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Thank you for posting this. EFF makes the site seem like purely a forum and it just wasn't - it doesn't change MY personal opinion of this matter (I am against the takedown STRONGLY) but it worries me when people with whom I agree seem to miss the mark on providing an accurate representation of the facts. I'm not suggesting it's intentionally misleading, but I think it doesn't get it exactly right.

I wish the EFF had stated the case as an issue of state's rights.

From Wikipedia:

The regulation of prostitution in the United States is not among the enumerated powers of the federal government. Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is therefore exclusively the domain of the states to permit, prohibit, or otherwise regulate commercial sex, except insofar as Congress may regulate it as part of interstate commerce with laws like the Mann Act.

Furthermore, that site is also legal in parts of Nevada where prostitution is legal.

I don't see how the federal government has jurisdiction in this matter. The Mann act is for interstate commerce. Perhaps this applies, but I think a real lawyer could share their related experience.

10th Amendment, btw: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people

>Congress may regulate it as part of interstate commerce

The website is pretty clearly operating across state lines. If the website is based in California (just made that up), runs on servers in Texas, and it allows users in Michigan to solicit sex from users in Florida, it's pretty clearly engaging in interstate commerce.

Even if the website limited users to just one state, the federal government could still potentially regulate it under the interstate commerce clause provided the intrastate commerce substantially affects interstate commerce.

-Note: the site by itself doesn't have to have a substantial effect. It just has to be part of a potential substantial cumulative effect--that is to say, hundreds of intrastate sex advertisement websites would, together, have a substantial cumulative effect on interstate commerce, so congress would be justified in banning all sex advertising websites, even if individually they don't engage in interstate commerce.

Edit: This comment assumes that the website was in fact facilitating prostitution. This may or may not be the case, I have no idea.

> The website is pretty clearly operating across state lines. If the website is based in California (just made that up), runs on servers in Texas, and it allows users in Michigan to solicit sex from users in Florida, it's pretty clearly engaging in interstate commerce.

A web site has to police the addresses of user base for user to user interactions? Are their examples where ebay, amazon, or similar service has to proactively police its user or suffer criminal charges for user to user interactions?

I'm not saying that at all, my comment was addressed at the parent commenter who said that the federal government couldn't regulate prostitution unless it was part of interstate commerce.

Therefore, the assumption is that the website was engaged in facilitating prostitution. The website may not have been engaged in facilitating prostitution, I have no idea.

There are likely plenty of arguments to be made here (the website is just a meeting place for users, it doesn't promote prostitution etc...)--that the federal government doesn't have the power to regulate a website facilitating prostitution is not one of them.

> and it allows users in Michigan to solicit sex from users in Florida, it's pretty clearly engaging in interstate commerce.

The above is really where I got the impression you were talking mainly about user to user interaction. Forum software would allow for "users in Michigan to solicit sex from users in Florida" so the statement seemed too inclusive.

Under the assumption they are facilitating what you said lines up with my understanding.

ebay? Absolutely. Consider the list of things you can't sell on ebay.

Anyone who runs a forum has to consider their liability for their users posting illegal content, from child porn down to less serious things.

> Anyone who runs a forum has to consider their liability for their users posting illegal content, from child porn down to less serious things.

I have not heard of the case where the prosecutor claimed the service provider was reasonably unaware of the illegal content and pressed charges. The cases I have read concern inaction after awareness.

Many European gambling sites filter and self regulate users by origin country - to prohibit US users from gambling. In most countries here online gambling is legal and regulated, but there were a few cases in 2005 where US police arrested UK citizens - company directors - coming through their borders, for being involved in online gambling. As a result, most gambling operators decised it's safest to just block business from the US.

Amazon collects taxes for users living in states where Amazon operates. More to your question, Amazon also has to and does collect sales tax for customers buying from third parties in which they live in the same state. I'm not aware of specifically regulated items that can be sold in one US state but not another. There are restrictions on international exports though.

All counts of the indictment, including the money laundering, are based upon two conditions. Both must be true for any of the counts in the indictment to be judged a crime. These two conditions are:

a) use of interstate mail and communications for illegal activity

b) the illegal activity is specifically a violation of the California code prohibiting prostitution: facilitation of prostitution.

So the federal indictment is completely dependent upon the criminal violation of a state law. However, myredbook, or its owners, have never been indictment, let alone convicted, by the State of California. This is after more than a decade of operation.

Furthermore there is a federal law stating that web site owners / operators do not take any legal responsibility for the content provided by others. It does not matter if the web site owners charge or not charge these other parties for using the site.

This seems to be a really really bad legal case. At minimum the feds are presuming that the owners of my redbook would be convicted of a state crime, if the state would just prosecute them. As we all know, the American legal system presumes innocence until being convicted in a court of law.

So legally the feds don't seem to really have a case. All they seem to be doing is hassling the owners of myredbook with the intent of shutting the web site down.

So this totally appears to be someone in the justice department driving a moral or religious agenda and not really a legal one.

> a) use of interstate mail and communications for illegal activity b) the illegal activity is specifically a violation of the California code prohibiting prostitution: facilitation of prostitution. So the federal indictment is completely dependent upon the criminal violation of a state law. However, myredbook, or its owners, have never been indictment, let alone convicted, by the State of California. This is after more than a decade of operation.

Good point, it is times like this that I miss GrokLaw for dependable in-depth analysis.

Here is the Federal Code that seems to be applicable: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1952

After reading this code it appears that the owners of myredbook need not be actually the people convicted of the illegal acts which are illegal by California state law. The owners of myredbook only need to facilitate the illegal acts of others. Since some posters / advertisers on myredbook have been convicted of prostitution this is likely the basis of using the California state prostitution laws in the myredbook owners federal indictment.

