00:00The excellent work that you're doing. Fentanyl has been a major topic of discussion today,
00:03rightfully so. Fentanyl accounts for 70% of the drug overdose deaths in the United States.
00:09It's the leading cause of death, fentanyl is, in my state, the state of Missouri,
00:13for individuals over the age of 18. And we don't produce it in Missouri. It comes to us from
00:18across the border. It comes by the truckload, it seems, these days. Every community in the state,
00:23every school in the state is awash in fentanyl. And what I'm particularly concerned about
00:29are the latest efforts of cartels to send rainbow fentanyl into our borders, across our borders.
00:36I'm sure, Mr. Perez, you're familiar with this, the phenomenon of rainbow fentanyl,
00:40which is made to look like a candy. In fact, obviously, it's an extremely deadly drug.
00:44Yes, sir. Generally familiar with it. Is it safe to say that the Mexican cartels
00:50are using rainbow fentanyl as a deliberate attempt to drive addiction among young people,
00:55among kids and young adults? Yes, sir. I would say they're using
00:59fentanyl in general, regardless of who they're trying to addict. Yes, sir.
01:03So here's the next thing that concerns me, is that we've got the effort by the cartels to use
01:07rainbow fentanyl. We've got the effort by the cartels to target kids. And they're doing it more
01:12than they're selling it in ways other than just the classic back alley deal. They're using now
01:18social media apps in order to sell fentanyl. Let's take a look here at one example. This is from the
01:24big tech platform Snapchat. Snapchat's one of the worst offenders here. The Snapchat's platform,
01:31as you may know, features disappearing messages, anonymity. It also has real-time mapping features
01:36that make it easy for drug traffickers to access clients and especially young people. Snaps are often
01:42accompanied by code words and emojis that are designed to evade detection by law enforcement.
01:48In February of this year, a mother, Bridget Noring, sat where the three of you are sitting and testified
01:54she lost her child, by the way, her 19-year-old kid, lost him to a fentanyl overdose after he
02:01got fentanyl through a snap message. And she testified, sitting where you're sitting, that she went to
02:07Snapchat. She alerted them to the kind of snaps that they have got that are posted on their platform.
02:12And she testified, this is a quote now, the first three things out of their mouth, meaning the
02:18snap CEOs, were, number one, we have no idea this is happening on our platform. Number two, as parents,
02:25you should have been monitoring your child better. Charming. Number three, you can't sue us because
02:31we're protected under Section 230. Now, my question to the three of you is, wouldn't it be a big help
02:39to your efforts and to our efforts as a country to stop the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs
02:45into this nation and from flowing into the hands of our kids if we shut down these platforms from
02:53selling and offering drugs and being a major platform for drug traffickers? Mr. Perez?
02:58Yes, sir. I would go back to about accountability from any institution that's facilitating this. I know
03:02our efforts through the J-Code, which I mentioned earlier, focusing on dark net and open net type of
03:06trafficking. That's significant. We've spent a lot of efforts on those types of cases.
03:09Yeah, very good. I'm glad you used the word accountability. I think that's exactly what we
03:13need. And right now, I just want to point this out so everybody understands it. Right now,
03:16Snapchat and every other big tech platform have exactly zero accountability. Zilch. This is on
03:23their platform. It is there constantly. It is there in volume. And there is currently nothing any
03:30parent, any victim can do about it. I mean, just refer back to what this mother said,
03:35the Snap CEO said to her, it's your fault. We don't really have any idea about it. This is after
03:40she told them it was on their platform. And by the way, they know. I mean, if these guys can direct
03:44the most precision advertising to you using their AI algorithms, you think they don't know that
03:50there's this kind of advertising all over their platform? They know. And then they said, the get
03:54out of jail free card, you can't sue us because we're protected under Section 230. I've said this time
03:59and time again, it is time for this Congress to take action to allow victims to hold accountable
04:05these companies when they put this kind of garbage, this sort of illegal activity on their platform.
04:10Victims ought to be able to sue Snapchat and any other big tech platform that traffics in this kind
04:17of illegal activity. And until Congress changes the law to allow victims and parents to sue,
04:24I think that this is just going to continue to go on. Let me give you one more example. Mr. Stevens,
04:29I'll direct this to you since I know that you're in the El Paso division. Here is an example of a
04:34Mexican cartel using a different social media app to try and hire American citizens to participate in
04:41human smuggling. So this is the kind of thing that's going on on Snap, yeah, on Instagram, on TikTok,
04:48where these cartels are recruiting American citizens to come be smugglers, offering them
04:54pay, giving them instructions. And once again, they are using these social media apps, these big
05:01tech platforms to do it. Have you, let me just ask you, Mr. Stevens, have you encountered this? Have
05:04you, have you, have you seen the cartels trying to recruit Americans to participate in their smuggling
05:09operations? Thank you for your question, sir. Yes, we have multiple cases involving human smuggling as
05:15well as drug smuggling, where they use those social media platforms to be able to recruit drivers.
05:20Wouldn't it be a help to you and your law enforcement activities to be able to turn off
05:25this kind of illegal activity on these platforms? In other words, to reduce the supply of American
05:31drivers who are willing to participate in a human smuggling ring? Yes, it would, sir. We need to do
05:37it. And the way to do it is to hold these social media companies accountable, to use your word,
05:42Mr. Perez, to allow victims to sue the social media companies for violating the law, for violating basic
05:51human decency, for lying constantly to their customers and the American people. I've already
05:55introduced legislation that's passed this committee unanimously to allow victims of child pornography to
06:01sue the platforms. And I can tell you the next step is to allow victims of human trafficking, victims of
06:07this kind of illegal trafficking and narcotics to sue the platforms. If we can do that, I think we can begin to
06:13make a dent in this tide, this tidal wave of fentanyl and other narcotics coming across our border. And I think we can
06:20begin to hold these social media companies accountable. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
06:25On behalf of the chair, I want to thank our witnesses for participating in this hearing. Written questions can be submitted for the record until July 1st at 5pm.
