Marsha Blackburn

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to seek unanimous consent to pass Senator Coons' and my bipartisan legislation, the NO FAKES Act.

The NO FAKES Act provides landmark Federal protection for the voice and visual likeness of creators and all Americans. It would protect them from the proliferation of harmful, AI-generated deepfakes that are created without their consent. From artists and songwriters to students and everyday citizens, our Nation deserves meaningful protections against these harmful deepfakes. Our bill would establish clear guardrails that protect our creators in Tennessee and across the entire country.

In addition to establishing a Federal intellectual property right in every American's voice and visual likeness, we also provide for a clear notice-and-takedown framework, as well as safe harbor provisions for companies that comply. These provisions ensure that when a platform receives proper notice of a deepfake, that platform must promptly remove or disable access to the harmful content. If they promptly remove the content, they won't face liability under the bill.

Importantly, we have included explicit First Amendment protections in this bill. For example, we have excluded commentary, criticism, scholarship, satire, and parody content from being removed, as well as news and sports broadcast material.

This legislation would protect artists while safeguarding creative uses for AI, which is why it has received endorsements from a wide range of stakeholders, including record labels, streaming platforms, AI companies, musical artists, and organizations involved in protecting our children and protecting dignity.

At this point, I yield to my colleague for his comments.

I thank my colleague for his consistent work on this.

He is so right. This has been something that we have worked on for years, and it is the result of so much bipartisan work and negotiation in explicitly putting in protections for free speech.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII and as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 446, S. 4591. Further, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, it has been disappointing that the Senator's staff chose not to accept the very language that he was wanting to see. We accepted that into the bill.

May I read to you:

[It]is . . . consistent with the public interest in bona

fide commentary (including political commentary).

So, if he thinks that he wants a candidate to be able to use certain images in political commentary in a nonharmful way, that is in there:

(. . . political commentary), criticism, scholarship, satire,

or parody; or . . . is used in a manner that is protected by

the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

That is language that is there.

So, if he is wanting to do that, that language has been offered. He can solve this right now by putting his John Henry right there on that language.

I would also remind my colleagues that there are laws against impersonation. If it is the physical world, you are not allowed to impersonate somebody to defraud them; with the intent to defraud or defame; with the intent to deceive people; with the intent to create a false identity. It is a felony. It is a felony. The problem is that it is not applied to the virtual space. There is a difference there. But you try to protect people in the virtual space and, all of a sudden, people want to say ``free speech.''

So I would ask my colleagues: Are you opposed to any of the State laws that make it a felony offense to impersonate a person? Go to the bank. Drain their account. Show up at a place of employment, impersonating them.

Try to grab their retirement account. Oh, there are laws for that. But, no, you can scam somebody all day long online and get by with it. You can actually show people, as my colleague from Delaware said, in different situations, doing different things, and they have no right-- no right--to protect their name, their image, their voice in the virtual space.

I will contend that I disagree with my colleague from Texas. We have tried to work with his staff. We have tried to work with him.

The NO FAKES Act does not chill First Amendment protected speech. We have worked with First Amendment legal experts in drafting the bill, and we are confident that it is First Amendment compliant. We have even doubled down on this language.

Now there are States, including Tennessee, that already provide statutory protection against the misappropriation of a person's name, voice, or likeness, and those statutes have been upheld.

In addition, the stated goal of our bill is for courts--the courts-- to make decisions regarding First Amendment jurisprudence, not platforms. The platforms, thus, are not the arbiters for making First Amendment decisions. This is really helpful in preventing censorship of conservative speech online.

This bill contains the necessary, broad exceptions for entire categories of speech--including news, public affairs, sports broadcasts, documentaries, biopics, commentary, including political commentary, criticism, scholarship, satire, and parody. This protects more than the First Amendment and much more than the only Supreme Court case on this subject, Zacchini v. Scripps.

If someone believes their content that was removed from this bill was protected speech, they can submit a counternotice triggering judicial review within 14 days if the victim wants the material to stay down; otherwise, the content can go right back up. This ensures that any protected speech that is removed based on a notice stays down for a very short time while preventing platforms from engaging in censorship.

As my colleague said, we have worked with groups for years to get this right. We have gotten it right. The protections that my colleague from Texas wanted to see included in the bill are there.

This is legislation that should pass and make its way to the President's desk to make certain that every American knows their name, their image, their likeness, their voice cannot be used in the virtual space for deception, for fraud, for personal harm.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in 1972, there were just 300,000 female athletes in high school and collegiate sports. Today, there are over 3 million young women who are competing in high school and collegiate sports. This is something that every American should celebrate, and it is all thanks to what has happened with the law we commonly call title IX.

By requiring equal resources for facilities, training, recruitment, and scholarships for female athletic programs, title IX opened opportunities for women that would have been impossible in the past.

Today, female athletes are competing at the highest level of professional sports. From the Olympics to the World Cup, they are inspiring millions of young girls to pick up sports that improve their health, boost their self-confidence, and teach them leadership skills to succeed on and off the field.

It goes without saying that this incredible development, over the last five decades, would have been impossible if men were allowed to compete in women's sports and steal opportunities from girls. This is just plain old common sense. But when it comes to protecting opportunity and fairness for young women in sports, we have seen a

serious lack of common sense from our friends on the other side of the aisle.

