Alliance to End Human Trafficking Urges Lawmakers To Revisit Clarity Act Section 604

The Alliance to End Human Trafficking is urging lawmakers to revisit Section 604 of the Clarity Act, arguing the provision could make it harder to hold some crypto platform developers accountable when their technology is used to facilitate human trafficking.

“Anti-trafficking group says Clarity Act's Section 604 could weaken accountability An anti-human trafficking advocate said a Clarity Act provision could weaken accountability despite existing criminal laws”

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Katie Boller Gosewisch, executive director of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking, said her primary concern is language stating that developers who do not control user funds are not money transmitters.

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Boller Gosewisch argued the provision could allow some third-party platform developers to "hide behind" a lack of liability if their software is used to facilitate trafficking-related payments.

Rebecca Rettig, speaking on CoinDesk's The Policy Protocol, argued Section 604 reflects longstanding U.S. anti-money laundering policy rather than creating a new legal shield.

A coalition delivered a letter to Senate leadership opposing a core section of the CLARITY Act on June 23, with more than 80 Catholic leaders, organizations and advocates warning that provisions in the House-passed CLARITY Act could weaken safeguards against illicit finance.

The letter was organized by the Alliance to End Human Trafficking, and it framed its objection around human dignity and public accountability, saying innovation "cannot come at the expense of human dignity or public accountability."

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The same reporting tied the political fight to market conditions, noting Bitcoin ($BTC) changing hands around $59,800 after slipping below the psychological $60,000 line this week.

The dispute focused on Section 604, commonly known as the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, or BRCA, which would provide legal protections for developers of decentralized blockchain software by limiting when they could be held liable for activities conducted by users of their software.

The CLARITY Act has four weeks to pass the Senate before the August recess, with the Senate Banking Committee advancing the bill 15-9 on May 14 and the bill needing 60 votes to clear cloture.

“Crypto's most important piece of US legislation just picked up an opponent almost nobody saw coming: the Catholic Church”

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The Startup Fortune report said the Senate is due back from its July 4 break in mid-July, and it described the biggest Democratic objection as ethics, including conflict-of-interest rules covering crypto holdings tied to senior federal officials and their families.

It also said the second fight sits in Section 604, the developer-liability carve-out, and it quoted Senator Lummis putting the argument plainly: writing code should not automatically make a developer a financial intermediary.

JPMorgan analysts were cited as describing passage of a market-structure bill as a positive catalyst for digital assets because it could clarify when tokens fall under the SEC and when they fall under the CFTC, while the report warned that without a settlement on ethics and developer liability, crypto regulation could wait until 2030.