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Proposed Posting of Clients List In Prostitution Case Raises Privacy Concerns

Posted by samzenpus on from the staying-off-the-list dept.

An anonymous reader writes "An interesting case touching on privacy in the Internet age has erupted in Kennebunk, Maine, the coastal town where the Bush family has a vacation home. When a fitness instructor who maintained a private studio was arrested for prostitution, she turned out to have maintained meticulous billing records on some 150 clients, and had secretly recorded the proceedings on video files stored in her computer. Local police have begun issuing summons to her alleged johns, and have announced intentions to publish the list, as is customary in such cases. Police believe such publication has a deterrent effect on future incidents of the kind. However, the notoriety of the case has some, including newspaper editors, wondering whether the lives of the accused johns may be disproportionately scarred (obtaining or keeping a job, treatment of members of their families within the community) for a the mere accusation of having committed a misdemeanor. Also, the list of names will be permanently archived and indexed by search engines essentially forever."

7 of 533 comments (clear)

  1. this whole story is just sad... by acidfast7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    just make prostitution legal (and regulated) like most of Europe. You can even tax the income, while ensuring the safety of the workers and the clients. For bonus points, I grew in Wells, ME, about 10km south of Kennebunk ... and this kinda of ridiculous attention to foolish stories/details like this is one of the reasons I left (small town politics, anyone?) A john's life destroyed? Hardly, especially not by an "employer" with half a brain.

  2. I recall... by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Somehow, I recall George Carlin's words on the topic:
    I don't understand why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?
    If selling fucking were legal (as in some other jusrisdictions of the world), the criminal in question would not be a criminal, and the perpetrators of the misdemeanor in question would not have committed a misdemeanor.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    1. Re:I recall... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think a better argument against making prostitution illegal is that no one is harmed by it. And it's purely consensual. The cases where it isn't consensual are already covered by other laws (slavery, human trafficking, etc).

    2. Re:I recall... by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What are you talking about? What two other acts, only when taken together, constitute murder?

      Well, there is driving your car forward and telling someone to stand in front of it. Or stuffing someone in a large room and filling the same room with poison (or flame or vacuum). I could go on, but the thing you are missing is that two actions, taken together, become something different than either of them separate. Murder is lethality + against a person, and prostitution is selling + sex, and an argument that the two individual actions together are legal makes the action as a whole legal is deeply flawed. Having sex is legal, and so is being in public. Is that a good argument that sex in public should be legal? No, because society has decided that when you put those two things together, you get something that is fundamentally different from either in isolation. Same with prostitution. You can argue that society is wrong, and I think make some good arguments for that, but George Carlin's argument is, quite frankly, a bad argument.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    3. Re:I recall... by devleopard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The same is said of consensual sex with a minor: anyone under legal age is incapable of consenting. A 22 that has sex with a girl 17 years old, 364 days at 10PM is a felon who must register for the rest of his life as sex offender, but if they go to a movie first and then get it on at 12:01AM he's in the clear. (I'll leave it to other commenters to come up with a snarky comment)

      (Assuming it's a state where 18 is the legal age, I know it varies)

        Kinda interesting considering that minors can be certified as adults for purposes of conviction, but not for purposes of defense.

      --
      The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
  3. Re:ban it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The reason prostitutes can be victimized by johns and therefore need pimps to look after them is because prostitution is illegal, if it were legal they could go to the police when their clients abuse them, when it is illegal they don't have the option of going to the police.

  4. Re:The prostitutes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The act of prostitution deprives prostitutes of their freedom and of the control over their bodies."

    How is this different from anyone who earns a paycheck in a mindless manufacturing job?

    I do agree that it should be legal and regulated.