A Fresno County minster was arrested [for molesting a girl under 14 years old in 2017]. Bernardino Villalobos…is a registered sex offender [who] previously served time in prison for convictions of rape and sodomy….[but] owns a church and serves as a minister at La Obra De Jesus Christian Church in Del Rey…
A…Florida [cop] was arrested and suspended without pay after…[rap]ing his friend in the parking lot of a Krispy Kreme in early July…Alaindy LouisXVI was [only] charged with sexual battery…[despite raping his] “best friend”…[while she was] blacked out [drunk]…on July 25, detectives had her make a call to LouisXVI that was being secretly recorded by police where he…admitted to [rap]ing [her]…
California [politician]s have again given approval for…major cities to experiment with supervised injection facilities that would provide users a place to inject drugs under the supervision of health workers…S.B. 57…allow[s] San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland to approve organizations to operate these injection sites, following a lengthy approval process that includes public meetings…[an earlier] attempt…to launch these injection facilities in San Francisco…[was vetoed by] then-Gov. Jerry Brown…[supposedly] partly because he worried that he couldn’t protect operators from federal prosecution (which everybody involved already knew was a risk) but really because his nanny state–style approach to addiction was to use government force to mandate people into drug treatment…
A [typical and representative] Assistant Chief Probation Officer [in Massachusetts named]…Brian Orlandella…was sentenced…to 17 years in prison and five years of supervised release…[plus] a $5,000 [fine for sending] a…13-year-old girl…images of himself masturbating and [cajoling] her [in]to send[ing] him sexually explicit pictures and videos of herself…The Kik account’s IP address was traced to Orlandella’s residence in Massachusetts…[and] one of [his phones] contained…the [pictures the girl sent]…
A Connecticut state trooper [named Jaime Solis] was arrested twice [in one] week…[for] multiple incidents of domestic abuse that finally sent [his] unnamed female [partner] to the hospital. The…victim told police that within the last year [Solis] had attacked her “approximately forty times,” hit her with his belt, threatened to kill her, and threatened to harm a dog. Some of the…abuse occurred when the victim was pregnant…
[Alaska cops claim they found] fentanyl…inside a folded one-dollar bill that [was] dropped on the ground…at the police department…[by] a woman…[named] Sarah Dailey..the [cop who] found it…[panicked like a little girl and] called for medics to get checked out…[of course] he was fine…[but that didn’t stop them]…charg[ing the woman] with…[“]reckless endangerment[” for dropping a harmless piece of paper on the ground]…
A rural sheriff near the Texas border is under criminal investigation for…having his deputies illegally seize money and a truck from undocumented immigrants during [pretext] stops….Sheriff Nathan Johnson…admitted to regularly s[tealing] money [after having his henchmen barf out the words “illegal alien”, when the]…state [instead wants them to barf out “drug trafficking” and also get permission for the spell from a sacred dog]…Johnson [attempted to defend himself by barfing out the words]…”stand against…traffic in our community”…
Anchorage-based s[crews]…pepper sprayed three [helpless] men inside a van and then closed the doors, leaving them to inhale the chemicals for between seven to 18 minutes…the men were not allowed to shower or change clothes for an extended period of time…one of the men [for] two days…The ombudsman’s investigation…found that…[the] assault…was in…[response to a thoughtcrime supposedly committed by one of the victims]…
Virginia Beach police used forged documents that [claimed to] link…people’s DNA to a crime to get them to confess or cooperate with [pigs], Virginia’s outgoing attorney general announced…The city’s police department has changed its policy [because it got caught]…but c[laimed] the [deception was] legal…The bogus pieces of paper included a seal and letterhead from the state agency…[and] the signature of a fictitious employee from the department…in at least one instance, [cops committed perjury by submitting] a forged report…to a court as evidence…
The UK government has expressed an unhealthy determination to undermine encryption for years now…[using excuses] ranging from “the children” to “the terrorists.” The underlying intent never changes even if…the bills get renamed, as though a different shade of lipstick would make the UK’s anti-encryption pig any more desirable. Rebranding from “Online Harms” to “Online Safety” only changed the tablecloths in the Titanic’s dining room…but presumably “safety” sounds better than “harms,” especially when the government affirmatively wants to harm the safety of millions of UK residents. The Internet Society has taken a look at the revamped and rebranded bill and has delivered a report that explains exactly where on the Internet doll the UK government plans to engage in inappropriate touching. There’s no mention of backdoors or broken encryption, but complying with the law means…doing both…
A federal judge has sentenced a…North Dakota…man to life in prison for [rape]…Douglas J. Schneider…[was also ordered] to pay [the paltry sum of] $19,215 in restitution…between 2013 and 2018, Schneider [repeatedly raped the] child…who was between 7 and 10 years old when he started, but it became a federal case when]…Schneider transported the child from North Dakota to Montana [to rape her some more. And by the way]…Schneider w[as a cop]…
A [typical and representative] Tulsa [cop named]…Shannon Kepler…a[bandoned his] daughter, Lisa…at a homeless shelter shortly after she turned 18 with no money, cell phone, credit cards or clothes other than what she wore…[t]he[n continued to stalk her via]…Facebook…[when] she…changed her status to being “in a relationship” with [a 19-year-old black man named Jeremy] Lake, who…was a volunteer at the shelter…Kepler then [stalked]…Lake [via]…police [databases]…travelled…to Lake’s last known address…carrying a loaded .357 Magnum revolver…[and waited for] his daughter and Lake [to come by. When she understandably]…re[fused]…to speak with…Kepler [he responded by gunning]…Lake [down in the street like a mad dog, then attempted] to…[also murder] his daughter, the victim’s brother, and a third witness…Kepler [later] claimed that…he shot Lake in self-defense [despite] Lake [being unarmed and the contrary testimony of three witnesses]…Kepler was…[tried] fi[ve times in all]…The first three resulted in hung juries, and a fourth resulted in a conviction for manslaughter [rather than what it clearly was, premeditated murder. After this conviction was overturned on a technicality, he was finally sentenced to 25 years for the 2014 murder]…
