Judge Rejects Sheriff's Suit Against Craigslist 121
jjohn24680 passes along word that a federal judge has thrown out a local sheriff's lawsuit accusing the online classified group Craigslist of facilitating prostitution. We discussed the case when it was filed back in March. Here is the decision (PDF). "As was pretty clear at the time, Craigslist is the service provider and is quite obviously protected by Section 230 immunity. ... Even after all of this was clearly explained to Sheriff Dart, he still insisted that his lawsuit made sense. It looks like the court system, however, does not agree. As expected, the case has been dismissed on Section 230 grounds."
Mmm, delicious. (Score:1, Funny)
Dart likes his Humble Pie with plenty of Failsauce on top.
Idiot Sheriff (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Idiot Sheriff (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think The Pirate Bay operates in a different legal jurisdiction...
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Pirate Bay is not in the US, and not subject to US law.
Re:Idiot Sheriff (Score:5, Insightful)
There are cases(most notably just about anything having to do with "asset forfeiture" or the possibility of real consequences for police misconduct) where law enforcement, as a body, are led by self-interest to run roughshod over the public and the law; but in cases like this, the sheriff is almost certainly running roughshod over the law because he has calculated(probably correctly) that that is exactly what the public wants.
Re:Idiot Sheriff Strikes Again! (Score:5, Informative)
The sheriff in question was no doubt trying to just drum up some publicity for himself. Remind me again why he's enforcing laws he clearly doesn't understand?
You don't realize how right you are. From Mr. Dart's Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org]:
In October 2008, Dart made national news when he announced that he was suspending all foreclosure evictions in Cook County. The number of such evictions had increased dramatically since 2006 as a result of the national subprime mortgage crisis. Dart stated that many of the people being evicted were renters who had faithfully paid their rent but had not known that their landlord was in financial trouble. He explained that in many cases, mortgage companies had not fulfilled their obligation to identify tenants in the foreclosed properties, and said, "These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people, and don't care [...] who gets hurt along the way ... We're not going to do their jobs for them anymore. We're just not going to evict innocent tenants. It stops today."
The Illinois Bankers Association was critical of Dart, accusing him of "ignoring his legal responsibilities" and of engaging in "vigilantism".
Dart says that he is enforcing an Illinois state law which requires the banks to determine whether the persons resident at an address are actually the persons to whom the foreclosure notice should be served.
Due largely to these efforts, Time Magazine named Dart one of its 100 most influential people for 2009.
That last sentence will probably have him championing things (or rather trying) for the rest of his life. I have the feeling this ain't the end of the Craigslist shenanigans nor is it the last thing Mr. Dart will overstep his duties on. He's got a J.D. from Loyola University and a Bachelor's Degree in History and General Social Studies from Providence College. What is he doing trying to practice law?
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He's just creating content for the movie about his life.
Some possible titles:
- The greatest hero who ever lived in the entire world.
- Dumb&Dumber2: Dumbest.
Re:Idiot Sheriff Strikes Again! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if his suspension of foreclosures was a stunt to get him publicity, there are still reasonable people (like me) who thought it was the right thing to do.
Why? Because people a huge number of the foreclosures are going forward even though banks themselves can't even produce the mortgage paperwork! Because of all weird financial instruments that helped cause the mortgage crisis (cutting the mortgages up into securities and such) these corporations can't find the original paperwork. I don't know the exact numbers on this, but it's a big percentage.
There are Members of Congress that are saying the same thing: make the companies actually PRODUCE the paperwork! This is how lax the U.S. has become on the financial industry.
So, Dart might be a pompous windbag, but that doesn't necessarily mean he is wrong.
Re:Idiot Sheriff Strikes Again! (Score:5, Informative)
Banks and other instutitions have flagrantly [market-ticker.org] ignored [market-ticker.org]federal and state laws [market-ticker.org], and in many cases it appears that they screwed up so badly that no one actually has legal standing [market-ticker.org] to forclose!
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Thanks.
Re:Idiot Sheriff Strikes Again! (Score:5, Informative)
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Yea, that's fine and dandy for people who bought property and are being evicted by shady bank practices, but it completely screws landlords who run their businesses legitimately
If they're running their businesses legit, then if they get forclosed on they're going to get proper notice and get the tenants out. Foreclosure proceedings take a long time, the landlord has plenty of time to get the tenants out.
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If they're running their businesses legit, then if they get forclosed on they're going to get proper notice and get the tenants out.
Except this wasn't landlord getting foreclosed on. It's landlords trying to evict people who aren't paying rent, and Dart not serving those evictions as well.
