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Craigslist Fights Back, Sues SC Atty General
FredMastro writes "Craigslist has now stepped past just asking for an apology. The Wall Street Journal and CNet report that Craigslist is fighting back. 'Craigslist said it has sued South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, in the latest escalation of a battle over adult-oriented ads on the company's site. Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's chief executive, said in a blog post that the company filed its suit in federal court in South Carolina. ...'" Unfortunately, the WSJ's piece requires a subscription, but reader Locke2005 adds a link to coverage in the San Jose Business Journal.
People trying to make Craigslist into this big bad fraud sex site is getting old. It's about 2% of US internet traffic, no duh it's got a few hookers on it.
It's about time someone stood up for free speech. Intimidation and coercion need to be met with even more force to keep our rights intact.
that and I like Craigslist.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
1) Copy and paste the url http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124283370260739663.html
2) Copy and paste into google, resulting in a link like this
Click link and read page.
Not pasting full text of article though, so you're gonna have to do it yourself.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
They are filing a civil case against a state's attorney general (which will make it a federal hearing) - alleging what?
That his sidebar remarks that Craiglist executives could have criminal charges filed against them cost them revenue? Affected their listings?
McMaster is an asshole, no doubt. He may as well have said that Hugh Hefner was going to go to jail for publishing that salacious playboy magazine all these years. He is just looking to grandstand, possibly because he thinks he's going to run for governor someday.
I'd like to see Craigslist attorneys hand that douche a slapdown, but I'm not holding my breath that the actual tort here won't get tossed.
Disclaimer: This is total speculation. I have no facts to back this up:
I'm wondering if there are some power printing/publishing interests lobbying the state government to hamstring Craiglists because of the thread that site represents to print advertising.
Consider this section of TFA:
Emphasis mine.
If it weren't for the thread that craigslist represents to print media advertising, I would have concluded that this was just another puritan witch hunt. However, the fact that craigslist has fewer adult services ads than mainstream publishers in the state leads me to speculate that this is about smacking down "unfair competition" from an outsider.
This space left intentionally blank.
Seriously, there are quite clear click-through warnings on the site, if you don't want to see adult advertising, don't go into that section. As for illegal activity, it's a public forum so you can expect a certain amount of that sort of thing.
This is the sort of thing that is going to go on regardless of the existence of craigslist. Now at least there is some kind of paper trail if something bad goes down ( kidnapping, murder, etc ) since most people don't secure delete their emails, but if we make sure this all keeps out on the street corner at night, it just makes it all that much more dangerous.
Blog
That's a horrible idea.
And what happens when all the frivolous lawsuits that people love tossing around get used like a DoS attack against unpopular people, or people that someone has a vendetta against?
What happens when 10,000 anti-war activists all file individual suits against the president? He's supposed to put out of pocket to defend himself?
And if I'm the CEO of Apple, and someone doesn't like their iPhone and can't get a refund because they're past the purchase date allowance, if they sue me because they feel wronged, do I pay for it myself?
Unreasonable plan.
So this is an argument between Mr. Buckmaster and Mr. McMaster?
So this is all just a bunch of Master-debating?
-Peter
I find it ironic that the SC AG's office promises to monitor Craigs. I can just see it now:
"Jimmy, you need to go troll an adult oriented web site all afternoon to see if they have taken down the dirty pictures yet."
"Yes sir!"
A bit off-topic: I applaud Craigslist, but I noticed this article is arguably more about McMaster than it is about Craigslist.
The bias is not hostile or obvious, as one might expect from stereotyped hostile reporting source, which is not to say that the SJ Business Journal is such. Mostly it is an imbalance in coverage styles and content.
Most paragraphs describe what McMaster did, what he thinks, what he has to say, etc. He is often quoted with his reactions to the suit. His position is explained in detail.
Craigslist, on the other hand, gets comparatively little verbiage in its own words. Craigslist's reaction to McMaster's assertions are stated in broad terms, without McMaster's sense of specificity and precision.
The reader is left with a good idea of McMaster's position and less of Craigslist's. This is a great article for students of propaganda studies to cite when looking for media bias in the news, either deliberate or incidental.
Just a note.
and claim fair use. I'll start.
The
In a statement, Mr. McMaster called Craigslist's legal action "good news" because "it shows that Craigslist is taking the matter seriously for the first time."
The logical disconnect is astounding, like if McBride claimed to be glad that Novell was suing because is demonstrates their serious intent.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If you believe the Straight Dope columns, a third party has to pay for it to be legal. So get your buddy to be the producer, director and cameraman, and you can be the screenwriter and star.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Of course the CEO of Craigslist may never have allowed the erotic services section in the first place if he thought he would be personally taken to court over it. His statement in one of the linked articles was that to truly prevent erotic advertisements in the way the AG wants is to not serve ads to the state of South Carolina. I wonder if he'd take the job if it meant he was on the hook personally for anything potentially illegal that is advertised on the website. Theoretically the court exists to determine if it was the corporation or the individual who was breaking the law or causing harm and to divy the punishment accordingly.
