WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court sided with Congress on Tuesday in a fight over subpoena power, ordering Backpage.com to turn over business records as part of a Senate investigation into sex trafficking.
In the one-page order, the justices declined a request from the website and its chief executive officer, Carl Ferrer, to halt enforcement of the subpoena from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
That means the company has only days to turn over to the subcommittee documents related to screening advertisements for warning signs of sex trafficking, as first ordered by a district court in Washington in Aug. 5. The justices had temporarily halted the subpoena while they considered the company’s request.
The subcommittee, led by Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told the Supreme Court that it needs to receive and review the company’s records for use in depositions, a public hearing and a final report before the adjournment of the 114th Congress.
Without the documents, the subcommittee would not be able to do its constitutional duty to serve the public interest and complete the probe on a serious national problem, the panel had told the justices.
The court order does not include any reasoning for the decision not to stop the subpoena or hear the case on its merits, or how specific justices voted. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. did not participate in the case.
Backpage.com characterized the case as having nationwide importance for First Amendment protections for online publishers of third-party content, including Facebook. Backpage.com bills itself the second largest online classified ads website.
The question, Backpage.com told the justices, is when the Senate’s investigative authority intrudes on editorial judgments that “are precisely the kind of speech and press functions that enjoy robust First Amendment rights.”
The Senate subcommittee said it began the investigation of human trafficking on the internet in April 2015. The Senate in March passed a civil contempt resolution on a 96-0 vote to authorize a lawsuit against Backpage.com, the first time since the Whitewater controversy in the 1990s.
The case marks the first time in more than 20 years that the Senate has enforced a subpoena in court.
