The U.S. Court Judge protects advertisements on Backpage due to the law that Congress wrote. Why is that law being enforced according to the way it was written? The Supreme Court of The United States interprets laws, rewrites them, and adds to them as desired by the White House. The previous Attorney General enforced laws selectively and ignored inconvenient laws. Who decides which laws will be strictly enforced, which ones can be changed according to desires, and which laws should be ignored altogether like the immigration laws? Why are low level street dealers being hauled into court every day, provided taxpayer attorneys, translators, and accommodations, while corporations, and wealthy and influential celebrities can avoid accountability? The President regularly shows his disdain for law, for Congress and for the Courts. Why should anyone pay attention to what judges or prosecutors say?
AG Healey says, "That federal law protects websites when a third party produces the offending content. That law — and other constitutional defenses — have kept Backpage out of trouble.
Healey acknowledged the problem, but said the law is outdated." There are several areas where the law is years behind. Technology is one. How many new devices are being used to abuse, to control, to steal from civilians by criminals, while the law has no knowledge or means to protect them? Even when some legislatures wrote laws protecting citizens, the state provides no training and/or no funding for technology to counter the new devices being used. Only when millions are stolen from banks do spineless politicians notice.
Healey acknowledged the problem, but said the law is outdated." There are several areas where the law is years behind. Technology is one. How many new devices are being used to abuse, to control, to steal from civilians by criminals, while the law has no knowledge or means to protect them? Even when some legislatures wrote laws protecting citizens, the state provides no training and/or no funding for technology to counter the new devices being used. Only when millions are stolen from banks do spineless politicians notice.
[From article]
An escort was killed in a Burlington hotel, children have vanished, and yet men seeking prostitutes can still set up a rendezvous with minors with a couple of clicks.
It all could have been avoided if Backpage had simply removed its “adults section,” according to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. The site’s sexual advertisements have gone unchecked because federal law shields Backpage from prosecution.
So Healey is attacking in one of the few places Backpage is vulnerable — the court of public opinion.
“Behind every posting on that site is someone’s mother, sister or daughter. So many of them are dealing with serious addiction issues and they’re being kept there by pimps and traffickers,” Healey told me yesterday. “We need to get after the Johns and the pimps, but we also need companies like Backpage to stop being part of the problem.”
Healey is calling on the classified ad site to follow Craigslist and take down its sex trade ads. Her predecessor, Martha Coakley, played a key role in forcing Craigslist’s hand and also took aim at Backpage in 2011.
But unlike Craigslist, Backpage has continued to fight. The site had laws thrown out in Washington state, Tennessee and New Jersey that would have held it criminally liable for its ads. It also recently won a local federal case involving women who said “they were molested and repeatedly raped after being advertised as sexual wares” on Backpage.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sterns dismissed the case in May, citing the Communications Decency Act, and wrote, “Putting aside the moral judgment that one might pass on Backpage’s business practices, this court has no choice but to adhere to the law that Congress has seen fit to enact.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/07/mcgovern_maura_healey_hopes_to_change_law_that_protects_backpage
McGovern: Maura Healey hopes to change law that protects Backpage site
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
By: Bob McGovern
Boston Herald
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