Kamala Harris helped shut down Backpage.com. Sex workers are still feeling the fallout

As we all know Kamala Harris is no stranger to using lawfair to prosecute her political opponents and further her career. So it was no surprise when I came across this article by the left leaning Politico regarding Harris’s role in using lawfair to shut down the nation's then largest prostitution website "Backpage.com".

In an attempt to make a political name for herself as a prosecutor, Kamala Harris ordered her office to aggressively prosecute and hound the founders of the sex workers sight. Harris’s cases never went to trial after being repeatedly thrown out by Judges; But Harris was still successful in bankrupting the sight and even driving one of the founders to commit suicide.

The lawfair angle of the story, while continuing to show a pattern, is unremarkable. What peeked my interest in this story is the hypocrisy Harris and so many like her show when juxtaposing their beliefs on prostitution and abortion.

The rightful arguments for abortion access resolves around the right for a woman to do with her body what she feels best (my body my choice); and the realization that preventing legal abortions does not stop the practice, it just pushes it into the shadows were it is more dangerous to all involved.

Prostitution is not much different. As quoted in this article, prostitution advocates believe they have a right to do with their bodies what they feel is best and that the government should stay out of their choices. They also believe they need websites like Backpage.com so that they can pursue their profession in a more controlled and less dangerous manner. Advocates also argue that centralized websites are the best way to find and root out trafficking and abuse. Using lawfair to shutdown websights like Backpage doesn't end prostitution; it just pushes it back into the streets and shadows.

Kamala Harris helped shut down Backpage.com. Sex workers are still feeling the fallout.

It was 2016, and California prosecutors were mulling an audacious bid to shut down the internet’s most popular clearinghouse for sex-related services.

Their boss, Kamala Harris, pressed her deputies to aggressively prosecute the founders of the website, Backpage.com. Her office brought the first-ever criminal charges targeting the site, and the case came to exemplify Harris’ tough-on-crime reputation as state attorney general.

The charges Harris brought against Backpage never went to trial. But they sparked a nationwide crackdown against the site, including a follow-on federal case that has been making its way through the courts for nearly a decade.

“The whole story of the pursuit of Backpage is one of political opportunism,” said Robert Corn-Revere, the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who represented Backpage when he was with the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine. “It’s a bigger story about government abuse.”

Eight days before a second trial was slated to begin in August 2023, Larkin died by suicide at the age of 74. His supporters say the series of aggressive prosecutions destroyed his life.

Alex Andrews, a former sex worker and co-founder of a group that advocates for decriminalizing prostitution, described the Backpage prosecution as “state-sponsored homicide.”

advocates on the left see Harris’ approach to Backpage — and to sex work more broadly — as overly punitive. Before the site was shuttered, they say, it primarily served as a place where sex workers safely connected with — and vetted — adult clients for consensual services. They say that Backpage cooperated with authorities to identify sex trafficking and that, by driving the market for consensual sex-related services to more obscure corners of the internet (or back into the streets), the shutdown of the site hampered efforts to investigate underage or coerced prostitution.

“Unfortunately, Kamala Harris is just one of many, many politicians to conflate adult, consensual prostitution with horrific, violent, gender-based violence,” said Kaytlin Bailey, the host of “The Oldest Profession Podcast” and founder of the group Old Pros, which advocates for the decriminalization of sex work.

Asked by POLITICO about her current stance on decriminalizing prostitution, Harris’ campaign repeatedly declined to clarify her views, even as some advocates for sex workers expressed alarm about the party platform’s removal of language supporting efforts to protect these workers.

“It feels really icky,” said Andrews, the former sex worker and decriminalization advocate, referring to Harris’ role in the Backpage shutdown and her sudden ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket.

politico

I personally think prostitution is gross but there's no reason for it to be illegal... Aside from the fact that it's almost impossible to tax. Watch 10-20 years down the road. It'll be legal everywhere again once someone figures out a way to track and properly tax it.

It is a sexist crime and therefore, it is illegal. How DARE a man choose to spend some of his money to have a sexual encounter with a sex worker who uses sex as a guaranteed means of income. How DARE he!

