Senators Propose Bill Targeting Websites That Facilitate Sex Trafficking (usatoday.com) 187
An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation Tuesday that aims to make it easier to sue and criminally prosecute operators of online classified sites like Backpage.com that have been used to advertise sex workers. The proposed bill would amend the Communications Decency Act to eliminate a provision that shields operators of websites from being liable for content posted by third-party users. In addition to removing liability protections for websites that facilitate "unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims," lawmakers are seeking to amend the CDA to allow state prosecutors -- not just federal law enforcement -- to take action against individuals and businesses that use websites to violate federal sex trafficking laws. "For too long, courts around the country have ruled that Backpage can continue to facilitate illegal sex trafficking online with no repercussions," said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. "The Communications Decency Act is a well-intentioned law, but it was never intended to help protect sex traffickers who prey on the most innocent and vulnerable among us. This bipartisan, narrowly crafted bill will help protect vulnerable women and young girls from these horrific crimes."
Dick pics... (Score:1)
Would this include image websites that allow anonymous uploads of dick pics? Asking for a friend...
Re: Dick pics... (Score:1)
my DAMN balls are tho
Yeah, that'll work (Score:5, Insightful)
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Backpage.com has already been pressured into eliminating their escort/massage section. "Escorts" just moved their ads to the "Women seeking Men" dating section. All websites need is positive deniability and you can't touch them. "What, you expected us to READ everything that anybody posts? Even slashdot doesn't do that!"
FWIW, you can read the proposed change here [scu.edu]... Basically the bill is proposing to remove the CDA's safe harbor provisions for specifically enforcing sex trafficking laws. I suppose the theory is simply to allow the state (and the victim) to hit the websites in the pocketbook to modify their behaviour. But as you speculate, their behaviour is likely modified in a direction to promote more elaborate deniability, not elimination...
Safe Harbor... (Score:5, Interesting)
Great.
So, are they going to remove safe harbor for newspapers? The postal service? Phone companies? Hell, you see such adds posted on library community noticeboards! All of those mediums can and do have an involvement in the sex trade. Are they going to shut down strip bars? or do we just keep pretending that they have nothing to do with the sex trade.
Or just perhaps it is time to grow up out of the 1800s and accept that pushing these things deeper and deeper into hidden markets actually makes things much worse for the women involved, and that they should legalise and regulate - as many countries have done - with a matching reduction in drugs, violence, disease and abuse in that inevitable industry? The way things stand, a girl going to the police because of abuse is more likely to end up in trouble herself than get any protection - is that the way things should be?
Interestingly you will find, just like the drug 'industry' the lawless 'big players' running most of these things are actually strongly against legalisation - because it reduces their own control and profitability. They would need to clean up their act a lot, would face competition, and would need to treat their workers much, much better than many do.
But no, the US will continue burying its head (like many other countries) in an 'us and them' view of the world where the women caught up in such situations are bad and the people passing laws to punish them for their situation are good, and a blid eye is turned to the fact that many of the people passing the laws are violating them themselves, with impunity..
Sad, really.
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Just a minor nit: prostitution was largely legal in the 1800s. It was the 1900s when we were prosperous enough as a country to start worrying about what other people do with their bodies.
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The people behind such law want to drag us back to the Bronze Age, so good luck on getting them to accept the 1800s.
Or did you mean 1800s BCE? (~3750 BP)
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So all I have to do to bring down slashdot or any website that has a comment section is to post something that will contravene this law.
The 4channers will have a field day.
Noble cause, too broad of a dragnet that will hurt innocent businesses.
Sure, postings will initially decrease and some people will be "saved"... but then the services will move on to other methods of advertising and we'll be left with the overly broad law that will continue to hurt innocent businesses if people maliciously post items to t
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It's indeed not realistic for content hosters to inspect all content (assuming such even does any good). It would either put them out of business, jack up customer prices bigly, and/or drive such business overseas.
If they should inspect "some" content or do a cursory review, then the law would have to specify the time and/or expense required to be devoted to it. If they take the lazy way out and require "a reasonable" amount of time, then that will also jack up the prices because the penalty would be at the
Re: Yeah, that'll work (Score:2)
The end result is just more dangerous and more expensive sex.
Coming from Europe, where escorts are good-looking, healthy and talented entrepreneurs, I'm always shocked whenever I see the low quality of the offers in the US, which are also outrageously expensive and dodgy as fuck.
The US should just embrace the principle their very constitution is based on, freedom, and let the market privide common-place safe sex for everyone.
