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Posts Tagged ‘Hard Numbers’

That Was the Week That Was (#16)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2012| 25 Comments »

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.  –  William Pitt

Nine updates and two meta-updates; two other news stories from this week will be treated in greater depth in my columns for April 29th and May 6th.

The Camel’s Nose (October 2nd, 2010)

Meet CISPA, formerly known as SOPA, alias PIPA, née COICA:

…some people are calling it “worse than SOPA,” and it’s sponsored by a congressman who thinks the death penalty should be considered for Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking military information to Wikileaks.  Be worried:  they think we stopped paying attention after SOPA — so they made…the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (PDF) (aka H.R. 3523)…[which] has the support of companies such as AT&T, Facebook, IBM, Intel, Microsoft…and many more.  A full list of all 28 corporate supporters is here.  The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), is also trying to get tech press to tell you…CISPA is “nothing like SOPA.”  Don’t believe it.  CISPA’s primary function is to remove legal barriers that might keep Internet companies from giving all your communication and information to the government.  It allows “cyber entities” (such as Internet service providers, social networks like Facebook and cell phone companies like AT&T) to circumvent Internet privacy laws when they’re pressured by Homeland Security to hand over or shut down — well, almost anything of yours online that the government wants, no warrant needed…

Here’s a handy graphic (click to enlarge) you can download or link and spread everywhere, and here’s a very comprehensive “tool kit” from Anonymous.  Don’t ignore this, y’all; the fascists figured out they needed to give more to the big tech companies, so this time we have to defeat it without corporate support.

To Protect and Serve (February 9th, 2011)

Another sex worker murdered by cops, and another victim of so-called “non-lethal” tasers:

Adult performer Sledge Hammer…[whose legal name was Marland Anderson, died on April 13th] after…police…shot [him numerous times] with a Taser…Anderson…“had a mild form of schizophrenia, and it wasn’t a problem until he started smoking pot and taking various things for depression,” [friend and film director Stoney] Curtis explained…On Sunday night…Anderson suffered a severe anxiety attack and his girlfriend, adult performer Alexa Cruz, called 911 to prevent him from harming himself…police showed up with an ambulance and…“instead of trying to talk to him or grab him and get him to the ground, or the paramedics giving him a sedative, they decided to break out their tasers and just tasered him excessively until the point where he went into cardiac arrest,” Curtis said…

Once again:  never, ever call the cops for any reason, not even if you think you’re dying.  Because once you do, they think you are their personal property to dispose of in any way they wish.

Not the Same Tree (February 18th, 2011)

This article about a Scottish escort service owner convicted of “human trafficking” is a perfect illustration of how the warped minds of police, prosecutors and prohibitionists project crime and evil into everything they see, and how they and their media lackeys use dysphemisms, distortion and exaggeration to create monsters out of businesspeople:

Scotland’s first convicted sex trafficker…revealed the secrets of the seedy vice empire that raked in a fortune – before landing him in jail.  Stephen Craig…described how he and…Sarah Beukan…ran their infamous Scottish Elite Escorts and recruited girls to join their prostitution ring.  Craig also claimed that footballers, actors and comedians were among the biggest clients…and…admitted taking a third of the money paid by punters to his girls…Craig denied making threats to girls or forcing them to sell their bodies…a police officer claimed one witness said Craig threatened to pour boiling water down her throat…But Sheriff Sam Clark said there was “no pressure, force or threat” on women who worked for him.  Craig now faces a proceeds of crime investigation.  He said…“Police say Sarah and I made £20,000 a week…[but actually] we probably split about £5000 on a good week”…

“Seedy vice empire”.  “Infamous”. “Prostitution ring”.  “Sell their bodies”.  “Taking money” to mean “charging fees”.  The lurid accusations totally unsupported by fact, and the wild exaggeration of his income so the cops can steal more of his property and savings.  I wish there were some way to make these asses fully cognizant of how  ridiculous they’re going to look once Western society fully awakens from “sex trafficking” hysteria.

