Liz McDougall, right, testifying at the City Council hearing. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

This afternoon, the Women's Issues Committee of the City Council held a hearing on a resolution proposed by Council members Brad Lander and Melissa Mark-Viverito that would call for Village Voice Media to shut down the "adult" section of its classified ad site Backpage.com. Village Voice Media, which publishes 13 alt-weeklies around the country including its the flagship Village Voice in New York, has faced mounting pressure over Backpage, which opponents claim encourages human trafficking. At today's hearing, the company's general counsel, Liz McDougall, spoke on behalf of Backpage and emotions ran high with tears, laughter and shouting all on display.

Prior to Ms. McDougall's testimony, a 16-year-old former victim of sex trafficking spoke about her experience with BackPage. To safeguard her identity, she was identified only as "Brianna" and gave her testimony from behind a white screen. "Brianna" said she got caught up in the sex trade at the age of 9 after she ran away from home and sought refuge with a friend's older brother.

"I found out he was a pimp and I tried to leave, but he didn't allow me," she said. "Although I've been exploited in several ways, the main way that he felt that he made the most money was through Backpage. At this time, I'm 12-years-old and Backpage sent me at least 35 dates a night. ... It was very painful for me because the dates I've gotten on Backpage have been the most violent. I just feel like this is something that needs to be taken down."

"Brianna" was several Backpage opponents who spoke at the hearing prior to Ms. McDougall and described how law enforcement agencies and youth organizations are seeing a growing number of trafficking cases that involve the site. When it was her turn to speak, Ms. McDougall, a cybercrime specialist with a background in fighting trafficking who joined the company in late February as the uproar over Backpage reached a fever pitch, acknowledged trafficking is a "social atrocity," but said the question surrounding Backpage are a "grossly complex issue." Ms. McDougall argued it's better to have ads for sex work appear on a site run by a company like Village Voice Media that is willing to work with law enforcement when requested rather than potentially moving to more shadowy corners of the internet.

"The reason that we take the position that taking the adult category on backpage is not an effective countermeasure to human trafficking is because ... the content and the advertising will migrate somewhere else," Ms. McDougall explained. "What terrifies me, is the notion that what is going to happen is that this content, this advertising is going to go to what is known as the 'black hat' web sites, the underground websites and, ultimately, the offshore websites."

Ms. McDougall highlighted her company's efforts to police the content on Backpage including sending about 2,600 reports of potential child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, hiring 100 staffers to monitor content on the site, cooperating with police investigations, imposing an age limit of 21 for site users and having multiple warning pages reiterating the age limit and illegality of prostitution. By charging for the site, Ms. McDougall said Village Voice Media was able to obtain information that could create a "financial trail" in cases where investigators were looking for a trafficker or one of their victims.

"We're working to establish best practices. We already are the industry leaders in doing that, both through our three-tiered moderation, including automatic filtering two levels of manual review, and the additional research that we do voluntarily for law enforcement to make sure that they have the most solid case possible to convict the traffickers," Ms. McDougall said.

Ms. McDougall didn't seem to sway the Council members, who aggressively criticized and questioned her following her testimony.

"You said you know that there is key parts to this problem and I think what you're missing is, you are a key part of the problem," Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras, chair of the Women's Issues Committee said.

"I don't deny that Backpage is part of the problem, but the problem is the internet," Ms. McDougall said. "We are being abused by these criminals and we dont want to be abused by these criminals."

"I don't understand how you can be a victim when you're profiting," Ms. Ferreras responded. "I want to know what's the revenue that the Village Voice gets from their advertisements."

Ms. McDougall declined to reveal the revenues from the adult section of Backpage citing Village Voice Media's status as a private company. She also said she could not reveal the number of adult ads on the site each month and precisely how much that figure has grown in recent years.

"I'd like to have a dialogue with you, not a confrontation and not an argument," Ms. McDougall said to Ms. Ferreras, who was getting increasingly heated. "I don't appreciate being shouted at when I'm trying to have a conversation."