I don't know how the adult/erotic services was ever allowed. I figure they are facilitating a crime, and illegal industry, whether explicitly knowing or not.Where ads are free, if they don't have an explicit categories for whores to advertise, then the whores will spam all the other categories! Finding ads for sex services in the dating section is considerably more annoying then finding them in section where you have to be explicitly looking for whores to be viewing the first place. Sorta like being propositioned in church, it is somewhat disturbing! Giving the sex services their own place actually minimizes the impact on craigslist customers, and minimizes minors accidentally stumbling upon the material.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I check the w4m section very rarely, and then only to make sure my wife isn't placing any ads. ;-) If you are saying it has gone to hell after Craigslist shut down the "adult" section, then all I can say is that I am not surprised.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Just drive down I-85 or I-95 and see how many nudie bars are advertising on billboards all the way down the corridor.
The hypocracy of this guy is illuminated in Buckmaster's request for an apology, summarized by Cnet:
The attorney general, Buckmaster said, "has persisted with his threats despite the fact that craigslist:
http://blog.craigslist.org/2009/05/an-apology-is-in-order/
Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal? You know, why should it be illegal to sell something that's perfectly legal to give away. I can't follow the logic on that at all. -George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty
The main part of the argument is that Craigslist has done nothing wrong to begin with.
They are protected by section 230. The threats and allegations are unconstitutional and IMHO slanderous.
It seems likes there's a purposeful implication that the Adult Section of Craig's List is that it's meant to be for prostitution. It's not.
The Adult Section is just like any of hundreds of online and print services meant to match people of similar interests. It's like Match.com, or Cupid.com for people who really intend to get physical. Often these people do not want a relationship and desire only one time meet-ups. Obviously a desire to do so goes against some conventions, and success in looking for that can be difficult. But there's nothing at all illegal about it.
One might suggest that a purposefully misleading portrait of the Adult Section as an intended service to promote prostitution is an agenda to aid in policing morality. That would be extremely dangerous precedent for a State's AG to pursue.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Has anyone noticed the URL of the South Carolina Attorney? http://www.scattorneygeneral.org/ Maybe a complaint that such a "Disgusting" and "Offensive" term is clearly visible in the URL of such a person would be interesting. I mean a Scat Tourney? That's just horrible! ;)
This guy in SC is a real bozo. He claims this is the first time they have taken the matter seriously. He's being a idiot. He's making idiotic statements.
Craigslist was always in the right. They were protecting freedom of speech and to be able to conduct business without the interference if right wing politicians bent on making a name for themselves while seeking higher office.
These SC residents need to vote this guy out of office and he needs to pay some with is personal income for violation of the constitution by trying to enforce prior restraint against free speech.
He's incompetent.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
The wives and girlfriends of your customers?
That's not really a matter for the government to decide. I don't have forced public records showing how often I eat at Arbys, or how often and what movies I'm renting from Blockbuster. Or for a more similarly themed venue, I don't have to show public records detailing how often I go to or how much money I spend in a strip club.
As well, any activity that one wishes to partake in they can choose to either keep secret from their significant other or to divulge it. If the other finds out then they have their own issues to workout separate from the legal system (unless divorce comes into play, but that's a separate matter).
The bottom line is that it's not the government's business to enforce morality. If a guy wants to cheat on his wife/girlfriend then he's an asshole, but it's not the government's concern, regardless of if the cheating involved a financial contract or if it was mere charity work.
As well, forcing public records allows another form of coercion. I for example work with a bunch of extremely religious people. That's cool - they do their thing and I do mine. No harm done. If prostitution was made legal though, I wouldn't want to have to worry about public records making me more likely to get let go more so than someone else next time lay-offs come around.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%2Bescort+%2B%22south+carolina%22&btnG=Search
this returns :
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,490,000 for +escort +"south carolina". (0.20 seconds)
far more than craigslist.
Government officials, including the president, get sued all the time. Because they are being sued pursuant to their job, their employer defends them. Hell, I was just a lowly Officer with the IRS back in the day and I managed to get myself sued once or twice. The government has some really good lawyers and I was glad of it.
Sometimes, things get even more indisidious. Back in the day (20+ years ago) every local district office of the IRS had a director. There were 66 of them spread around the country and they were the public face of the IRS. Ours was a good guy, totally in the "firm but fair" mode, who even had a sense of humor. He used to donate his time (very occasionally) to charity to sit in a dunk tank and let the public try to drop him into the water.
