Tag Archive for 'washington'

Washington State enacts new Backpage law

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Inslee Passes New Penalties for Online Minor Sex Ads:

The State of Washington show once again why they’re in the forefront of trying to put a stop to the online sex trafficking of children.

Last week Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill into law that would fine someone $5,000 to anyone caught advertising *Cough*Backpage*cough* a child for sex online. Instead of going after Backpage directly, which his predecessor Gov. Chris Gregoire tried but the law was blocked, Gov. Inslee is targeting the pimps and traffickers.

That’s a great strategy but I have one question. Is $5,000 a big enough fine to make the risk greater than the reward? I don’t think it is. A lot of these pimps can make this kind of money in a night. In my opinion $50,000 would make more of a dent in their blood soaked wallets.

While Governor Inslee is taking a step in the right direction I don’t think he and the Washington legislature have taken a big enough step.

Backpage child pimp busted. Yes, it was in Washington

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Man busted for selling minors as prostitutes on Backpage.com:

LOCAL MAN ARRESTED FOR ALLEGEDLY TRYING TO SELL GIRLS FOR SEX ON INTERNET:

The FBI recently arrested 22-year-old DeMarquez Xavier Austin, aka ‘Chaos’, for allegedly prostituting two girls, ages 15 and 16, on Backpage in King County, Washington.

According to reports Austin knew exactly what he was doing by turning out the girls. He allegedly said “he could get into serious trouble for pimping out a teenager.”

So if the FBI is on these cases why are these arrests hardly ever reported outside of the state of Washington? As I’ve mentioned before Washington has been very on the ball about trying to get Backpage to stop participating in sex trafficking trade so it would make sense that it would be reported in Washington. Yet rarely do we hear about these arrests in other parts of the country. These stories need to be heard. People need to know that child sexual slavery is going on in all parts of our country and Backpage needs to be held accountable for making it so easy.

Tacoma man pimped out teen girl on Backpage for love

Love is blind and often brain-damaged.

Love is blind and often brain damaged.

Tacoma man, teen girlfriend charged with prostituting teen on Backpage:

21-year-old David Diaz of Tacoma, Washington and his 16-year-old *ugh* girlfriend were arrested by police in Lakewood, Wash. for allegedly prostituting another 16-year-old girl on Backpage. Diaz allegedly told police that he did it out of love.

The girl was allegedly turned out at least 75 times by Diaz and his squeeze. The girl knew Diaz’s girlfriend from school. The girlfriend allegedly recruited the girl for Diaz.

Diaz had only been dating the girl for two months and claims that she came up with the idea.

Diaz told police he met his girlfriend two months ago and she started talking about prostituting girls to make money. He claimed he was only paid $20 per “date” and his girlfriend gave him gas money for driving the victim to various motels.

“The defendant admitted he knew what he was doing was wrong, but he tried to make (his girlfriend) happy because he loved her,” according to documents.

I remember being young and stupid thinking that I loved someone after an incredibly short period of time together. But no matter how stupid I was I would have never agreed to something as degrading as prostituting my girlfriend’s friend. What the hell are kids thinking these days?

Also this another story out of the Sea-Tac area. The only region where it seems these stories are being reported anymore. Ever since that Backpage allegedly split from Village Voice Media it seems like that we’ve gone back to square one in trying to raise awareness on how Backpage is making money off of the exploitation of these women and children. Where’s CNN? They seemed to be so hot on the topic when it was craigslist but now nothing? The same goes for 48 Hours when there was the ‘craigslist killer’ Philip Markoff. Yet nothing about an underage girl who was sold for sex 75 times. Sad.

Why haven’t we heard about Backpage lately?

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Man charged with prostituting minor on backpage.com:

Pierce Co. prosecutors: man pimped out two teenage girls:

Recently in Pierce County, Washington investigators there arrested 29-year-old Alfred Anthony Clark for allegedly prostituting two underage girls on Backpage. The girls are ages 16 and 17 and according to reports Clark promised the 16-year-old ‘nice things’ if she worked for him.

Sadly this is a typical story about Backpage and child sex trafficking but it’s been a while since I’ve posted a story about Backpage. Why is that? Has child sex trafficking on Backpage been curtailed? I doubt it. Backpage has implemented no new measures that I’m aware of and lawmakers have been stifled at every turn in trying to deal with Backpage. So why aren’t we hearing as many of these stories anymore? I think that it’s being under reported in the media. It’s really not surprising that this story came out of Washington State because it seems like anymore they’re the only market whose government and media are still interested in the plight of these kids. Mostly everywhere else it seems like that once Backpage ‘split’ from the Village Voice family of newspapers that the media thought “Well since they’re no longer a black eye against our industry we don’t care anymore.”