A controversial California bill that would eliminate Section 230 protections in the name of fighting “online trafficking” and “revenge porn,” along the lines established at the federal level by FOSTA-SESTA, has moved forward in the state senate…SB435 threatens platforms with fines of over $100,000 for not immediately removing flagged content, but offers little to protect the system from abuse by bad actors…Anti-porn groups and harassers, [Free Speech Coalition Public Affairs Director Mike] Stabile noted, “already abuse reporting systems to attack sex workers. SB435 would give them a powerful new tool, with almost no protections for legal content. And since most of the time platforms would rather remove legal content than arbitrate slowly and risk expensive litigation, the end result would be the further banning and removal…at a massive scale”…
Brittney Poolaw has been sitting in an Oklahoma jail for more than a year and a half…[and was] recently convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 4 years in prison for miscarrying her child…In May 2020, Poolaw, then a teen, arrived at a local hospital after losing the fetus at 17 weeks. She was soon transferred to a cell…[after the hospital called the pigs because]…the [still]born [fetus]…tested positive for methamphetamine…the state’s current abortion laws…allow women to terminate a pregnancy prior to 20 weeks’ gestation…[but] Poolaw wasn’t even seeking an abortion: She had a miscarriage…and she will now suffer a barrage of legal consequences not experienced by Oklahoma women who ask doctors to terminate their pregnancies…
…Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich…[has claimed] that he’s investigating “sex trafficking” connected to Facebook ads…[in a] letter to [U.S. Attorney General Merrick] Garland…[Brnovich] complain[ed]…that folks are using Facebook to strategize sneaking into the country. As a result, AG Brnovich requests that the DOJ “investigate Facebook’s facilitation of human smuggling at Arizona’s southern border and stop its active encouragement and facilitation of illegal entry”…considering that the U.S. government is attempting to railroad veteran journalists Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin…[by] hold[ing] them vicariously accountable for illegal acts allegedly connected to adult ads posted by users of [Backpage]…it’s not out of the realm of speculation that the feds would attempt something similar in regards to Facebook or any other site that hosts third-party content…
Italian police have arrested more than 2,500 migrants for smuggling or aiding illegal immigration since 2013, often using anti-mafia laws to bring charges…Italy has spent decades pursuing a policy of criminalising asylum seekers…filling its prisons with innocent men used as scapegoats…smugglers often choose a migrant as a driver. This can be someone who does not have enough money to pay for the trip or with experience of navigation. When the boat enters Italian waters, the authorities ask passengers to identify the driver, who is then arrested…[and] accused of crimes…[including “human] trafficking[“]…They can face sentences from 15 years to life in prison…
In October 2019, a [screw]…in Central Texas was charged with sexual assault…[for orally raping] a [caged teen] boy…the day after the [rape]…the boy tried to kill himself. Two months before that…another [screw] was fired after a teenage girl [he raped got] pregnant…the day-to-day conditions [in Texas cage stacks] are relentlessly violent and oppressive, with guards often [brutalizing prisoners for fun]…In 2019…almost 7,000 [cases of violence were reported] — equivalent to six times per [young person locked in state cages] that year…nearly a dozen staff members have been arrested on charges of sexual abuse against juveniles, and complaints about mayhem inside the f[ilthy cages]…are common. These [facts, reported]…by advocacy groups and families, lawsuits filed against the state, news media reports, and investigations at the state level — present a portrait of a terrifying environment inside juvenile prisons in Texas…The Justice Department’s investigation comes almost a year after two Texas advocacy groups — Disability Rights Texas and Texas Appleseed — filed a complaint urging the federal government to intervene…
Sara and Matt Cheek…moved to Lithia, a tiny suburb of Tampa, Florida…after…COVID hit [they suffered a series of financial difficulties, so]…Sara [startedan] OnlyFans [account] and now…makes about $30,000 a month…[their] three children—two boys, ages 4 and 6, and a 7-year-old daughter—enrolled in the Pinecrest Pilots’ Youth Football and Cheerleading program, where Matt served as one of the football coaches…[until] the…cheerleading coach, Bree Coggins, [discovered her OnlyFans account via] Instagram…and [began mistreating her]…daughter…and [encouraging]…all the other girls to [do the same. The mistreatment soon spread to the boys] and Matt [as well]…they’ve been refused service at their local restaurant and Sara no longer visits the grocery store, preferring to order her food online and avoid the judgmental looks. They transferred their kids over to a charter school, and the family is planning on moving out of Lithia next year…
Clearview’s not going to let several months of bad press derail its plans to generate even more negative press…Maybe it thinks it can still win hearts and minds by not only continuing to exist but also by getting progressively worse in terms of integrity and corporate responsibility…Clearview has now collected more than 10 billion images from across the web—more than three times as many as has been previously reported…it is [also] developing new ways for police to find a person, including “deblur” and “mask removal” tools…If you feel selling government agencies a more efficient way to generate false positives and false negatives is the way to future profitability, this would be the route to take…
A[n]…Alaska [cop named]…Benjamin Strachan…was charged with…sexual abuse of…two minor victims, one…repeatedly…[other cops thought it was very important to say] he [was] not [wearing his magic clown costume while molesting]…
If a prisoner of war were treated this way, it would be a war crime. – Erik Heipt
I don’t recall being terribly impressed with this song when it was first out, but I recently stumbled across the video and now I keep thinking about it; maybe it’s the sort of thing one needs to be middle-aged to appreciate. The links above it were provided by Tana Ganeva, Clarissa, Mark Draughn, Scott Greenfield, Cop Crisis, and Jesse Walker, in that order.
