The reality is meta did not care about deploying systems to help your son because it did not make the money money. If it makes them money they are happy to do it. It did not make any money for them to help your son so they just stood by. Can I point out something meta is doing right now, not only is meta not protecting kids like your boy. Meta is looking to make money by targeting children who are your son's age and younger.
▶ 1:32:26Sen. Hawley: This is a document released by a meta whistleblower that is their policies. This is meta's own words, "it is acceptable to engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual." here is a deliberate policy to target teenagers your boys age and younger with the purpose of exploiting them so they can make money. What are the consequences?
▶ 1:32:57Sen. Hawley: Let's look at another young man a few years younger than your boy. He was 14. He is a handsome kid. This was a great kid. Much like your son, this is just a fantastic kid. He also was the victim of sextortion. His was pursued by a chatbot.
▶ 1:33:23Sen. Hawley: Your son's killers are hiding behind the various laws and treaties and the platforms themselves. This young man's killer, an ai chatbot, cannot be held accountable because they got special protections no other corporation in the world gets. A chatbot that engaged with young sewell and urged him to commit suicide and told him how to commit suicide and tragically he did it.
▶ 1:33:53Sen. Hawley: His parents are giving voice to him and his legacy, but the true justice that will come for boys like sewell ed young men like your son james is we have to be able -- boys like sewell and young men like your son james is we have to be able -- I've introduced legislation to prevent ai from targeting minors with chatbot's. It is time for this committee to markup this bill.
▶ 1:34:24Sen. Hawley: Senator britt is a cosponsor, senator blumenthal is a cosponsor, senator murphy is a cosponsor. This bill needs to mark -- this committee needs to mark that bill up and protect the kids from the profiteering of the corporations. This committee passed unanimously legislation that would allow the parents of victims of child sex abuse material, allow them to sue companies that put that material online, that hosted it knowingly or recklessly.
▶ 1:34:55Sen. Hawley: We passed unanimously. It is languishing on the senate floor. Unanimously out of the judiciary committee months ago and it is sitting on the floor of the senate. Why? Big tech fears at. I called today on senate leadership which is controlled by my party, I call on them to put that bill on the floor. Listen to the testimony of Ms. woods. He'd the witness of her son.
▶ 1:35:25Sen. Hawley: Heed the witness of sewell setzer. Listen to the lives of lung americans whose lives have been destroyed or lost by predators. Put this bill on the floor. There is no excuse for further delay. No amount of money or big tech can ever make right our inability to act. This committee has acted, it is time for the senate to act.
▶ 1:35:52Sen. Hawley: It would be inexcusable for this congress to close out this year without taking action to protect our children. Thank you for being here. Thank you Ms. woods especially.
▶ 1:36:00Chair Grassley: Senator klobuchar.
▶ 1:36:04Sen. Klobuchar: I think the sentiment senator hawley expressed in many of us feel about the bills that have come through the committee and the work we have done. We know one bill passed that you noted, Ms. coffren, was the take it down act I authored with senator cruz signed into law by president trump. That criminalizes the distribution of and threats to distribute nonconsensual intimate images whether they are ai created or real.
▶ 1:36:34Sen. Klobuchar: I would also add to echo some of my colleagues that it is long past time to repeal section 230. At the beginning of his efforts I thought maybe no, we can put the rules in effect in the tech companies have worked with us. That has not happened, the opposite has happened.
▶ 1:36:58Sen. Klobuchar: As we approach the 30 year you anniversary it is time to do an assessment for any parent takes one minute to recognize the harm that has been called. Ms. woods, thank you for your moving testimony. Can you talk about how even the threat of distribution of nonconsensual images can be tragic and why it is vital to the law covers threats as the take it down act does as well as the reality?
▶ 1:37:26Ms. Woods: It is a number of things. Our children are not just handing out the nudes. They are being coerced in providing them with regards to creating safe spaces and different things of that sort.