Yes, for heaven's sake let's do something useful (Score:2)
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There hasn't been talk of 'improving' it since the Democrats left office.
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And, the train wreck the Democrats left behind, wasn't an improvement either....
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You're right, it should've gone to single-payer
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God no....please.
I don't like the federal govt. having as much say in my healthcare as it is, I don't want them in 100% complete control of it.
I think they should do a few things.
First, the extreme poor, infirmed and the elderly, we keeps medicare and medicare for them...the safety net.
For the rest of able bodied American that can work...
We allow insurance to be sold across state lines.
We allow for very high limit HSA (Health Savings Accounts) to be se
Re:Yes, for heaven's sake let's do something usefu (Score:4, Informative)
Government run single payer health insurance is cheaper (1/2 the price per capita) than the American system, and gives better results. The government is accountable to the voters, a corporation is only accountable to the share holders.
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Just like the post office is cheaper than UPS and FedEx
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Most people will point back to this report http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective [commonwealthfund.org] claiming that we spend more than 2x everyone else on our health care. But look carefully at the numbers as it's divided into public (e.g. the government pays) and private spending (a citizen pays out of pocket) and they note that 34% of the us citizens are on public programs - and the public number would be higher if they counted employer-mandated health care
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And how is it magically "cheaper"? audiokat below points out the study that shows that in the US it's quite a bit more - about double. He doesn't understand it and misstates the conclusion, but there it is.
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The per capita public spending in the table you are referring to is not the amount spent per person covered by government programs, as you seem to think. It is the total amount of government spending on healthcare divided by the entire population (that's what "per capita" means). Some people get zero health care paid for by the government, some get a lot; this is averaged over everyone.
Likewise, the out-of-pocket amount is the total amount of out-of-pocket spending across the entire population divided by
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It's single payer, not single provider. The government pays. Various non-profits compete to offer better services for those payments. And of course the rich can still buy extra perks.
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Additionally, the poster should get a "are you fucking clueless" mod for seemingly not having an inkling of how insurance works. T
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Err....especially if the federal govt is the SINGLE PAYER..they will most definitely have a say in your treatment, whether you require it, and whether you get it, after all they will watch what they spend on who....
I"d rather not have the feds make those types of decisions.
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Seriously... have you not paid attention to anything, ever?
No (Score:2)
No, it should be moderated as rhetorical bullshit.
The American healthcare system is the worst in the developed world, the most expensive and the worst outcomes.
https://www.quora.com/topic/Un... [quora.com]
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A lot of people like to assume that single payer means "all insurance companies go bye bye" and the federal government is now the insurer.. And that may be true for lower economic brackets.. but the reality is, it would be the safety net everyone wants (real safety net) and then those that want to pay more for better quality/service.. can cheerfully do so.. (sort of like the bus ride vs. a car.. you are poor and have few options.. the bus it is.. but if you can afford it (because of the all the benefits it
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Also the problem is, you are forgetting.. more choice = more complexity = more expenses. Hence why they want to have a very limited number of plans. It reduces many of the problems of "which plan covers what". And its NOT just about you, but rather the mandate insures that EVERYONE gets coverage by increasing the pool of money available.
Plus also as a single payer, you have unlimited bargaining rights with prices, drugs, etc.. which lowers costs overall.
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"I don't want them in 100% complete control of it."
I do, then I can hold them 100% accountable for it. Try getting a corporation to be accountable for shit.
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Or we could remove the profit out of the equation and everything will become much cheaper.
While we're at it:
At the minimum, I can realize that as a single male I really have no use being forced to pay for maternity insurance I do not need.
For someone who advocates insurance as a solution you certainly don't know how it works, that it relies on its collective power, and that your boneheadded suggestion will just result in higher premiums for everyone.
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Funny...before Obamacare, I wasn't forced to have maternity care as part of my insurance, and it wasn't nearly as expensive as it is now.
I only want/need insurance in the old sense of "major medical" in that I only want insurance for emergencies, heart attack, hit by a bus, etc.
The routine mai
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Funny...before Obamacare, I wasn't forced to have maternity care as part of my insurance, and it wasn't nearly as expensive as it is now.
Yeah I agree. The single thing that changed before Obamacare and after Obamacare is that you now have maternity cover. That is the only reason the price of your medical insurance changed.
I retract my statement about you not having a clue of insurance and will correct it now: You just have no clue about *anything*, I'm sure that is Obama's fault too.
That should be much cheaper for me
You know what would be much cheaper to you based on healthcare cost vs benefits from different systems around the world? Socialised healthcare.