In 2019, a Fairbanks District Attorney offered a generous plea – 5 years of actual time, amounting to little more than time served – to a man charged with kidnapping and [raping] a minor…[because] he claimed his underaged victim was a prostitute…Winfred Hipp…the victim and her father…were headed to a BBQ, but the father had a stop to make first. Mr. Hipp dropped the father off and…took [the girl] to his apartment…and [raped] her while she was saying no…Hipp [at first used] a condom, but then he took it off and continued [raping] her. When the victim’s father arrived at the BBQ and realized his daughter wasn’t there, he went to Hipp’s apartment, where he could hear his daughter being raped through the door. Hipp stopped when the father almost broke the door down…His semen was found inside her and in a condom found on his bedroom floor which also had the victim’s DNA on the outside of it. At his sentencing, he [claimed] he’d been raped and robbed by the victim…The plea deal…came after the minor victim was labeled “difficult” and a prostitute by the prosecutor…
Marylène Lévesque, a 22-year-old sex worker employed by a Quebec City massage parlour, was murdered by…Eustachio Gallese…[who was out on parole from a life sentence for the] 2006…[murder] of his girlfriend…Chantale Deschenes…[who was] savagely beaten to death with a hammer and repeatedly stabbed. Gallese then took the time to scribble [“whore” multiple times]…on the bedroom wall before turning himself in to police…He already had a history of…violence with a previous partner in 1997. Even though the Parole Board initially found that he posed “a high risk of violence,” they later inexplicably changed that to a “moderate risk” and…out on day parole since March of 2019. While out, he was [officially given permission]…to see sex workers…[despite his] history of misogyny, rage and extreme physical violence against women…No one bothered to inform this young woman, or the massage parlour she worked at, that he was extremely dangerous and posed a risk to her life…
But please, clients, keep telling us about how you don’t need to be screened because you’re “taking a risk, too”.
A priest…admitted to holding a teen captive in a church janitor’s closet…Brian Stanley was sentenced to 60 days in jail with credit for two days served. He will also serve five years probation and must register as a sex offender for 15 years. Stanley was charged in August for the 2013 incident that happened at St. Margaret’s Church in Otsego [Michigan]…he bound the teen boy in plastic wrap and masking tape, also covering his eyes and mouth with tape…then left [him] alone in the closet for over an hour before freeing him. The state Attorney General’s Office…said the crime was sexually motivated…
A forum on human trafficking…featur[ed]…keynote speaker Ohio [politician] Teresa Fedor…“Poverty drives and fuels trafficking1. When…you want to control the victims, you drug them2…the estimated U.S. share of the $99 billion worldwide industry is between $10 to $15 billion3…Research she has found shows that runaways are “harvested” by traffickers within 24 hours4…she is working to change the laws to prosecute those doing the “selling of the bodies”5…“Those buying rape can no longer hide their actions”6…modern slavery…needs to be tackled like it was in 18657”…”I knew I had to build a movement, because I’m a Democrat8,” Fedor said…
In 2012, Chicago PD collaborated with the RAND Corporation and the Illinois Institute of Technology to automatically generate “risk scores” for people they arrested, which were supposed to predict the likelihood that the person would be a “party to violence” in the future (this program was called “TRAP” — Targeted Repeat-Offender Apprehension Program” — seemingly without a shred of irony). Now, that program has been shut down, and the City of Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General has published a damning report on…ways in which the program discriminated against the people ensnared in it, without reducing violent crime…people…assigned high risk scores…were subjected to “enhanced prosecutions”…and…your TRAP score went up even if were acquitted or had your case dismissed…
On January 23, the Hillsborough County sheriff’s office announced the completion of “two undercover human trafficking operations”…[Sheriff Chad] Chronister, who was elected in 2018, has pledged to make policing [consensual adult sex] a priority, and said that the stings are going to continue…”until human [sexuality] is stopped”…An anti-trafficking operation in early 2019 by a slew of Florida law enforcement agencies…yielded similar results: busts of massage parlors, arrests for solicitation…but no trafficking charges…That hasn’t stopped prosecutors, however, from claiming [without evidence]…that “[state prying into people’s private sex lives] often yield evidence of more serious crimes”…Chronister has also [vomited out fascist poison that “citizens]…must always be held accountable [to the state]”…
Thousands of tuk-tuk drivers in Cambodia are to [be indoctrinated]…in [anti-sex worker propaganda]…under a [scheme] by the ride-hailing app Grab to tr[ick] drivers [in]to [becoming police informants]…Grab [will indoctrinate]…10,000 drivers in…Phnom Penh this month, as it launches a [scheme] it plans eventually to extend to millions of its drivers in Asia…Cambodia’s…a…[favorite venue for racist “saviors” like] the Walk Free Foundation [to claim as a “hotbed”] of…[“slavery”, which is invariably described]…as rising despite [a number of studies showing exactly the opposite]…Sean Sok Phay…[of] Child Helpline [said]…”We want to remove any barriers that stop [us] from [profiting from hysteria]”…
