Comments on: Craigslist to sheriff: Federal law protects site

Craigslist CEO says Cook County's sheriff is wasting his time, that federal law will not hold the Web classified publication liable for content submitted by users.

[villagechief]

Economy is in the pits, crime is up, children are hungry, unemployment is rising....and one of the larger county's in the country is worried about a small prostitution problem? And they want to blame Craigslist? What about google...I bet you can find a lot of ads of hooker's webpages by searching google? What about those newspapers with ads?

[villagechief]

Upon more retrospection, I wonder why prostitution is illegal anyway? I mean this is certainly not something that cannot be debated right? Laws aroudn moral principle versus the obvious violent crimes that cause injury....gee...where are the priorties?

[evolx24]

This guy probably wants to move up-politically, this is just a name recognition thing. Oohhh Dart, the man who sued Craigslist and lost, na im not voting for him. The comptroller here did something similar by auditing and attacking city agencies, with a mayoral run in mind. {different but the same}

[boriken48]

People can't handle freedom, always asking big government to babysit them, please sir clean nasty Internet for me

[bmallek]

this Sheriff is going to break a branch off just to beat his own ass with. What's going to happen, if the lawsuit is not thrown out first is, the court will find that Craigslist is not at fault and that such ads are lawful. then what will happen is the floogates will open and craigslist and, in sure other sites WILL open up to such ads.

[babymatic]

why dont they start by cleaning up prostitues in their own town first! lived in dc and there are prostitues prostitutin 1 mile away from the white house and drugs where do i begin!

what a loser sounds like a fameseeker to me, he probly planned this for years lol. im sure craigslist try to weed out the ****** but some people probly actually are looking for the right one (psh lol)!

Someone is always going to clean up something, make the word a better place even as it crumbles. Then you find out that most of the crap seems to come from the rich and powerful, those in government, the police and on and on and on.

[dfruth]

I am puzzled that the police force has an issue with this. You basically have criminals saying "I am here breaking the law. Arrest me!. By the way, here's my contact info." Law enforcement should be glad that those criminally inclined adversetise in an easily accessible format. Following up on the contact info with some undercover cops and arrest these people if they are breaking the law. If they lack the desire or manpower to do this then I am not sure how this is Craigs List's problem.

[Jahanur]

I'm very surprised that not a lot of people has moral anymore. This sherif is the only one is stepping up to do the right thing, and we are trying to discourage him by giving him names.
Fear God people.

I agree that this should be removed not only from Craiglist, Google or Yahoo rather it should be taken out from the internet completely.

[hassan_bin_sober]

How do you spell Cook Count Sheriff? P-I-N-H-E-A-D!

[grtgrfx]

I don't understand how so many posters are ignorant of the relevant statutes in this issue. Just as you cannot sue AT&T for what their customers say on the telephone, you cannot sue CraigsList for what people post on their servers. If I put hate or porn on my web site and Yahoo hosts it, you cannot sue Yahoo to make them remove it. You can sue ME and you can ASK my service provider to remove the content if it's involved in copyright infringement (which is the one area that ISPs CAN be sued for content on their servers), but that's it.

There's an excellent reason that zealots like this Sheriff cannot sue ISPs: it would have a chilling effect on free speech if no one could be sure their content were safely available on the internet, and ISPs are reluctant to be the world's police for enforcement. Would you want some private company to be the sole arbiter of what is and isn't allowed on the internet? No. And to be sure, THEY don't want the responsibility either.

This is the law, it's very clear, and if you want it changed, feel free to go back to the U.S. Supreme Court and argue your case. That's where the law was decided several years ago.

[nverbntame]

What was the "good" sheriff doing trolling the erotic adds in the first place?

[as901]

It is not sex ads that concern me about bidding sites. What concerns me is the fact that sites like E bay turn a blind eye to fraud if a power seller makes them enough money. Sex ads come under the heading of free speech. Fraud should never be allowed or protected.

Mark Heinemann

[JM1965]

This is to provkevin. First of all, if I own a hotel, I'm not going to hang a sign on it that says ***** house, get your rocks of here. Craigslist actually has sections dedicated to prostitution type listings. Maybe you should go on it and browes around to fully understand whats there. Look at some of the pics posted there and tell me its all okay. It may be fine to have a text only message, but honestly, who wants to see a 300 lb. fat man with a 2" peter looking for love. Sick bastards.

[brooks1975]

It is a sad day when the religious sect can force their view point on society passed off as social morality. The last time I checked CL was a public forum where anyone and everyone could express themselves however the pleased. If there are illegal things transpiring that is no more the responsibility of the person that owns the apartment building that people are selling drugs at. Just because You believe it's wrong doesn't mean it's wrong. Remember religion has killed and wronged more people in this world then any other group since the beginning of time....except maybe dinosaurs.

[wayniac74]

Okay, where do i start from? Well, lets see, after practicing law for 10 years for a well known firm in L.A, this is another case of basically, "i want to make my name known", and harassing craigslist for the fact, yes, it is wrong, prostitution for hire, but in our economy, we are trying to help the midle and lower class survive in this great upcoming depression, and if it takes someone to use their body to exploit themselves to come up in financial distress, i am not for it, but it is their right, but wrong in the laws eyes, but remeber people, there are two different kinds of lawyers, the ones who turn out to be d.a's for the fact that they want to be a pheasant of laws orders, and one like myself who challenges the corrupt officers , law makers, and send them to federal -prisons. Ask yourself this one question. How can we be so bothered with a mishap like this one from a sheriff in a little town, when wew have our soldiers and economy to worry about. It shows once again how uneducated, corrupt, and misguided our people are; hence, look at the city of orange county ex sheriff Mike Corona who was acquitted of all but one charge, and he had a mistress and a wife, of whom may have been from the craigslist ads? From , The Great Lawyer

[cruzingcuizine]

Im happy the Sheriff has the Law Suit against Craig's List. Last year some one stole my picture and my phone number and placed an ad on the craig's list. It caused a lot of heart ache, Imagine thausands of stangers calling your house asking you for sex. I had to change my number, My emailing address an address I had for years and I disconnected from a lot of friends because I lost my address book in the progress, Not only that my nerves were out of control and I suffered alot of sleepless nights. When I called the craig's list ..they did nothing but take the ad down , it took them three days to take it down and the person kept putting it up. Nothing ended until I changed my number. I am not the only person this happened to.
This would never have happen if Craiglist screened the ads, and they should take responsibility for their negligence.

[sampatrik]

hi Greg, i am a law student and i regularly read your blog. the posts are very nice full of knowledge.
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