▶ 1:37:43Ms. Woods: Once the threat behind the nude comes, it is not just the nude being in existence, it is all of the threats behind it when they are questioning what they are doing and becoming desperate and willing to do whatever they can to get rid of that image. It is embarrassing to them. We tell kids all the time that if you put it on the internet it will go away -- it will not go away. My son was threatened.
▶ 1:38:10Ms. Woods: He was slated to be number one in the state of ohio in hurdles and they told him he would never run track again. They told him he would be labeled a pedophile because he was under 18 and they did have a nude photo of him. It becomes far more than the embarrassment of the picture. The actual torture that comes after the picture. By them being able to have take it down as an option, it takes a weight off of them.
▶ 1:38:40Ms. Woods: They are able to address all of the other issues that come after it. Once we take that photo away then we can battle everything else and I think that helps them with that.
▶ 1:38:51Sen. Klobuchar: As you know, the take it down act -- not only the rights with regard to the people doing this but the rights to demand of the social media platforms take these images down. I just wrote a piece today in the new york times about ai and how important it is to allow the states to keep doing their work while we are waiting on the leadership to bring up these bills for a vote.
▶ 1:39:22Sen. Klobuchar: I just believe that if you are not going to do anything federally you better do something in the states but also you have to hold these platforms liable. Can you talk about that?
▶ 1:39:32Ms. Coffren: The biggest threat to children face is not necessarily a criminal justice proceeding or fear of what will happen next, they just want their images down. The threats the bad actors are using against them is a recirculation of the same diatribes we've been telling children for years as a prevention method. Do not do this action or once it is out there it is always out there and you'll never get it back. That has to change.
▶ 1:39:59Ms. Coffren: The take it down act changes that significantly by requiring the company within 48 hours to review that. Children need to know they have that right for that content to come down so that the threat to recirculate, there is power taken away from that and the child gets that power back. That act is really revolutionary because historically we have seen companies taking a week, sometimes not rules at all. The national center for exploited children publishes data about the companies.
▶ 1:40:31Ms. Coffren: Those companies that take it down, how long it takes them to take it down in which companies choose not to. All of that information is public and we are trying to make sure we can find that.
▶ 1:40:40Sen. Klobuchar: Miss smolar, a short question, different topic. Senator blackburn and I introduced the national human trafficking database act to establish a national human trafficking database to incentivize states to report data. A little bit along the lines of what we are hearing from Ms. coffren on the take it down bill.
▶ 1:41:06Sen. Klobuchar: Can you talk about the data sharing and how it can empower law enforcement to protect victims of human trafficking?
▶ 1:41:11Ms. Smolar: Thank you, senator. Human traffickers to victims across state lines all the time. That is how they make money and how they get more victims by crossing state lines. Having nationwide data through law enforcement is valuable to talk to their colleagues in different states, to get information on different traffickers come on victims. We tried to rescue victims all the time.
▶ 1:41:41Ms. Smolar: Without the data we cannot do that.
▶ 1:41:42Chair Grassley: Senator moody?
▶ 1:41:46Sen. Moody: Thank you for holding this hearing. I really appreciate it. I cannot thank you enough for being here today. My name is ashley moody. I became the first mom of a school kid ever on florida's cabinet when I became the attorney general. The kid was still in school. I debated how -- that was going to be a challenge. Ultimately that became my biggest driver.
▶ 1:42:18Sen. Moody: I am listening to you guys talk this morning and I am so grateful we have people like you willing to speak up and stay focused on this and not let up because I am telling you the focus of large corporations on profit never lets up. That is a fight in and of itself. If you are a representative of a large tech platform or any of the associations or represent them in government affairs, could you please stand up.
▶ 1:42:46Sen. Moody: I would like the chairman to note that not one person is here from this testimony to listen to a mother who lost her only child. Thank you for showing up. Let me tell you when they do show up. In 2004, because congress has done nothing -- you know what we did get past this last year was because of a mom should up in congress and said you have to get this done, melania trump said show up. We have to pass this. The take it down act.