Jennifer Knight…[is a sow charged with inventing propaganda to infantilize sex workers as a cover-up for the horrendous abuses committed by the Columbus, Ohio vice gang]…“I want them to associate the [rapist]’s uniform with someone who cares [enough to rape and humiliate them]” Knight says…It’s been a few months since…Columbus…[rebrand]ed their [vice gang with the Orwellian name]…Police and Community Together team, or PACT…[which] looks to…use “sex trafficking” and “end demand” propaganda when inflict]ing [violence on sex workers through]…increasing arrests…“One of the things we do in the secure staging area, after we [molest] them and [put them permanently into a criminal database]…is…give the [cops’ victims] a sack lunch provided by the Salvation Army…Knight [brags that] they expect to [deceive, rape and abduct] even more women as their [pogroms] ramp up…“we remove them from [freedom] and remove them from their [income]” Knight says. “At least giving ourselves a window of opportunity to [brainwash them in]”…CATCH Court…The months-long suspension of the [rape squad]…had a ripple effect on [those who profit from women being forced into their “re-education” scheme]…
…ICE…released a new version of its National Detention Standards…which…has removed even basic, minimal safeguards necessary for adequate medical care…and…further weakens protections for [caged] immigrant[s] against the use of force and solitary confinement by [screws]…ICE no longer requires that…toilets [have] modesty panels, and removes [any minimum] ratios for the number of toilets per detainee. ICE has removed language requiring…outdoor recreation facilities, meaning…detainees could be [locked in cages] for months or even years without time outdoors as they wait for their cases to be heard…
…An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers’ personally identifiable information…analytics and tracking companies are able to combine these bits together to form…a fingerprint that follows the user…providing trackers the ability to spy on what a user is doing in their digital lives and when they are doing it…without…user…consent…Ring has exhibited a pattern of behavior that attempts to mitigate exposure to criticism and scrutiny…by leveraging an image of the secure home, while profiting from a surveillance network which facilitates police departments’…access into the private lives of citizens…not only does Ring mismanage consumer data, but it also intentionally hands over that data to trackers and data miners…
New students at the University of Missouri will be [forced] to participate in a tracking program designed to measure and enforce class attendance…officials [absurdly] defended the [privacy violation] as one to…benefit…students…Individual professors have to opt-in to using the app, but once they do, students in those professors’ classes will not be able to opt-out. SpotterEDU, developed by a former basketball coach, is designed to monitor a user’s attendance by “pinpoint[ing] students within a classroom until they leave”…[sales propaganda] claims it does not track students’ locations anywhere else…[but] the app is [fully]…capable of tracking students’ locations outside the classroom…
It’s a funny sort of justice that lets the government take your stuff and then say you have no recourse because you don’t have that stuff anymore. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown
…A student accused of sexual assault and subject to an unlawful, unconstitutional adjudication process filed a motion seeking class-action certification in his pre-existing lawsuit against Michigan State University. Rather than seeking to void the results only of his own flawed adjudication, he’s now seeking to void every adjudication where accused students were punished “without first being afforded a live hearing and opportunity for cross examination.” This new motion comes after a wave of cases across the country that have invalidated and reversed the results of campus kangaroo courts — and these rulings are coming from judges across the political/judicial spectrum. In California…judges issued rulings that effectively halted proceedings in 75 campus sexual-misconduct cases, while California universities reworked their processes…the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals joined dozens of other courts in ruling that university processes should face exacting legal scrutiny…
In May…the Jackson County Detention Center In Kansas City, Missouri, with no warning to local attorneys, instituted a new [humiliation] policy that requires all visitors, including inmates’ attorneys, to pass through a metal detector…underwire bras are setting it off…instead of simply using a wand to determine what is setting off the alarm…the [cage stack] is refusing to let visiting women pass through until…their bras…come off…An even more draconian policy was implemented in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 2018: Visitors were given only two chances to pass the metal detector — and women were required to wear a bra under prison rules…A Maryland jail was sued [for similar reasons] in 2011…[in the current case] when women (and, later, men) complained about a policy they found unnecessary, humiliating and sexist, they were met with gaslighting, false solutions, accusations of privilege, stonewalling and, finally, retaliation. And this was against attorneys, who by definition are well positioned to fight back…
A…man in Likoni, Mombasa, plans to travel to neighbouring Tanzania to seek the help of a famed witchdoctor…after an elderly sex worker allegedly cast a spell on him, which has seemingly rendered his sex organ useless, at least in the bedroom…Isaac Karisa…refused to pay an elderly prostitute he had spent a night with…[because] he was too drunk to accomplish the task and fell into a deep slumber after less than five minutes…Karisa refused to part with the thousand shillings he had promised and instead fished out a Sh200 note…A scuffle ensued, with the woman mumbling gibberish and hurling incantations, aimed at jinxing the man…
I can’t decide whether the phrase “night nurse” is clever or silly, but ladies in the global South, PLEASE start charging these bozos in advance!
A new legal filing accuses prominent political activist and donor Ed Buck of violating federal human trafficking laws when he allegedly supplied an airline ticket to a man who flew to Los Angeles from Texas and died inside Buck’s West Hollywood apartment. The [filing bloviates that]…Buck…”knowingly utilized interstate commerce…for the purpose of engaging in commercial sex acts”…[in the real world] Moore’s death was…[the result of] an accidental methamphetamine overdose…
Cases are this are why even some not-completely-stupid people believe that “sex trafficking” is increasing; “sex trafficking” charges certainly are.