Give It a Rest (August 18th, 2011)

Remember the Texas strip club which cops were trying to destroy via harassment of dancers and customers?  Apparently, they either succeeded in driving the owner over the edge or else just decided to get rid of him by the time-honored method of framing:

Ryan Walker Grant, co-owner of Flashdancer topless club in Arlington, was arrested after an FBI investigation revealed he tried to hire Mexican hitmen to kill two Arlington city officials whom he blamed for the closure of his business…Grant [allegedly told the FBI plant that]…he stood to lose $800,000 a year if Flashdancers closed for good…

Follow Your Bliss (November 29th, 2011)

Though most “child sex slave” fetishists restrict themselves to writing lurid newspaper stories, this one sought the opportunity for “hands-on” experience “helping” underage hookers:

A counselor at a new…shelter for prostituted children groped and propositioned a girl there…prosecutors in Seattle contend Ralph Nathaniel Wells accosted the then-16-year-old girl in late January.  Wells, 32, had been employed by the shelter as an overnight counselor…the girl said Wells called her out of her room several times…[and] made inappropriate comments and sexual advances, pulled on her clothing and touched her.  Wells was suspended without pay immediately…

Obviously Wells bought his own organization’s propaganda that the girl was “prostituted” (i.e. a passive object without volition) and a “child”, and therefore too stupid and helpless to turn him down and report his sleazy behavior.

Presents, Presents, Presents! (December 29th, 2011)

I got two new presents this week!  On Monday I received a copy of Never On Sunday from Martin English, and on Tuesday a new book named The Origins of Sex from another reader who prefers to remain anonymous.  Thank you both so very much!

An Angel of Mercy (January 25th, 2012)

You don’t have to be a Catholic nun to do outreach to streetwalkers; Cyndee Clay is a lapsed Mormon who heads Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS) in Washington, DC.  In this interview with Metro Weekly she talks about sex work stigma, “prostitution-free zones”, police harassment, harm reduction and the services HIPS provides, including “…weekly support groups…daily maintenance groups for active drug users…case management, linkage to care and services, including HIV testing and drop-in syringe access…our bad-date sheet” and condom distribution.

Much Ado About Nothing (April 18th, 2012)

Well, the story’s beginning to make a lot more sense now; it turns out the argument wasn’t over $47 as initially reported, but rather $770 (the difference between the $800 fee Agent Asshole agreed to and the $30 he tried to give her instead).  Some of the agents are now making the sophomoric claim that they didn’t know their dates were whores, which is not only unbelievable to anyone in the know, but also flies in the face of reports that they met the women in a brothel.  And Dania (the lady who was cheated) insists that contrary to what the bouncer and cops claim, the agents were very discreet and she had no idea they were Secret Service.

But despite media efforts to sex up the story and to overdramatize its importance (“Eleven Secret Service agents…and nine military servicemen are under investigation for hiring 20 or 21 hookers”) the American people seem refreshingly unmoved.  My own perceptions and those of several of my sources indicate that more people are concerned with the agent’s trying to cheat a sex worker than the fact that he hired her.  A reporter who interviewed me yesterday (I’m not sure when it will appear) felt that the real story was that Colombia’s system protects women by allowing them access to police, and a Vanity Fair article which quotes yours truly points out that the whole scandal is a convenient misdirection from the issues of the Cartagena summit, which Washington doesn’t want the public thinking too hard about.  Spirit Airlines mocked the scandal in a promotion, and Dennis Hof of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch opined that Secret Service agents should only hire American whores.  But most interesting (and heartening) of all is the reaction in many mainstream media sources (including Forbes), which might be synopsized in the words used by Reason’s J.D. Tuccille: “Maybe, just maybe, we could stop pretending that exchanging money for sex is such a terrible thing.”