"I'm coming across a little loud, so lower my mic because I don't mean to shout," Ms. Ferreras said.

Things became even more contentious when Mr. Lander, who co-sponsored the resolution, got his chance to question Ms. McDougall. He asked her why, if Village Voice Media is proactive about rooting out trafficking on Backpage, the company has not made "one referral" to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. Ms. McDougall began to answer, but Mr. Lander cut her off and accused her of avoiding his question.

"Are we here to have a sarcastic back and forth or would you like to exchange useful info?" she asked.

"Well, so far you haven't given us any information on the volume of what's happening on Backpage.com, you haven't given us any information on your profits," Mr. Lander said. "The way a hearing works is that we ask tough questions."

Mr. Lander then asked Ms. McDougall how her company could profess to be cooperating with law enforcement when they didn't heed a request from over 40 prosecutors in the National Association of Attorneys General to shut the adult section of Backpage.

"The only people that have asked us to stop taking the ads that you're deeming law enforcement were the Attorneys General," Ms. McDougall said. "The attorneys general, for all of their great wisdom, are not experts in cybercrime and they have had very political agendas in their demands."

Ms. McDougall's reply led to another contentious back-and-forth with Mr. Lander. She eventually attempted to stop taking his questions.

"I'm not going to answer questions if you just continue to interrupt me," Ms. McDougall said.

"I'm sorry, this is a City Council hearing and the Council member is asking questions," Ms. Ferreras replied. "I'm going to ask you to also be respectful of the Council member, he has not finished his questions, if you choose not to answer that question, you could say that for the testimony."

"I would appreciate if you would admonish him to stop interrupting me then," Ms. McDougall said.

"We don't admonish here, we are colleagues here," Ms. Ferreras responded incredulously. "He's going to ask every question that he needs to ask."

Mr. Lander's next question drew big laughs from the audience.

"Are you thinking about setting up a drug dealing section of the Backpage.com website? ... How about a gun trading or weapons trading section?" he asked. "By your logic, wouldn't they be extremely helpful in prosecuting drug dealing and weapons trading?"

Ms. McDougall said she wouldn't respond to "sarcasm or rhetorical questions like this."

"I'm here to talk about human trafficking online and I've explained to you how we can be a valuable tool for that," she said.

Mr. Lander concluded his questioning by saying he believes the increase in volume of trafficking cause by sites like Backpage negates any efforts the sites make to aid prosecutions.

"I do appreciate your being here," he said to Ms. McDougall. "You have made clear that, in your opinion, the issue is grossly complex. To me, I think it's pretty clear that it's just gross."

There were at least two other people at the hearing who were on Ms. McDougall's side. Representatives from the Sex Workers Outreach Project testified eliminating Backpage would simply increase the amounts of "marginalization" and "criminalization" sex workers currently face.

Though the Council members clearly seem predisposed to passing the resolution, it won't have much effect on Village Voice Media. Unlike bills, Council resolutions carry no legal weight and this would merely be an expression of support for shutting the site down.

Karim Camara (Photo: Facebook)

Karim Camara wants his colleagues in the State Assembly to pass a resolution honoring the late singer Whitney Houston.

"I think, when we look at the life that she led, and particularly how she, in the aftermath of 9/11, she raised a tremendous amount of funds for disaster relief and for the firefighters, the first responders. I think that connects her to New York," Mr. Camara told The Politicker. "She was able to unite people around ethnic lines, racial lines, gender, age, you name it."

Eric Adams is currently trying to pass a similar resolution in the State Senate, but the Republican majority initially tabled his proposal due to concerns Ms. Houston may have died from a prescription drug overdose. Mr. Camara said Ms. Houston's cause of death shouldn't stop Albany lawmakers from honoring her.

"It's not a matter of how she died, it's about how she lived," Mr. Camara said. "Thus far, to my knowledge, there's been no final determination from the coroner, but even if there was, she's done great work."

