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Sex ads platform Backpage.com seized by FBI hours after founder's home raided

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Sex ads platform Backpage.com seized by FBI hours after founder's home raided

Jim-Larkin-left-and-Michael-Lacey-Photo-Sacramento-County-Sheriffs-Office.jpg

Backpage.com owners James Larkin and Michael Lacey

April 6, 2018

Sex ads platform Backpage.com was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Friday hours after its founder's Phoenix home was raided. Visitors to the site landed on a notice from the federal government announcing its seizure. “Backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, with analytical assistance from the Joint Regional Intelligence Center,” the announcement read. Founder Michael Lacey's Sedona home was raided by the FBI Friday morning, Evan Wyloge, of the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, reported. He said Lacey's neighbors witnessed the raid, reporting that "about 20 undercover cops" swarmed the property.

Phoenix FBI told the Daily News that "law enforcement activity is occurring." The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Other agencies were also involved in the enforcement action, with more information forthcoming, the FBI said. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, known as SESTA, was passed last month as part of a push to crack down on Backpage.com and other sites accused of facilitating human trafficking. Some sex workers argued that the legislation hamstrings their ability to safely earn a living.

Excellent. Backpage.com is the Craig's List for prostitution, sex slavery, pedophilia, and child/adult human trafficking.
 
The Feminist/State Co-operative is hitting hard against the libertines, a move long predicted by me, as it was clear to me many years ago that they will keep slugging till we are all deemed ready for UTOPIA. Craigslist stopped serving us last week or so, under enormous pressure from the government. There will be prison cells for my kind eventually.
 
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Sex ads platform Backpage.com seized by FBI hours after founder's home raided

Excellent. Backpage.com is the Craig's List for prostitution, sex slavery, pedophilia, and child/adult human trafficking.

I'm not celebrating this event. Instead I condemn it.

Prostitution is not currently in the US a victimless crime. It is a crime of slavery, child abuse and abuse of the disenfranchised as well as those suffering from poverty. It will not go away because an advertising site for prostitutes has been shut down. Nor will it go away if hundreds of such internet sites are shut down. Also, there is no denying that some men and women choose the profession by choice. That is another matter, nor my concern.

Online advertising of prostitution helped reduce the number of sex workers walking the streets and the associated crimes. Now they will return to our streets. Online advertising of prostitution in these venues made it easier for police efforts to identify runaway children being exploited, easier to track immigrants forced into the life, slavery. The new law which made the seizure of Backpage, threatened Craig's List forcing their closure of their Erotic Services section, is hypocritical at the onset. The very same politicians and district attorneys who have made political bones from this law are the same individuals who use these services. Shades of Elliot Spitzer who prosecuted sex workers and used their services because he had the money to do so, and thought he was above getting caught because he was smarter than the average John.

Wherever and whenever there is a political convention, the temporary population of prostitutes at that location grows exponentially as prostitutes travel to those locations, and they all make money.

These sites have been know to cooperate with law enforcement, and even when not voluntary, police have placed their own adds on these sites and arrested Johns who showed their faces.

Certainly, if we are to gain any control over prostitution then prostitution must be made lawful, licensed, subject to health inspections and checkups, with an outlawing of pimps, madams, and the most effective means preventing of forced trafficking and trafficking of underage participants. This is essential for both purveyors and clients, the safety of both.

None of this is relevant to my condemnation.

This law is a Trojan Horse for censorship and attacking American freedoms on the net. Next will be porn, then will be the politically incorrect, then books, movies, music, whatever. And then with success online, this censorship will creep into all our media, and effect all our voices. One day it will be Democrats and Republicans who are censored. Or the wrong religion, or the wrong necktie, or the wrong hairstyle, whatever again. This is incipient fascism gaining a foothold in America. This is my objection to this law, its powers granted to government under the subterfuge of decency, instead indecency and the reason why I loudly condemn it. Now you can stop celebrating a false victory for the greatest threat of ideas witnessed by our nation.
 
Sex ads platform Backpage.com seized by FBI hours after founder's home raided


Backpage.com owners James Larkin and Michael Lacey



Excellent. Backpage.com is the Craig's List for prostitution, sex slavery, pedophilia, and child/adult human trafficking.

I have no idea what "Backpage" is but they sure are getting the full meal deal. If the USPS and IRSCID are involved then it's financial crimes and, likely, kiddie porn.

-edit-

Does it mean I'm a bad person because I get a kick out of the report making it sound like this all came out because someone in the news room clicked on the page?
 
This is great. The FBI did a good thing today.

