Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

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Agreed. The feds just destroyed what could have been their biggest ally against sex trafficking. Even if BackPage itself was not cooperative, the fact that the feds didn't have some sort of automated system that would scrape phone numbers/emails from this site, get warrants to monitor them, and then send humans to assist the girls and arrest the pimps, is unreal to me. They literally had a directory of sex trafficking victims and victimizers that has now been destroyed and pushed underground. This in no way fixed the problem, it just spread it out and made it orders of magnitude harder to deal with.

The larger issues surround freedom of speech and the protections that online service providers have. I would have expected this kind of thing to happen after FOSTA was officially signed into law, which hasn't happened yet. Apparently Michael Lacey, a cofounder of Backpage, has been criminally charged [1]. I don't know all the issues involved, but overall it's a scary day if you own a website that has anything to do with personal ads.

[1] https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investiga...

This is a common question in law enforcement: once you discover a facilitator or illegal activity, how long do you monitor it before attacking? You can learn a lot by watching, but eventually you have to Do Something or you become complicit.

It’s a challenging strategic issue.

>how long do you monitor it before attacking

Considering the large percentage of people in this space that were using BackPage, I think the answer to your question should have been whenever they had proven so effective at busting the pimps posting on there that usage had gone down significantly. As I said, I’d have automated the process, even the production of warrants to get text messages/emails associated with a given ad. Have software fill in the blanks on a template warrant with all the necessary legal language and details about BackPage, auto-email that template to an on-duty detective and have them review, print, sign, and submit it to a judge. Have the software record all the ads in a database and prioritize cases by the number of ads a given email/phone number appears in.

One agency like the FBI could have created the system, then given it to all local law enforcement agencies across the country for free so that they could carry out the process locally. They could have nabbed thousands of pimps and sex traffickers this way.

> unreal to me

would it be less unreal if you didn't consider the goal to be actually stopping sex trafficking etc, but to set precedent eroding freedom of speech and online service provider protections, under the guise of "for the children" and "obscenity"?

Get over the idea law enforcement is here to protect as a priority. They have proven over time its just a capitalist business looking for more clients. Their job is to put as many people in jail as possible with quarterly growth.

Enforcement of the law has become self-serving and those in power seem to enjoy that power. Arbitrary laws need to end. jaywalking, marijuana, escorting, a busted tail light .. these things need pep talks not forces of swat teams.

I agree with you that escorting itself should be decriminalized - I don't think that any woman who decides to make a living that way should face arrest for doing so. However, sex traffickers and pimps have to go. These people terrorize the women that work for them, often beating and sometimes killing them. The women are often kidnapped or extorted into working for these guys in the first place. Worst of all, they take their earnings from them, ensuring that they'll never be able to escape that lifestyle.

I was in the Las Vegas airport a few weeks ago. When I went to the bathroom, on the inside of the stalls, the Las Vegas Metro Police had placed notices with a phone number saying that help for victims of human trafficking is available. I noticed several billboards around town with the same message. If this has become such a widespread problem that law enforcement has resorted to trying to contact victims in airport bathrooms on their way into town, then they need to step up efforts nail the pimps and traffickers. This shutdown of BackPage was a big step backwards in that effort.

If this has become such a widespread problem that law enforcement has resorted to trying to contact victims in airport bathrooms on their way into town, then they need to step up efforts nail the pimps and traffickers.

The assumes the law enforcement is sincere in its effort. Actual story could well be:

1. Put up ads everywhere seeking to help victims so as to convince the average person the problem is huge.

2. Pass sweeping repressive measure allowing unselective seizure of sex-ad websites.

3. Profit through increased funding, influence and programs (no ??? needed).

Good point. I think that escorting itself should be actually legalized. Not only because they would pay tax and have a better life than they have now, but also because this would make pimps obsolete and would help cracking down sex traffickers. Men/women using a legal escorting service could check for license/id, making the whole thing safer for everyone.

It's not only women that make their living in sex work.

Are support people necessarily victimizers? Is someones driver automatically their pimp? Is the realtionship better or worse if it was transacted through an app?

If someone hosts child pornography on an AWS hard drive; should Jeff Bezos go to jail for it?

There's a lot of subtlety here.

And a government that is manifestly and overtly corrupt has no business enforcing morality on people.

Sex traffickers and pimps are for prostitution as gangs and the mafia are for drug sellers. We have legal marijuana without gang shootings, murder and smuggling, so the problem seems to be one about competition and making the legal options more competitive to the consumer compared to the illegal one. Preferable by making a self reinforcing environment where as more money getting put in the legal sector the more incentive the police has to go after the illegal one and the more the costumers want to spend at the legal one.

Too many bureaucracies become self-serving, and prioritize their self-preservation, rather than extinguishing the problems they're tasked with. This is not just my idea, it's well-studied, and has developed into studied phenomena, such as bureaucratic inertia.

Our public policy needs to somehow control incentive structures of these organizations. For example, the War on Poverty has spent trillions, with no measurable reduction in poverty. The War on Drugs, Prison State, Military Industrial Complex. And it appears to be even a cultural problem: CNN tells us we need to maintain an economy of killing innocents in order to keep jobs[1]. So many things are backwards.

In other words, perhaps public policy needs to fundamentally change the way it establishes and preserves government entities, in order to ensure their incentives align with their purpose.

1 - https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-...

Why do you think jaywalking and busted tail light are bad laws? They make driving safer.

As a non-american jaywalking laws seem utterly crazy. The onus should be on the driver not to hit pedestrians, not the other way round

No it's not. It's the job of law enforcement to, unsurprisingly, enforce the laws. If you have a problem with the laws being enforced, call your congressman.

Except cops don't follow the law. They setup illegal processes like automatic speed cams and parking rules designed for pure profit, they shoot people in the back, they continually promise to protect people but in reality they do nothing besides impose their will and take the peoples property and money.

Say that about anyone, if you cherry-pick hard enough. Yes there are some cops that misbehave, and its especially damning because of who they are. Get that. But blanket statements like "they do nothing but..." aren't contributing much?

When your legal system gives the benefit to the police about NOT knowing the law and to everyone else that not knowing the law is no excuse and when your legal system does not apply the same penalties to the police for infractions of the law as to the citizens (slap on wrist to police, throw citizen into prison for long periods of time for the same offence) then you have a problem.

For the USA, there is an endemic problem with all law enforcement and there is various serious documentation about this. That is not to say that the USA is the worst, there are many other countries that have a much more deadly situation. However, for a country that is supposed to be the leaders of the free world, it is rapidly getting the reputation of being third world in this matter.

When other countries warn their citizens not to have interactions with any US law enforcement then you should realise that there is a serious problem in the USA.

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