…Pennsylvania [politicians] have quietly muscled power away from reformist District Attorney Larry Krasner, passing new legislation giving authority to the state’s attorney general to prosecute certain firearms violations in Philadelphia — and nowhere else in the state. The provision will expire in two years, or just after Krasner’s first term ends…The bill was passed…with no public awareness. Even some of the [politicians] who voted for it say they [were more clueless than usual]…The maneuver…is the most significant legislative pushback to date against the new movement by criminal justice reformers to focus on seizing the power of the prosecutor…to decide when to bring charges and, critically, when not to. The new law means that even if Krasner decides to exercise the latter power and not bring charges, the police could go directly to the attorney general to pursue the case regardless…
…a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals…vacated U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman’s 2017 decision that placed an injunction on a city ordinance requiring “quick-service facility” workers to wear, at minimum, shorts and a tank top…The ordinances will now go into effect as the decision is sent back down to a lower court….Everett [politicians] praised the court’s ruling, claiming that…”[sluts in bikinis cause rape]”…
[Seattle city] council candidate Tammy Morales announced on Twitter that she would like to decriminalize sex work in Seattle. She’s not the only candidate…if Morales lands on the Council with activists incumbents Lisa Herbold and Kshama Sawant, we may very well have to waste our time debating this fringe position…Mark Solomon, Former crime prevention coordinator with the Seattle Police Department, [also supports decrim, as does]…Chris Peguero…
Sawant has somehow managed to convince a number of people that she is pro-sex worker, but she is a socialist (a group which has always opposed sex work) and flat-out refused to meet with sex workers when she ran the last time. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, with a pro-decrim member on the council, Sawant publicly espouses the Swedish model.
…Given how difficult it is to absorb fentanyl through the skin (which is why the companies that make…fentanyl patches for pain treatment rely on patented technology that took years to develop), the likelihood that [histrionic pigs who accidentally touched some] were actually feeling the narcotic’s effects is approximately zero…[a local news station reporting on such a porcine fantasy] consulted a [soi-disant] drug treatment specialist…who proceeded to [bloviate]…”Someone…who enters a room with a person who’s having an issue with fentanyl could become addicted to it instantly [emphasis added]”…there is no such thing as instant addiction. Addiction is a gradual process through which people become strongly attached to an experience that provides pleasure or emotional relief…patients who take prescribed opioids, including fentanyl, for pain relief rarely become addicted to them. So even if [a pack of porkers]…somehow absorbed enough fentanyl to experience its psychoactive effects (say, by accidentally injecting themselves with a loaded syringe found at the scene), they would not become addicted to it unless they liked those effects enough to repeatedly seek them out…
After her accident, Jae was on IV fentanyl for two weeks and didn’t show the slightest signs of addiction afterward. But as we all know, cops are delicate little pansies who can be so terrified by the sight of a black teenager running away from them that they are uncontrollably compelled to empty an entire clip into his back. So I guess the idea that they could become “instantly addicted” by touching a person with the drug in his system isn’t so farfetched after all.
…the 9th Circuit considered claims [last] week that federal prosecutors have improperly seized…money and property and used dirty tricks to prevent the courts from making things right…the feds have seized “26 real properties (some purchased before Backpage… ever existed), 89 bank accounts, and 268 domain names” from the defendants, their family members, and associated entities. Prosecutors also seized money held in trusts by the defendants’ lawyers, jeopardizing defendants’ ability to afford defense counsel…Under the twisted rules of civil asset forfeiture, the government can take money and property from those accused of wrongdoing before actually proving any wrongdoing, so long as there is “probable cause” to believe the assets were used in or derived from criminal activity. But for assets related to…First Amendment–protected activities…the government…must first show that the speech in question is not constitutionally protected. Prosecutors [pretend]…that all the assets it seized were derived from the operation of Backpage, that all ads on Backpage were illegal, and that this is self-evidently true…and…that there were no free speech issues…since Backpage had already been…sold by Lacey and Larkin in 2015…[yet] prosecutors [also] argue that defendants never really did let the company go…
…Justin Schneider…admitted that he had [choked a woman until she passed out, then] masturbated onto her….[and] ejaculated on her face. But he was not charged with sexual assault. As a first-time offender, he accepted a deal to plead guilty to just a single count of second-degree assault, and he walked out of the courtroom a free man…prosecutors…never brought [a sexual assault charge]…because…In Alaska, sexual assault has a very narrow definition…because Schneider touched only his own genitals but didn’t touch Lauren’s or force her to touch his, his actions didn’t qualify as sexual assault…Alaska lawmakers last month voted to close what has been dubbed the “Schneider loophole.” But out of 54 US states and territories, 44 of these jurisdictions, including [Washington], do not have a legislated definition of sexual contact that explicitly mentions contact with semen…
…[screws] mistreated migrant children [caged] in Arizona…[one of them molested] a 15-year-old-girl from Honduras…[he] put his hands inside her bra, pulled down her underwear and groped her…in front of other [pigs]…a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy [reported screws] took the mats out of their cell in retaliation for complaints from him and others about the taste of the water and food…accounts…include reports of verbal threats, physical altercations…[and] sexual abuse…
Hu Shuangyan…was part of a[n imaginary] gang that [rented] flats [to sex workers] in Kent, Essex and London…[she and her parter Zhang Dongning] tricked estate agents by posing as employees of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei…[she] was also convicted of money laundering…
A couple is not a “gang”, and if there wasn’t a stupid law against renting rooms to people engaged in a legal trade, there would have been no need for them to lie.