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk
 
I'm not celebrating this event. Instead I condemn it.

Prostitution is not currently in the US a victimless crime. It is a crime of slavery, child abuse and abuse of the disenfranchised as well as those suffering from poverty. It will not go away because an advertising site for prostitutes has been shut down. Nor will it go away if hundreds of such internet sites are shut down. Also, there is no denying that some men and women choose the profession by choice. That is another matter, nor my concern.

Online advertising of prostitution helped reduce the number of sex workers walking the streets and the associated crimes. Now they will return to our streets. Online advertising of prostitution in these venues made it easier for police efforts to identify runaway children being exploited, easier to track immigrants forced into the life, slavery. The new law which made the seizure of Backpage, threatened Craig's List forcing their closure of their Erotic Services section, is hypocritical at the onset. The very same politicians and district attorneys who have made political bones from this law are the same individuals who use these services. Shades of Elliot Spitzer who prosecuted sex workers and used their services because he had the money to do so, and thought he was above getting caught because he was smarter than the average John.

Wherever and whenever there is a political convention, the temporary population of prostitutes at that location grows exponentially as prostitutes travel to those locations, and they all make money.

These sites have been know to cooperate with law enforcement, and even when not voluntary, police have placed their own adds on these sites and arrested Johns who showed their faces.

Certainly, if we are to gain any control over prostitution then prostitution must be made lawful, licensed, subject to health inspections and checkups, with an outlawing of pimps, madams, and the most effective means preventing of forced trafficking and trafficking of underage participants. This is essential for both purveyors and clients, the safety of both.

None of this is relevant to my condemnation.

This law is a Trojan Horse for censorship and attacking American freedoms on the net. Next will be porn, then will be the politically incorrect, then books, movies, music, whatever. And then with success online, this censorship will creep into all our media, and effect all our voices. One day it will be Democrats and Republicans who are censored. Or the wrong religion, or the wrong necktie, or the wrong hairstyle, whatever again. This is incipient fascism gaining a foothold in America. This is my objection to this law, its powers granted to government under the subterfuge of decency, instead indecency and the reason why I loudly condemn it. Now you can stop celebrating a false victory for the greatest threat of ideas witnessed by our nation.

Prostitution was mostly an afterthought on Backpage.com. By far its most insidious usage was to facilitate child/adult human trafficking/sex-slavery. The SESTA legislation is an ideal tool to put the hurt on such facilitators.
 
Prostitution was mostly an afterthought on Backpage.com. By far its most insidious usage was to facilitate child/adult human trafficking/sex-slavery. The SESTA legislation is an ideal tool to put the hurt on such facilitators.

That was part of the claim but their has been no presentation of substantiating evidence except one add 4 years ago from a parent offering his 7 yr old daughter's virginity to the highest bidder, to which management alerted the authorities and never published. Others have been rumored but nothing more. Political BS.

Already, more than a half dozen new sites have popped up, glad to pickup the millions of $'s, have started picking up the ad traffic, however they are all located overseas, all run by bots, all incorporated in small countries which don't require identification of the principles, and all bragging of multiple mirror sites, payment for adds in bit coin, other cyber currencies, and PayPal.

You are not looking at the true threats of this law, just the low hanging fruit, the obvious. This will be no more than a minor inconvenience for the world of prostitution, with far less access for police activities. Meanwhile fascism is at your door, not bothering to knock, just storming in under the guise of morality, from the least moral people in this nation, politicians.
 
The Feminist/State Co-operative is hitting hard against the libertines, a move long predicted by me, as it was clear to me many years ago that they will keep slugging till we are all deemed ready for UTOPIA. Craigslist stopped serving us last week or so, under enormous pressure from the government. There will be prison cells for my kind eventually.

Well, sex trafficking is sort of bad. Just saying.
 
The Feminist/State Co-operative is hitting hard against the libertines

More bull****.
People with DAUGHTERS are hitting back against a couple of pock marked looking mofos with cauliflower ears, fatty liver disease and inverted penii who still think it's okay to let pimps advertise exploited fourteen year old hood skanks so they can keep 99% of the money while they keep the hood skanks strung out on crack.
 
And....I bet fifty bucks you've gotten your wallet stolen at least once if you ever utilized any of the services on Backpage.
 
More bull****.
People with DAUGHTERS are hitting back against a couple of pock marked looking mofos with cauliflower ears, fatty liver disease and inverted penii who still think it's okay to let pimps advertise exploited fourteen year old hood skanks so they can keep 99% of the money while they keep the hood skanks strung out on crack.

