Craigslist to sheriff: Federal law protects site
Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster has responded to the lawsuit filed this week by the sheriff of Chicago's Cook County against the Web classified publication.
Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist CEO
(Credit: Craigslist)Buckmaster suggested that the suit is a waste of time. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart called Craigslist one of the country's largest sources of prostitution in the complaint he filed in federal court and asked the court to force Craigslist managers to remove their erotic services section.
Buckmaster said in a statement late Friday that Craigslist wrote Dart in 2007 and explained that the law is pretty clear and favors Craigslist.
"As our counsel explained to Sheriff Dart's Department in 2007," Buckmaster wrote. "Craigslist cannot be held liable, as a matter of clear federal law, for content submitted to the site by our users...Frankly, Sheriff Dart's actions mystify me."
A spokesman for the sheriff's department could not be reached on Friday.
Dart isn't the first to ask Craigslist to do more to weed out ads for prostitution. In Buckmaster's statement, he pointed out that in November, the site "reached an agreement with 40 state attorneys-general about creating a new enforcement plan for Craigslist."
Among the 40 was Lisa Madigan, attorney general for Illinois.
"And yet, inexplicably, Sheriff Dart apparently bypassed the Illinois attorney general's office and filed this complaint through a private law firm," Buckmaster wrote. "We assist police forces all over the country, including members of Sheriff Dart's department. The vast majority seem to understand that Craigslist is part of the solution when it comes to combating terrible crimes like human trafficking and child exploitation."
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
D~W
What's up with all the 'laws don't apply to the internet' crap I keep seeing on this site?
Is that the advice you would give to say, a 15 year old crack addict forced into prostitution? That if she's offended by craigslist then she should just not visit the site?
Are people so blinded by the need to defend their petty little freedoms that they don't see what Tom Dart is trying to achieve? He's talking about kids being forced to work as prostitutes. He deserves support, not derision, and anyone who can't see that has either not understood the full story or has their priorities a little mixed up.
I guess I'm wasting my time. Most of us internet geeks would rather not know about a girl being trafficked as a sex slave, but interfere with our right to use a website and you better believe you're gonna hear about it!
If the newspapers ever figure out how to make free classifieds work, they could place incredible economic pressure to enforce their TOU.
Hmmm.. Ebay is a part shareholder in Craigslist... What's their position?
Well everyone just needs to loosen up I guess... Prostitution is the oldest business on earth, it has been around forever.
Let's give a billion dollars to failing banks, while women sell themselves. Let's give a sheriff a hard time for trying to stop prostitution.
The best solution would be to set up proper drug addiction treatment, legalise selling sex and give paying for sex as harsh a penalty as rape (preferably with a 3000%, or more, better conviction rate).
People need to be in charge of themselves AND THEIR children,not the government.
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited material deleted.]
And I have looked through it many times and hav e not seen what your talking about....why? because I was looking for real items, like a computer desk, or a good used couch.
You all find that crap because that's just what your looking for! spend enough time looking for trash and you will see it every where you look!
Like the CEO said they can't stop people from talking trash, so stop wasting your time looking for it!
If you don't like "Craigslist" then just don't use it!
And from the previous post saying "Keep your noses to yourself, armchair Christians",, For your information there are women and children that are "Forced" into prostitution, every day in this country and around the world,! So please educate yourself about prostitution, its just not about paying for sex. From the way you write you must know plenty about paying for sex. When a single person has to sell themselves for sex, we can no longer consider this country 'Great". No self-respecting person should ever have to sell themselves for sex! this has nothing to do with "Armchair Christian Values", you might try getting some values, period, in your life, its obviously shows you have none when you condone prostitution in any form.
And from the previous post saying "Keep your noses to yourself, armchair Christians",, For your information there are women and children that are "Forced" into prostitution, every day in this country and around the world,! So please educate yourself about prostitution, its just not about paying for sex. From the way you write you must know plenty about paying for sex. When a single person has to sell themselves for sex, we can no longer consider this country 'Great". No self-respecting person should ever have to sell themselves for sex! this has nothing to do with "Armchair Christian Values", you might try getting some values, period, in your life, its obviously shows you have none when you condone prostitution in any form.
Wow... sounds alot like what torrent sites have been saying forever. Two services, both with legal uses having questionably illegal postings and someone wanting to shut them down.
The RIAA, and the entities it represents, and commercial software comanies believe they have a LOT of money on the line with torrent. Therefore they are willing to spend enormous amounts of money to lobby for legislation to *change* the laws, to reward (or punish) politicians for supporting (or not) their cause and to seek work-arounds (working with ISPs, for example) to achieve their objectives.
On the other hand, no business is losing money (at least not in a clear, direct way) because prostitutes advertise on Craigslist. So the money used to fight this battle has to come from the taxpayers.