…grandmother-of-seven Abby Roberts is…working six days a week selling sex to make ends meet. With disabled husband Sorren unable to work, the 58 year old spends eight hours a day…[working] via…webcam…[and] also shoots six adult movies a month…”As an average I work about eight hours a day. Some people call me a workaholic but I just love it actually,” she says…that’s the way it has been for 18 years because when I fell in love with my husband I knew he had a very heavy disability”…She and Sorren…were regular swingers before he suffered a heart attack and was told he couldn’t have sex again…
A youth pastor at a Colorado Springs church has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a child…Stephen Michael Houlihan…[of] Fellowship of the Rockies church, was booked June 8 on charges of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, internet luring of a child, and obscenity…
A shareholder resolution aimed at halting Google’s efforts to bring a censored version of its search engine to China has failed. Shareholders tabled a resolution to demand Google put the brakes on its controversial search engine efforts in China. The program, internally dubbed “Dragonfly”, is…a censorship-friendly search engine with the capability to hide results at the behest of Beijing…Google chief Sundar Pichai…describ[es] China as an “important” market…
Whereas just not being evil (as Google used to claim in its motto) is not so important.
The Supreme Court of Alaska ruled on Friday that Alaska’s sex offender registration statute violated the due process rights of out of state offenders by requiring them to register as sex offenders without allowing them to be heard. The court…concluded that the statute…was overbroad and violated due process because it did not provide them an opportunity to demonstrate they were no[t]…a threat to the public. The court elected not to invalidate the ASORA but rather to allow…the individual who brought the case…to file a civil action in the state’s superior court in an attempt to prove that he no longer poses a risk…
A flurry of recent media reports have suggested the Prostitutes Protection Act (herafter ProstSchG) had failed to achieve its stated goals and would not sufficiently protect people engaged in prostitution. Voice4Sexworkers…firmly rejects that notion: The ProstSchG is well on its way to achieve all of the federal government’s desired goals and effects…Germany’s Basic Law…which grants the inviolability of one’s home…no longer applies to sex workers. Occupational freedom…is being undermined through the registration procedures…It was clear from the outset that the law would be particularly problematic for people from countries where prostitution is illegal, such as Bulgaria or Romania. If they register as sex workers in Germany, they risk receiving mail in their countries of origin, despite the promised option to have any related mail delivered to a different mailing address…Tax offices flout this provision knowingly and deliberately, and in doing so, they greatly endanger the lives of sex workers in their countries of origin…The entire construct of the ProstSchG is intended to deter people from entering prostitution and render sex work impossible in most places…
The government is under pressure to delay its controversial online pornography age verification scheme for a third time [from July 15th to October 15th], or risk “nefarious” companies “using this opportunity to harvest and manipulate user data”…the Digital Policy Alliance…[ex]plains that…unless the scheme is delayed there will be “less protection for public data”…
New age restrictions on pornography…are a “privacy timebomb”…[because in typical government fashion] the data protection in place to protect consumers is “vague, imprecise and largely a ‘tick box’ exercise”…The UK government claims the new measures are necessary in order to prevent children and young adults from accessing adult content online…[even though] the new rules are unlikely to prevent tech-savvy children from reaching restricted websites…
Teen Vogue tweeted an article titled, “Why Sex Work Is Real Work,” and many clutched their pearls at the audacity of talking to teens about sex work…sex therapist Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng[‘s]…central argument was that sex workers provide services that help people meet and understand their sexual needs in the same way that her sex counseling does…[prohibitionist] talking heads quickly posted their disdain: “Why is a teen magazine promoting prostitution to their 13-year-old readers?” Others falsely equated sex work with sex trafficking…One commenter pointed out that Teen Vogue is a part of Condé Nast in [a bizarre stretch] to falsely equate discussing sex work with pedophilia…Of course, Dr. Mofokeng’s article defends nothing other than the safe exchange of sexual services between consenting adults…Furthermore, scandalized reactions to teens learning about sex work are out of touch with reality. About 40% of high school teens report to be sexually active, making conversations about sexual health and women’s issues crucially relevant in teens’ lives…
…In the years before their arrest, Lacey and Larkin had successfully beat back charges like these in court. They took refuge not only in the First Amendment but also in Section 230…Congress’ great gift to the internet….[which] wouldn’t exist without it. After all, you can’t build or sustain a giant network if you’re getting sued every time a user says or does something objectionable…Lacey and Larkin…won case after case, with the support of Big Tech and civil libertarians alike. But by the time the Feds descended on Paradise Valley that morning in the spring of 2018…the tech industry…had thrown them under the bus. Their top lieutenant had flipped. And Congress had used them as an excuse to finally accomplish what it had been trying to do for more than 20 years—tear a hole in Section 230…Silicon Valley had better hope they win. United States v. Lacey is a dangerous case, with potential consequences far beyond the freedom of two aging antiauthoritarians…
There’s a lot of good info here, but watch for the writer’s bias; she seems to be a crypto-prohibitionist and it’s visible in a few places (such as calling Lacey & Larkin “digital pimps”). That’s hardly unusual for Wired, which seems unable to publish an article about sex work that lacks major issues.
