Exhibit B 

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DOMESTIC MINOR SEX TRAFFICKING 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, 

AND HOMELAND SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 

Serial No. 111–146 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 


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Mr. POWELL. Yes. 

Mr. SCOTT. And so you can track the person, if necessary? 

Mr. POWELL. Well, in cases where we have received a request 

from law enforcement, we release the records to the district attorneys, to the police officers, to the FBI agents and they use the information we capture to do that tracking. 

Ms. MCDOUGALL. I can further elaborate if that is helpful. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. 

Ms. MCDOUGALL. What craigslist can provide is the e-mail address and IP address of the person that posted the ad. Craigslist 

can’t from there identify the specific computer or individual. What 

you do then is contact, you can identify online who the service provider is for that IP address, and you can contact the service provider and get from them the information as to who owns that IP 

address. Law enforcement can do it by subpoena. You can do it in 

a civil suit by subpoena as well. 

Mr. SCOTT. Ms. Hakes what laws apply to Internet providers like 

craigslist that would make them criminally liable for the postings? 

Ms. HAKES. Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of any laws that 

would make them liable, unless there was evidence that craigslist 

was a participant specifically, whether they were, for example, conspiring with those who were misusing their site, that is, knowingly 

conspiring to violate the laws. What we have seen in the past—— 

Mr. SCOTT. What about if they are not actively conspiring? What 

about just intentional neglect? Or they just don’t care? 

Ms. HAKES. Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of any Federal statutes anyway with respect to neglect being the standard. In Federal 

law, the standard for prosecution would be knowing or willful. And 

when you are talking about in cases that have come up, the investigations that have been done by the FBI and others, I am not 

aware of anything that shows us that craigslist might be criminally 

liable. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well I’m not talking about just craigslist. I’m talking 

about any of them. If there are no laws on the books now, are there 

any potential laws we could put on the books that would pass constitutional muster that would be helpful in tracking down people 

that make these postings? 

Ms. HAKES. Mr. Chairman, the Department of Justice would be 

more than happy to work with the Committee and consult with you 

on whether or not there are tools with respect to the topic that 

you’re discussing. However, I would say that I believe that at this 

point, we have the proper tools. We have what we need to prosVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:45 Jan 12, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00221 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\CRIME\091510\58250.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA

215 

Mr. POWELL. We have a number of technological measures that 

are used, along with some manual review that we feel does a good 

job at ensuring that the content that had previously appeared in 

the manually reviewed adult services category does not migrate to 

the other categories that appear on our site, the personals categories, other services categories. And, in addition to review by our 

staff of those categories in the past 10 days, the chart that Ms. 

McDougall referred to with respect to increase in traffic on 

Backpage seems to support that. 

Mr. SCOTT. If someone is communicating with craigslist, can you 

identify, technologically identify which computer made that contact? 

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Mr. SCOTT. The Dateline NBC with Chris Hansen—— 

Ms. HAKES. To Catch a Predator, yes, sir. 

Mr. SCOTT. The penalties that they publish are in the matter of 

a months, a couple of months; is that not typical? 

Ms. HAKES. No, sir. That would be State and local. In my experience, when I was assistant district attorney, some of the charges 

that are utilized in State and local offenses for enticing a child in 

certain jurisdictions might be misdemeanors. In Federal law however, it is a felony. And enticing a child over the Internet carries 

a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in prison. 

Mr. SCOTT. Now how much cooperation is there, Federal State 

and local law enforcement in these investigations and prosecutions? 

Ms. HAKES. Well, as I said in my statement, we are very strongly 

supportive of the Innocence Lost National Initiative. We believe 

that it has been extremely successful. And one of the things that 

we are doing in the National Strategy for Child Exploitation, Prevention and Interdiction, is working with all of our partners, community-based, law enforcement-based, industry-based, in order to 

establish what are the best practices that we are all engaging in, 

expanding our cooperation and collaboration with respect to child 

exploitation, and we are looking into whether or not the Innocence 

Lost National Initiative should be expanded from 38 task forces 

and working groups that exist now to more areas across the country. 


