The rights of children have collided head-on with the First Amendment rights of others in a suit filed by Backpage.com over a landmark law in Washington State

2012-06-19
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is representing the Internet Archive in a fight against a Washington state law designed to prevent the sex trafficking of minors. EFF, which bills itself as “Defending Your Rights in the Digital World, is a Washington, DC special interest group and long-time supporter of near absolute Internet “freedom.”

This article in the august National Law Journal provides a good overview of the case. What the article doesn’t tell you is that the new plaintiff in the Washington litigation (which was brought by …Backpage.com and Village Voice Media Holdings), the Internet Archive, shares a board member with EFF, Brewster Kahle….

It’s also curious that the newly minted plaintiff, Internet Archive, is funded by the American people through “institutional support” from the National Science Foundation and the Library of Congress….

EFF, which is funded by ….craigslist, also deserves a closer look….http://www.childlaw.us/2012/06/eff-joins-the-child-exploitati.html

 

Backpage.com Sues Washington AG Over Child Prostitution Law
By Sue Reisinger  Corporate Counsel June 6, 2012
Update: U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order against enforcement of a new Washington State law targeting child prostitution.

Martinez said Backpage.com “has shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim . . . as well irreparable harm, the balance of equities tipping strongly in its favor, and injury to the public interest, justifying injunctive relief.”

The restraining order takes effect immediately and continues for at least 14 days. The court set Backpage’s motion for a preliminary injunction for a hearing on June 15.

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The rights of children have collided head-on with the First Amendment rights of others in a suit filed by Backpage.com over a landmark law in Washington State.

The online classified-ads site filed a complaint [PDF] against Washington State attorney general Rob McKenna and the state’s county prosecutors on Monday to try and stop them from enforcing a new law that would require providers like Backpage to verify the ages of people in ads offering “adult services,” which can include prostitution.

When the bipartisan bill passed the legislature in February, child protection advocates hailed it as the first of its kind in the nation. It is to take effect on Thursday, unless the U.S. District Court in Seattle grants Backpage’s motion for a temporary restraining order while the suit is heard…. http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202557433632

 

EFF challenges as overbroad Washington state law targeting child trafficking ads

By Sheri Qualters The National Law Journal June 18, 2012
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is helping an online library fight a Washington state law that could expose third parties to criminal charges for content related to sex trafficking of minors. EFF’s intervention comes on the heels of similar measures introduced in New York and New Jersey and poised to take effect in Tennessee. http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202559922324&sl

Responding to Village Voice on Sex Trafficking

Responding to Village Voice on Sex Trafficking
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF   March 21, 2012

After my Sunday column criticizing Village Voice Media for providing a forum for sex traffickers on its Backpage.com websites, Village Voice has struck back. It has just gone on line with an article “What Nick Kristof got wrong”:

The article begins:

Nicholas D. Kristof was wrong about the most devastating ‘fact’ in his Sunday, March 18th, column in The New York Times regarding Backpage.com. He wrote about an underage victim of human trafficking: “Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.” A video that accompanied his online op-ed was headlined: “Age 16, She Was Sold on Backpage.com” That is not true. According to Alissa’s court testimony, she was 16 in 2003. Backpage.com did not exist anywhere in America in 2003.

It’s interesting that Village Voice doesn’t dispute anything in my column or the accompanying video, but only the online blurb for the video. The Voice is right that Alissa was 16 in 2003 — for about two days. In fact, Alissa turned 16 at the end of 2003. So all during 2004, she was 16 years old. And so it was in 2004, not 2003, that she was traveling up and down the east coast being pimped. Backpage operated in at least 11 cities during 2004, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale, both of them cities Alissa where says she was pimped on Backpage. Then at 17, as Backpage expanded to 30 cities including Boston, she was pimped even more broadly on Backpage — and also in Village Voice print ads, she says.

Moreover, contrary to what the Voice says, Alissa continued in the sex trade until 2007, when she got out for good. Backpage was steadily expanding and becoming a major force in this period, and pimps routinely used it to sell her, she says.

I’m frankly a bit surprised that Village Voice is even trying to deny its role. Attorneys General around the country have linked Backpage to arrests for trafficking of underage girls in 22 different states. As my column noted, one recent case involved a 15-year-old girl here in New York. A previous column I wrote cited a 13-year-old girl peddled on Backpage.
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/responding-to-village-voice-on-sex-trafficking/

Where Pimps Peddle Their Goods – Backpage Village Voice Media

Where Pimps Peddle Their Goods
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
March 17, 2012
I WENT on a walk in Manhattan the other day with a young woman who once had to work these streets, hired out by eight pimps while she was just 16 and 17. She pointed out a McDonald’s where pimps sit while monitoring the girls outside, and a building where she had repeatedly been ordered online as if she were a pizza….

After Alissa testified against her pimps, six of them went to prison for up to 25 years. Yet these days, she reserves her greatest anger not at pimps but at companies that enable them. She is particularly scathing about Backpage.com, a classified advertising Web site that is used to sell auto parts, furniture, boats — and girls. Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.

“You can’t buy a child at Wal-Mart, can you?” she asked me. “No, but you can go to Backpage and buy me on Backpage.”

Backpage accounts for about 70 percent of prostitution advertising among five Web sites that carry such ads in the United States, earning more than $22 million annually from prostitution ads, according to AIM Group, a media research and consulting company. It is now the premier Web site for human trafficking in the United States, according to the National Association of Attorneys General. And it’s not a fly-by-night operation. Backpage is owned by Village Voice Media, which also owns the estimable Village Voice newspaper….

