Proposed Posting of Clients List In Prostitution Case Raises Privacy Concerns

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."

Comments

If she videotaped it..

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't it be pornography and be legal?

Re:If she videotaped it..

[gweihir]

Hey, here is a business model that could make this legal:

1. Have a third party pay both prostitute and client.
2. Have the act videotaped
3. Have the client buy the tape as the sum or the original fees.

Of course, there must not be any coercion on 3. But this could be solved by the client buying another tape before (of professionals) and only getting re-hired if he buys his own tapes afterwards. Maximum amount of trust needed on the client-side: 1 act.

Re:disease and trafficking

[denzacar]

So how would regulating prostitution prevent economic exploitation? If someone is in desperate enough economic circumstances to be vulnerable to exploitation, they don't become any less vulnerable if you make prostitution illegal or regulated. If anything, their situation gets even worse since they presumably were taking the best option available to them, and now either resort to worse ones, put up with the criminal types who flock to illegal fields, or starve.

You don't eliminate the economic exploitation.
You eliminate one particular venue for it by eliminating the market for illegal (unregulated) prostitution.
Kinda the way you eliminate illegal trade of alcohol of questionable quality that might make you go blind, by providing a legal option of certified quality.

You create a legal, clean and safe alternative, and there will be no market for the illegal, unclean and dangerous kind on the street.
You know... The kind where you're lucky if you only get the clap and not a knife between your kidneys in an alley somewhere.

As for prostitutes and vulnerability...
Besides all the benefits of regular health checkups, safer working environment, health insurance and whatnot - they too don't have to worry about having their heads bashed in by a customer in an alley somewhere, or by their pimp.
And both sides don't have to worry about their money being stolen.
Cause should things get to that or worse - either side can now call the cops.