In Executive order after Executive order, the Biden administration pretended as if there are no biological differences between men and women. And they used the full weight of the Federal Government to force schools to allow biological males to play on female teams--endangering young girls and destroying fair play.

Parents were forced to look on as biological men took titles, medals, and trophies that belonged to their daughters. Many young women dedicated their entire lives to their sports, only to miss out on scholarships, career opportunities, and hard-earned records that they deserved.

The American people rejected this appalling agenda, and they returned President Donald Trump to the Oval Office with a mandate to restore common sense and protect our female athletes. And that is exactly what he has done.

On Inauguration Day, the President issued an Executive order that affirms the Federal Government's position that there are only two sexes: male and female. This ensures government policies are grounded in biological reality, not gender ideology.

A month later, I had the honor of joining President Trump in the Oval Office as he signed an Executive order that bans biological males from competing in women's sports.

As President Trump works to protect female athletes, it is imperative that we celebrate the accomplishments of the young women who practice, train, and compete every day to achieve excellence in athletics.

That is why I am calling for unanimous consent for my resolution to establish October 10--10th month, 10th day, or XX, which is like the female chromosome--as American Girls in Sports Day.

In addition to celebrating and honoring and cheering these female athletes, this resolution calls on sports governing bodies across the country to protect women and girls in sports. That is it--very simple.

It doesn't ask the Senate to create a sweeping new Federal program, and it doesn't ask that we amend any law. It simply asks the Senate to say that women's sports ought to be protected.

Yet every single time I have introduced this resolution since 2024, Democrats have come down to the floor, and they have objected.

We will see if they are going to do that again this year. If they object to celebrating our wonderful women, our girls, who are competing in sports, they are going to reveal that, once again, they have become the anti-woman party.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 934, submitted earlier today; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, my colleague from Massachusetts really doesn't have to look very far to see how girls are being impacted by biological males that are playing in women's sports. Indeed, I have pulled some stats, and if you want to look at stolen gold medals, medals that have been taken from young girls and have gone to males, Massachusetts has had 70--70--70 girls--70 girls that were not able to receive the medal they actually

would have won if they were competing against girls. In Massachusetts this year, a transgender athlete competed in a girls 55-meter dash and took one of the eight spots in the final. A female athlete finished ninth and didn't advance.

So when my colleague tells us this is hypothetical, it is not. We have a list--a list--of what has happened in different States: Arizona, 101 medals; California, 803 medals. You have Ohio, 123 medals. You have Illinois, 120 medals. This is something that is happening out there; it is not hypothetical.

My resolution is very simple. The whole thing is 2\1/2\ pages top to bottom. And it shouldn't be surprising that my colleague is objecting to a simple resolution honoring girls and women in sports because, as he mentioned, he had introduced the Transgender Bill of Rights, which would call on the Federal Government to allow individuals to participate in sports on teams and in programs that best align with their gender identity. In other words, it would allow biological males on girls teams and in their private spaces, like school facilities, bathrooms--places that align with their gender identity.

This is a very simple resolution, very simple. It celebrates the impact that American women and girls have had on sports culture throughout our history. We have all cheered as we have watched women compete and succeed. This resolution celebrates that. It recognizes the importance of title IX, which seems to be controversial to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

I yield the floor, and I submit for the Record the American Girls in Sports Day resolution.

Mr. President, each year, Americans lose roughly $1.3 billion to online romance scams. The victims are overwhelmingly senior citizens. They go online, thinking they are going to be able to find some companionship. They meet somebody. Often, this is on a dating site. They think that what they have made is a genuine connection because they are chatting online with this individual, but what is actually happening is they are communicating with a fraudster the entire time. Often, these victims--as I said, many of them are older. They are senior citizens. These victims will lose their entire lifesavings before they realize or before their friends and their family realize what has actually happened.

Here is the thing that is so important to realize. These scam artists are not amateurs. In fact, they are often part of a transnational criminal organization that traffics individuals in developing countries with the promise of getting a high-paying job. With their passports stolen, these individuals, who are victims, are often transported to what are called fraud dens, and they are forced to pay back their debt to these transnational criminal organizations by working overtime to defraud our senior citizens here in the United States.

It is really quite amazing. These are scam artists. They are part of transnational criminal organizations. They lure people into being trafficked.

They promise those individuals high-paying jobs in other countries, and then they take their passports and put them to work in these fraud dens. And there, they are defrauding U.S. citizens.

These scams are well financed, they are very sophisticated, and more often than not, they are using AI and other technology to dupe American consumers.

Scams are proliferating in the virtual space. We are seeing much of this in online dating platforms, and we do think these online dating platforms have the ability and the responsibility to notify their users when they are interacting with a bad actor.

By taking this simple step, the Romance Scam Prevention Act would protect our seniors from fraud and strike at the heart of one of the most lucrative financial streams for some of the most heinous criminal networks in the world.

I want to thank Representative Valadao and his staff for their commitment to protecting our seniors and championing this important legislation, and I thank my colleagues here in the Senate who have also supported it.

Notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 438, H.R. 2481.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.