▶ 1:43:18Sen. Moody: It did because a mom showed up and did not let up. You've heard from multiple people today congress is doing nothing. That congress is under the thumb of big tech because of financial influence. Lindsey graham said how is this happening, maybe we do something next year. He said nothing really happens. Because congress has not done anything, what have we had to do in the states? I was the only mom on the florida cabinet of a school-aged kid we passed legislation in florida.
▶ 1:43:49Sen. Moody: We were one of the very first states to protect kids online in 2024. We protected young kids, we got it done. We are one of the first states. Other states have had to follow suit because what happens in congress? Nothing really happens. We did it. You know where the big tech company show up? Their lawyers, their lobbyists, their government representatives? Or did they show up? In court to fight us when we get something done.
▶ 1:44:20Sen. Moody: When we passed it in florida and ice showed up in court when they sued us to overturn the law and spent all that money to sue when the state actually did something to stand up for their kids, we fought it and I am proud to tell you they should up there to fight us. I am proud to tell you fighting hard and staying focused and staying resistant and showing up, we just got a win. We just got a win in court.
▶ 1:44:45Sen. Moody: I am proud to tell you that piece of legislation got upheld in the 11th circuit. I think we are going to win it. It goes to show you you cannot do something. We looked at all of those other states that tried something that got blocked and we took that into account now we are winning in court. We are winning against those companies.
▶ 1:45:09Sen. Moody: When I am watching you you have blended everything from being a mother to a former federal prosecutor. I've worked on human trafficking , led the human trafficking group within our statewide human trafficking counsel. I will not give up. If we are making progress in this fight. Now I just got appointed united states senator and we will do that here. I would like them to show up so I can fight them in person right here in this hearing. That is what has to happen.
▶ 1:45:41Sen. Moody: If we are going to move anything as lindsey graham says, if we will have anything really happen we have to have people speaking out. Thank you for making it known this is happening under our noses. Stranger danger does not work anymore, don't get into the van does not happen anymore, it is happening in our kids bedrooms and we need to be vocal and say if they are not your friend in real life you -- they cannot be your friend online grade I appreciate you speaking out and I hope other kids will not be embarrassed enough to share this with their friends. We will work on that.
▶ 1:46:13Sen. Moody: Please come to my office we can come up with a plan. As a former federal prosecutor, having a specific crime outlawing and providing penalties for sextortion, as a prosecutor I know that would be helpful. Ms. smolar, have you seen a piece of legislation on outlining the elements of sextor tion federally and what criminal penalty would be tied to that?
▶ 1:46:44Sen. Moody: Have you seen a piece of proposed legislation?
▶ 1:46:46Ms. Smolar: Not yet.
▶ 1:46:48Sen. Moody: So we need to get that done. As a former federal prosecutor I will pledge to you we need to make that happen. We also need to see that in the states, to see a specific sextortion crime defined with penalties attached.
▶ 1:47:05Ms. Smolar: We work with states all the time on these cases.
▶ 1:47:09Sen. Moody: I created a cyber unit that works specifically on these crimes and was incredibly helpful and they could begin work on investigations. You think having the specialty units in each state working with federal partners would be helpful?
▶ 1:47:24Ms. Smolar: We do that all the time on these type of cases. A lot of the perpetrators of some of these crimes are juveniles in the states can prosecute juveniles and place juveniles -- the federal government is much harder to do that.
▶ 1:47:39Sen. Moody: I have run out of time but let me say thank you for not losing focus or passion on behalf of the kids of this nation. They are going to be the ones that carry this message to their peers and we need to continue pushing this message until it seeps into their vocabulary and this is commonplace to talk about. Thank you very much.
▶ 1:48:01Chair Grassley: Senator blumenthal?
