Sheriff Sues Craiglist For Prostitution Ads 695
Amerika writes "Craigslist is 'the single largest source of prostitution in the nation,' according to Cook County, Illinois Sheriff Thomas Dart. He has announced that he's filing a lawsuit against the popular classifieds site. Craigslist says it's determined to prevent criminal activity." NewYorkCountryLawyer adds a link to the 28-page complaint (PDF), which "alleges that Craigslist maintains 21 classifications of sex-for-hire, coded as 'w4m,' 'm4m,' 'm4w,' etc." and that it has facilitated child prostitution and kidnapping and human trafficking.
Prostitution is not illegal... (Score:3, Informative)
... where I live. So the Cook County Sheriff can lump it if he doesn't like it.
Re:Here we go again (Score:3, Informative)
The Cook County Sheriff's Department is asking a federal judge to close the Erotic Services section of Craigslist, as well as reimburse the department $100,000 it has cost to pursue Craigslist-related prostitution investigations over the past year,
Someone needs some bail-out money reaal fast. Too bad the hookers and pimps didn't pay their protection money and now you've got to sue the interwebz for ruining your business.
Re:Prostitutes? (Score:5, Informative)
ByHisLogic (Score:2, Informative)
He didn't sue the mortgage banks (Score:5, Informative)
He didn't sue the mortgage banks, he instead refused to execute eviction notices for renters that were paying rent on time.
SirWired
Re:Prostitutes? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:when did singles sites become... (Score:3, Informative)
The erotic services section in Craigslist is very clearly geared towards prostitution. Almost every ad offers "full service" and sets out rates as "donations." The photos are usually of nude or scantily clad women. The services they offer are usually vernacular for specific sex acts. The vast majority of the ads there are for prostitution or reviews of prostitutes.
Re:Here we go again (Score:3, Informative)
This guy is an arrogant, sanctimonious prick posturing for the religious right
Oh, and you were doing so well, too. Chicago is one of the most leftist cities in the country. Sorry, but the religious right are far outweighed by all the lefties there. Ever notice how often the Mayor of Chicago has been a Democrat?
Re:Here we go again (Score:2, Informative)
"The agreement called for the Web site to implement a phone verification system for listings that required ad posters to provide a real telephone number that would be called before the ad went public. Craigslist also imposed listing fees, requiring a credit card, for ads in the section. The proceeds were to be donated to charity. Dart called the fees "dirty money" and said the move was a "publicity stunt" that had little practical effect because pimps use stolen credit cards or post ads in free sections."
What exactly is Craigslist supposed to do about this? You'd think it was actually makeing life easier for the cops. If someone uses a stolen credit card to list their ad that should be a pretty big flag for the cops to set up a sting for that ad. If something very illegal wasn't going on they wouldn't have used a stolen card for the ad. I really don't see what more Craigslist is supposed to do other than shut down a service which is used legitimately a majority of the time. Its not the job of Craigslist to enforce the law!
Cheers,
Greg
P.S. On a side note I don't know how Craigslist is going to continue to stay in business and not start charging for more listings they way they're always getting sued. I'd like to know what percentage of their costs are legal bills. I bet its way over half.
Re:Prostitutes? (Score:1, Informative)
.... which are actually mostly legitimate legal services. ...
In what imaginary land?
As an example, check out the las vegas erotic services section:
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/ers/ [craigslist.org]
The closest to legitimate are the dozen or so asian massage parlors, and they are the sort of places that accept extra 'tips'.
Plain and simple, the erotic services section, at least for las vegas, is 99% blatant prostitution.
as a side note - I'm libertarian enough to think that prostitution should be legalized. That said, to say that craigslist doesn't have a significant amount of prostitution is factually untrue
Re:Suing the telcos next? (Score:3, Informative)
I think the term for a telco in this context is a "clear channel" provider or something like that.
The term you're looking for is Common Carrier [wikipedia.org]
Re:Read the Complaint (Score:4, Informative)
It would seem that the owners of Craigslist value their profits more than the lives of the children whose exploitation they benefit from.
Craigslist is pretty non-commercial. They do charge 5 bucks on the erotic services site for all of craigslist to keep down the amount of illegal content, but all of that is donated to charity. There's only a total of 24 people who work for craigslist, with all of the money that keeps it up coming from broker ads in a couple of metro areas (Bay Area, NYC, Chicago)
Re:Prostitutes? (Score:1, Informative)
Yeah, they go ONLY to watch, not touch. ...