Mr. Camara said it was difficult for him to identify his favorite song of Ms. Houston's.

"It's so hard to say. I love the song 'How Will I Know,' which is not traditionally a guys song, but I think it was great," Mr. Camara said. "Also, 'I Believe The Children Are Our Future,' because of the work I do. I know it's not one of her biggest hits, but it's a great song for me."

Mr. Camara is optimistic his resolution honoring Ms. Houston will receive the necessary number of votes in the Assembly.

"I certainly expect it to pass," he said.

Whitney Houston on stage in October, 1991. (Photo: Getty)

Today the Daily News reported State Senate Republicans blocked Senator Eric Adams' request for a resolution honoring Whitney Houston, however, according to Mr. Adams and Senate GOP spokesman Mark Hansen, the resolution may live on.

"From what I understand, the Senate Republicans may have realized this was a big mistake. I'm going to give them a fact sheet in case they've spent the last twenty years on another planet and they didn't realize what Ms. Houston meant to people and we're going to revisit this immediately after the break," Mr. Adams told The Politicker.

Mr. Hansen said the Senate Republicans "never sought to block the resolution" and merely had issues with its timing.

"We didn't do it today, we felt the timing was inappropriate because we just had legislation and a public hearing that dealt with overdoses of prescription drugs that included parents who lost their children to overdoses of prescription drugs," Mr. Hansen said. "But we never sought to block the resolution and it's something that we'll take up when we return."

Mr. Adams said the Senate GOP rejected the idea of a resolution honoring Ms. Houston because they  felt she had no connection to New York and her death may have been due to prescription drug abuse. He dismissed both those reasons for denying the resolution give Ms. Houston's 9/11 charity work and the fact her cause of death has yet to be conclusively identified.

"It's personal for me, because I remember clearly like it was yesterday, after September 11th one of the motivating things that happened was when she announced that she was going to give the proceeds from her song, the Star Spangled Banner rendition, to those that had fallen. At that time, as a former police officer, it touched me," Mr. Adams said. "It's ludicrous that we shouldn't honor her because this may have been a drug overdose, this could be a teaching moment and we don't even know how she died."

Mr. Adams also expects the State Assembly to work on a resolution honoring Ms. Houston.

"Actually, I just saw Karim Camara, who's the chair of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus, he stated that he's also going to attempt to do it in the Assembly, because he agrees that this makes no sense and there's no reason that we are not giving the resolution to Ms. Houston," Mr. Adams said.

As of this writing, Mr. Camara has not responded to a request for comment on this story.

Mr. Adams, who said he met Ms. Houston and her ex-husband, Bobby Brown, "years ago at an NAACP event," told us he doesn't have a single favorite song by the late singer.

"There's so many, I don't know many Americans and, in particular African-Americans, that don't have at least one album sitting on their dresser, or don't have a favorite song and don't remember something they used to dance to, or sing along with, or make love to," Mr. Adams said. "I could go from a serious tune like 'The Greatest Love of All,' believing in the children, or her song in the movie 'Bodyguard,' which was a great remake."

Peter Vallone Jr. (Photo: New York City Council)

The fate of Councilman Jumaane Williams' resolution asking the City Council to condemn Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD rests with Committee on Public Safety. Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. is the committee's chair and a staunch supporter of the NYPD. When we spoke to Councilman Vallone today, he said he would look at Councilman Williams' resolution, but he certainly didn't seem too inclined to look upon it favorably.

"Like hundreds of other bills it's been referred to my committee. I have not reviewed it yet because the day it was introduced I was at Police Officer Figoski's funeral," Councilman Vallone said referring to the recent death of an NYPD officer killed on the job.

Councilman Vallone said he hadn't read the resolution. The Politicker offered to read some excerpts, but he stopped us.

