I hate these website confiscation notices. The agencies involved always plaster their logos all over the damned thing, like they’re so proud of how they wrecked someone’s business, like a bunch of dogs pissing all over to mark their territory. It makes me sick. – Mark Draughn
So it’s finally happened; after seven and a half years of illegal persecution, the federal government finally wiped its fat, disgusting arse with the last remaining shreds of the Constitution and seized Backpage on a number of trumped-up charges, meaning the usual no-evidence-needed “money laundering” and “conspiracy” to ensure they can still loot the corpse of the victim even after repeated attempts on ridiculous “sex trafficking” charges fell flat. Judges have repeatedly and consistently sided with Backpage in every challenge…
…for the simple reason that the government’s demands are blatantly unconstitutional. But the evil don’t stop being evil merely because they’re wrong; faced with repeated defeats in their attempts to take legal action against the company, government prohibitionists decided to simply take illegal actions instead, ranging from Tom Dart’s threats against credit card companies to Senate “hearings” of the same sort previously held to intimidate moviemakers, comic book publishers and the music industry. Then in October [2016], California attorney general Kamala Harris upped the ante by committing the blatantly criminal act of arresting the CEO and both owners of Backpage and filing charges against them that she absolutely knew were illegal for her to file. Naturally, a judge slapped her down, and she replied by filing even more ridiculous charges, shitting all over the dying protection against double jeopardy in her quest to be a hero to fanatics. Exhausted and facing the prospect of an infinite succession of similar nuisance charges from criminal tyrants the courts seem unwilling to charge or even rein in, Backpage finally followed in Craigslist’s footsteps and censored its adult ads…
…but that did no good. The War on Whores in general, and on Backpage in particular, is just the latest chapter in the government’s vile “public morality” circus, and once Backpage was chosen to be the big bogeyman the “authorities” had to make a grand spectacle of taking it down, complete with raids on the homes of the company’s founders and the arrest of Michael Lacey, whom the Arizona political establishment has been trying to destroy for years (try not to vomit when you read “Cuckoo Clock” McCain’s sanctimonious braying in that article). In order to increase the melodrama and drag out their victims’ torture, officials intentionally staged the raid on Friday afternoon, then lied about the time they would release a statement so as to push it past the weekend; all the “authorities” would say is that their Star Chamber Court had charged Lacey with 93 counts of something, but didn’t think it was necessary to tell their victim, his attorney or the public what any of those somethings are until yesterday. When they did, it was just the usual “money laundering”, “conspiracy” and “travel act” nonsense (same as Rentboy), and not one single “sex trafficking” charge. In the meantime, sex workers all over the world who relied on Backpage are scrambling to find new advertising venues at a time when many of those venues are closing due to the blatantly-unconstitutional and tyrannous FOSTA, yet the bloated corpse of what was once the nation’s greatest civil rights organization hasn’t said a single word on the subject; apparently ACLU is much too busy helping middle-class white men to force bigots to cater their ostentatious displays of conspicuous consumption to bother even making a statement about the most extensive and shameless act of civil rights abrogation since the USA-PATRIOT Act. And if those who claim it’s their mission to protect people from civil rights violations won’t help us, we’re going to need other allies ASAP.
You have my greatest respect for staying… (Ik draag je op handen)… you remind me so much of a younger me, before I got out of there! Full of fight. When you with to withdraw from the fray, there is a world out there, a saner world, that will welcome you warmly.
Ah, Nellie, would that I could. I tried withdrawing once, into marriage and a ranch in rural Oklahoma, and we all know how that turned out. It was, I’m afraid, not my destiny. And so, though I would very much like to rest, I know myself and I know the world well enough to understand that there’s only one way for that to happen, and due to promises I’m just going to have to wait a few years for that one.
Considering what is going to transpire tomorrow, does SWOP or any of the major organizations have anything planned in terms of demonstrations tomorrow? Also I know you’re on twitter but have you joined switter yet?
ACLU has been disappointing for some time. Electronic Frontier Foundation?
I actually braved the comment section on that article after hearing Cindy McCain’s lying and braying and amazingly, there was strong support for sex workers’ rights alongside the typical whataboutisms. And unfortunately, the typical, “Why aren’t sex workers saying anything about this?” from people who don’t think to use the magical search powers of the Internet and find the fuck out.
Backpage = bedpage = ebackpage
bedpage.com
Twitter eBackpage@ebackpage
I spent 25 years in the newspaper biz. When online sites like Backpage.com and Craigslist came into being, newspaper revenue from classifieds was decimated. A big reason papers like the Washington Post aren’t standing up for Backpage.com is financial. The demise could mean classifieds money will flow back to them.
Up until around 2003, daily newspapers regularly ran ads for massage parlors on their sports pages and alternative weeklies published ads for hookers, dominatrixes etc. Some of those weeklies were owned by the same companies that owned the daily papers (like Tribune Media).
And yet back then, newspapers weren’t spouting nonsense about these classifieds leading to the “exploitation of thousands of children.” Of course they weren’t! They wanted the cash!
Back then if you criticized these ads, newspaper would write editorials about “freedom of the press” and trash you for being like the Moral Majority.
Beyond this, “trafficking” has become a trendy go-to term for lazy, ignorant newspaper writers looking to make their half-a**sed stories go viral. Nothing better explains this than looking back at the way op/ed pages have historically drummed up hysteria about Super Bowl Sunday.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, writers regularly passed along false stats claiming Super Bowl Sunday was the biggest day for wife-beaters. It was “a day of terror” for women. Forget touchdowns and chips! What Joe Average really did at kickoff was smack his wife up.
In time, this was all proven to be a big lie. Now, suddenly, Super Bowl Sunday has become the day that “thousands” of women and children are trafficked.
First off, since they clearly lied the first time around, it’s pretty obvious they’ve done no homework the second time. But if it’s all true, maybe someone can tell me why American men suddenly lost interest in wife beating and got really into “trafficked children” on game day. Or could it be they just write any crap today that they think will give them Web clicks?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it” — Upton Sinclair
Reblogged this on Aiken Area Progressive and commented:
This is an act of war committed by the federal government against its most vulnerable citizens — and the world.
Eloquently explained. Thank you….
The irony of this is Kamala Harris herself is a hoe. Literally. Its on wikipedia and well known (a quick web search has salacious details) that she got to where she is today lying on her back for a MARRIED MAN (Willie Brown) who was her sponsor and sugardaddy old enough to be a senior citizen. This man basically built her career and lifestyle. This is prima facie quid pro quo hoeing.
The hypocrisy is galling. Also on twitter its been exposed that bigtime politicians like Pelosi and Clinton accepted donations from the Backpage founder.
I wish Kamalas hoe past were put on blast and the irony is a lot of theze political tools who voted for this crap were actively embroiled balls deep into their local DC escorts.
Disgusting.
I share your outrage, Maggie. Busybodies who try to run other people’s lives should be stopped from their predations by any means that prove necessary.