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Even if his suspension of foreclosures was a stunt to get him publicity, there are still reasonable people (like me) who thought it was the right thing to do.
I think that eldavojohn's intention was to say that once Dart tasted the drug of national fame for his stance against foreclosure evictions, that he probably became addicted and would continue to seek out his drug by any means possible, craigslist being an example.
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Banks sometimes evict people but don't complete the foreclosure process. This does 2 things:
1) keeps the evicted person on the hook for taxes and maintenance, e.g. weed control.
2) keeps the property off of their balance sheet so they do not look insolvent.
I'm supposed to ba happy about the bailouts why?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062303500.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://exurbannation.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html [blogspot.com] (references a NYT article)
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Too bad they signed the mortgage and accepted the bank's cash to allow that to happen....
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WHOOSH.
The GPs point was that some banks are cheating in the foreclosure process so they can evict the person without actually taking legal ownership of the house away until they get around to it, making the former owner legally responsible for it even after being evicted. That's not even remotely legal.
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The banks are doing whatever the homeowners allowed them to do when they gave the bank a mortgage. The mortgage defines every right a homeowner is granting the bank. If they don't want to hand over those rights they don't have to sign the mortgage.
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What does that have to do with legitimate foreclosures? It's like saying "i'm not going to arrest any murderers" because some people get arrested falsely. Open season.
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> Why? Because people a huge number of the foreclosures are going forward even though banks
> themselves can't even produce the mortgage paperwork!
A friend of mine was recently telling me that he basically hired a lawyer to go over his credit report, and challenge every negative item for documentation. He was telling me that he was quite surprised at how many items they dropped from his record because the creditor didn't have documentation for their claims.
Very sloppy.
-Steve
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And then there's idiots that I hadda deal with at the collections shop I used to work at. They'd dispute the debt every fucking month, we'd send them copies of the original bills, highlighting the
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Yup. However, that does not preclude legal action on behalf of the client. It just moves everything from the collection agency to the lawyers.
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He did exactly the right move in suspending foreclosures, in which he prevented innocent people being kicked out of there homes because of mistakes made by the banks or land lords.
He was enforcing the law, and doing a morally correct act before anyone even knew who he was. I'm not sure why you try to make his actions appear as though they were just for publicity.
I'm not sure how to take his trying to sue craigslist though.
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If only they there existed some sort of due process...someone should invent some sort of due process...
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What is he doing trying to practice law?
Don't be surprised to see Dart for Congress bumper stickers in the future.
Re:Idiot Sheriff Strikes Again! (Score:4, Informative)
You do know what kind of degree a J.D. is, right?
Right?
It's a frickin' doctorate of law (Juris Doctor).
That said, he has perhaps overstepped his role as Sheriff... but this worked out well in the end. The courts denied his actions, and he brought attention to something he felt was a concern.
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Those academic credentials SUPPORT his knowledge of the law, which is directly opposed to the conclusion OP tried to make. Basically, eldavojohn talked out his ass again...
or it was a particularly clever troll, which is possible, considering how many times he posts a generally-good-enoug
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Oh, and do some basic research before asking questions with easy answers. He's licensed to practice law in Illinois -- he's a member of good standing of the Illinois Bar Association. Prior to running for sheriff, he was actively practicing law.
That's a horribly worded loaded question. You say renegade, I say challenging the
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He's got a J.D. from Loyola University and a Bachelor's Degree in History and General Social Studies from Providence College. What is he doing trying to practice law?
Um, J.D. stands for Juris doctor, AKA 'a law degree'.
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Bitter? Me? Nah...
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AKA Doctor of Being Unemployed, Crushed by School Debt, But At Least Everyone Hates You
Bitter? Me? Nah...
I don't hate you, pumpkin.
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He's got a J.D. from Loyola University and a Bachelor's Degree in History and General Social Studies from Providence College. What is he doing trying to practice law?
Wow.
A degree in History and General Social Studies doesn't indicate that you're aware of history repeating itself, eh?
This is one you won't win. I find it strange that "we" (the common) try to "stop this" and "prevent that."
There is a base Human instinctual desire, combined with thought development from early childhood until adulthood that clearly doesn't change.
Call me an idiot, but it looks to me like he's in the general group that thinks by preventing communications of, and support of activities that so
Re:Idiot Sheriff (Score:4, Insightful)
Give the guy a break man. He just wants to protect the public. From themselves..
Prostitution is one of the few crimes that make a person a criminal if he/she sells something that is normally "free". Strange, but whatever. That "industry" is so frigging shady it begs to be regulated. But then we'd have to admit we like sex, so of course that's out of the question.