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None of what you said will address the cause of all of this which is a shortage of supply of good medical professionals. We require students to pass an exam to become students who are learning to become doctors. What if this exam has eliminated thousands of great doctors-to-be from getting the education that would allow them to become great doctors, increase the supply of good doctors, and put a downward pressure or prices through increased competition.
We are undergoing a huge demographic shift where in 30
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Funny....I don't recall a single Republican vote for the Obamacare system we currently are burdened with....
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Exactly. So rather than the pathetic attempt to repeal on their own, they should have worked with them in the first place.
Bipartisanship (Score:3)
It's possible to do more than one thing at a time. Sex Trafficking is and should always be a bipartisan issue not beholden to the usual contest of opposing political forces coming from sources of legitimate disagreement. People being held in slavery in the modern United States is not a partisan issue. Children getting raped multiple times per day is not a partisan issue. People knowingly profiting off of that without making at least reasonable efforts to prevent it and refusing to be reasonably responsive t
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This is not about people being held in Slavery. The number of people who are being forced against their will into Prostitution in the US is less than 1%. Probably much much less.
This is about targeting the women's vote. Women hate prostitution as it drops their bargaining position against men. Politicians have been pandering to this for centuries. The anti-slavery thing is to make it more palatable in this modern age, and neutralize protests from men who would be affected by this.
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This is about targeting the women's vote. Women hate prostitution as it drops their bargaining position against men.
Precisely. It's the same reason why feminists are so strongly opposed to pornography. It weakens women's position to manipulate men.
With 99%+ effective birth control and access to prostitutes, some men are completely checking out of fatherhood and husbandhood.
LK
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Sex Trafficking is and should always be a bipartisan issue not beholden to the usual contest of opposing political forces coming from sources of legitimate disagreement. People being held in slavery in the modern United States is not a partisan issue. Children getting raped multiple times per day is not a partisan issue.
Selling sex for money or anything is illegal in pretty much every state of the US but Nevada. That means that anyone that is dealing in the sex trade is engaged in sex trafficking even if the individual is not a child and even if the individual is not being held in effective slavery. I'd hazard to guess, and likely wouldn't have a difficult time backing it up, that the vast majority of sex trafficking is conducted by consenting adults which is a behavior that should be regulated at best, for the purpose of
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What was this fallacy? I forgot. The one that says only one thing can happen at a time and everything else should stop happening until something like cancer is not a thing anymore.
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Let's forget about improving healthcare in the U.S.
Trouble is that there are two conflicting ideas on how to "improve" it. I don't think many people really want what we have now, but it's what we could get. One side wants government single payer, while the other wants free market get as good of heath care as your job can provide through wages or insurance.
Don't eliminate valuable data! (Score:5, Interesting)
What ? (Score:3)
"For too long, courts around the country have ruled that Backpage can continue..."
So ... multiple judges and juries have decided that it's nothing wrong with it but and they want to change that ?
So, after this law is passed, if a AC posts an unlawful comment to a story on /. - will the editors be sent to prison ?
Re:What ? (Score:5, Insightful)
So ... multiple judges and juries have decided that it's nothing wrong with it but and they want to change that ?
The judges have determined that it's not against the law, not that there's "nothing wrong with it." The proposal is to change the law.
Not that I necessarily agree with this proposal, but it's not really correct to conclude that something is "right" or "wrong" based simply on court decisions. I'm sure we can all come up with cases where we think that the law should be written differently than how it now stands.
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People are so accustomed to judges legislating from the bench that they no longer understand how the process is supposed to work.
sexually-repressed fake christian prudes (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't you mind your own goddamn business? Thank goodness the "family values conservatives" are in charge, amirite? Sessions cracking down on marijuana, Trump encouraging police to brutalize suspects and Portman making sure it's illegal for two consenting adults to enter into a personal contract.
If Portman cares about human trafficking, maybe he should look into Trump's "model agency" or his relationship with Melania.
http://www.inquisitr.com/43971... [inquisitr.com]
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Sessions cracking down on marijuana..
Don't forget about his trying to increase the use of civil forfeiture.
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The senators are just having trouble finding girls on Craigslist who aren't hookers.
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In the United States, Libertarians are not libertarian, so no. I don't know how it is where you live, but in this country, a "Libertarian" is basically a racist Republican who wants to smoke pot and bring suffering on poor people and the elderly while not paying taxes.
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...a "Libertarian" is basically a racist Republican who wants to smoke pot and bring suffering on poor people and the elderly while not paying taxes.