One can expect a huge difference in the resources that will be brought to bear aainst these two "problems".
If any of you are into prostitution, go to Europe where you'll fit in. This is AMERICA, and prostitution isn't allowed here! Take your man-purse and go live in France, you prostitute-loving wierdo!
Craigslist as "source" of prostitution? Facilitator, well, yes. But then so are hotel bars, taxicabs, motels, many print publications, condom and mattress manufactures heck, even the U.S. Treasury (but only when cash is used).
What, murderers, rapists child molesters and crooked politicians to tough for Cook County to go after so you pick on Craigslist?
Another good example of tax dollars hard at work.
I have a dream... that someday, the world won't be full of butts who think they have the right to control the lives of everyone else. (Dream on... :D)
Craigslist has shown they can and do actively restrict and block certain products and services on their website, for them to now say they can't control people advertising illegal services like prostitution is hyporcritical.
At any rate, it needs to be legal and taxed heavily.
I'm surprised Cincinnati is not leading in this nonsense, n.ot Chicago
Also, in Cincinnati, the law enforcement is rightfully more concerned with people being murdered in broad daylight, which has happened at least twice in the past week.
If you lay down with dogs....
Craigslist has fees.
Look Master Jim Buckmaster, you are now demystified!
The decision to target a specific site, such as Craigslist, does not randomly come about. The ability to do nothing more than wait to pounce, shows a serious issue with a web site?s content and management. As classified publishers it is imperative for us to be aware of the content that appears on our site, as well as take responsibility for its monitoring. The duty to protect the users of our site, as well as ourselves, should be obvious and of utmost priority.
In May of 2008, I addressed the wide range of illegal activity taking place and being facilitated by Craigslist daily. Child pornography, prostitution, human trafficking, drug sales, stolen merchandise, identity fraud, every real estate scam under the sun and even a couple of reported murders can be linked to Craigslist postings. This is not just a disturbing ?coincidence?, but a blatant call for action.
Craigslist clearly lacks a system of checks and balances that provides users with the degree of safety they deserve. Flagging, Craigslist?s joke of content monitoring, is nothing more than a feel-good tool for the site?s management to claim that they are taking precautionary measures. More times than not user complaints are answered by an auto-responder, not a staff member. Conversely, those posts truly in need of flagging and removal go undisturbed.
My recommendation to Craigslist, and other online classified sites, is composed of the following:
Immediately shut down the erotic services section of your site. Not tomorrow, or next quarter, but today.
Monitor every submission.
Write and apply programming code to sift out scandalous activity from making it live on the site (e.g. words, phrases, slang, jargon, etc.)
Take posting complaints seriously and respond to all complaints personally within 3 business days.
Respond to requests or inquiries of law enforcement within 48 hours.
Become proactive, instead of reactive.
Implement a registration process for ALL categories.
I say this again, largely in the hopes that this time Craig and Jim will listen. It is time for Craigslist to rise to the occasion, become accountable for the safety of its users and itself and clean up the crime on its site. You should be proud of your product, but your product should be something to be proud of.
Greg Collier
Geebo.com
888.439.3113 x 103
greg@geebo.com
I knew I'd find the embarrassing fallacy in here somewhere.
Craigslist has a system that provides users with far more than the degree of safety they deserves, because we the users don't DESERVE is any safety at all Freedom is what we deserve, and this entitlement, is, thankfully, well spelled out in federal law, starting with the US Constitution.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the original commenter, the original poster, nor with craigslist (except as a user).
"Craigslist clearly lacks a system of checks and balances that provides users with the degree of safety they deserve."
People need to take responsibility for their own safety and stop expecting websites to do it for them. What about your own series of checks and balances? Since when is using a website an excuse not to exercise common sense? CL is simply a free ads message board and nothing more.
Someone already said it best when they reminded us that if they were not doing it there, they would do it somewhere else.
People are always real quick to point fingers at others so people will stop looking at them/
"Immediately shut down the erotic services section of your site. Not tomorrow, or next quarter, but today."
If Craigslist did that, the ads would simply be posted in other sections. The local Craigslist here in London, Ontario has few ads for escorts in the "Erotic Services" section. But 99.9% of the ads in the "Casual Encounters" and "Women Seeking Men" sections are from escorts. The chance of finding a real ad from a real person looking to meet for a non-monetary date is slim to none. Reporting the ads are being in the wrong category has no effect.
As for their content, regardless of the category they're in, it's legal here. Yes, prostitution is legal, but soliciting is not. The escorts get around that by selling their time. You get an hour of their time for the price agreed upon, and then the sex is free.
Some cities, such as Windsor, Ontario, licence "courtesans". Other cities, like London, Ontario, pretend they don't exist. But instead of taxing it, London's mayor and city council concentrate all their efforts on trying to close strip clubs, even though they come under provincial jurisdiction, not municipal. Most of the city's efforts have been botched anyway, resulting in money wasted on the attempted "enforcement" and on the payment of settlements.