Re:Idiot Sheriff (Score:5, Informative)
Prostitution is one of the few crimes that make a person a criminal if he/she sells something that is normally "free".
Sometimes you can barter for it, but it's never free.
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Prostitution is one of the few crimes that make a person a criminal if he/she sells something that is normally "free".
Sometimes you can barter for it, but it's never free.
Indeed. The poster should have put "free" in quotation marks or something.
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it's never free.
"Love me?"
"Love you."
"Shake on it?"
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Still not free. Read the fine print next time.
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Sometimes you can barter for it, but it's never free.
The fact that you got modded +5 Informative is why I love /.!
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Hey, I'm sure it's news to some people here...
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Prostitution is one of the few crimes that make a person a criminal if he/she sells something that is normally "free".
Spoken like someone who's never been married.
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Heh, actually that's why I used the quotes. Nothing in this world is free, especially vagina.
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> Prostitution is one of the few crimes that make a person a criminal if he/she sells something that
> is normally "free". Strange, but whatever. That "industry" is so frigging shady it begs to be
> regulated. But then we'd have to admit we like sex, so of course that's out of the question.
Well, what came first? The shady abusive pimp, or the law?
Unregulated illegal industries are shady by definition. I would love to see a comparison between the prostitution problems in a place like RI and places wit
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Yep. Elections are coming up and I would bet even money that he's up this year. He's just trying to get some votes by grandstanding.
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In large part I think it's the way the legal system reasons things: successive approximation to previous cases. The problem is that there's no sanity check for situations where the law says A but NOT Z, but you can build a chain of reasoning that A is true and A is equivalent to B, B is equivalent to C, C is equivalent to D and so on until you get Y is equivalent to Z therefore Z (exactly the opposite of what the law says).
The flaw is obvious when you realize that you can use that kind of successive approx
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All NP-complete means computationally is that no algorithmic solution better than brute force exists. For sufficiently small problems, brute force may be practical. Sufficiently complex heuristics computed in the right hemisphere of the brain MAY be able to specify a good start point to find an acceptable (but not certainly optimal) solution in shorter time where brute force is not practical.
Re:Idiot Sheriff (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because anyone whose view on the law is different than the generally espoused views on slashdot MUST be expressing those views out of dishonesty or corruption or a desire for publicity or because they were bribed. Year in, year out, I see that viewpoint repeated again and again and again here and I just don't understand it. Every bad legal opinion, and a bunch of people pipe up that the judge in the case was probably bribed.
Man, I've got to take a break from slashdot, not worth getting annoyed every morning.
ANYWAY, first of all, the cause of action here was not for "facilitating prostitution," it was for public nuisance. Secondly, the sheriff here is a former prosecutor, so he probably understands the law pretty well. He's probably also familiar with the fact that the 7th Circuit, which interprets law for this district, has held that 230(c) does not provide blanket immunity for internet service providers; he was likely hoping that the court might find this case to be one of those where it doesn't apply. Thirdly, it's entirely possible that he intended all along, if necessary, to appeal the constitutionality of the safe harbor provisions of the law.
I don't agree with his position. But that doesn't mean I think it was a frivolous case, or he's somehow a horrible person because of it. And if you read the position the Court, while agreeing with the Defendant, doesn't seem to think so either. It's not an especially harshly worded decision, the word "frivolous" and "obvious" do not appear.
Finally, the way the techdirt article is phrased is just silly; "[e]ven after this was clearly explained to Sheriff Dart"? By who? The defendant? What's he supposed to do, "well I was going to prosecute this case, but the defendant is arguing that it's wrong, so I better just stop what I'm doing"? The headline is ridiculous too; should we just phrase all legal headlines like that? "Court Teaches EFF About DMCA"?
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Man, I've got to take a break from slashdot, not worth getting annoyed every morning.
Someone is wrong on the internet!
He's probably also familiar with the fact that the 7th Circuit, which interprets law for this district, has held that 230(c) does not provide blanket immunity for internet service providers;
Craigslist is not an internet service provider.
Finally, the way the techdirt article is phrased is just silly;
Agreed.
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You know, that's the thing, someone being wrong doesn't get to me, it's the lack of critical thinking and the incessant groupthink gets to me.
Craigslist is not an internet service provider.
Yah, meant interactive computer service or whatever the law defines as falling under the CDA protections.
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He may have been just trying to apply a little pressure hoping craigslist would choose to help mitigate the problem (not realizing how hard it would be to even make a dent in it) or just trying to attract a little publicity and public participation to the problem.
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This was indeed a publicity stunt; if he was interested in enforcing anti-prostitution laws, he would have prosecuted every individual who advertised prostitution services on Craigslist.
