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Sheriff Sues Craiglist For Prostitution Ads
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.
This is Illinois again I see we are talking about, after all. Maybe the sheriff in question is just upset because he can't get a cut of the local "action" if it's all happens online...
Not all, but many are, yes. It's a double standard in our society that bugs me. Expecting your date to put out because you bought her a nice dinner is OK, but paying her cash for sex isn't. Go figure.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Yet people flock to strip clubs to watch women dance and take off their clothes. Erotic Services with no sex are quite common.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Little aftertought, after reading the ars technica update I believe this is about money.
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,
Umm...Shouldn't the police force be paying craigslist? Craigslist didn't create the prostitution. They stuck it all in one spot. The only way they could have helped the cops more is if they placed a big red arrow that says "hooker" over the prostitute's heads.
source. Not that the con talking heads bothered to mention any of these trifling little legal issues back when they proclaimed that this was some kind of activism and socialism and satanism and whatever else they could throw at it.
The bank must follow the law, and the law states the residents of a non-owner occupied property must be notified in advance, which the poor, poor banks just couldn't be bothered to do.
They were apparently too busy licking the boots of the fed chairman for cash to think "Hmm... renter in good standing making monthly payments, owner in bad standing not making monthly payments. Maybe we should offer them the house in exchange for them continuing to pay. The worst that could happen is they say no and move out." But that would require working for their money and if there's anything we've learned in this crash, its that the leadership of our institutions are deathly afraid of work and deserve money to fall upon them from the federal government.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
... adults with imaginary friends are given free psychiatric help.
In the US, we give them political power.
OK, I'll bite.
What are you talking about? This is a story about a lawsuit. A strange lawsuit that seems to be trying to enforce criminal statutes on a tort-like theory of public nuisance. It likely won't go anywhere, since it's hard from the complaint to even make out who the aggrieved party is supposed to be. (Is the Sheriff himself harmed in some way by Craigslist's practices? I think he'll have to show that if he wants an injunction. Otherwise, if he thinks something cognizably criminal is going on he could maybe investigate and prosecute. Which he can't, so this whole thing is largely symbolic.)
Now you come in babbling about political power for imaginary friends. I guess it's OK, though, as there seem to be enough like-minded schizophrenics to get you modded insightful. Perhaps you could move overseas, and avail yourself of some of those marvelous free services...
I hear the spectre of child prostitution ads being raised many times in this thread.
cite one example. I peruse my local craigslist on occasion, and have even used the erotic services section quite a few times. I've never seen any child prostitution ads in there.
If they're so prevalent, there must be some posted today? something in cache somewhere? an actual ad someone could link to and say "look, a child prostitution ad! take it off!"
Unless I see some evidence, I'm inclined to think that the children are not as prevalent on craigslist as some would like us to think, and it's just a moral panic excuse to shut down a business run by adults, and only adults.
So you have some kind of evidence of child abuse (be it sexual or otherwise), then you have a prosecution. Congratulations, where does shutting down a section of craigslist come into this? Oh, you have no evidence of this actually happening, no actually damaged or hurt children? Then you're just another scare monger trying to stop the bleeding by covering it with a curtain.
If you really want to think of the children, maybe you ought to take all this evidence you have of child abuse to a DA's office and see if you can get the ball rolling there.
An intelligent person would want this stuff on craigslist, where it is all made into a nice easy searchable electronic database that can be easily monitored, logged, and used in court with a minimum of fuss. It looks to me like this sherrif simply doesn't understand the technology and his lawyers told him he might be able to make a quick buck suing craigslist.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
I have always found it highly questionable that something one can give away for free should be illegal to sell.. (free is relative; everyone pays for it somehow) If they regulated it (and taxed the hell out of it) it would do away with some thugs who want to be big time pimps, and through health regulations it could help reduce the spread of STD's. Just to go ahead and answer the inevitable, no it will not fix everything and there will always be those that operate outside of an established/legal system.