216 

ecute the guilty, that is, the people who are using the Internet, and 

it isn’t just craigslist and of course it isn’t just prostitution of children, it is sexual exploitation of children in all its forms. Many 

predators, many of those who would prey on children, utilize the 

Internet, misuse the Internet in order to prey on those children, to 

traffic in child pornography, to advertise children for child prostitution. And I don’t think anyone would here would propose closing 

the Internet. 

Mr. SCOTT. You have two parts of this transaction. One is the 

posting of the availability of the children, and the other is of the 

demand side. Are there any efforts to essentially set people up so 

that anyone who goes on the Internet searching for people can get 

ensnared in a sting operation? 

Ms. HAKES. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. As a matter of fact, over the 

last year, in the western district of Missouri, Operation Guardian 

Angel has en in effect, and that is a law enforcement operation utilizing Internet service providers like craigslist to post adds suggesting that they have children who are underage that they would 

provide for sex. In Operation Guardian Angel, several people answered the ads. Several people made arrangements over the telephone to meet with who they thought would be underage children 

for sex and they were prosecuted for those crimes. And some of 

them received—— 

Mr. SCOTT. And what is the typical penalty when they get 

caught? 

Ms. HAKES. They received very substantial sentences depending 

on the crime under which they were prosecuted. It ranges anywhere, as I said in my earlier statement for trafficking in children 

and child exploitation could be as little as 5 years. It could be as 

many as life. 

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But I would say that where we have the Innocence Lost National 

Initiative Task Forces and working groups they are very successful. 

Since 2003 we have located over 1,100 children and federally and 

State we have prosecuted more than 600 offenders who have received some very substantial sentences. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. Mr. Poe. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you responding 

so quickly to a letter I wrote requesting this hearing based upon 

the fact that so many victims groups had contacted me and other 

Members of Congress. So I appreciate that. 

Ms. Frundt, thank you for being here. You are to be admired. 

People like you are really important to solving problems, and I admire you for your courage just to come here and talk to Congress 

and tell your story. So thank you very much for being here. 

Craigslist, it is good to hear that this site has been shut down. 

We want to make that clear, that y’all have done that. Is that correct, Mr. Powell? 

Mr. POWELL. That is correct, yes. 

Mr. POE. Good. There are many issues. You have all talked about 

the problems and the issues. I am concerned as a former judge and 

prosecutor, about the victim. The girl, the young lady is not a 

criminal. But yet in our State courts, because of different reasons 

and excuses, they are still treated like criminals. To get into the 

system, to get any kind of treatment they are treated like criminals 

in the domestic trafficking. International trafficking there are some 

services. We have to fix that problem. We have a social duty to fix 

that problem so the things that happened to Ms. Frundt do not 

continue to happen to young women in our country. 

The people involved, besides the victim, you have got the trafficker, and you may have been present when I made comments 

about what ought to happen to traffickers, at least what a Texas 

Ranger thinks ought to happen to traffickers, Chief Sensley; the old 

comment, well, get a rope. Anyway, but then you have got the consumer. And I think we need to zero in on the consumer who pays 

for this crime, who pays in the sense that they are able to exploit 

children because when there is a market, this crime will continue. 

When there is a buyer, and so we need to make to more difficult 

for the consumer who seems to be, I think, traditionally in this 

type of crime, gets away with it. 

Now, Ms. Hakes, you mentioned the fact that the Missouri U.S. 

Attorneys Office had a project. But I understand they only prosecuted 10 cases; is that correct? 

Ms. HAKES. I am not sure of the exact statistic, Congressman 

Poe. I can get that for you, but it was not a huge number. 

Mr. POE. I think it is 10. Seven pled guilty. So of all of these 

cases happening in the United States, on the Federal level we have 

seven people that pled guilty, because other districts, I’m talking 

about the consumer, the buyer, the john, the other criminal. Is that 

correct? 

Ms. HAKES. No, Congressman Poe. Not exactly. I can’t give you 

the exact number of how many people have pled guilty or been convicted to date, but we have expanded Operation Guardian Angel. 

Other districts are employing some of the same techniques. I don’t 

want to get too much into that in a public hearing. But I can asVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:45 Jan 12, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00223 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\CRIME\091510\58250.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA

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