Abortion is simply a woman's right to choose to be risky and unprotected and after the selfish decision to give herself a more pleasurable experience, she simply kills the baby that was produced and melts its body down and sucks it out. It is a totally victimless crime.

How disgusting that men are always favored inife and they never face anything they're responsible for. Serves men right who spend two years in jail for smoking a joint. All women ever did was commit murder in an backdoor escape from accountability and serve no time for it. Friggen men...gag me...

a reply to: Dandandat3

THERE WERE HUMAN TRAFFICKERS ON THERE USING KIDNAPPED AND TRAFFICKED WOMEN FROM OTHER COUNTRIES TO PROSTITUE THEMSELVES. USING DRUGS AND PHYSICAL ABUSE TO GET THEM TO WORK FOR THEM. BACKPAGE.COM WAS INVOLVED IN NEARLY 3/4 OF CHILD-TRAFFICED REPORTS RECIEVED BY THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN. KAMALA WORKED TO PUT PEDO'S AWAY. GOOD FOR HER.

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: Dandandat3

THERE WERE HUMAN TRAFFICKERS ON THERE USING KIDNAPPED AND TRAFFICKED WOMEN FROM OTHER COUNTRIES TO PROSTITUE THEMSELVES. USING DRUGS AND PHYSICAL ABUSE TO GET THEM TO WORK FOR THEM. BACKPAGE.COM WAS INVOLVED IN NEARLY 3/4 OF CHILD-TRAFFICED REPORTS RECIEVED BY THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN. KAMALA WORKED TO PUT PEDO'S AWAY. GOOD FOR HER.

You failed to provide a source, but... no matter. Let's roll with your claim.

IF THEY HAD ALL THESE CRIMINALS USING THE SAME SITE TO ADVERTISE, WHY DIDN'T THEY ARREST THE TRAFFICKERS AND SHUT DOWN THE RINGS? YOU JUST SAID IT WAS A DIRECTORY OF TRAFFICKERS, NO?

IS IT THE SAME REASON ALL THE EPSTEIN CLIENTS ARE STILL RUNNING AROUND FREE EVEN THOUGH THE FBI HAS THEIR INFORMATION?

I wonder what that reason is? I wonder if it has anything to do with why Biden flew to the Virgin Islands and then the Virgin Islands AG, that was going after JP Morgan for facilitating Epstein's trafficking, was fired? Coincidental I'm sure. We have no evidence Biden has ever -EVER- threatened to illegally use his position to influence matters that had personal consequences for him or his family.

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It seems like the records of sex trafficking clients from Epstein and the directory of advertisements from sex traffickers would both be novel places to start looking for the people responsible for sex trafficking. What a shame the FBI was busy with contrived kidnapping plots, raiding former President's, and putting parents on watchlists for daring to question how their children are being educated with their tax dollars. Maybe one of these days the FBI can have a brainstorming session on how to find the sex traffickers. When they're not too busy, I mean.

FBI Whistleblower Alleges Bureau Took Agents Off Child Sex Abuse Cases To Pursue Political Probes

It's not like you can claim Harris cares about kids or victims when this administration is allowing minors to stream across the border with no ID and without any kind of rational policy established for ensuring they remain safe.

RECORDS: HHS Sent Unaccompanied Minors To Sponsors With MS-13 Ties, Potential Trafficking Rings

The nature of the beast is that all of the extremist policy glamorized by the activist left brings with it a host of social ills that responsible people want addressed. Instead, sycophants want to just have slogans and feel-good rhetoric that exists in a magic vacuum where all other context is moot. When you start glamorizing sex work in a culture where you also celebrate children performing in adult fetish performances, kids end up harmed and exploited.

You can ignore the context that surrounds all this rhetoric you've spewed if you want. It might work better where they censor the truth and the reality of the situation can't be elucidated. I don't think they make a caps lock button that makes your rhetoric more believable than what people see and hear themselves, but I've not kept up with advances in keyboards. You can let me know how well it works out in a couple months.

a reply to: grey580

Didn't read the article did you?

No doubt criminals were using Backpage. Just like criminals use Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp every day.

