The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted unanimously to hold the classified ads of a website called Backpage.com. This is in contempt of Congress, invoking the measure for the first time in more than two decades amidst the allegations that the site facilitates sex trafficking, especially of children.
According to Reuters, the Senate voted 96-0 in favour to hold the site Backpage. It came after it did not comply with a subpoena to hand over documents explaining how it fights sex tracking in ads on the adult section of its page.
The site is known as the second-largest online classified ad service in the United States after Craigslist. The move to hold the website will also let Senate lawyers bring a court case in federal district court to force compliance with the subpoena. This could even set up a battle over free speech.
Salon mentioned that Senators Rob Portman, R-Ohio and Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo, sponsored the resolution after they claimed that Backapage refused to comply with the subpoena last year. Holding the company in disdain would allow the Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee to go to court to try to compel Backpage to turn over documents about its screening practices.
"Backpage has refused to cooperate," stated McCaskill, who returned to the Senate this week after three weeks of treatment for breast cancer. She added, "Today is the day we say enough."
Portman and McCaskill's probe uncovered evidences suggesting that employees at Backpage have ignored the red flags of child sex trafficking. They must have also edited the classified ads to hide the evidence of the activity.
Over 400 cases of child sex trafficking across the 47 states in the U.S. have been linked to Backpage these past years, including at least 13 in Ohio and at least 6 in Missouri. All of them came from the investigation conducted by the Senators, who lead the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs' investigatory subcommittee, as claimed by CINCINNATI.
Partner at the law firm, Akin Gump, and counsel to the site, Steve Ross, admitted that the company welcomes the Senate vote so that Backpage could also have its First Amendment defence in court.
With the Senate vote, the chamber's legal counsel will now file a civil action against the website in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Senate lawsuit would also request a judge's order to enforce the sub-committee's subpoena.
Meanwhile, if the judge would side Senate the court would compel Backpage's cooperation with the Senate committee's probe. They could also impose financial penalties for failing to do so.