Not too long ago a guy in Quincy, MA posted an ad selling pot on Craigslist. So the cops called him up and bought some.Then they arrested him. Simple as that.
It seems some laws are enforced more than others.
The pirate bay case (Score:3, Interesting)
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But it was, more or less, their defense. But with the biased judge and all...no dice.
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This is the ideal concept for how the pirate bay should be looked at. Somehow it's not though.
It's clear that Craigslist only provides a service for people to communicate, but for The Pirate Bay it's only clear to us (/.) that they are doing the same.
I think there is also an unspoken bias about the proximity of any "crime" to the facilitator, that I would summarize like this: Craigslist is all just talk until people get together and do something wrong, but The Pirate Bay is stealing right there on the site. What counts as direct involvement? The closest we seem to get is asking if there's a "substa
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The Pirate Bay is stealing
No.
The argument has been made that The Pirate Bay is facilitating copyright infringement. They aren't stealing, and they aren't infringing copyright themselves.
The issue isn't "proximity to any (alleged) crime". If prostitution were legal in the US, craigslist would be in legal trouble because they'd be stepping on corporate toes.
That is all.
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"That's the law."
What if that's what I say when I look at you while standing tall, crossing my arms, and doing the legal 1000-yard stare?
That makes it the law. That makes me the law maker. That means that I am the guy you need to hire for your dirty work. I can say that because my dirty work is better than Craigslist-based online sexual dirty work. ...and that's the law.
Wow, that was supposed to be an agreeing sarcastic comment, but after thinking about guys like him, it's looking too true for people of
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
It's nice to see this ruling. Escorts and such have been advertising in local newspaper classified ads for YEARS now and nobody seemed to care. No matter what they do they're NOT going to stop prostitution because at the end of the day it's a "crime" between willing adults. There's no victim to complain to anyone because every person involved is happy if at the end of the day no law enforcement ever shows their face.
In reality though, the truth is that a lot of times strip clubs, brothels, and other such activities are giving kickbacks to SOMEBODY in power, somewhere. I've seen it time and time again. For example strip clubs here are not supposed to feature fully naked dancers and dancers are not supposed to be on the club floor when exposed. Generally they ignore the floor rule, and will just wrap their panties around their wrist when on stage to comply with the first (they're still wearing them, just not in the proper location). Every now and then though they'll get pressured to comply, resulting in the panties staying on and the bouncers literally having to carry the girls on their shoulders from stage to stage so that the girl never touches the floor, until the club owner pays off whoever is pressuring him. Then it's back to business as usual. The same is true for most escort services and such. The older more established services stay there pretty much until the owner decides to get out of the business. New services jump into and out of existence on a monthly basis. Simple reason is that the older services have figured out who they have to pay to be left alone.
My guess is that a lot of this backlash against Craigslist is simply that with everything being done on the Internet it's making it easier for people to get these dealings done without the officials getting their due cut of the cash, and that just doesn't go over well.
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Everyone always goes OMGWTF when stuff that happens in real life makes it onto the 'net. There are two people that still see the Internet as magic (whether it is in the sense of not understanding the technology or whether it is seen as a magic money box). It's run by humans like everything else and so it's subject to all the human problems like everything else. Until most people stop seeing it as technology indistinguishable from magic then it's probably more OMGWTF in the newspaper and CNN every day.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
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College kids *pay* for poon? I could barely afford gin...
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Priorities.
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But they were all working for the tutoring service...
contemplatign a career change (Score:2)
Generally they ignore the floor rule, and will just wrap their panties around their wrist when on stage to comply with the first (they're still wearing them, just not in the proper location). Every now and then though they'll get pressured to comply, resulting in the panties staying on and the bouncers literally having to carry the girls on their shoulders from stage to stage so that the girl never touches the floor
How did I miss being a domain expert in this field?
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That sounds like nice work when you can find it.
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Could be worse, you pull the sex industry specific terms out and replace them with words specific to many other industries, especially extraction industries, and it remains just as true.
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This is in South Carolina. "Good ol' boy" corrupted politics are to blame here rather than Mafia.
To add a little context... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you say "local sheriff", it makes it sound like he's the sheriff of some small town. In fact, Tom Dart is the sheriff of Cook County, which contains Chicago, is the second most populous county in the U.S, and his department is the second largest in the U.S.
People claiming Dart is drumming up publicity are pretty much correct. Keep in mind, we're talking Chicago here, so consider the history of the political machine here. Dart also refused to evict renters from houses when their landlords lost the mortgage. In a way, this is an honorable thing to do, but the way it played out, everyone read it as once again more publicity for Dart. The Craigslist case just further proves his motives.