Here I will requote the relivent part of the article again for you.

"advocates on the left see Harris’ approach to Backpage — and to sex work more broadly — as overly punitive. Before the site was shuttered, they say, it primarily served as a place where sex workers safely connected with — and vetted — adult clients for consensual services. They say that Backpage cooperated with authorities to identify sex trafficking and that, by driving the market for consensual sex-related services to more obscure corners of the internet (or back into the streets), the shutdown of the site hampered efforts to investigate underage or coerced prostitution."

so Harris was the dirty-rotten-scoundrel...closed 'backpage' which i perused regularly for fresh 'contractors' / Escorts at reasonible prices

one gal and i met-up for 7 years

oh well, backpage declines and waves of illegals enter the border ...social engineering at work



www.bing.com... E5&ajaxhist=0

a reply to: ksihkahe

I'm not spewing rhetoric. It's a fact. And Harris wasn't the only Attorney General going after Backpages. A Google search will come up with results. Should you wish to check.

Here is a 2011 press release from Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens.

law.georgia.gov...

Attorney General Sam Olens and 45 other attorneys general today called for information about how Backpage.com presumably attempts to remove advertising for sex trafficking, especially ads that could involve minors.

In a letter to the online classified site’s lawyers, the attorneys general say that Backpage.com claims it has strict policies to prevent illegal activity. Yet, there are more than 50 cases, in 22 states over three years, involving the trafficking or attempted trafficking of minors through Backpage.com. “These are only the stories that made it into the news; many more instances likely exist,” the attorneys general wrote. They also reminded Backpage.com of a 2010 request from nearly two dozen attorneys general asking that the adult services site be taken down.

And this here is pretty sick.

In many cases involving human trafficking on Backpage.com, law enforcement finds that minors are coerced. Prosecutors in Benton County, Wash., are handling a case in which teen girls say they were threatened and extorted by two adults who marketed them on Backpage.com. One of the adults rented a hotel room and forced the girls to have sex with men who answered the online ads. Backpage.com charges $1 and up for such ads.

a reply to: Dandandat3

law.georgia.gov...

According to the article there were 45 other AG's that wanted the website shutdown. But you want to focus on Kamala because it fits your political ideology. Aren't you a conservative that wants to stop the pedo's?

And what? Keep the website up and running so that human traffickers can prostitute kids? That's sick.

In many cases involving human trafficking on Backpage.com, law enforcement finds that minors are coerced. Prosecutors in Benton County, Wash., are handling a case in which teen girls say they were threatened and extorted by two adults who marketed them on Backpage.com. One of the adults rented a hotel room and forced the girls to have sex with men who answered the online ads. Backpage.com charges $1 and up for such ads.

a reply to: grey580

$1. Ads...?

when 'Backpage' operated here at myrtle beach...the girls Ads were $60 min. out-call or in-call, images expected

i don't frequent no dark-web sites any more....too much risk anymore

a reply to: grey580

No, I am not a conservative. If anything I am a liberal. I don't think many conservatives would be advocating for sex workers having a tool to protect their safty. Most conservatives simply want to end sex work all together and the vulnerable men and women who engage in it be dammed. You may not understand this but one can be liberal minded and still find fault in the Democrat party and their leaders. Liberalism and "Democrat party" are not synonyms... no matter what the party tells you.

As for Kamala Harris, the politico article focused on her because she is currently running for president and according to the article was a driving force behind the lawfair against the founders of the website backpage. Politico is also a more liberal minded news sight. You may not approve but, they also can have a liberal bias while still writing unflattering articles about the Democrat party and it's leaders. It's called independent journalism; More news organization should act as they do.

As for the website Backpage; closing the site did not end the practice of child trafficking. But it did make it more difficult to find and persecute child traffickers. With out the central hubs that can work with law enforcement, all that has happened is that child trafficking was pushed back into the streets where no one is collecting data to use against the traffickers.

However, closing the website did take a vulnerable group of people, legitimate sex workers, and push them back onto the street where it is much more dangerous for them.

Closing the website was an easy target for politicians, like Kamala Harris, to pretend as if they were doing something positive about the rampant trafficking of people, but in reality did nothing but push it out of the headlines and back into back allies.

