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Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I reserve my right to object.
I have heard this discussion about parents. My wife and I are older parents, the youngest child being a charming 11-year-old redhead. As I say, she is 11. So we are all in for protecting kids from these monsters, and there is no disputing that that is what we are talking about.
I say to Senator Graham, we have talked about a lot of issues over the years--no disagreement about these people being monsters. CSAM is a toxic plague on the internet, perpetrated by people who, in my view, are evil to their core. These are real victims, and they need support. The criminals have got to be hunted down and locked up.
I want to be clear. As I have said in the Senate before, I don't take a back seat to anybody when it comes to helping kids and punishing predators. In a minute, I will talk about my approach, which I think is going to be effective. It might not sound effective, but it is going to be effective, and it has been endorsed by the National District Attorneys Association, made up of district attorneys across the land.
Now, the specific reason I oppose EARN IT is that it will weaken the single strongest technology that protects children and families online, something known as strong encryption. It is going to make it easier to punish sites that use encryption to secure private conversations and personal devices. This bill is designed to pressure communications and technology companies to scan users' messages. I, for one, don't find that a particularly comforting idea.
The sponsors of the bill have argued--and Senator Graham is right; we have been talking about this a while--that their bills don't harm encryption. Yet the bills allow courts to punish companies that offer strong encryption. In fact, while it includes some vague language about protecting encryption, it explicitly allows encryption to be used as evidence for various forms of liability. Prosecutors are going to be quick to argue that deploying encryption was evidence of a company's negligence in preventing the distribution of CSAM, for example.
The bill is also designed to encourage the scanning of content on users' phones or computers before information is sent over the internet, which has the same consequences as breaking encryption. That is why 100 groups, civil society groups, including the American Library Association--people whom I think all of us have worked for--and the Human Rights Campaign and Restore the Fourth--all of them oppose this bill because of its impact on essential security.
Weakening encryption is the single biggest gift you could give to these predators and these god-awful people who want to stalk and spy on kids. Sexual predators are going to have a far easier time stealing photographs of kids, tracking their phones, and spying on their private messages once encryption is breached.
It is very ironic that a bill that is supposed to make kids safer would have the effect of threatening the privacy and security of all law-abiding Americans.
My alternative--and I want to be clear about this because I think Senator Graham has been sincere about saying that this is a horrible problem involving kids. We have a disagreement on the remedy. That is what is at issue. What I want us to do is to focus our energy on giving law enforcement officials the tools they need to find and prosecute these monstrous criminals who are responsible for exploiting kids and spreading vile, abusive materials online. That can help prevent kids from becoming victims in the first place.
So I have introduced a bill to do this, the Invest in Child Safety Act, to direct $5 billion to do three specific things to deal with this very urgent problem.
What I have proposed in the Invest in Child Safety Act--I am very pleased to be able to say it has been endorsed by the National District Attorneys Association--is, one, give law enforcement agencies the tools and personnel they need to catch the predators who are creating and spreading CSAM; two, fund community-based programs to prevent at-risk kids from becoming victims in the first place; and three, invest in programs to support survivors of abuse.
Any legislation that doesn't include these pieces, I would just say particularly to Senator Graham because he and I have talked about this many times over the years and just have a difference of opinion, any legislation that doesn't include the three pieces I mentioned, I don't think is up to the task of protecting these kids that we all feel so strongly about.
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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, again, I have made my point that I don't disagree in the least with Senator Graham on the seriousness of the problem.
So I am not going to repeat myself and put everybody through that. But here are the main points to make sure they are heard on CSAM, as I did with respect to EARN IT.
CSAM is a horrifying plague on the internet. Senator Graham and I do not disagree on that point at all. Again, weakening encryption, though, is not going to help victims or make kids safer. And that is what this bill does.
The Leadership Conference for Civil Rights opposes this bill and the earlier bill because they threaten secure private communications that are essential for communities of color and every single family in the country.
I would only say, in terms of wrapping this up--and Senator Graham and I have talked about this--my door is open in terms of talking about approaches that will work. I believe that focusing our energy on giving law enforcement, finally, the tools to lock these horrible criminals behind bars for exploiting kids is something that we ought to get on with. And we ought to invest in programs that support survivors.
The Invest in Child Safety Act that I have written, with the support of the National District Attorneys Association, is endorsed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and leading child welfare groups.
That is what this bill does. It finally offers a measure of real protection for these kids who we have been talking about over the last hour or so who deserve it. Their families deserve it. The legislation that I have proposed, endorsed by influential voices like the National District Attorneys Association, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, with respect to CSAM, are the way to go. Again, anything less--and I don't criticize anybody's motives--just doesn't solve the problem.
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