Demonizing.
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Just pointing out the obvious.
Re:sexually-repressed fake christian prudes (Score:4)
This makes less and less sense the more I try to read it
Re:sexually-repressed fake christian prudes (Score:4, Funny)
It made more sense in the original Russian.
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The movement to support sex workers is coming from the Left.
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The greatest advocates in support of sex workers are women, friend.
https://www.bustle.com/article... [bustle.com]
I don't know where you're getting such bad information, but women and specifically feminists are leading the way in sex worker advocacy.
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I agree. I merely pointed out that the only support for sex workers is currently coming from the Left.
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Thankfully! (Score:1)
Yes let's protect the women and girls since they are obviously the ONLY victims of sex trafficking. And of course the ONLY people advertising there are victims, none of them are there because they actually make a lot more money doing something they enjoy than trying to find a non-existent job flipping burgers or working in Walmart.
Ok I'm off to my massage, let's hope this all leads to a happy ending.
laws (Score:1)
The laws already exist to protect women and children. It is up to law enforcement to capture and enforce what is already there Senator dumbshit.
prudish tone (Score:5, Insightful)
unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims
The whole article sort of subtly conflates the two-- unlawful sex acts, and sex trafficking victims, as though they are one and the same. i.e. prostitution == victim
Thank you (Score:3)
Came here to make exactly that point.
Let's also ban kitchen knives because they have been used in horrifying acts of domestic abuse, and will continue to be used unless we act now!
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Let's also ban kitchen knives because they have been used in horrifying acts of domestic abuse, and will continue to be used unless we act now!
You must be from the UK.
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Actually USA, so couldn't use firearms as example to avoid diversion down the 2nd amendment side road, which is irrelevant to the point here.
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The conflation is deliberate, and I'm only surprised he didn't try to link in the underage angle to it as well. The average person is probably going to care a lot less, and be less supportive, of measures to crack down on a transaction between two consenting adults, whereas the average person is far more likely to support a crackdown on sex-trafficking.
And while it's not to say that legalized prostitution is a panacea for sex trafficking, it's a lot
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unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims
The whole article sort of subtly conflates the two-- unlawful sex acts, and sex trafficking victims, as though they are one and the same. i.e. prostitution == victim
Of course. That's the game now - act as if all prostitution is "trafficking" and pretend that there are no women who voluntarily prostitute themselves. It's the easiest way to gain sympathy for the anti-prostitution position.
Oh this could be bad... (Score:2)
While I'm all for getting rid of sex traffickers, the line "eliminate a provision that shields operators of websites from being liable for content posted by third-party users" could be a bit scary if it leaves the narrow scope specified. I mean, if it's ONLY applied to sex trafficking websites cool, but I could totally see companies jumping on this bandwagon and holding web hosts responsible for content posted by third-party users. Imagine the copyright lawsuits that would happen. Maybe it's just the cynic
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Screw these Senators (Score:2)
No chance this'll be abused.. riiiiight, suuuure.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, as others in this discussion have already pointed out, sex traffickers will just learn to hide their posts better. The net effect will then be infringement on the rights of people who are doing nothing wrong, and sex trafficking will continue unabated.
Really sounds to me like they just need to enforce the laws already on the books with regards to this sort of illegal activity, and nevermind creating new legislation.
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You do realize they use words like "Sex trafficking" as inflammatory rhetoric to goad people. It tends to conjure up images of women (and sometimes boys) in incapacitated by various means and used for the pure purpose of sex.. when in reality, 99% of the time, its just pure regular prostitution initiated by the women themselves as a source of revenue. Are there sex traffickers?.. well, that depends on your definition of sex trafficking in the first place.
The term is most often used when it crosses state/co
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'Sex trafficking'? Really? How much of a primitive animal do you have to be to treat other members of your own species that way? Really, honestly, seriously,
Why the hate for prostitution? How about you keep your puritanical judgements about what consenting adults do to each other to yourself?
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Fuck you. You know damn well we're talking about people (usually WOMEN) being forced into a life of slavery. Go troll someone else.
No, we're not. You want to make it about women who are forced into a life of slavery, but the story and summary are quite clear - it's only about prostitution.
Get out of other peoples bedrooms - a consensual contract between adults is none of your fucking business.
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Troll. Also maybe DEVIANT, or SOCIOPATH. In any case: Fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw, asshole. We're not talking about $1000 a night independent callgirls. We're talking about people being treated like cattle to be bought and sold, who have NO SAY WHATSOEVER in where they go or what they do.