You do realize that many strip clubs have been busted for prostitution. Often strippers will take money for obvious sexual acts in so-called "VIP" rooms.
Re:Here we go again (Score:1, Informative)
... according to American law that would include 20 y/o with 11 months and three weeks on the clock right?
I take it you are not from "America". Did you mean 17 y/o ?
When did this idea emerge that you can sue a infrastructure for what is happening on it? This concept is new to me and doesn't make any sense.
Did you read the article? The "Erotic Services" in CL is basically nothing but prostitutes: "30 minute for 75 kisses". I'm sure they literally must mean "kisses".
Next they'll be suing the newspapers for ads that enable people to engage in casual sex. About time someone did something about this.
And I take it you are equally uneducated about CL. They already have a "Casual Encounters" section for basic personals with the intention of sex. Of course it is filled with nothing but spammers whereas the "Erotic Encounters" section is filled with poor whores (to be blunt).
Re:Read the Complaint (Score:3, Informative)
So this and the responses are not entirely correct. Craigslist has taken a number of measure over the past few months to crack down on this. They ban more sexual keywords now so that if you use these your ad will not post. They then required a phone number to confirm ads placed in this section. Now they actually require a credit card and charge you $5 to post.
So in an effort to crack down or at the very least be able to track these individuals they implemented a method that does give them some profit, though I believe they donate some or all of this to abused womans causes.
This is not going to stop prostitution at all. Its either gonnna be here or in the streets.
Being an avid fan of the internet and erotic services I wish this sherrif would go find some crimes with victims.
Thanks and have a Happy Ending!
Re:Here we go again (Score:3, Informative)
I am SO sorry, clearly you've not been there (Chicago & its Metro area) in the last 2 decades.
1) Wheaton, a burb, is a college town. An evangelical college town. It is one of the scariest places I've ever seen.
2) Naperville, a burb, is the largest city in Illinois, physically gigantic, but obviously diffuse. It is almost universally conservative.
You are correct about the mayor, but the distribution of conservative vs. liberal is sadly quite strong the wrong way. The election outcomes tend to depend on who gets out the vote, which depends on so much more than machines, fraud or money. Trust me, the random guy you meet on the street? Don't bet he's a liberal anything, much less a Democrat.
I do not necessarily defend the GP's position, I think the sheriff's motivations are more simplistic, probably self-aggrandizement. But counting on Chicago, Cook County, or the entire metropolitan area as "liberal" is a huge mistake, and one made by liberal politicians at their peril.
Re:He didn't sue the mortgage banks (Score:5, Informative)
In extreme cases, the national guard. That's how the federal government forced communities in the south to integrate their schools over the popular opposition of the locals.
Re:Read the Complaint (Score:1, Informative)
Several States Attorneys General banded together and made various threats to craigslist about the erotic services section and the prostitution advertised therein. CL agreed to regulate that section more. We all know that most ad posting on CL are free. CL instituted a $5 per ad fee for the erotic services ads. This had several unintended effects. First almost all the spam ads in the erotic services section disappeared, leaving only the real prostitute's ads. Next the therapeutic massage and casual encounters sections (still free) got flooded with ads for prostitution.
I would say that CLs efforts in this area failed. Oddly, before, they weren't making money on these ads, and now they are. Maybe they weren't giving the sheriff his cut.
It's too bad. Seems like a decent solution to me, I bet that this gets a lot of this stuff off the streets so it doesn't have the direct negative impact on neighborhoods (used rubbers, drug dealing, traffic from johns, etc). It also concentrates things in an easy to find place, facilitating sting operations etc. If you believe that "the oldest profession" will ever be eliminated then you aren't thinking clearly. If you think that minors weren't exploited before CL you're naive. I would think it would make the sheriff's job easier.
I wonder if law enforcement ever went after the daily or weekly newspapers and their ads for exactly the same stuff?
Re:In other countries... (Score:3, Informative)
My guess, is the AC is referring to religious people when he says "people with imaginary friends", the imaginary friend indicating god.
The AC probably jumped to the conclusion that the sheriff was on a crusade based on religious temperament.
All in all, it was pretty easy to follow to me, if not necessarily well founded. Jumping to bad conclusions isn't really an indicator of schizophrenia, I'd think more along the lines of mania / bipolar disorder.