A police officer breaks down in tears after being arrested on suspicion of blackmail as part of an investigation to weed out corrupt cops. DC Gareth Suffling is led away in handcuffs after he was found to have accessed a blackmail victim’s details on his police computer to find out his address before the victim reported he was being blackmailed…[the] married man [was] sent a letter threatening to tell his family he had received oral sex from a sex worker unless he pays the blackmailer £1000. The letter also contained photos of the man visiting the sex worker…
A Kansas state legislator has proposed a bill that would decriminalize consensual sexual contact between kids under the age of 14…the state’s draconian laws…currently criminalize sexual contact up to age 16…The bill is partly inspired by the ordeal of Randy Masten, whose 14-year-old son was charged with a felony for engaging in mutual, consensual kissing and touching with a 13-year-old girl…”The charges were later dropped. Masten…spent nearly $13,000 on an attorney and never found out why the case went away…his son and the girl were 55 days apart in age. ‘What if we did not have the means to defend our son? An overzealous DA…could have destroyed my son’s life and wrecked the lives of my wife and myself as well’, Masten said“…
…sex workers are challenging…misleading and harmful efforts to link prostitution to sex trafficking. “People have used this moral panic, this idea that there is a trafficking epidemic, to create so much funding and so much policy that now they’re being pressured to show the evidence”…said Tara Burns, researcher and founding member of the Community United for Safety and Protection (CUSP)…“That’s where we see police arresting [prostitutes] for sex trafficking themselves, just so they can get those sex trafficking numbers up, and match the moral panic they’ve created”…
Moving in on what [they claimed] to be a crack deal, [two cops planted] two packets, which turned out to contain little more than a residue of the drug. Two men — [claimed] to be the buyer and the seller — were arrested, but the charges against one of the men were eventually dismissed. What the [cops] did get that day was more than 20 hours in overtime for hauling in and processing the men…as much as $1,400 in extra pay…four of the [cops] involved…fac[e] accusations that they detained one of the men, Hector Cordero, simply to increase their income. If any of the [four] are found liable, another trial will be scheduled, one that could represent the biggest challenge to New York policing practices since stop-and-frisk. The second trial would examine the broader question of whether the city’s [cops] habitually use false arrests to bolster their pay. Accusations about the practice — known as “collars for dollars” — have dogged the department for decades. The Mollen Commission’s 1994 report about police corruption, which used the term, detailed the various and devious overtime schemes that have been used…
S[even screws]…have been charged with sexually abusing female inmates, some for more than a decade, at a…prison in Pennsylvania…The seven men created a culture of fear and [rape] inside the Lackawanna County Prison in Scranton, using their positions of power over the inmates to [rape] them…in cells and utility closets…The sexual abuse was common and widely known within the prison, where guards alerted one another if supervisors were approaching while they were [raping their victims]…Josh Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, said…“This was not one rogue prison guard…Whenever you see this kind of scope, whenever you see this kind of pervasive culture that was allowed to exist, you have to wonder how far up the chain this goes”…
Respect and the peak national sex worker organisation, the Scarlet Alliance, are calling on every state and territory to follow the example of New South Wales, which repealed laws against prostitution…But legitimacy is vehemently opposed by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia (CATWA). Spokeswoman Dr Meagan Tyler…says decriminalisation does not recognise [what she fantasizes are] prostitution’s systemic harms and imbedded inequalities…
Gabby Sones…along with a nephew and two nieces—all of them between the ages of four and eight—had [been led by cops, prosecutors, “child protection” bureaucrats and other malignant busybodies to support a] made[-up] series of accusations that rocked their community. They’d claimed that Gabby’s parents, Jimmy and Sheila, as well as five other local adults, had committed a series of depraved, almost incomprehensible sex crimes. The defendants, the children [were led to] testif[y], had set up a “sex kindergarten” in a trailer outside Tyler [Texas]. Then the adults [fantasized that the Sones & the others] had put the children on a stage at a swingers club in nearby Mineola, where the kids were drugged and forced to dance and have sex with one another…“Mineola Child Sex Ring: ‘Indescribable Acts,’ ” blared the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Across the country, people read in Newsweek about the case…A war would rage for eight years, pitting children against parents, social workers against cops, and one district attorney against another. But above all else, it would pit a woman named Margie Cantrell, a lifelong [busybody] and de[lusional pathological liar]…against a group of people portrayed [by “authorities”] as redneck deviants. In 2008 and 2010, based on the [coerced] testimony of Gabby and the other children, four of the defendants were put on trial and sentenced to prison for life. As a young child, Gabby had…accepted whatever [cops] told her. But she was an intelligent kid, curious and hardheaded, and the older she got, the more she tried to make sense of what she’d supposedly been through. As a teenager, the questions in her mind became more difficult to suppress. The stories just didn’t add up…
In this case, several of the victims of the witch hunt managed to escape without their lives being entirely destroyed, and Gabby is working to clear their names. But until our “justice” system renounces its sick obsession with doing anything, even pretending that impossible nonsense is credible, in order to score “convictions” by destroying people’s lives, this is going to keep happening over and over and over.
The city of Everett, Washington, has filed an appeal after a federal judge ruled in favor of bikini baristas, who sued the city over new dress code ordinances that ban bare skin…the baristas’ lawsuit has been put on hold as the city appeals the judge’s decision in December to extend an injunction, preventing the city from enforcing its two laws. The judge last month agreed to stay the case as the appeal proceeds…
Lest you forget, Everett’s argument for its law is “women who dress like sluts are asking to be raped”.