Hard Numbers (April 20th, 2012)

Brazil follows the example of our friends Down Under in recognizing that it is attempts to ban or regulate prostitution that cause the problems “authorities” associate with it, and that decriminalization is the best way to eliminate those issues:

A proposal before the Senate…[eliminates] criminal penalties for owners of brothels.  The legal experts…want to end what they call the moral “cynicism” of the current legislation.  In practice, they say, the ban on brothels only serves to corrupt police who extort money and services from the owners of the establishments…Prostitution itself is not illegal in Brazil, nor is it regulated by the government…the change will…permit labor unions to establish a link between the employees and the employer as is the norm in countries such as Germany and Holland.  ”It is a historical claim to the movement for prostitutes,” [said] Roberto Dominguez…legal advisor to the Brazilian Network of Prostitutes…

Metaupdates

Counterfeit Comfort in That Was the Week That Was (#8) (February 26th, 2012)

In their quest for absolute power over the lives of their subjects, politicians can’t let little things like justice, decency or the law stop them.  After a federal judge overturned a Louisiana law banning victims of the “sex offender” registry from social media, tyrants in New York realized the same thing would probably happen if they enacted a similar law, so they used political pressure to force online companies to do their dirty work for them:

Back in 2008, New York passed a law requiring…sex offenders to register all email addresses and social network accounts with the government…[now] Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has  announced the first wave of an initiative called “Operation: Game Over”…[in which] over 3500 sex offenders’ online gaming accounts with companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Blizzard have been banned completely.  AG Schneiderman applauds the effort with “We must ensure online video game systems do not become a digital playground for dangerous predators. That means doing everything possible to block sex offenders from using gaming networks as a vehicle to prey on underage victims”…[But as] the New York Civil Liberties Union [points out]…“the problem…is almost non-existent. Children are almost always abused by people they know – a friend or family member – not by people they interact with while playing video games online.”

…Not only are these people blocked from playing with children through these services, they are also blocked from playing with friends and family members.  We are further eroding the ability for these people to reintegrate themselves with society, and for what?  While New York and those gaming companies that partnered with the state continue the witch hunt, they will surely earn some brownie points with parents.  After all, that is really what matters in an election year…Who cares if justice is actually being served?  Sex offenders are expendable.  They aren’t real people.  At least you can keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.

A Manufactured War in That Was the Week That Was (#15) (April 14th, 2012)

While I contended myself with dispatching the New York Times’ scare story on “sex trafficking” in Spain via a quick shotgun blast, Dr. Laura Agustín preferred to vivisect it instead.  I think you’ll find the result well worth your time.

One Year Ago Today

“Faerie Tale” is exactly that…but probably not in the way you’re thinking.

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Hard Numbers

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2012| 27 Comments »

Knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity.  –  Michel de Montaigne

Regular readers know what a large fraction of the American public seems unable to comprehend:  that the numbers of “slaves” claimed by trafficking fetishists are not only so outlandish that even some “trafficking” researchers question them, but also completely unsupported by anything police agencies in any country have ever been able to verify.  In a textbook example of circular logic, fetishists claim that this somehow proves that “modern slavery” is so insidious it must be pursued with ever-increasing criminalization; of course, it would look exactly the same if “trafficking” were rare, but if one mentions that the fetishists point to their “estimates”…which the various organizations borrow from one another in an immense daisy-chain of incestuous inter-attribution which starts and ends nowhere.  On April 2nd I told you about the incredibly flawed way in which Kevin Bales, frequently quoted as an “authority”, derives his wild guesses:

Bales starts with [a US State Department] “estimate” of unknown derivation, “adjusts” it by a factor based on media reports (which often repeat each other and obviously increase dramatically during a moral panic), presumes without evidence that the proportion of reports to actual incidents is low, multiplies the result by guesses from prohibitionists with an anti-whore agenda, then rounds up.  When I made my own estimate of the number of US prostitutes I used solid data from a methodologically-sound survey, and cross-checked it [as explained in my column of one year ago today] via  another widely accepted study; the results are both credible and jibe with figures extrapolated from historical data.  Bales’ [method], on the other hand…is specifically designed to produce ever-increasing results:  wildly-exaggerated “estimates” fuel the hysteria, which in turn generates more media reports, which dramatically increases the “adjustment factor”, thus generating ever-higher “estimates” which ratchet up the hysteria…and so on and on, ad nauseam.  The current claim surpasses the population of Australia by a comfortable margin…