Re:To add a little context... (Score:4, Interesting)
Notice Dart is not closing down cheap motels / hotels with rooms by the hour, who actually are facilitating prostitution. Nor is he closing down bars and liquor stores for facilitating drunk driving. Nor is he closing down sleazy bars (all of them) for facilitating drug dealers (all bars have drug dealers operating in them), or for facilitating prostitution. So he clearly is not into closing down facilitators, nor is he into hard work for publicity. He is attacking a single target for publicity. A cheap shot.
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Not only is Cook County the second most populous county in the US (5.3 million by US census data [census.gov]), it ranks 17 by population density, 18 by housing density but only 411th of 3,141 by area(unsurprisingly the top 9 are all in Alaska, as well as 13 of the top 20).
And being the sheriff for 43% of the population of Illinois (1.91% of the entire US population) makes the "local sheriff" moniker sound like an attempt to make him sound like a hillbilly. Keep in mind he's the sheriff of a bigger populace than 30 US
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I'm a resident too, and I love this city to death, but I also know too well about Toddler Stroger and his antics.
Pimps take notices (Score:1, Funny)
Pimps across the country retitled themselves "Service Providers".
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Service providin' ain't easy...
Hm, doesn't have the same ring to it.
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They've been on to the wording game long ago. It varies slightly, but the online variety of escort service owner/pimp basically has the following legal disclaimer:
"This website does not condone illegal activity. This is not an offer of prostitution. All services contracted for are legal arrangements for the model's time and company only. Anything additional that may or may not occur is a matter of personal preference between two consenting adults."
There's nothing against the law about contracting for a
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Careful, make sure you read the law in detail. In Kansas it is also legal to open-carry, however the state law permits cities to pass municipal ordinances restricting open-carry.
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Careful, make sure you read the law in detail. In Kansas it is also legal to open-carry, however the state law permits cities to pass municipal ordinances restricting open-carry.
We have a preemption law in Wisconsin. For those not in the know it means no municipality/county/etc. can make a law that's more restrictive than the state law. So the open carry is legal everywhere.
That being said there's places all over the state trying to pass laws/ordinances with heinous penalties for open carry in a 'no gun' area. As in $10,000 fine for first offense. I think they've backed down on those but haven't really followed them.
Here's the lovely irony. The preemption law was passed while
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Ban open carry and pass conceal carry in one bill. Bonus: those who can legally carry now are automatically grandfathered in to conceal-carry.
You write the bill, I'll hide until the fan stops throwing shit.
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If only we went back to the old American model in which the police not only did not have a monopoly on enforcing the law (any private citizen could arrest you and bring you to a court)
I don't know how it works where you live, but in California if you witness a misdemeanor or have reason to believe a felony has been committed, you may execute a citizen's arrest. Don't be wrong, the court hates it when you do that shit and if you don't have evidence expect to be nailed for false arrest. Once you have placed someone under citizen's arrest you are legally permitted to utilize necessary force to subdue the subject. I don't know shit about how it works when a private citizen wants to be a pros
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I have almost zero knowledge of the actual laws, but isn't it generally accepted in the US that you're allowed to intervene with reasonable and/or necessary force to protect yourself, your family, and your house/possessions? Isn't it also true that various parts of the US (and probably other parts of the world) have tried to encourage citizens to intervene another citizen is in danger (ie. a violent crime)?
Need to draw the line somewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
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Stop THINKING! We're just supposed to be all emotional about it and form social groups dedicated to the just cause!
</sarcasm>
Its all about money (Score:2)
Hush. (Score:1)
Don't tell his prospective emplo....
I I I mean...
Don't tell his current employer that he proved himself foolhardy and an overt rusher and that you shouldn't hir...
I mean..
Don't fire him.
Quite understandable (Score:1)
Even after all of this was clearly explained to Sheriff Daft, he still insisted that his lawsuit made sense.
There, fixed it for you.
the idea is to shut down prostitution right? (Score:2)
regardless of whether you agree with that goal or not, let's look at the validity of his tactics within the scope of that goal
prostitution happens in a marketplace. the sheriff thought the best thing to do is shut down the marketplace. this doesn't work: a new marketplace springs up somewhere else
the best thing to do is flood the existing marketplace with phony sellers to catch buyers and phony buyers to catch sellers. this will only put a damper on the trade, but it is the maximum dampening effect you can
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and posts like this are why slashdot is diseased with idiocy. do your homework, Dart is a lawyer, and knows more about the law than you do.