Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 --- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. KIRK. Madam President, I ask the Senator from Vermont if he
opposes the amendment that was also cosponsored by Senator Feinstein.

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Mr. KIRK. Madam President, I would say that this amendment is
directed at backpage.com, probably the largest provider of online
slavery services in the United States. I would hope the Senator is not
defending Lacey and Larkin, who make $30 million a year off of slavery.

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Mr. KIRK. Amendment No. 273 would include the SAVE Act, which has
already substantially passed with huge bipartisan support of the party
of the Senator from Vermont in the House of Representatives. If we
look, we will find that backpage.com is active in every State,
providing online services to the public.

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Mr. KIRK. As a Senator from Illinois, our true gift to the people of
this country has been individual freedom and dignity, epitomized by the
Lincoln candidacy for the Senate, and by the victory in the Civil War.
We should not allow the freedom of the Internet to allow freedom to
enslave others. These two men have made tens of millions of dollars.

I yield back to the distinguished majority whip.

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Mr. KIRK. The critical issue is how to restrict the ability of
Americans to enslave each other. I don't think we should have that
freedom. We want to make sure we thread the needle very carefully here,
to make sure the freedom and commerce available on the Internet is not
going to help people such as Lacey and Larkin to enslave others. We
want to make sure that there is an ever-widening sphere of freedom
inside the United States that is not inhibited by the Internet.

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Mr. KIRK. Very much so. The way we thread the needle here is to make
online providers of slavery services liable for the costs that local
governments incur in cleaning up the mess they create.

In the case of Cook County, IL, we have had our crusading sheriff,
who I would note is also a Democratic sheriff, establish a great effort
to recover the young, underage girls involved and to make sure the
costs incurred in helping out these young women--these citizens of the
United States--to make sure they can charge it against the online
provider, which makes eminent sense.

I would say that our freedoms are protected because Tom Dart was
elected by the people of Cook County. As an elected official, he is
trying to simply carry out his goal there. This makes eminent sense to
do this.

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