It seems your ideology is preventing you from seeing the harsh realities in the destination made by Kamala Harris and others like her... that's the only thing that is sick in this thread.

a reply to: Dandandat3

So you say the website should of stayed online, so that sex traffickers could have an easier time prostituting children, so that law enforcement could catch them in the act?

That's insane.

originally posted by: Magnivea2
I personally think prostitution is gross but there's no reason for it to be illegal... Aside from the fact that it's almost impossible to tax. Watch 10-20 years down the road. It'll be legal everywhere again once someone figures out a way to track and properly tax it.

Kamala's personal experiences made her an advocate for making "Sex Work" legal nationwide, when running for President in 2019/2020.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) says that she supports the decriminalization of sex work nationwide, noting that “we can’t criminalize consensual behavior as long as no one is being harmed.”

In an interview with The Root, Harris was asked whether sex work “ought to be decriminalized”.

“I do,” Harris responded.

Source: thehill.com...

WHERE DOES "Flip-flopper" KAMALA SAY SHE STANDS TODAY?

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: Dandandat3

So you say the website should of stayed online, so that sex traffickers could have an easier time prostituting children, so that law enforcement could catch them in the act?

That's insane.

That's not what I said at all. You should reread my post and respond to it and not what is in your mind.

originally posted by: grey580

THERE WERE HUMAN TRAFFICKERS ON THERE USING KIDNAPPED AND TRAFFICKED WOMEN FROM OTHER COUNTRIES TO PROSTITUE THEMSELVES. USING DRUGS AND PHYSICAL ABUSE TO GET THEM TO WORK FOR THEM. BACKPAGE.COM WAS INVOLVED IN NEARLY 3/4 OF CHILD-TRAFFICED REPORTS RECIEVED BY THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN. KAMALA WORKED TO PUT PEDO'S AWAY. GOOD FOR HER.

That didn't go well with many liberals...

originally posted by: Dandandat3

It seems your ideology is preventing you from seeing the harsh realities in the destination made by Kamala Harris and others like her... that's the only thing that is sick in this thread.

Do you think having an open border with little control over who comes in might have flamed sex trafficking of vulnerable women and children like pouring gas on a fire?

If you say yes, then you will be the first liberal I know to admit it.

a reply to: Xtrozero

Of course the "open border with little control over who comes in might have flamed sex trafficking of vulnerable women and children" ... that's a no brainer.

But in my earlier thread I said "If anything I am a liberal" ... which I don't think is the same thing when you used the term.

I am a pragmatist and an engineer. I look for, agree with, root for and ect, real practical solutions to problems. In the political world I don't care if solutions are Conservative or Liberal as long as they are practical and they work to solve the problem.

Personaly I am a social Liberal. I would be more at home in blue new york than I would be in red Alabama. But New York could use some more red to solve a lot of their problems.

originally posted by: Dandandat3

Personaly I am a social Liberal. I would be more at home in blue new york than I would be in red Alabama. But New York could use some more red to solve a lot of their problems.

When we look at the two Parties, we have Conservatives and MAGA. I literarily know no one who is a Trump hat carrying MAGA and I have a wide circle of conservative friends, wait there is one couple in their 60s I would say are MAGA, kind of harmless though.

Then we have Liberals and progressives and that is a different story. Progressives have taken over the party in a big way in the last 12 years. Today if you are a moderate liberal, you are a MAGA to them. It is crazy how many prominent lifelong liberals are moving over and voting for Trump. They didn't change over the years either. I don't think people understand that Trump is basically a moderate 90s liberal...lol

The Left today are now the neocons, kill freedom of speech, take your liberties away group that they labeled the Conservatives of old as. It is crazy how they flopped and everyone else are about the same saying WTF happened?

a reply to: Xtrozero

Agreed - a large part of the left have become the very thing they fought against decades ago. They have not yet come to terms with the fact that they are no longer the country culture ... that they are now "the man" ... They are quite literally responsible for all the ills they perceive in the world, but they are powerless to make positive changes because they refuse to take any responsibility.

WTF happened

Power corrupts