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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily blocked a congressional subpoena that seeks information on how the classified advertising website Backpage.com screens ads for possible sex trafficking.
The order came hours after Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer asked the high court to intervene, saying the case threatens the First Amendment rights of online publishers.
A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 on Friday that the website must respond to the subpoena within 10 days. Roberts said Backpage does not have to comply with the appeals court order until further action from the Supreme Court.
[...] The Senate panel has tried for nearly a year to force Backpage to produce certain documents as part of its investigation into human trafficking over the Internet.
After the website refused to comply, the Senate voted 96-0 in March to hold the website in contempt.
[...] While Backpage has produced over 16,000 pages of documents responding to the subpoena, Ferrer said documents relating to the website's system for reviewing ads are part of the editorial process protected under the First Amendment.
"This case presents a question of exceptional nationwide importance involving the protection the First Amendment provides to online publishers of third-party content when they engage in core editorial functions," Ferrer said in a brief filed to Roberts.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_SEX_TRAFFICKING
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:36PM
. . . and who cares about the women forced to do this?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:48PM
You can care about them but still reject the notion that we should discard our freedoms and constitutional rights to help solve the problem. I don't want there to be terrorist attacks, but I would rather take the risk of having terrorist attacks than have the government conduct mass surveillance on the populace. Surely 'the land of the free and the home of the brave' can keep its cowardice and authoritarian tendencies in check?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:06PM
Surely 'the land of the free and the home of the brave' can keep its cowardice and authoritarian tendencies in check?
Nope! We're all about cowardice and authoritarianism these days. Don't forget to reject any science that shows that homosexuality is normal or that cannabis is a fairly nonaddictive medicine that can also be safely used recreationally. We're going to build a wall and make Islam pay for it! We're going to throw all the undesirables out, and if that's not feasible, we'll just kill them and burn their bodies. If we're not making anything and everything that even deviates the slightest from the One Way to Live illegal, political correctness has won, and god will unleash his wrath upon us by collapsing the economy and turning you gay.
And don't call me Shirley.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @09:45PM
political correctness has won
Well, what you're saying is rather politically incorrect so I'm sure political correctness still isn't as big a thing as you make it out to be...