"I dont care," Councilman Vallone said. "I'll review it when I get a chance to. Right now, I'm focused on what's causing the recent crime surge and what resources the police need to stop it. And that's what I'm focusing on right now and that's what I think the people of New York want me to focus on right now."

Councilman Williams' resolution calls on the council to condemn "the overly aggressive actions of the Bloomberg Administration that were used to evict the Occupy Wall Street protestors."

”The decision by the Bloomberg Administration to undertake a police action in the early hours of the morning to forcibly remove residents of New York City, New York State and involved citizens who have traveled far and wide to join the OWS movement from Liberty Plaza since the occupation commenced was excessive and poses a threat to our civil liberties,” wrote Councilman Williams in the resolution.

At the time of the raid in November, Councilman Vallone issued a statement expressing his support for the raid.

"I support Mayor Bloomberg’s actions today in ending only the illegal aspects of what had clearly become an occupation which denied others their right to safe, clean streets," Councilman Vallone said. "The protests can continue, within the reasonable restrictions set by the legislature and the courts.”

We asked Councilman Vallone whether he thought there was any way he could be convinced the raid deserved his condemnation rather than his support.

"Condemnation?" he laughed. "I supported the police actions. There are always going to be problems with an operation that massive, but overall, I think they did their job."

Councilman Jumaane Williams (Photo: Facebook)

Councilman Jumaane Williams submitted a resolution today asking the City Council to condemn Mayor Michael Bloomberg's handling of the raid on the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park.  "The decision by the Bloomberg Administration to undertake a police action in the early hours of the morning to forcibly remove residents of New York City, New York State and involved citizens who have traveled far and wide to join the OWS movement from Liberty Plaza since the occupation commenced was excessive and poses a threat to our civil liberties," wrote Councilman Williams in the resolution. "Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Council of the City of New York condemns the overly aggressive actions of the Bloomberg Administration that were used to evict the Occupy Wall Street protestors that occurred in the predawn hours of November 15, 2011."

Councilman Williams' resolution notes that nearly 200 people were arrested including Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and several reporters. He also highlighted the destruction of property that occurred during the raid.

"Those protestors who resisted the efforts to clear out the park that began at roughly 1:00 a.m. were met by NYPD in riot gear with batons," Councilman Williams wrote. "The destruction of the encampment that the OWS members had created at the park resulted in the seizure and possible damage to more than 5000 books that made up the 'People's Library' at the park, along with the seizure and breakage of many tents, tarps, backpacks, shoes, computers, various equipment and other possessions."

At today's meeting, Councilman Williams' resolution was referred to the Committee on Public Safety for further review. Councilman Williams is currently working on getting more Council members to sign on to the resolution.

Councilman Williams is a staunch supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement. He was present during the NYPD raid on Zuccotti Park, and two days later, he was arrested while participating in an act of civil disobedience to protest the eviction. Last month, Councilman Williams was one of the first City Council members to sign on to a resolution expressing support for the occupation.

Councilman Williams is also a strong critic of the NYPD. In September, he was arrested after getting into a dispute with a police officer while trying to cross a barricade at the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn. Three officers involved in his arrest were subsequently disciplined last month. Since the Labor Day incident, Councilman Williams has spoken out about a variety of issues involving police conduct including the department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy and incidents of corruption.

Earlier this month, Councilman Williams and Kirsten John Foy, an aide to public advocate Bill de Blasio who was also arrested during the incident at the parade, sent Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to get together for a beer and "discuss police accountability." At the Occupy Wall Street protest in Duarte Square this weekend, Councilman Williams told The Politicker he hasn't received a response from City Hall or One Police Plaza yet.

"Technically, we didn't necessarily request a beer. We more wanted to sit down with some black and Latino--particularly young men, who deal with this so we could discuss the issues," Councilman Williams said. "But no, we haven't heard back from them yet."

Read the full text of Councilman Williams' Occupy Wall Street raid resolution below.