Not to mention that it was never front page news to begin with. As I’ve said in the past not enough people are outraged about this for these stories to be truly newsworthy. Outside of a number of anti-human trafficking activists no one really seems to care. As a society were to wrapped up in the latest celebrity or political gossip to give a damn about the multitudes of children that are sold for sex in this country every day.

But it only takes one person to start making a change. I implore you to be that person. Get involved. Tell a friend. Do something to make people more aware that slavery is still going on in our country today disguised as the adult section on Backpage.

State of Washington forced to settle with Backpage

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State agrees to work to repeal law opposed by Backpage.com:

Earlier this year the state of Washington passed Senate Bill 6251 into law. In a nutshell the law required websites and publications doing business in the state of Washington to verify the ages of the women being advertised in ‘escort’ ads. Almost immediately Village Voice Media, which owned Backpage at the time, sued to have the law blocked. They won.

More recently a few weeks ago not only has Washington given up on SB 6251 but they’ve also agreed to pay Backpage $200K for legal fees. That’s not just a devastating loss for you know…freedom but it adds insult to injury to a state that is trying its best to stop online sex trafficking of women and children.

While Backpage continues to make money off the exploited women and children in the adult section of their site Attorney General Rob McKenna sums up what the stumbling block is in trying to deal with sites like Backpage…

“But unless Congress acts to revise the section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, an appeal will be extremely challenging and costly. It is unfortunate that because of this ruling, Backpage will continue to profit from sex ads for kids and others. Congress must revisit the CDA in order to close a loophole that allows companies such as Backpage to make millions advertising an illegal service that takes a particularly devastating toll on children,”

A man after my own heart. As I’m fond of saying the Communications Decency Act was signed into law in 1996. That was the infancy of a publicly available internet. Do you remember the internet from 1996? I wasn’t even on it yet but it dredges up memories of dial-up modems, AOL discs and Netscape. How much has the internet evolved in the past 16 years? Shouldn’t the CDA evolve along with it? And again what is more important, Backpage’s ‘right’ to make money from sexual slavery or the rights of the women and children on their pages not to be sold?

2 charged in WA with being Backpage child pimps

Two men charged with prostituting teenager on Backpage.com:

2 men plead not guilty to Backpage prostitution charges:

28-year-old Eugene Andre Young and 25-year-old Claude Anthony Hutchinson have been charged in Pierce County, Washington with prostituting a 16-year-old girl on the Village Voice Media disowned Backpage.com.

The victim met the pair on a bus who told them they would cash a check for her. Instead they allegedly took her to a motel, took the usual explicit pictures of her and sold her on Backpage. The victim states she did what they told because they beat another girl who wouldn’t do what they asked of her. She escaped them then eventually went back to them because her mother didn’t want her.

A second victim states that Young beat her and raped her for refusing to work for Young.

How in any logical way is Backpage not partially responsible for this? If there was a brick and mortar business, for example let’s use a bar, and a prostitution ring was being run out of the business but the owner was not running the ring but was being paid to keep his mouth shut. Wouldn’t the bar owner be held criminally responsible? So why not the scum running Backpage? Only an idiot would believe that there is no prostitution and trafficking being advertised on their site.

WA backpage pimp charged with child rape

Charge: Online pimp rented out, raped runaway girl:

29-year-old David J. Anderson of Yakima, Washington has not only been charged in King County for allegedly prostituting a 14-year-old girl on the Village Voice Media owned Backpage.com but he’s also been charged with raping the girl as well.

When Anderson was arrested by the King County Sheriff’s Office he allegedly used the “I thought she was 19″ defense when Sheriffs say that the girl obviously appears to be underage.

First I have to commend the Seattle Post Intelligencer for not only using the word rape in their headline and article but also using the word rent in their headline. That’s was sex trafficking comes down to, rent and rape. Not only do these pimps and traffickers usually rape the girls that work for them but they also rent them out to be raped by anyone willing to fork over the cash.

But continue being part of the ‘solution’ Backpage, you’re doing a hell of a job.

3 teen sex trafficking victims sue Backpage (From the mouth of Liz McDougall IV)

Someone asked that Liz gets the Jim Buckmaster treatment so there it is.

Backpage.com led to exploitation, says suit involving 2 Pierce girls:

3 Washington teenagers sue Backpage.com:

Speaking of Backpage, Washington and lawsuits, because we were you know, three teenage girls from Washington State are suing the Village Voice Media owned Backpage.com. The suit alleges that Backpage did little or nothing to prevent the girls from being sold for sex on their website. Basically Backpage has a button that says ‘click if you’re 18′. Yeah, that works. Two of the girls suing were 13 when they were sold on Backpage, the other was 15.

