Sex trafficking OK, unless you're Mitt Romney's wife.

[Combustible Lemur]

War on drugs? Mission accomplished!
Prohibition?? Mission accomplished!
Cuban sanctions? Mission accomplished!
Ban on Jersey Shore? Mission accomplished!

sent from incredible'

[gbasden]

If you don't mind my making a serious reply, I think taking a cooperative approach rather than a punitive one has more potential to actually accomplish something productive. It's a general principle of harm reduction.

If you mean backpage, the cooperative approach has been taken and yet ads/contacts still slip by. Thus the calls for stronger enforcement and/or legislation.

I just find it odd that on the one hand requiring age verification is an acceptable enforcement action to take but requiring verification of legal services is not.

One "wouldn't hurt" but the other is harmful because it would force elements to another venue.

So my question is how does shutting down Backpage help the cause of preventing exploitation of underaged girls? We have it from the authorities that Backpage works with them, even calling them immediately when there's a questionable ad. Lets say we shut down Backpage tomorrow, and a new website pops up hosted in the Caymans that offers the exact same services but does not cooperate with the authorities? Are things better?

Lets say the webpage gets shut down and nothing replaces it? Not likely, but what if? Is it a better solution to force these women back out onto the streets? It's not like sex work is going to go away - it's been a constant throughout human history. Legalization is a political fallacy. We can't even agree that women should have access to contraception, much less something radical like legalizing prostitution. So from a realists point of view, is it better to push the practice underground and back on the street, or is it better to allow these women some safety?

[Isgrimnur]

Backpage seized

Federal law enforcement authorities are in the process of seizing Backpage.com and its affiliated websites.

The websites are being seized as part of an enforcement action by the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service, according to a notice that appeared Friday afternoon on Backpage.com.

The notice didn’t characterize or provide any details on the nature of the enforcement action.

NBC SD

The Department of Justice says a court had ruled the case would remain sealed.

[Moliere]

"To sum up: indictment against #Backpage does *not* rely on #FOSTA & does *not* accuse Backpage of knowingly facilitating sex trafficking

Actual charges: 50 counts of violating the Travel Act, 34 counts related to money laundering, & 1 count conspiracy"

[Isgrimnur]

does *not* accuse Backpage of knowingly facilitating sex trafficking
...
50 counts of violating the Travel Act

That's a rather fine point to put on it.

[LawBeefaroni]

Btw, there was just a conviction here for the "finder" in a murder case of a 16-year-old.

On Tuesday [April 3], Charles McFee pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of a minor. In court, federal prosecutors revealed that McFee introduced "Minor A" to Joseph Hazley, who is also charged. Prosecutors say McFee watched Hazley create a Backpage.com profile for "Minor A," and for the introduction, McFee was supposed to get a finders' fee of $250.

"It is beyond shocking and heartbreaking that this child was bought for $250," Romanucci said.

The family of Desiree Robinson says "Minor A" was Robinson. The 16-year-old was found murdered in a Markham garage on Christmas Eve of 2016. An alleged customer, Antonio Rosales, has been charged with her murder.

[Max Peck]

Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer pleads guilty in three states, agrees to testify against other website officials

Carl Ferrer, the chief executive of Backpage.com whose name was conspicuously absent from an indictment of seven other Backpage officials unsealed Monday, has pleaded guilty in state courts in California and Texas and federal court in Arizona to charges of money laundering and conspiracy to facilitate prostitution. In addition, he agreed to testify against the men who co-founded Backpage with him, Michael Lacey and James Larkin, who remained in jail Thursday in Arizona on facilitating prostitution charges.

Backpage, in addition to hosting thinly veiled ads for prostitution since 2004, was accused of hosting child sex trafficking ads on its site and even assisting advertisers in wording their copy so they didn’t overtly declare that sex was for sale, federal investigators allege. In a remarkable three-paragraph admission in his federal plea agreement, Ferrer wrote that “I conspired with other Backpage principals … to find ways to knowingly facilitate the state-law prostitution crimes being committed by Backpage’s customers.”

Ferrer also acknowledged creating a “moderation” process to remove terms and pictures indicative of prostitution. “Such editing did not,” Ferrer wrote, “of course, change the essential nature of the illegal service being offered in the ad — it was merely intended to create a veneer of deniability for Backpage.” He said that these “editing practices were only one component of an overall, companywide culture and policy of concealing and refusing to officially acknowledge the true nature of the services being offered in Backpage’s ‘escort’ and ‘adult’ ads.”

[Enough]

It's too bad that the well-meaning legislation that just passed will more than likely lead to more sex workers dying. It seems to be more like a censorship act to keep that stuff out of the public square and to drive it back underground in the dark and dangerous shadows. There have been studies that show sex-worker homicides have dropped significantly thanks to the internet (16% iirc) where info can be shared about clients, pimps are squeezed out and so on. The new law gives extraordinarily broad powers to the feds to hold sites like OO liable for the activities of our users. Safe harbor is no longer a thing and I am sort of shocked that FOSTA has not gotten virtually any people screaming from the aisles like most net neutrality stuff does.

[Isgrimnur]

FOSTA still has to pass judicial review.

[Enough]

FOSTA still has to pass judicial review.

Sure, but the low level of freakout is still pretty fascinating to me. And I guess we really should be saying FOSTA/SESTA. Here's a good primer from EFF. I have yet to see a reaction to this approaching anything near what we have seen in other similar cases.

[gbasden]

I completely agree with you. FOSTA/SESTA is going to cause a great deal of harm to sex workers, but that isn't even the most horrible part. If they can start carving out exceptions to safe harbor, it becomes much easier to shut down unpopular speech of any kind. I find it appalling on multiple levels. The CLOUD act is just as bad.

[em2nought]

I find it ridiculous that backpage can be charged for money laundering when they weren't permitted to open bank accounts. I just saw where some legal pot growers in some state aren't being permitted to open bank accounts either. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/maga ... ay-no.html Next they'll be doing away with cash, and you won't even be able to buy something off craigslist. It's not about "save the children", it's about "control". Land of the free, ha!

[Isgrimnur]

Psst. This is why credit unions became a thing.