Resolution condemning the overly aggressive actions of the Bloomberg Administration that were used to evict the Occupy Wall Street protestors that occurred in the predawn hours of November 15, 2011.

By Council Member Williams

Whereas, On Tuesday, November 15, 2011 in a predawn sweep, members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) forcibly evicted the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters from Liberty Plaza, also known as Zuccotti Park, where the OWS movement began on September 17, 2011; and

Whereas, Excessive force appears to have been used to disrupt the peaceful protests and passive behavior of many OWS members during the eviction which included the arrest of Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez; and

Whereas, The NYPD's inability to differentiate between civilians that pose a harm to the public and those that do not is disquieting; and

Whereas, Those protestors who resisted the efforts to clear out the park that began at roughly 1:00 a.m. were met by NYPD in riot gear with batons; and

Whereas, The destruction of the encampment that the OWS members had created at the park resulted in the seizure and possible damage to more than 5000 books that made up the "People's Library" at the park, along with the seizure and breakage of many tents, tarps, backpacks, shoes, computers, various equipment and other possessions; and

Whereas, Mayor Bloomberg has stated that his decision to move to evict the OWS protesters was not intended to hamper their constitutional rights of speech and expression; and

Whereas, Reporters, journalists and photographers from the Associated Press, the Daily News, National Public Radio (NPR) and the New York Post and other press entities were prohibited from covering the eviction of protestors and were in some cases arrested themselves; and

Whereas, According to the New York Times, the Police Commissioner stated that nearly 200 people were arrested, 142 in the park and 50 to 60 in the streets nearby; and

Whereas, According to Mayor Bloomberg, his decision to evict the OWS occupation was based on public health and safety concerns for the protesters and the surrounding community; and

Whereas, The decision by the Bloomberg Administration to undertake a police action in the early hours of the morning to forcibly remove residents of New York City, New York State and involved citizens who have traveled far and wide to join the OWS movement from Liberty Plaza since the occupation commenced was excessive and poses a threat to our civil liberties; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York condemns the overly aggressive actions of the Bloomberg Administration that were used to evict the Occupy Wall Street protestors that occurred in the predawn hours of November 15, 2011.

Councilmen Ydanis Rodriguez and Jumaane Williams at the Occupy Wall Street protest in Duarte Square last Saturday. (Photo: David Segal)

Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and his colleague, Jumaane Williams, are pushing their City Council colleagues to sign on to their resolution supporting the Occupy Wall Street protests. The Politicker discussed the resolution with both councilmen as they attended the Occupy Wall Street protests in Duarte Square this weekend.

"I already have 15 council members that have signed on to this resolution," Councilman Rodriguez said. "I would like to see our speaker, Christine Quinn, helping us move forward on this resolution so that New York City can send an official statement of support as other cities have passed resolutions of support to the Occupy movement."

Councilman Rodriguez introduced the resolution November 29 with the support of Councilman Williams and Councilwoman Tish James.

"I think I was the second to sign it," Councilman Williams said. "Ydanis was first, so he gets it and then we're all supporting him."

Councilman Williams also said he hoped Speaker Quinn would sign on to the resolution.

"I hope so, I think it's a shame if the City Council cannot pass that resolution. This is one of the most liberal councils in the state, this is one of the most liberal councils period," Councilman Williams said. "For them not to do a resolution of support like we've done in other cities, I think, would be a travesty."

Councilman Rodriguez's resolution calls for the City Council to declare that it "supports the peaceful and vibrant exercise of First Amendment rights being carried out by 'Occupy Wall Street' protesters and supports their goal of ending economic inequality in the United States." Similar resolutions have been issued by councils in cities around the world including Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Buffalo and Edinburgh, Scotland, among others.

Both Councilman Rodriguez and Councilman Williams have been prominent political supporters of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Councilman Rodriguez was arrested while attending the NYPD's raid on the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park November 15. Councilman Williams was also arrested while participating in an act of civil disobedience in support of the movement two days later.