▶ 1:48:06Sen. Blumenthal: Thank you for all of you for being here today and I know about the work you have done and deeply respect your advocacy and your steadfastness on behalf of this cause and also my colleagues for their passion and eloquence. It is pretty simple as far as federal legislation is concerned. What we need is votes. We need votes.
▶ 1:48:36Sen. Blumenthal: We voted on the kids online safety act and the united states senate and passed it by a margin of 91-3 in the last session. I would invite my colleagues to speak as passionately to the house leadership, which failed last session to give the kids online safety act a vote. Not a vote.
▶ 1:49:08Sen. Blumenthal: This session we have more than 60 cosponsors in the united states senate for the act and we will undoubtedly for other measures as well. Big tech is exercising its way using its armies of lawyers and lobbyists. You have spoken powerfully today .
▶ 1:49:38Sen. Blumenthal: My colleagues are on the right side of this issue. No one is in favor of child exploitation. The fact is Ms. woods, as you wrote in your remarks about abuse and exploitation of your son, "no system protected him, no platform stopped him." I've met countless parents who feel the same way.
▶ 1:50:05Sen. Blumenthal: The common factor in all of their stories is the one gatekeeper that makes this abuse possible is in fact big tech. It is meta and others allowing predators from around the world use their platforms and make our kids prey to exploiters who are sometimes beyond our borders.
▶ 1:50:31Sen. Blumenthal: I guess I would invite you, miss woods, and perhaps others to talk directly to speaker johnson in the house of representatives and tell him what you think he should do.
▶ 1:50:47Ms. Woods: You have my commitment on that.
▶ 1:50:50Sen. Blumenthal: And perhaps others of you, witnesses, maybe you can tell me what impact or influence you can have in the house of representatives. Have you masked to testify at a -- have you been asked to testify at a hearing?
▶ 1:51:10Ms. Smolar: I have not.
▶ 1:51:12Ms. Coffren: We would love to work together to get legislation passed. We have so many bills coming forward. We have seen the success of bills when they are nuanced, when they are focused, and when they can be introduced and passed quickly. We've been able to see a huge success. The report act is a great example. We saw decreases in the amount of online sex trafficking and enticement.
▶ 1:51:41Ms. Coffren: When you see those acts passed is because we are holding companies accountable. If we do not the rest of the reporting is voluntary. The two reporting requirements were forbidden to be received prior to them and we know the prevalence of the increase is the responsibility to report.
▶ 1:52:00Sen. Blumenthal: I want to close by saying we want a law. We do not just one speeches. We want a bill that is effective. Right now the house has weakened the kids online safety act bill come in effect decimating the duty of care which prevents the kinds of abuses and holds platforms accountable.
▶ 1:52:34Sen. Blumenthal: It imposes a legal responsibility on big tech when it knows or should know the arms you've come here to highlight. Decimating that duty of care is a disservice to all of the parents and all the children who have become victims. When you talk to members of the house I would urge you to insist on a real protection for kids.
▶ 1:53:06Sen. Blumenthal: Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:53:07Chair Grassley: Senator britt?
▶ 1:53:12Sen. Britt: I appreciate you all being here today. Ms. woods, thank you for continuing to honor your story and honor james and make sure we all learn as parents. I have said this quite frequently. As parents we are all doing the best we can.
▶ 1:53:30Sen. Britt: I'm grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have come together, not just on democrats or republicans best concerned parents and grandparents, knowing what we are facing -- not as democrats or republicans but as concerned parents and grandparents, knowing what we are facing. As a mom you worked diligently to keep them safe. It used to be you got home at night and would lock the doors and you could exhale.
▶ 1:53:59Sen. Britt: Now the enemy inside our home in the palm of their hand. If we cannot do this as congress what are we here for? We are here to protect the most vulnerable. We are here to protect our greatest asset and to me that is the greatest generation. Thank you for continuing to raise your voice and ensure we push this body to do what it needs to. I would love to know from your perspective, Mrs.
