Craigslist CEO Responds to Prostitution Lawsuit

[Guest]

Prostitution should be legal, period, end of discussion. If you're a do-good Bible-thumper and don't like prostitution THEN DON'T BUY A HOOKER!!! What happens between 2 consenting adults is nobodies business, if clean and classy brothels were around, you'd see far less sexual assault crimes, but once again, our Christian majority in America is sending their people to DC and applying 17th century logic to 21st century problems, and epic failing, as always.

 

[demonhorde665]

whilei disagree with prostitution and piracy ... i don't think officals can hold eitehr site responisble for crimes commited by it's users ... this is BS , like some one said they should arrest the city officals for providing hookers with their sidewalks.

 

[Guest]

I guess the Cook County voters need to decide if their sheriff should be attention-whoring filing garbage lawsuits or doing something more productive with the time they're paying him for.

Will he next sue the various publishers of Yellow Pages? There's a lot more money to be had there, I'm sure with enough time and effort, they can determine which escort services or strippergram companies will offer more than is legal. It could take many, many months and lots of business to get the offer though, so having strippers working the poles at the police station for the next few years would just be part of the investigation.

 

[fuser]

We should legalize, regulate and tax prostitution. Health services should be provided to the prostitutes and a fund should be set up (from a portion of the tax revenue) to help educate or re-train those who want to get out of prostitution.

 

[BigBag]

While legalizing and regulating it is probably the smartest thing to do, shouldn't the sheriff be thankful for craigslist. If all that prostitution is centralized, doesn't it make it a lot easier to set up sting operations and arrest pimps and human traffickers.

If your an uptight prick or a press whoring sheriff, then I guess making prostitution slightly less convenient would be your goal, but if you actually want to stop human traffickers, shouldn't you be trying to arrest them?

 

[tenor77]

craigslist gave me crabs

 

[Parrdacc]

"Just to prove my point we put our own ads on Craigslist," Dart said. "One of them read '15-year-old looking for sex,' and it got three hits including one from a convicted sex offender. We put up '14-year old looking for sex.' Nobody filed any complaints and that one was left up. So its clear there's no policing going on. Craigslist, part of your site is being misued. Work with me to rectify it. Monitor it and I'll go away."

Ok, so the sheriff and his apparently have nothing better to due police force, admit to putting up prostitution ads on Craigslist. So they are doing the very thing they don't want Craigslist to do. Also it seems a little strange that while they could have put up, since they were going to anyway, a regular ol' "prostitution ad" why did they go the route of 15 and 14 year old prostitution ads? Sounds to me they are just looking to bust Cragislist for something they cannot be held accountable for, but they know if it involves 15 and 14 year old's it provides more pressure. They willing put up underage prostitution ads sick, sick, sick, police. Makes you wonder what their motives truly are or maybe just where the heads are. They could have easily put up a regular prostitution ad. Lets not forget, that they admit nobody filed a complaint. Well with all the ads that are on Craigslist it would only make sense that if no one complains then no one is going to look at any one particular ad and determine if it needs to be taken down or not. The police need to realize that Craigslist along with other such sites have probably even less man power than the sick sheriff and his police force have and so follows that unless a complaint is made about a particular ad nothing will be done about it. As for the last statement by the sheriff "Work with me to rectify it. Monitor it and I'll go away." the sheriff is seems to be acting like a mob boss. Do what I say or else. That sounds like intimidation imo.

While the motives of the sheriff may be good ones it does not justify they way in which they tried to prove their point, they went too far with the underage prostitution ads that they themselves put up, and in no way excuses, what I feel is a intimidation tactic.

 

[rooket]

Health services are provided to prostitutes in Berkeley, CA to my knowledge already. Legalizing it allows the state to collect taxes since it is a service. That's how they do things in parts of Nevada.

 

[jwl3]

"progressiveprogress"

Why don't you legalize everything that is "difficult" to enforce then? You call a 16 year old trafficked teen a "consenting" partner in sex?

It never ceases to amaze me the moral decrepitude of left wing liberals. There really is no line you won't cross, right? Abortion - hell yeah. Murder - sympathize with the murderers, not the victims. Drugs - they should be discounted at Walmart. Walmart - ban it. Unions - yes. Corporations - evil. White people - bad and responsible for other's (terrorists + criminals) actions. Black people - oppressed and not responsible for own actions.