One of their pimps I’ve blogged about before. Baruti Hopson found the 15-year-old girl as a runaway before turning her out on Backpage. He raped her and kept all her money keeping her in sexual slavery to him.

Of course no lawsuit involving Backpage wouldn’t be complete without their head legal weasel and corporate whore, Liz McDougall chiming in. Settle in folks. It’s a long one.

Seattle attorney Liz McDougall, general counsel for Backpage’s corporate owners, said the lawsuit will not pass legal muster and is barred by federal law.

McDougall offered sympathy for the young women.

I wonder if she offered sympathy while counting the money she made from Backpage that was made off of these girls? But I digress…

“The commercial sexual exploitation of children is an abhorrence in our society,” she said. “It is appalling as a street crime and it is appalling as an Internet crime,” McDougall wrote in an e-mailed note.

“The stories of the girls identified in the complaint are tragedies. However, the commercial sex exploitation of children is an extremely complex problem on the streets and online, and it must be fought intelligently.

“Backpage.com is at the forefront of fighting it intelligently online with a triple-tier prevention system and an unparalleled law enforcement support system.”

It’s not complex at all. If Backpage shuts down the adult section it will decrease the number of women and children being trafficked nationwide. That was seen when craigslist shut down their erotic services section. As far as your triple layered prevention cake, it’s a lie. (See what I did there.) Joking aside my site is a testament to the fact their so-called preventions aren’t preventing shit. As far as your law enforcement support system being unparalleled I call bullshit on that as well because your system seems to be letting the cops handle all the pimps and sex traffickers while VVM props up a dying print industry on the victims of trafficking.

She finishes up by saying…

McDougall, attorney for Backpage, said shutting down the website won’t fix the problem.

“Unless the Internet is wholly shut down, the end result of the current strategy will be that our children are advertised through offshore websites who do not endeavor to prevent such activity,” she wrote.

Ah yes, the mystical ‘underground’ I keep hearing about. If it’s underground that means it’s not as prevalent in mainstream society as it is now. That would mean that there would be fewer victims of sex trafficking than there are now. Besides, law enforcement has plenty of experience in dealing with the underground. As for these ‘offshore sites’ she keeps referring to well thanks for giving the traffickers ideas and those sites wouldn’t have near the reach and publicity that Backpage does now.

At what point did you start believing your own lies Liz?

Internet Archive supports Backpage sex trafficking

Are those pillars or bars?

US Judge Grants Injunction in Backpage.com Lawsuit:

Last week a federal judge granted an injunction against a Washington state law that would require sites like Backpage to verify the ages of the women being advertised in their adult section.

The decision U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez issued Friday stops the law from taking effect until the lawsuit challenging it can be heard in court.

I posted about the lawsuit here.

Judge Martinez believes that the ‘free speech’ issue may have some merit. I disagree but I don’t get to make the rules.

What I want to talk about is the unusual ally that the Village Voice Media owned backpage.com has garnered in their fight to keep making profits on the victims of sex trafficking. That would be the Internet Archive, aka Archive,org, aka The Wayback Machine, aka the site you go to when you want to see how bad websites looked in the past.

Backpage and Internet Archive argue the new law violates the Communications Decency Act of 1996, as well as the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments and the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Yet they once again not only gloss over the Thirteenth Amendment but basic human rights as well.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this about money and nothing else. Backpage wants to make it off the backs of sex trafficking victims and doesn’t care who gets raped, kidnapped, beaten, tortured and killed to get it. Organizations like the EFF and now Internet Archive are nothing more than their willing dupes.

Kent, WA couple charged with being Backpage child pimps

Charge: Kent woman, boyfriend pimped girls online:

Prosecutors charge Kent couple for pimping girls:

Earlier this month police in Kent, Washington arrested 44-year-old Altesa Bernice Turner and her 32-year-old boyfriend, Bernard Demond Watkins, for allegedly prostituting underage girls on the Village Voice Media owned Backpage.com.

Three of the girls were ages 15, 16 and 17. Police discovered that explicit photos of the 15-year-old girl had been taken and then placed on Backpage. Turner allegedly told police that a prepaid Visa card was used to place the ad.

You know, if Backpage just started refusing to take prepaid cards it would probably eliminate more than half the trafficking ads on their website, but they won’t. There’s profits to be had no matter how they get them. Then they have the gall to say that they’re actually helping these girls. As I’ve said many times before you can’t be both the problem and the solution.