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Backpage, an online classified advertising website, has had its offices in Dallas, Texas raided. The CEO was arrested in Texas on a California warrant, and two others have also been charged with crimes related to the operation of the website:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and California Attorney General Kamala Harris said that a three-year-long joint investigation revealed that adult and child sex trafficking victims were forced into prostitution through escort ads that appear on the web site. They also alleged that Ferrer and shareholders Michael Lacey and James Larkin made millions of dollars from illegal sex trade.
Ferrer faces charges of pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping, while Lacey and Larkin face conspiracy to commit pimping charges. Lacey and Larkin were not in custody on Thursday, and it was not immediately clear when Ferrer would make his first court appearance. Undercover officers in California posted escort ads online that led them to johns who used Backpage, and authorities interviewed more than a half dozen sex trafficking victims who confirmed they paid Backpage to post ads on the web site promoting prostitution.
[...] In addition to its adult services ads, Backpage also publishes advertising from people renting apartments, selling a car or advertising a job opening. But the company's internal revenue reports show that from January 2013 to March 2015, nearly 99% of Backpage's worldwide income was generated from the web site's "adult" section, according to charging documents filed in California. The company collected over $51 million revenue in California during that period.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a Chicago-area Sheriff who was ordered by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to stop threatening credit card companies that do business with Backpage. A month ago, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked a Congressional subpoena into the site's operations on First Amendment grounds.
Law enforcement officials around the country have complained about prostitution (especially that of children) facilitated by Backpage for years. Now California and Texas officials will have to prove that Backpage's seemingly hands-off approach is illegal. Reason's blog notes that Carl Ferrer is not accused of performing the crimes he has been charged with, but is accused of running a website that others used to facilitate crimes. Backpage also reports ads suspected of containing under-18s to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC's President says the organization applauds the charges and that "the criminal action initiated today will lead to new hope for children who are sold for sex online."
Also at NYT, Dallas News, NBC, CNN, Reuters, and Ars Technica. Redacted California criminal complaint.
The first result in a Google News search for "backpage" is sometimes a randomly placed text ad for their site: "Free classified ads with photos. Find houses and apts for rent, personals, jobs, cats and dogs for sale."
Original Submission Alternate Submission #1 Alternate Submission #2
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday October 09 2016, @02:10AM
AnonTechie [soylentnews.org] submission [soylentnews.org]
edinlinux [soylentnews.org] commentary [soylentnews.org]:
Let's see the Electronic Frontier Foundation get involved in this one. Pretty please?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Francis on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:48AM
Why? This is exactly the kind of case that the EFF shouldn't be getting involved with.
He's being charged in CA because his service does business in CA. He'd be charged in VT or WY if he did things there that the authorities believed violated those respective laws.
And no, the best way would not be to make prostitution legal. That would just make it trivial for them to hide in broad daylight. If we're serious about fighting trafficking, the correct thing to do is to go after the people who pay for prostitutes and to go after the people who profit off of other people prostituting themselves.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Sunday October 09 2016, @05:04AM
It's a digital liberty case. They are being blamed for crimes linked to user-submitted content.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday October 09 2016, @11:58AM
And no, the best way would not be to make prostitution legal. That would just make it trivial for them to hide in broad daylight.
That makes no sense. That's like the Prohibition: in order to prevent drunkenness and to generally improve morality, they made alcohol illegal. The result was utterly counterproductive. In many cities there were more "Speakeasies" during Prohibition than legal bars before or after. Alcohol, being unregulated, became more dangerous - an illegal distillery doesn't care so much if its product contains methanol.
It's exactly the same for prostitution: If it's illegal, then the people running brothels don't particularly care if they break yet another law by trafficking. Legalize it, and the majority of the people in the industry will make an effort to stay on the right side of the law. This makes it easier to focus enforcement efforts on the genuine crimes.
Finally: private activities between consenting adults are the business of exactly no one else. First, remember the sodomy laws? [wikipedia.org] Do you really want the government regulating your sex life? Second, where exactly do you draw the line in prostitution? If you buy a woman dinner, and she sleeps with you? What if you're paying an escort to accompany you to dinner, but she doesn't sleep with you? What's legal, what's illegal, and why do you trust the police and "tough on crime" prosecutors to make that distinction?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:25PM
A difference from Craigslist is that Backpage.com takes payment for at least some personals ads.
https://techcrunch.com/2012/10/06/sex-trafficking-on-backpage-com-much-ado-about-statistically-nothing/ [techcrunch.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:33AM
Every time something is banned by the government the invisible hand of the black market inevitably makes the problem worse. There would not be a significant market for trafficked women if free women could openly worth this trade. Instead shady figures fill the void. This is similar to all the deaths with impure and variably-dosed heroin. Let women f for money. The Iranians have it right, it's just a very short marriage.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday October 09 2016, @09:09AM
Except there's still trafficking in Amsterdam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @12:12PM
Because Amsterdam is the Vegas of sex and drugs with high demand and low supply.
Make America Sexy Again by legalizing prostitution in the whole country and native whores will go for the easy money.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @12:25PM
He said that there would not be a significant market for trafficked women if prostitution was legal, not that the market wouldn't exist at all.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @11:06AM
>See: D__teron__y chapter 22 verses 28-29, hebrew allows men to rape girl children and keep them: thus man + girl is obviously fine. Feminists are commanded to be killed as anyone enticing others to follow another ruler/judge/god is to be killed as-per Deuteronomy. It is wonderful when this happens from time to time: celebrate)
>In the United States, as late as the 1880s most States set the minimum age at 10-12, (in Delaware it was 7 in 1895).[8] Inspired by the "Maiden Tribute" female reformers in the US initiated their own campaign[9] which petitioned legislators to raise the legal minimum age to at least 16, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to 18. The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the minimum age to 16-18 years by 1920.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @11:28AM
also spammed to https://endchan.xyz/operate/res/1938.html [endchan.xyz] and
https://8ch.net/pn/res/1400.html [8ch.net]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Justin Case on Sunday October 09 2016, @06:43PM
I know the political correctness running amok elevates victims to the highest levels of exaltation, but this is absurd:
victims who confirmed they paid Backpage to post ads
We now have people paying so that they can become victims???!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @02:49AM
The cyberpimp made them do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @08:10AM
And when they get caught and deported, they often try to do the same thing again and again. Amazing huh? I suppose most dicks don't taste as bad as the taste of poverty. Maybe if you've tasted their poverty enough you might agree with them. They are victims alright. Victims of being born in some crappy country, often victims of useless/abusive ex-husbands. It's not really the pimp or customer forcing them to suck dicks (personally I find the idea of having my dick sucked rather disgusting but somehow it seems popular with many guys, I doubt most girls like it - since girls on average seem to get disgusted more easily than guys ).
I hope those trying to save these women really have good alternatives lined up for them, and aren't just pretending to help. Seems many of these "Defenders" are merely a different bunch using these women, with the difference these women don't get paid for being used by such "Defenders".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:34PM
The DA that is charging him is Kamala Harris. She's currently running for the US Senate. [kamalaharris.org]
This prosecution sure looks like it was politically motivated. Too bad because I kind of liked her, as DA's go, before this.