Re:He didn't sue the mortgage banks (Score:5, Informative)
they should get some form of protection
They do. State law gives them 120 days advance notice, which brings us to
Since when does he have the right to pick and choose which laws he enforces?
That was the law he was enforcing, since the banks weren't giving the advance notice. When the banks agreed to do it right, he agreed to resume evictions.
Re:Read the Complaint (Score:3, Informative)
I have an issue with your line that Craigslist is profiting by this. Last I checked, not only was Craigslist free, but there are no ads.
Erotic Services is not free -- you need a credit card to post and it costs a little bit of $$. This was enacted at the request of state AG's, not to make money.
AFAICT CL doesn't WANT this kind of stuff, but if they remove the section, the hooker ads move to another section and ruin that other section.
Re:Read the Complaint (Score:1, Informative)
Because Craigslist doesn't exist for the sole purpose of making money. They found that charging for job listings was a good way to pay the expenses necessary to keep the site online. Other than that, at every turn, they've actively chosen to make their services free. This is a service that grew into a business organically rather than someone coming up with a business plan and hoping to become the next billionaire. Craigslist isn't like that. I've heard estimates that by simply adding AdWords to some of their pages, Craigslist could generate about $500m/yr in revenue. Yet they've chosen not to.
In short, they're about as idealistic as you could hope to find. They've likely refused to police the section or shut it down because they don't have the resources to actively police it and they feel that they're providing a valuable service that would be difficult to find elsewhere and has significant legitimate uses. If there are people using the service entirely within what is legally allowed, why should the service have to shut down. Hell, law enforcement should be happy that such as service exists since it greatly simplifies their job...rather than having to actively search for criminals, all they have to do is monitor Craigslist.
Dart is a dunce (Score:3, Informative)
No, whores are the single largest source of prostitution! craigslist.com list is just their most popular advertising medium. Did people stop smoking cigarettes when they stop advertising? Take away online venues for finding customers, and whores will go back to propositioning Johns on the street. Personally, I'd rather they just advertise online, where only the people that are looking for sex-for-hire have to deal with them.
True story: I was in Manhattan on business, walking down the street in broad daylight, when this woman in a business suit approached me and asked "Do you have the time?" I of course immediately looked at my watch, whereupon she remarked "That's not what I meant!" Call me a nerd, but no, I can't tell an office worker from a prostitute... at least not until they ask for money.
Re:He didn't sue the mortgage banks (Score:3, Informative)
Not the National Guard. Nominally the Guard is controlled by the state's governor. ISTR that elements of the Army's 101st Airborne Division were called in to settle at least one integration dispute in the South.
Re:Prostitutes? (Score:5, Informative)
The stereotype annoys me too. I go to the clubs, and I'm personal friends with a quite a few dancers, and I've dated dancers. These girls aren't whores, and I've seen idiot customers make that mistake on many occasions. If you want to mistreat and mishandle the girls, it's not the bouncers you need to worry about. They're only going to toss you out on your ass; it's that dancer looking at you with the "fuck me" eyes, sexy smile, and the steel posted stilettos -- cause she's the one who's going to show you what she learned in kickboxing.
Sex doesn't happen in the champagne/VIP room. And the expenses for getting back into the room *is* for house fee + champagne + whatever the girl charges for her time. It's a risky proposition for the club owners and workers to have sex on the premise. Not only that, it ruins the girls' legitimate hustle, and so it's not tolerated. A good customer can spend nearly a grand or more on a favorite girl. A $200 sex act by another girl risks that. Now, there are some clubs there sex happens on-premise. In my experience they have always been "one-on-one clubs" which aren't strip clubs in the traditional sense; or real dives -- the kinds of places where the two drink minimum comes with a free STD and you might get stabbed and robbed by one of the hookers working the crowd. Are there exceptions? Of course, but I've gone through more clubs than the typical slashdotter has linux distributions.
And of course, there are some dancers who do "extras" but they take that business outside the club for the reasons I gave before. Strip clubs sell fantasy, and for most sensible people, fantasy is enough. Incidentally, I know more business school and law school grads who have done "extras" to make it at their workplace than dancers who have. And my former dancer girlfriend is an amazing woman with a better moral compass than most people I've met.
Re:All consentual sexual relationships are... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:dating (Score:4, Informative)