Liz McDougall, general counsel of Village Voice Media, told me that it is “shortsighted, ill-informed and counterproductive” to focus on Backpage when many other Web sites are also involved, particularly because Backpage tries to screen out ads for minors and reports possible trafficking cases to the authorities. McDougall denied that Backpage dominates the field….

Backpage’s exit from prostitution advertising wouldn’t solve the problem, for smaller Web sites would take on some of the ads. But it would be a setback for pimps to lose a major online marketplace. When Craigslist stopped taking such ads in 2010, many did not migrate to new sites: online prostitution advertising plummeted by more than 50 percent, according to AIM Group.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/kristof-where-pimps-peddle-their-goods.html

Underage sex trade still flourishing online

Underage sex trade still flourishing online By Amber Lyon and Steve Turnham, CNN January 20, 2011

Editor’s note: Hundreds of thousands of girls under the age of 18 are sold as sex slaves in the U.S. In a yearlong investigation, CNN’s Amber Lyon reveals the devastating realities of the business of underage sex. Don’t miss CNN Presents “Selling the Girl Next Door” this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CNN.

Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN)….STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Selena, 13, was sold for sex on backpage.com
* Advocacy groups have accused the website of facilitating the trafficking of underage girls
* Neither backpage.com nor its owner would comment on those accusations….

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are at least 100,000 underage girls being sex trafficked in America today. That’s a conservative estimate based on what little hard data currently exists; NCMEC believes the real number could be as high as 300,000.

Most are runaways, suffering from psychological problems or drug dependence, picked up and sold by pimps for staggering profits. According to studies, pimps can make up to half a million dollars a year, and they frequently prey on the young and the vulnerable.

The pimps ply their trade on the web, the new marketplace for underage sex trafficking. Last year, victims’ advocates called the internet classified site Craigslist’s Adult Service Section the “Walmart of child sex trafficking.”

CNN investigated Craigslist, posting an ad and receiving numerous calls from men seeking sex. That investigation helped spark a national conversation and outrage, as well as a call from 17 attorneys general around the country for Craigslist to shut down its adult services section.

But when Craigslist shut down its section, the escort ads migrated to another site, backpage.com. We decided to investigate Backpage after advocacy groups accused the website, which is owned by the Village Voice Media Group, of facilitating the trafficking of underage girls.

According to the AIM Group, an internet consulting firm, Backpage’s escort site earned an estimated $20 million in 2010. Its profits soared after Craigslist decided to pull the plug on its adult services section….Last fall, Backpage hired internet security advisor Hemu Nigam to implement “a holistic plan centered around preventing criminal activity on our site.” We wanted to know what that “holistic plan” was, but Nigam wouldn’t talk to us either.

Full nudity appears to have disappeared from the site, but suspect ads with tag lines such as “Daddy’s Little Girl” are common.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/20/siu.selling.girl.next.door.backpage/index.html

Ex-child prostitute sues Village Voice over sex ads, Palmdale group update

Ex-child prostitute sues Village Voice over sex ads
By Jacqui Cheng 9/19/10
A teenage child trafficking victim has filed a lawsuit against Village Voice Media, for knowingly allowing her pimp to post ads for her “services” on the popular backpage.com. The pimp, Latasha Jewell McFarland, has already pleaded guilty to prostitution charges, but the victim (going by M.A. in the complaint, as she is still a minor) says that Village Voice knew that the photos being posted of her were illegal but “failed to investigate for fear of what it would learn.”

M.A. says she was 14 when she was found as a runaway by McFarland, who began pimping out M.A. for $100 per sex act (McFarland took half the earnings). In order to advertise M.A.’s services, McFarland took pornographic photos of M.A. and posted them on backpage.com in the personals section for those seeking sex. McFarland pleaded guilty earlier this month to photographing M.A. in pornographic poses, posting child porn on backpage, paying the site for the postings, transporting M.A. for the purpose of pimping her out for sex, and collecting money for M.A.’s sexual services.
In the complaint, however, M.A. accuses Village Voice of having knowledge that the explicit photos were 1) of a minor, and 2) for prostitution services. No evidence is outlined in the complaint that explicitly points to Village Voice having this knowledge, but M.A. says the company aided and abetted her pimp in facilitating prostitution and child pornography. She also argues that Village Voice should not be granted immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a law that has historically protected websites from being held liable for the content posted by users.

“Defendant had a strong suspicion that the aforementioned crimes were being committed,” reads the complaint. “Defendant had a desire that these posters accomplished their nefarious illegal prostitution activities so that the posters would return to the website and pay for more posting.”
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/ex-child-prostitute-sues-village-voice-over-sex-ads.ars

PDF copy of complaint
http://ia360705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.moed.108973/gov.uscourts.moed.108973.1.0.pdf

Leader of religious sect held for evaluation
Group found safe hours after going missing in Southern California Missing sect members found, but questions remain
By JACOB ADELMAN  9/19/2010 PALMDALE, Calif. — The leader of a breakaway religious sect was hospitalized Sunday for a mental evaluation, after members of her group went missing and left behind evidence that they were awaiting the rapture or some catastrophic event. Reyna Marisol Chicas was placed under a 72-hour mandatory hold after it was determined she was not able to care for herself or others, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Kim. Chicas gave investigators a false name and was rambling during questioning, Kim said. She told deputies she had no children, even though her two kids were with her.

Ending a frantic search, deputies found Chicas and 12 others just before noon at Jackie Robinson Park near Palmdale after getting a tip from a local resident, said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore. He said all members are safe.
….The men told investigators they believe group members had been “brainwashed” by Chicas, and one expressed worries that they might harm themselves, Parker said. One of the children is 3, and the others range from 12 to 17. When deputies arrived at the park they found the children playing on swings and the adults on a blanket praying out loud in Spanish.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39255711