Furthermore, since the owners of myredbook used an interstate means, the Internet, and transferred funds between banks, maybe, in different states. This would be the other basis necessary to violate the above referenced federal law.

So it looks like the myredbook owners may be in pretty big trouble.

> The website is pretty clearly operating across state lines.

Why is that so clear?

It's fairly easy to create an infrastructure that directs users to servers solely in their state. Prostitution is a fairly local affair.

Because they don't do that.

And even if they tried, there is no way to prevent users from just across the line in Alabama from searching for prostitutes in a bigger city in Georgia (geolocation based on IP address is not always that accurate).

But let's say the site could someone manage to ensure that no interstate commerce was going on between users--there is still interstate commerce happening because the company is operating across state lines by paying for all those servers/generating add revenue from all the users.

Furthermore, did you read the rest of my comment? None of the above really matters because a bunch of sites engaging in intrastate commerce can still have a substantial cumulative effect on interstate commerce.

> This issue is more ethically ambiguous than the EFF acknowledged in their post

The EFF post is so distorted that I have trouble figuring out if the EFF is just intentionally twisting the facts to piggy-back on a high visibility case (which seems horrendously ill-considered, even from a strategic point) or if they are just so negligent in reviewing the facts that they've gotten used by others.

There's real issues that this case could serve as a focal point for discussing -- particularly about the prohibition of prostitution and whether criminalization and the enforcement that goes along with it is a net positive or negative for society.

But its clearly not anything like a bust of a noncommercial education, legal resource, and health information site that happens to cater to sex workers being shut down because the government isn't happy with the client base or subject matter.

> illegal posts

It is illegal for certain people to post certain things at certain locations on the internet. Posts aren't inherently illegal and I think you are missing the nuance more than the eff is.

> Is the EFF saying the FBI should have targeted specific illegal posts instead of taking down legal material as well?

What kind of question is that. It's like "Are you really saying that if someone put graffiti on your house, the FBI should paint over each letter instead of simply using a bulldozer?"

MyRedBook's forums were second to its classified which were used to find and rate high-end escorts. There's no question the site was used facilitate prostitution. With that said, the site had been running since 2002. Why were they busted now?

Example classified: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RHLakOo...

Almost all ads explicitly listed the sex acts offered. People on there weren't even being discreet about it.

> MyRedBook's forums were second to its classified which were used to find and rate high-end escorts.

From glancing through the listing (on archive.org) I would suggest that "high-end" is inappropriate. It seems to include "high-end" escorts, but by no means be limited to them.

Unless, not being involved in any aspect of that trade, I just have a really wrong idea of what "high-end escort" means and the term includes those offering $50 no-condom oral sex.

you're out of touch with reality.

For comparison, the high-end escort service that Eliot Spitzer was involved with cost US$31,000 per day []

[]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/10/emperors-club-all-a...?

Why would you pay $31k for a girl for one day? That's obscene. Reminds me of this scene from Gilmore Girls:

LORELAI: Seventy-five thousand dollars. Seventy-five thousand dollars. Oh my God, that’s like 150 pairs of Jimmy Choos.

RICHARD: What are Jimmy Choos?

LORELAI: Shoes.

RICHARD: 150 pairs, that’s it?

LORELAI: Dad, they’re Jimmy Choos.

RICHARD: For seventy-five thousand dollars, you should be able to buy at least three or four hundred pairs of shoes.

LORELAI: Not Jimmy Choos.

RICHARD: But that’s ridiculous. You are not going to spend seventy-five thousand dollars on Jimmy Choos when you could buy four hundred pairs of less prestigious but I’m sure equally stylish shoes. You will shop around first. Is that clear?

LORELAI: Yes, sir.

It's is a bit troubling that the EFF didn't present the entire issue however going against sex worker really?

What the FBI and other 3 letter agencies don't have anything more important to do like solving murders and other cases where people actually got hurt.

I personally think prostitution should be legal anyway like the late George Calin put it "Selling is legal fucking is legal so why isn't selling fucking legal?"

I don't get it, either. Since when is it the EFF's role to do anything but advocate for rights when they are abridged? I suspect someone feels butthurt they did not understand the entire story before they formed an opinion, and now blame the EFF for their butthurt.

> It's is a bit troubling that the EFF didn't present the entire issue

Never assume any group is not doing this. Everyone makes more effort to present the facts that support their case/cause than they do those against/neutral. The EFF are better about not denying the truths they don't like than many similarly vocal groups, but don't expect them to tell you the facts that don't support their position.

> What the FBI and other 3 letter agencies don't have anything more important to do

They can't chose the laws that they concentrate on, really. The "don't you have something more important to do officer" argument (as often sung by petty criminals) is bunkum. They enact the law, all of it, and the reason they are chasing the people committing lesser offences (in the offender's eyes at least) is because people are committing lesser offences.

> "Selling is legal fucking is legal so why isn't selling fucking legal?"

This is probably the answer to a certain extent: legalise it, regulate it to try protect both the workers and the punters, and potentially tax it to cover the cost of that regulation.

Though the legalisation argument as it is usually presented is rather simplistic, and the effects it would have on major crime (for example people trafficking) seems vastly over-stated IMO.

I find it a broad overreach to take down entire sites based on allegations that some members may have been using it for illegal purposes.

I've said it before, but the EFF frequently twists the facts to push their agenda. Of course, it's not a popular opinion to have 'round these parts.

That's what they do. They are an advocacy organization. And when you say "twist" they say "place into a factual narrative."

That's what attorneys do. They build narratives. In this case, they support freedom with their narratives. Apparently it's thankless work.

Being an advocacy organization does not require such gross distortion of the facts.

I like the EFF, but I've stopped putting any kind of credibility into their different blog posts and articles.

Why do you hate freedom?

It doesn't go well on spaghetti.