▶ 1:54:28Sen. Britt: Woods in particular -- in your written corporation you set large corporations continue to argue for rights for refusing to take responsibility. I think that sums it up. Tell me what you want us to know as we could to push these various pieces of legislation to the floor as a proud cosponsor almost every single one of them. Do your point we are looking at how do we get something through.
▶ 1:54:59Sen. Britt: We heard miss coughlin say the faster we get it done -- we heard miss coughlin -- we heard Ms. coffren say the faster we get it done -- big tech will only care about their profits. They know what they are doing. It was just said in reuters meta sent about $16 billion of their profits are directly related to scams and ads on banned goods. It is insane.
▶ 1:55:31Sen. Britt: Tell me what you think we need to do, what are the simple fixes that would ultimately have had been able to save your son's life.
▶ 1:55:41Ms. Woods: I definitely think education, pass that education law. I am really big on education.
▶ 1:55:51Sen. Britt: I love you said that because every school group I say hold on here is my mom moment and we go directly into things you're talking about.
▶ 1:56:00Ms. Woods: Education is number one. Crime will never go away. Even if we set laws we don't educate our kids in community to make sure we know when this happens we can fight against it. I guess I'm coming from a mom and an naïve stance. I do not understand why it is so hard to pass laws.
▶ 1:56:28Ms. Woods: We have people wasting money every day on all kinds of things. Why can we not take our children off of the marketing of the prey? I do not understand how hard that is to protect our children. We don't have a world without them.
▶ 1:56:44Sen. Britt: Thank you for what we are doing and pursuing the litigation and saying we need age verification, we need these guardrails to protect our kids. The fact that they continue to prey, and that is exactly what social media companies are doing is praying on our children because they know having our kids on their platform is how they make more money. They are unwilling to do the right thing in helping us ensure the kids are protected.
▶ 1:57:15Sen. Britt: It is moms like you and people like me you -- like you who are saying we must do more that will ultimately force people in this body to actually do the right thing. Thank you. It should be simple and this is common sense. I would love and my remaining minute, I would love Ms.
▶ 1:57:33Sen. Britt: Coffren for you to tell me, I know nick mick works plenty -- works with many of the social media companies to address this and you also faced challenges. What are some of the biggest challenges facing ncmc from technology and continuing to evolve.
▶ 1:58:01Ms. Coffren: Both volume and quantity our biggest challenges. It is a challenge -- nor is it appropriate for companies to look the other way and say I do not have actual knowledge I will make no reports. We need to have diligent and robust reporting, especially in the legislation for the stop act that will require companies to provide detailed reporting that would make these reports far more actionable.
▶ 1:58:31Ms. Coffren: Right now the company is only required to report two fields, the date and time as well as what type of thing they reported. If we do not provide the valuable information to get that to the appropriate law enforcement so they can investigate the report is worthless.
▶ 1:58:46Sen. Britt: Ms. smaller, do you have anything -- miss smolar do you have anything to add to that?
▶ 1:58:53Ms. Smolar: We could use these statutes, we could use additional tools to prosecute these crimes. Our law enforcement age and the could use the resources to have agents to spend the time. With regard to sextortion you now have two kinds of exploiters, the kind that used to go after the elderly are now targeting our children.
▶ 1:59:25Ms. Smolar: That is a lot for law enforcement age and to put their arms around.
▶ 1:59:27Sen. Britt: I commit to working on this and let's get something done.
▶ 1:59:31Chair Grassley: I thank all of you for your testimony today. Your work for today is done that I will announce that usually members submit questions for answers in writing. Our members on this committee have until december 16 at 5:00 p.m. To submit questions for answers in writing and I would ask each of you to answer and return the questions to the committee as soon as possible.
▶ 2:00:02Chair Grassley: Thank you very much. Meeting adjourned.