I 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1166 
To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide for more effective enforce-
ment of the Federal prohibition on the interstate shipment of stolen 
property, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 25, 2009 
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide for more 
effective enforcement of the Federal prohibition on the 
interstate shipment of stolen property, and for other 
purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘E-fencing Enforcement 
Act of 2009’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDING AND DECLARATION. 
The Congress finds and declares that— 
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(1) the knowing participation, including by will-
ful blindness, in a scheme to fence specific goods the 
participant knows are stolen, if the scheme involves 
the shipment of those goods in interstate or foreign 
commerce, including a knowing participation by pro-
viding a marketplace through the Internet for those 
goods, is a violation of section 2314 of title 18, 
United States Code, and should be vigorously pros-
ecuted by the Department of Justice; and 
(2) the Department of Justice should normally 
consider compliance with this Act as a negation of 
culpability under that section. 
SEC. 3. E-FENCING ENFORCEMENT. 
(a) IMPROVING ENFORCEMENT.—Chapter 113 of 
title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the 
end the following: 
‘‘§ 2324. E-fencing enforcement 
‘‘(a) DUTY TO PROVIDE INFORMATION.—It shall be 
the duty of each online marketplace provider to disclose 
contact information for any high volume seller to any in-
quirer with standing under this section to seek that infor-
mation. 
‘‘(b) DUTY TO RETAIN INFORMATION ABOUT HIGH 
VOLUME SELLERS.—It shall be the duty of each online 
marketplace provider to retain contact information for 
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three years after receipt of that information from high vol-
ume seller. 
‘‘(c) TAKE-DOWN REQUIREMENT.—Upon the request 
of a recipient of contact information under this section, 
it shall be the duty of the provider to determine, based 
on information reasonably available to it or that could be 
obtained by the provider without undue expense, whether 
the goods or items were lawfully acquired. If the provider 
determines that there is good reason to believe the goods 
or items were unlawfully acquired, it shall be the duty of 
the provider to preclude access by the high volume seller 
to the online marketplace with respect to those goods or 
items. 
‘‘(d) CIVIL ACTION FOR FAILURE TO COMPLY.—Any 
person aggrieved by a failure of an Internet marketplace 
provider to comply with this section may, in a civil action, 
obtain appropriate relief. 
‘‘(e) DEFINITIONS.—In this section— 
‘‘(1) the term ‘online marketplace’ means an 
Internet site where persons other than the operator 
of the Internet site can enter into transactions for 
the sale of goods or other items if— 
‘‘(A) the goods or items are promoted 
through inclusion in search results displayed 
within the site; and 
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‘‘(B) the operator of the site has the con-
tractual right to supervise those transactions 
and a financial interest in the sale of the goods 
or items; 
‘‘(2) the term ‘contact information’ means the 
name, telephone number, and address at which legal 
process could be served; 
‘‘(3) the term ‘high volume seller’ means any 
person who, through the online marketplace, sells or 
offers for sale goods or items— 
‘‘(A) of a value of $5,000 or more in any 
single offering; or 
‘‘(B) of a value of $12,000 or more in one 
or more offerings during the course of the pre-
ceding 365 days; and 
‘‘(4) the term ‘inquirer with standing under this 
section to seek’ means any person who provides to 
the online marketplace provider a signed report 
made to or received from a criminal law enforcement 
agency reporting the unsolved theft from that person 
during the preceding 365 days of goods matching 
the description of those offered on the online mar-
ketplace after the theft.’’. 
(b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sections 
at the beginning of chapter 113 of title 18 , United States 
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