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Amazon and Microsoft Directors Charged in Prostitution Sting (kiro7.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A director from Microsoft and a former Amazon director have been charged with promoting prostitution after an investigation into Seattle-area sex trafficking, according to a local news report. Investigators say the director of worldwide health for Microsoft submitted over 70 reviews of prostitutes that he had allegedly hired since April 2012, according to the report, while the director of software development at Amazon, who worked on Fire TV, "allegedly hired prostitutes at least 29 times through The Review Board and TheLeague.Net, according to court documents." Both men have pleaded not guilty and are free on $75,000 bail, part of a group of 19 people now facing criminal charges. "These defendants, we allege, were absolutely devoted to the commercial sexual exploitation of vulnerable, powerless immigrant women," King County Prosecutors said in January, adding that the women, who were forced into prostitution to pay off debts to organized crime bosses in Asia, are not being charged.
Last January a Seattle newspaper reported that one alleged brothel owner "previously had made his living off illegal marijuana grows, but moved into prostitution when the drug was legalized."
Last January a Seattle newspaper reported that one alleged brothel owner "previously had made his living off illegal marijuana grows, but moved into prostitution when the drug was legalized."
It sounds like these guys committed "patronizing a prostitute", which is a misdemeanor:
http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/defa...
They've been charged with "promoting prostitution"( being a pimp), which a felony:
http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/defa...
Is by the prosecutor and the police. In countries where prostitution is legal, women selecting this as their choice of work of their own free will are the norm and exceptions are so rare that they make the papers. Also, "pimps" basically do not exist. Hence what is going on here is a deranged war on women that find selling sex for money gives them a sound economic basis and on men that are willing to buy that service. All the "trafficking" nonsense and "helpless" bullshit is just the same vile lies used to justify locking up as many people as possible (and most certainly those "rescued" face the same fate and will have the money they earned stolen in addition) over what in any sane country is a matter of a service rendered between consenting adults. The very kind of language used by the "authorities" already shows what this really is.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I'm sure 1% tech millionaires are truly singling out and harming poor innocent helpless immigrants by paying them $1000+ a night. No time to stop the swiftly-rising rising murder rate across the USA this year, we're way too busy 'investigating' high class escorts.
It's also fun that all the prostitutes were let go because they were all really nice ladies. The new rule is that criminals are really victims, especially if you can toss in some racial discrimination as a bonus side story.
but it's illegal for adults to enter into a contract for sex?
The prostitutes may be victims of sex trafficking but, the people being charged had nothing to do with that if it did take place. They should be going after the traffickers who brought them to this country if they were brought here either illegally or against their will or if they extorted them. Going after these guys is just the prosecutor trying to get his name in the paper, not trying to actually go after criminals.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Yes. Unfortunately, most of the recent bills passed to fight actual slavery (including sex slavery) have been used to fight sex work instead.
With legalized prostitution, it is much easier to help actual trafficking victims escape. This is the real harm of conflating trafficking/slavery with sex work.
As this article titles: The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs. And the results will be just as disastrous, for "perpetrators" and "victims" alike.
http://reason.com/archives/201...
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
A lot of prostitutes are exploited - by their employers. It's an underground industry, so they can't go to the police for help - if their pimp threatens them with violence, or withholds pay, or assaults them, there's nothing much they can do - certainly can't go to the police. Legalisation would make it a lot easier to maintain safe working conditions.
I wouldn't say *no* women are, but I believe the trafficking situation is greatly exaggerated. It's basic economics - an operation like that has to be expensive. You've got to find suitable women, trap them with a suitable scam, arrange travel, arrange accommodation, and keep them under constant guard - and you have to do that for a long enough time that they can be properly broken, otherwise they are going to be whispering to every customer to call the police. It's going to be expensive and it's going to be high-risk, and they won't command the highest prices anyway, plus you'd need a whole criminal gang to organise the travel and maintain guard. In places where there is a chronic shortage of prostitutes you could make money off that - but the US has plenty of women desperate for money. Surely it would be much safer to simply hire someone local? They'd demand a higher proportion of the takings, but one person could manage a lot more prostitutes and the risk of police detection is much lower.
I've seen lots of scary statistics telling of the tens of thousands of women forced into prostitution each year in the US - but I've also seen a lot of criticism of the manner in which these statistics are gathered, and the wildly varying estimates by different organisations appear suspicious. I see a moral panic in progress: The problem exists, but the scale is far less than widely believed.
No time to stop the swiftly-rising rising murder rate
For reasons of culture and demographics, at some point dealing with murder in the US becomes "racist." High end prostitution, on the other hand, typically involves a lot of wealthy whites, and thus more profile and less controversy for LEOs.
> The prostitutes may be victims of sex trafficking but, the people being charged had nothing to do with that if it did take place
The traffickers should be charged, of course. But the condition of these victims of sex trafficking as frightened, often brutalized, under-age, underpaid, slaves of their traffickers is not normally any surprise to the clients.
I started to read the links you sent.
The first one. Not bad. Jeff Bezos is a fucking ass.
Second one looks like it is commentary from a local radio station, and he seems to be more intent on bitching about unions (the very thing that could fix the problem in post one) and claiming that they work they do is just make busy work, and they don't focus on getting traffic to flow freely. His bitches here was a noise barrier wall to protect a neighborhood from freeway noise and animal over/underpasses. Honestly I am in favor of both of these things, and it sounds like he just wants to bitch.
Third one looks to be a forum of Seattle haters for Seattle haters. Of which the first post is bitching about not enough women in the city and how he cant get any of their attention cause they are always looking at their phones.
You went down hill fast here buddy.
Why is prostitution illegal at all?
One of the most common lines is "prostitution exploits women" -- if that's the case, then why are prostitutes arrested? Wouldn't they then be the victims? At least in the EU that seems to be emerging model, with Sweden and now France making accepting money for sex not illegal, but paying money for sex illegal. But that's very recent, and not generally reflective of long standing practices and criminal law.
A more enduring answer seems to be that it's merely reflective of anti-sex morality, the same mindset that used to criminalize pornography, birth control and made sodomy and adultery actual crimes. Although most all of those things have mostly stopped being illegal, as society on balance has become accepting of sex as recreation -- sodomy and adultery laws have mostly been overturned or aren't enforced anymore, singles bars, Craigslist/Tinder/Grindr, etc. And also, in not the not so distant past, society was more tolerant of prostitution -- brothels operated more openly -- despite a generally stronger social prohibition on sex outside of marriage.
I think prostitution remains illegal -- with the public justification shifting in spite of general acceptance of sex outside of wedlock -- because women don't like prostitution. Despite the general changes in attitude about sex outside of marriage, women still see sexuality as a significant bargaining chip in social relations with men. Legalized prostitution thus represents a threat to women's bargaining status in relationships.
If men can buy sex whenever they want it for only money, women lose a significant bargaining advantage in relationships with men. Their sexuality no longer represents a scarce good or service and they can no longer structure their relationship demands around controlling access to sex. Which seems really ironic, since women often loudly decry being seen as "sex objects" and want to be valued for their intelligence or other personality traits, yet it seems as in spite of that, women continue to see their sexuality as primary tool in attracting and maintaining mail interest in relationships.
You would think that *women* would want prostitution legal, though, because it would in theory act as a kind of filter for men they wish to engage in more substantive relationships with. It would, in theory, make the pool of men they encounter to more likely be interested in non-sexual aspects of a relationship, reducing the effort needed to filter men who falsify their intentions in order to gain sex.