You are alarmingly uneducated on the subject. I know this is what you are told to believe but you were supposed to look a little further for the truth.


EDIT: Read the link, it will get you started on your way:

Study of sex workers and pimps reveals how the market for underage sex actually operates.
 
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That was part of the claim but their has been no presentation of substantiating evidence except one add 4 years ago from a parent offering his 7 yr old daughter's virginity to the highest bidder, to which management alerted the authorities and never published. Others have been rumored but nothing more. Political BS.

Already, more than a half dozen new sites have popped up, glad to pickup the millions of $'s, have started picking up the ad traffic, however they are all located overseas, all run by bots, all incorporated in small countries which don't require identification of the principles, and all bragging of multiple mirror sites, payment for adds in bit coin, other cyber currencies, and PayPal.

You are not looking at the true threats of this law, just the low hanging fruit, the obvious. This will be no more than a minor inconvenience for the world of prostitution, with far less access for police activities. Meanwhile fascism is at your door, not bothering to knock, just storming in under the guise of morality, from the least moral people in this nation, politicians.

Feds charge Backpage founder after human-trafficking investigation

I have few problems with prostitution. That said, I won't abide with human-trafficking, sex-slavery, and the prostitution of underage children.
 
Feds charge Backpage founder after human-trafficking investigation

I have few problems with prostitution. That said, I won't abide with human-trafficking, sex-slavery, and the prostitution of underage children.

Neither will I, nor am I a fan of prostitution, lawful or otherwise.

The problem here is a law which allows for seizure with no due process, and censorship by government, a taking of powers that are fascistic, opposed to our Constitution. A giant step toward the end of our Constitutional limitations upon government in the guise of a greater morality.

This law, and its enforcement, will not end illicit prostitution, human trafficking, sex slavery or the prostitution of children. It will only serve to drive them underground from where they will be more difficult to ferret out by law enforcement. It will do nothing to prevent the victimization of working girls, sex slaves or prostituted children. Nothing to protect society as a whole from the venereal diseases spread through illicit sexual liaisons. Nothing to protect the families destroyed by these processes. Nothing to protect the vulnerable. And these same self serving politicians and big mouthed district attorneys who fought for this law seeking low hanging fruit to advance their own political careers, will not stop using the services of prostitutes themselves.

A long time ago, a local politician told me he would always vote against legalizing gambling, gambling being the bane of the common man. Now the lottery is one of government's biggest businesses. He lost his law license to a gambling problem.
 
You are alarmingly uneducated on the subject. I know this is what you are told to believe but you were supposed to look a little further for the truth.


EDIT: Read the link, it will get you started on your way:

Study of sex workers and pimps reveals how the market for underage sex actually operates.

You seem to not understand one of the basic points in the article.
Backpage isn't some Atlantic City publication focused exclusively on underground casino sex trade workers.
 
You seem to not understand one of the basic points in the article.
Backpage isn't some Atlantic City publication focused exclusively on underground casino sex trade workers.

You don't seem to understand, this is not about prostitution. This is an attack on your freedoms. Prostitution is only a subterfuge. Get your sordid mind out of the gutter and think about the implications of this new law.
 
You don't seem to understand, this is not about prostitution. This is an attack on your freedoms. Prostitution is only a subterfuge. Get your sordid mind out of the gutter and think about the implications of this new law.

There is no mention of a specific law in that article.
Want to shed some more light on this law?
 

The usual sloppy approach, which of course will force the courts to slap a narrower interpretation on it.
We get the kind of Congress we deserve. Want them to pass smarter laws? Stop electing the wrong people.

Yeah, this law has issues, yeah, it has flaws, yeah, it has problems. What laws don't when they're first passed?
Remember the Parents Music Resource Council? Suddenly heavy metal bands were on the hook for mentally ill kids who committed suicide.
That law got trimmed back with a vengeance.
So will this one.

But I don't feel the least twinge of sympathy for Backpage.com ... not after seeing what I've seen in real life.
 
The usual sloppy approach, which of course will force the courts to slap a narrower interpretation on it.
We get the kind of Congress we deserve. Want them to pass smarter laws? Stop electing the wrong people.

Yeah, this law has issues, yeah, it has flaws, yeah, it has problems. What laws don't when they're first passed?
Remember the Parents Music Resource Council? Suddenly heavy metal bands were on the hook for mentally ill kids who committed suicide.
That law got trimmed back with a vengeance.
So will this one.

But I don't feel the least twinge of sympathy for Backpage.com ... not after seeing what I've seen in real life.

You still don't get it. Backpage is the least of it.
 
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