So what was his reward for trying to be open, transparent, and just plain *human* to the public? Not only did he get sued pretty much every week, lots of anti-tax protestors would go to various county courthouses in the area and file "common law liens." These bogus documents were a bunch of rambling nonsense that basically says "The IRS is illegal so the local director should be held personally liable for all the damage they cause." Said "damage" was calculated in various ways, ranging from just the amount the aggrieved citizen-idiot owed all the way up to some approximation of the entire amount of money collected by the IRS in that city that year, typically billions.
The clerks at the county courthouses eventually learned to recognize this crap and refuse to accept bogus documents for filing but that put them on thin ice; they are supposed to let anything be filed and let the courts decide if a filing is fraudulent. Sometimes they just held the filings until the lawyers could have a look. Most time, the filings just went through.
Our guy was a good person, making a good salary, filing all required financial disclosure reports that showed he never defaulted on a loan or was late with bills. But at the courthouse, there were filings showing that he was a multi-billion dollar deadbeat. The poor guy had the worst credit in the world. Getting a loan to buy a house or car or just getting a credit card was an exercise in frustration for him.
So the answer to your question is "Lots of government lawyers spend their time going to court, time that could have been better spent doing work in the public interest. The few people filing frivoulous actions waste lots of your tax money. That's what happens."
In the US, there are (at least) two types of prostitution, and two main groups of opposition.
Some prostitutes choose to be prostitutes, because it offers them the best income per unit time: they're just doing business. That's what many Americans, particularly libertarians, think of, when they advocate legalizing prostitution. In many countries, this has been the model they've taken.
Some prostitutes are not willing prostitutes -- they've been forced into it. This is primarily seen in the US with child prostitution, where we don't recognize the child's right to choose that particular profession, but in much of the world there is a large market for what is essentially sexual slavery.
Now, for the opposition: religious conservatives don't like the idea of sex outside marriage for a number of reasons. They're actively opposed to legalizing prostitution. Many other people are passively opposed to prostitution because they mentally model it as scabs crossing a union line called marriage, and dragging down the value of sex, to get all economic about it. This general group is going to oppose *any* type of prostitution, whether by choice or coercion.
The second type of opposition: many people oppose prostitution because either they're worried that even if it's primarily voluntary, it'll lead to a rise in involuntary/coerced prostitution, or they have decided that *any* prostitution is involuntary. (See Andrea Dworkin's work, for instance, where she generalizes to claim that any heterosexual act is essentially coercive. I don't agree, but it's unquestionably an influence.) So while this group -- typically on the left/liberal side -- might consider voluntary prostitution okay, they're still uncomfortable with the whole idea.
A lot of European countries have legalized prostitution while making pimping illegal and heavily prosecuted, which would tend (on first inspection) to select for only voluntary prostitution: just business. The problem with this is two-fold. Prostitutes find they make more money, and are safer, when they have someone to back them up in the case of a dispute with a client. One work-around is collectives, or unions, where prostitutes work with each other, but there's a fine line between that and pimping.
So it's not as simple as just saying 'legalize it'.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Laws like this seem like parents that suck at parenting. Any behavior in your kids you wish to modify you have the choice to try to teach what they should be doing and why or simply mandate that they act according to your wishes.
It's so much easier to mandate than to teach or try to convince.
The president is protected from civil suits while in office period.
Completely wrong.
I am officially gone from
No, they don't protect against murder/theft/etc. to enforce morality. They exist because each of those crimes infringes upon another citizen's liberty without their consent. Prostitution does no such thing.
Ride the skies
Perhaps, but entanglements being such as they are, a female, sexual, roommate is not very far away from a wife, practically speaking.
Costs would likely attach that could be considered greater than those of prostitution. E.g. kids and jewelry.
Morality is not a basis for the law. The law just happens to coincide with what the normal interpretation of moral behavior happens to be.
The law exist to enforce the rights of a person. Those rights are protected by the law. I can't take from you that which is not mine to take, whether that be your property, your freedom or your life. Everything stems from that, and morality is not a part of the equation. In fact it should remain specifically absent from the equation in order to protect both your rights and mine.
I can't murder you because that takes your rights away, not because it's wrong to kill (although the effect is the same). I can't steal from you, not because it's immoral, but rather because you have the right to maintain your property. But I can get drunk and smoke cigars while watching porn all I want because it doesn't impact you in the slightest, no matter how immoral you think it is.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
I'm betting you're an American.
You should read about Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia some time.
Here's an interesting article detailing what's happening throughout those areas: women are hired in country A, by agents from country B, who tell the women that they're going to country C to be housekeepers, maids, or work in manufacturing jobs. Once they leave their country -- and often, pay for the ticket -- their passports are taken and they've become illegal aliens who are enslaved, for all practical purposes. The local police are involved, so that doesn't do them any good, and they're physically prevented from going to their embassies, who don't seem to have any interest in helping poor women, anyway.
The current estimates range between half a million and four million women being held this way. I have no idea how accurate that is, but as such, I don't think it's anything like a gross exaggeration to make the claim that involuntary prostitution is real.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.