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Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I very much share the stated goals of the STOP CSAM Act. Child sexual abuse material is a toxic plague on the internet. There are real victims who need real support and criminals who must be hunted down and locked up.

I take a back seat to no one when it comes to helping kids and punishing predators. However, this bill would weaken the single strongest technology that now protects children and families--that's strong encryption. It will make it easier to punish sites that use encryption to secure private conversations and personal devices. While STOP CSAM's sponsors have argued that the bill does not target encryption, the bill explicitly allows courts to punish companies that offer strong encryption. It also would encourage scanning of content on user's phones or computers before information is sent over the internet, which has the same consequences as breaking encryption.

Weakening encryption is probably the single biggest gift that you can give to the predators and the monsters who want to stalk and spy on kids. Sexual predators will have a far easier time stealing and extorting photographs of children, tracking their phones, and spying on their private messages once encryption is breached.

Doing so threatens the privacy and security of every single law- abiding American.

I also think it is surprising that the Senator is asking to pass this bill at the very same time its sponsor is reportedly circulating an updated version of the bill with a number of changes. Although that new version of the legislation has not been made public, it certainly would be a mistake to pass legislation that apparently is still in the process of being revised.

Mr. President, what this is all about is talking about doing something effective or actually taking effective action. I have proposed doing just that. We ought to focus on giving law enforcement officials the tools they need to find and prosecute criminals responsible for exploiting kids and spreading these vile materials online. That way, we can help keep kids from becoming victims in the first place.

Let me also say that we can do this if Members support my bipartisan Invest in Child Safety Act. The bill directs $5 billion in mandatory funding to do three things which would ensure that we have an effective response for families and parents: 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; three, invest in programs to support survivors of abuse.

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent to briefly respond to what my colleague has just repeated.

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Mr. WYDEN. And then I would ask unanimous consent for 5 minutes to speak in favor of a very talented jurist in Oregon, who will be voted on shortly.

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, first, with respect to my response to our colleague from Missouri, let me be clear on a point that technologists are clear on. This bill would weaken the strongest technology that protects children and families online: strong encryption. And this bill explicitly allows courts to punish companies that offer strong encryption. That is right at the center of my objection.

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