Speaking of Australia, government-sponsored researchers in New South Wales have recently released a report which supports the strategy of sex worker advocates over that of the prohibitionists with cold, hard facts.  See, the critical problem with the incredibly-inflated claims of prohibitionists isn’t that they’re wrong; it’s that once people accept anyone as an authority on facts, it is far more likely that they will also accept him as an authority on matters of policy.  In other words, if John Q. Public thinks the numbers put forth by the Polaris Project and CATW are credible, he’s that much more likely to accept their claims that the best way to control the supposed “crisis” is via increased criminalization of sex work.  Rights activists, on the other hand, repeatedly point out that no matter how many or how few “trafficking victims” there are, their exploitation is greatly facilitated by criminalization; removal of the laws which exacerbate the problem is therefore the best way to control it even if it were as widespread as fanatics claim.  If we’re right, sexual exploitation should therefore be especially rare in jurisdictions which have decriminalized prostitution…and indeed that is so.  New Zealand hasn’t had a case of “sex trafficking” in years, and according to the aforementioned report it has essentially vanished in Sydney as well since 1995 (the date of effective decriminalization in NSW), even if one classes ALL undocumented immigrant prostitutes as “trafficked”:

Some individuals…contend that hundreds of Asian women are trafficked to brothels in Australia but present little evidence.  The Federal Government, in response to international anti-trafficking agreements funded a large-scale investigation into these allegations…since 2004, 119 women ‘discovered’ in NSW have been involved in a…Government support program for people trafficked into the sex industry, but there have only been a handful of successful prosecutions…The [research] team found no evidence of recent trafficking of female sex workers in the Sydney brothel survey…or in a clinic study…This was in marked contrast to the 1990s when contacted women from Thailand were common in Sydney…

That report is well worth reading (or at least scanning); it states that New South Wales has “the healthiest sex industry ever documented” and advised the government to scrap most of the few remaining laws.  Here are a few excerpts from the recommendations section:

…reforms that decriminalized adult sex work have improved human rights; removed police corruption; netted savings for the criminal justice system; and enhanced the surveillance, health promotion, and safety of the NSW sex industry.  International authorities regard the NSW regulatory framework as best practice.  Contrary to early concerns the NSW sex industry has not increased in size or visibility, and sex work remains stigmatised…Licensing of sex work (‘legalisation’) should not be regarded as a viable legislative response.  For over a century systems that require licensing of sex workers or brothels have consistently failed – most jurisdictions that once had licensing systems have abandoned them.  As most sex workers remain unlicensed criminal codes remain in force, leaving the potential for police corruption.  Licensing systems are expensive and difficult to administer, and they always generate an unlicensed underclass…[which] is wary of and avoids surveillance systems and public health services:  the current systems in Queensland and Victoria confirm this fact.  Thus, licensing is a threat to public health…local governments refusing to approve development applications for brothels [results] in substantial legal costs and…has also fostered the growth of brothels masquerading as massage parlours… Government, in consultation with local government and street work communities, should investigate more effective and humane approaches to the problems posed by street-based sex work…Though they are the smallest component of the industry, street sex workers are the major target for police prosecutions because of their high visibility.  The aim of the investigation should be to explore methods of reducing the street presence and vulnerability of sex workers by means such ensuring an adequate supply of indoor alternatives; including approving brothels, and supporting more ‘safe house’ facilities…For health and safety reasons and in order to meet best practice in a decriminalised environment the word ‘brothel’ as defined in the legislation, should not apply when up to four private sex workers work cooperatively from private premises.  All of the evidence indicates that private sex workers have no effect on public amenity.  Exempting this group from planning laws that pertain to brothels will limit the potential for local government corruption.  The New Zealand experience provides a successful precedent for the four worker model.

None of these recommendations are remotely surprising to either sex worker advocates (who have been saying the same thing for decades) or libertarians (who constantly point out that many social problems are caused by laws that criminalize private behavior).  Of course, American politicians won’t listen right now; they’re on a one-way trip to totalitarianism that cannot be stopped until the train wrecks.  But after it does, those charged with sifting through the debris will have the example of freer, more wisely-governed countries to draw from, and hard evidence that disproves the claims of prohibitionists that people need to be driven like cattle and that more laws and police help anyone except those who profit from the police state.

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