Airbnb said…it would invest in new technology to crack down on modern slavery [in order to capitalize on fantasies]…that traffickers are turning its properties into “pop-up brothels” to sexually exploit [passive, doll-like] women and girls. Airbnb…has teamed up with anti-[sex worker profiteers] Polaris to [indocrinate] its employees, develop new [means of spying on AirBnB users] and [rat suspected sex workers out to] the police…
Mata Hari…was sacrificed – some say – because the French needed to find a spy to explain their succession of reverses in the war…she was the perfect scapegoat because “loose” morals made it easier to tar her as an enemy of France. Until now the full details of her interrogation by prosecutor Pierre Bouchardon…has been off-limits to historians…Arnold von Kalle, the German military attaché….[sent a] telegram…to his masters in Berlin [containing] the details of a certain Agent H21. It gave addresses, bank details, and even the name of Mata Hari’s faithful maid. There could be no question to anyone reading it that Mata Hari was agent H21. The telegram, intercepted by French intelligence, is now available for scrutiny…Or rather, the official translation of the telegram is available. Because…the whole telegram episode is fishy. The French…had long since cracked the code in which the telegram was written. The Germans knew the French had cracked it. And yet still von Kalle sent the message. In other words, he wanted the French to read it…Why is there only a translation in the archives? Where is the original telegram? Could it be that the French themselves invented the document in order to pin the blame on Mata Hari?…the transcripts also show…that in June 1917, during her umpteenth interrogation, Margarethe Zelle…confessed…Caught outside France at the start of the war, she was desperate to get back to Paris. Karl Kroemer, German consul in Amsterdam, offered her the means…Mata Hari insisted to her interrogators that she just meant to take the money and run. She said her loyalty was to the Allies, as she had shown when she subsequently promised to help French intelligence…
Of course, this “confession” is meaningless; any psychologist will tell you that any “confession” extracted by prolonged interrogation is nothing but the result of the mind doing anything it has to do to escape the torture. The victim will, if hounded long enough, “confess” to anything. And so a century later, we still know no more than we did before.
…Nicole Emma…and three other women — Kyli Rodriguez-Cayro, Bella Arsenic, and Heidi Robinson — led lively discussion aimed at breaking down stereotypes about their industry, which includes a broad range of legal services, from phone sex and stripping to pornography. The conversation was equally broad, touching on the relationship between feminism and sex work, on the opportunity for human connection the industry gives to disabled and transgender people, and on the effects of Mormon culture on the demand for sex services…The women are lobbying state lawmakers in hope of shaping future policies that impact the industry…the group drafted a letter and a petition asking to sit down with [Utah] Sen. Todd Weiler…a known [panderer to sexual hysteria]…
An Ohio Republican legislator who campaigned on “family values” and fought against LGBTQ rights has resigned after…an “observer” encountered [him]…in his…office…having consensual sex with a man…The person told the Ohio House chief of staff, who told the Speaker of the House Cliff Rosenberger. Rosenberger met with Goodman, who is married, and Goodman resigned for “inappropriate conduct” immediately after the meeting…
…Consent laws, I argue, should allow people within a certain age range (say, 16 to 21) to offer “assent” to sex with a significantly older person — but permit them to revoke that assent at any time. “Assent” is a weaker form of agreement, legally speaking, than “consent”. Such a system would put an extra onus on adults to make sure that they are not taking advantage of a younger person…We now know that the teenage brain does not finish maturing until sometime in the mid-20s. Neuroscience and psychosocial evidence confirms that teens can make cognitively rational choices in “cool” situations — that is, when they have access to information, face little pressure, and possibly have adult guidance. Teens make decisions differently in “hot” situations that involve peer pressure, new experiences, and no time for reflection…age-of-consent laws that draw a bright line of sexual maturity at 18 or younger fail to consider the scientific data…
This lunatic is actually proposing that a university coed who fucks a grad student should be able to declare that consensual sex a rape three or more years later, dragging the boyfriend through a court proceeding in the process. Because “Science!”
Amber Batts…is now released on parole for sex trafficking…Batts has been serving her sentence on electronic monitoring since March — after spending time incarcerated and in a halfway house…She says she likely wouldn’t have become an advocate for sex workers, had she not been caught…[now] she plans to push for a change in Alaska State Law to redefine “sex trafficking” to match the Federal definition, as well as advocate for the decriminalization of sex work…While Batts doesn’t plan to return, she hopes to see a social shift that would make the work safer for others…
Florida…has changed the look of its state-issued licenses and ID cards…to…”identify sexual predators and offenderswith a distinguishing blue mark on the bottom right front. Sexual predators will have ‘Sexual Predator’ spelled out, while sexual offenders will have ‘943.0435 F.S.’ on their cards“…It’s not bad enough that sex offender registries exist, so we know who to hate and shun…And now…their passports will be marked, so when they check in to the George V in Paris, the bellhop can be on guard. But their driver’s license? So every time they’re asked for identification for some innocuous reason, there will be no doubt that the random person knows they are a sexual threat and should treat them accordingly?…Does failure to use a turn signal somehow involve the mutual sending of naked selfies as a teen? Or is it just in case the cop needs to know who he can dump on if the day hasn’t gone particularly well?…Driver’s licenses are a ubiquitous form of identification, and they’re meant to be. Turning them into a weapon to make the lives of people already suffering societal hatred is unjustifiable. Short of the actual tattoo on the forehead, what more can we do to create a caste of untouchables in America?…
Author Jordan Belamire provoked public debate on the nature of virtual sexual assault last year when she wrote about an unwelcome experience in virtual reality…the sexual harassment common in the real world also extends into online gaming…Legal philosopher John Danaher of the University of Galway, Ireland, takes on these on questions in his paper The Law and Ethics of Virtual Sexual Assault. In Danaher’s opinion, unwanted sexual acts in the virtual realm can indeed be viewed as assault and we may need new laws to cover them…
A[n]…Oklahoma state senator has pleaded guilty to a child sex trafficking charge…Ralph Shortey…had been accused of offering to pay a 17-year-old boy for sexual “stuff” earlier this year. Federal prosecutors will drop three additional child pornography charges against him in exchange for his guilty plea…Child sex trafficking carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, and a maximum sentence of life in prison…
Paris region authorities say 1,142 clients of prostitutes have been fined in the French capital since a law that bans buying sex entered into effect in April 2016…Paris region authorities said in a written statement seven prostitutes have entered a process to get out of the prostitution business…
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