Spare me the histrionics; both the summary and the article were quite unambiguous.
It's clear, and has been for some time, that there's a segment of the population online who feel a deep need to virtue signal. You are obviously one of those people - any opportunity to signal your virtue you'll take, and (like in this case) you'll make one up if there isn't any opportunity.
Go on then - signal your virtue to the whole world - does it make you feel better about yourself?
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00... [imdb.com]
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Sounds to me while this may (or may not) be well-intentioned, it'll be abused to censor online discussions, having a chilling effect on peoples freedom of speech. Furthermore, as others in this discussion have already pointed out, sex traffickers will just learn to hide their posts better. The net effect will then be infringement on the rights of people who are doing nothing wrong, and sex trafficking will continue unabated. Really sounds to me like they just need to enforce the laws already on the books with regards to this sort of illegal activity, and nevermind creating new legislation.
I wonder if any of these senators have a website that hosts open forums / comment sections? If so, it can't be too hard to write a script that posts fake sex ads in their forums.
Victims? (Score:1)
Sex Trafficking != Sex Work. (Score:2)
Trafficking is forcing someone to do something against their will.
Sex Trafficking is forcing someone to do sex work.
People who work at the Bunny Ranch [bunnyranch.com] do sex work. They aren't trafficked.
An online advertisement for the Bunny Ranch [bunnyranch.com] isn't illegal (in the U.S.), and shouldn't be illegal.
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But you can bet your ass that this law will be written to make the Bunny Ranch advertisements illegal.
Never forget that religious conservatives are all about the nanny state getting up and in your business as they are particularly concerned about what you do in your bedroom and home in general.
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Never forget that religious conservatives are all about the nanny state getting up and in your business as they are particularly concerned about what you do in your bedroom and home in general.
Trust me it's both sides on this. The right does it because of oddball puritanical values, and the left does it under the assumption that every prostitute has been "trafficked" because they can't fathom that a woman would voluntarily engage in something that goes against their own personal feminist code.
And of course the right just adopts the whole "all prostitution is 'trafficking'" angle because it has become the new "think of the children". Heck half the time it gets woven INTO it. If people are again
Why not arrest the traffickers? (Score:3)
If they're advertising online, that means they're providing contact information.
Are the police so inept that they can find someone who's advertising that they're doing something illegal?
A thing that by it's nature requires them to come into physical contact with you?
Government activly encourages sex trafficking (Score:2)
It is not possible to erode states legitimacy by outlawing something tens of millions are willing to do anyway regardless of legality without society paying a heavy price in return.
Any politician concerned enough about enslaved and exploited people would seek to legalize and regulate prostitution rather than hopelessly whacking away at obvious predictable outcomes of a harmful policy.
War on drugs (Score:1)
This is the war on drugs all-over again: Once the low-hanging fruit is gone, catching criminals is expensive work. (In a large part because removing competition, increases profits, giving criminals the power to evade the police. It's why the police were eventually given the power to blatantly steal from criminals.) Remember the polygraph-exam schools: The schools suddenly had to report any customers that conspired to commit a crime. Ditto for that guy installing lock-boxes in cars.
This is the
And not a single thing was said (Score:2)
But what about the young men trapped in this situation also?
It's not just women and girls that are trafficked.
Here's an excellent opportunity for equality.
It's a trap! (Score:2)
I'll listen to people like this... (Score:2)
...when they accept and try to limit prostitution not only for "... vulnerable women and young girls" but for "vulnerable men and young boys". Strange that male prostitution _never_ get mentioned by people/bills like this even though in some areas there are more male prostitutes than female (according to measurements that admittedly have a high error marginal).
I guess women can't make a conscious choice due to their small brains while men can /s.
Haven't we gone far enough down this path? (Score:2)
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Stop making bull shit special laws that are purposely broad in scope. Sex trafficking is illegal already so enforce that fucking law.
It is the law against sex trafficking that is broad in scope. This law is meant to target a mechanism of it (whether any good at it is another matter). It is like having no road traffic laws except one that just says "Drive safely" and saying fucking enforce it.
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Prostitution is undesirable. It's okay to ban prostitution, though perhaps a bit foolish.
That's a matter of opinion and there are several levels of prostitution, from street walking to brothels to high end escorts. It is possible to have a positive client/provider relationship where both parties are equally happy with the arrangement.
I know it's difficult to establish who is doing it out of their free will and who is being coerced beyond a reasonable level (arguably we're almost all "coerced" to work by the need to feed and house ourselves), but there are sex workers who have made a rational ch