 

[jwl3]

parrdacc: you're an imbecile. Cops set up stings all the time. So if you saw a cop on a sting operation, you'd say that he had nothing better to do than "entrap" johns and normally law-abiding folks?

Putting up ads to temp pedofiles is not illegal dumb@ss. It's to catch the people who would otherwise be answering the real underage ads online posted by pimps. Online a d-bag who frequents underage prostitutes (like you?)would be pissed off about being misled.

 

[rooket]

They aren't talking about underaged prostitutes. That is prohibited by craigslist entirely. Also cops do stings on the prostitutes at random. Problem is, there isn't much or any money in arresting people for this sort of thing and that is probably why it is so widespread. Why arrest people who can't pay or post bail? That's kinda like how nearby where I work sure a bum can jay walk or lay down and take a nap in the middle of an intersection, but if someone who has a job (black, white, hispanic, asian it doesn't matter) does the same thing, a police officer will issue a ticket.

 

[Guest]

jwl: Why not have the cops devote their time to real crimes like murder and theft? Holland is wide open as far as drugs and prostitution, and I'd feel safer walking around there at night than any city in America. More epic fail conservatism applying 17th century logic and ignorance to 21st century problems. I think the Bush2 years proved just what an epic fail conservative ideals really are.

 

[Parrdacc]

re: jwl3
"parrdacc: you're an imbecile. Cops set up stings all the time. So if you saw a cop on a sting operation, you'd say that he had nothing better to do than "entrap" johns and normally law-abiding folks?

Putting up ads to temp pedofiles is not illegal dumb@ss. It's to catch the people who would otherwise be answering the real underage ads online posted by pimps. Online a d-bag who frequents underage prostitutes (like you?)would be pissed off about being misled."

Well, first of all I never said putting up ads to temp pedo's was illegal. Just based on what the sheriff said I see no reason to put up such ads when they could have just done the same thing with a regular run of the mill prostitution ad. They said they wanted to prove a point. Fine. However they could have easily have done it without going the route of underage prostitution ads.

As for the cops due stings all the time, I am all for that. But it is clear that this sheriff and his police for are more concerned about Craigslist then actually catching the people who are making such posts. As one person as already said why not just use the ads on Craigslist and due a sting instead of going after Craigslist. I guess your small mind fails to grasp the fact that even if the sheriff managed to get Craigslist to get rid of all there prostitution ads underage or otherwise, those sickos are still out there. They have not been taken down. They are free to find some other way of doing their "buisness".

Oh, and don't you EVER EVER, "Online a d-bag who frequents underage prostitutes (like you?)would be pissed off about being misled." even try to equate me with such people. You owe me an apology.

 

[Parrdacc]

"parrdacc: you're an imbecile. Cops set up stings all the time. So if you saw a cop on a sting operation, you'd say that he had nothing better to do than "entrap" johns and normally law-abiding folks?

Putting up ads to temp pedofiles is not illegal dumb@ss. It's to catch the people who would otherwise be answering the real underage ads online posted by pimps. Online a d-bag who frequents underage prostitutes (like you?)would be pissed off about being misled."

jwl3: Imbecile am I? Perhaps you misunderstood me. I have no problem with cops setting up stings, but that is not what this sheriff is doing. The point I was trying to make is that the sheriff seemed more concerned about going after Craigslist of hosting these ads then they are about going after the people who post these ads. Don't you find that just a little un-nerving. The seem more concerned about the symptom than the cause. Why does the sheriff not use Craigslist and setup a sting by answering these ads and arrest the actuall people who are posting them? As for the underage ads the sheriff's department posted to make a point, well my point was they could have easily done that without taking the route of posting underage ads is all I am saying.

I am NOT defending those who post such ads. You have, based on your post, insinuated that I frequent online underage prostitutes ads. Do not EVER EVER say that about me again. I believe you owe me an apology. If you or anyone else misunderstood my post, I in turn apologize.

 

[rooket]

Why are you guys flaming eachother?