Meanwhile, the perfectly-legal businesses continue to operate. The city's mayor and her ilk scream about the effects on children, yet no strip club is anywhere near a school and the doormen check IDs carefully. And then -- believe it or not, this is true -- the city decided to put a new branch library next door to both a strip club and a massage parlour, which will put children close to both businesses. They won't be able to get in, of course, but after screaming about those businesses' effect on children who weren't near them, the city is now going to be responsible for putting children in close proximity.
London's anti-strip club mindset only applies to female stripeprs and their male customers. If a bar books male dancers, the city says nothing. And when the city-owned convention centre and the city-owned auditorium each booked "Chippendales" and "Aussie Thunder" at various times, the city collected the income from the sold-out shows and said nothing about it being "wrong". Had they been female dancers, the wailing and gnashing of teeth would have lasted for months.
It gets better. The city provides an annual grant to the local theatre, which brings in outside shows as well as doing its own local productions. One of those shows, which has been here three times so far, was "Puppetry of the *****". That show involves two men on stage "manipulating" their genitals into various shapes, with very large TV monitors set up on either side of the stage so that no audience member misses anything. Members of council attended the show of their own free will, buying tickets to do so and none stomped out in protest or disgust. Yet if a female dancer takes her bra off on a stage in a club where men (and women, too, which the city conveniently forgets) watch her from a distance, then that's something that must be stopped.
It gets even better: in Ontario, anywhere a man can take off his shirt, so can a woman. Even on main street at high noon. But if she does it in a bar with men who pay excessive prices for a beer watching her, it's considered terrible by our mayor and city council.
The Crown Attorney here (that's the Canadian counterpart to the District Attorney) won't do anything about the Craiglist ads unless they start running ads for underage girls. The daily newspaper has been running ads for escorts for years, including ones saying they do incalls, which could be used against them if the cops wanted to do so, but they never do. Since the local paper gets away with it, there's no chance that they'll go after Craigslist for it here.
That's right - who cares about children being pimped? I want my web-access to be unrestricted! Why don't you have another beer, mk408.
erotic service providers know that our services are therapeutic. We have the right to call ourselves whatever we want.
We don't need to be arrested by the sex police or monitored by some outside entiy to be forced to identify by your lily white and entitled patriarchal standard.
Are you one of those people who tells women that working in the sex industry is somehow "empowering"?
Any woman who thinks like that is not sufficiently competent to give consent.
As for the "racist" or "hate" ads, like the "WHITE PRIDE" rally quoted in an earlier comment, most of those are obviously just what are commonly called "trolls" or "flamebait." As such, they are either humorous, or, easily ignored by the rest of us. Even if they are real, they are still protected as free speech unless they contain clearly illegal things such as calls for violence or other terrorist threats.
Personally, I subscribe to the old adage that "I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to protect your right to say it." I also believe that prostitution should be legalized and that the current legal situation primarily serves to make criminals out of otherwise innocent people. It also amplifies the horrors of exploitation and human trafficking.
Hows that?
Since Craigslist came along, his vice investigators have been able to just sit at their desks cruising Craigslist instead of going out on the street. The only reason they go out now is for donuts, or when they slip one of those numbers in their pocket for a little recreation.
And it's costing them money because they now have an endless source of people to arrest. I saw the sheriff on TV saying that most of their arrests now come from Craigslist tips. I'm sure he's tired of fighting for a bigger budget to handle the bigger workload.
Tongue out of cheek, I can see both sides of this - I don't think you can change human nature, and it doesn't make sense to outlaw prostitution. But it does need to be regulated. And we need to change the law, not do it by Craig's fiat.
And Craigslist has a point. It may well be that under current law, they aren't responsible. But there's a problem with the law here, too. I strongly feel that most websites do deserve the "common carrier"-like protection they currently enjoy. But Classifieds land squarely in the tradition of publication. One of the reasons for Craigslist success is that they have fewer limitations than newspapers, because they are not a "publisher". So criminals, thieves, scam and con artists, fences, hatemongers, and, yes, prostitutes have flocked to it in large numbers. Most websites screen such types from their sites, because they care about their reputation. Craigslist does not. This needs to be resolved. Newspapers have some responsibility for their content. Craigslist does not. And the public does not yet fully appreciate the negatives of this (e.g. some crazy person coming to your door and hacking you to pieces, instead of handing you $20 for your rebate inkjet printer.) At least with a newspaper ad, somebody had to give a credit card number to the nice little old lady on the phone, so they are a little less likely to hack you to pieces.
The old Internet meme of "the tragedy of the commons" isn't quite dead. And Craigslist is ground zero.
- by NoMoreFreeCountry March 7, 2009 8:32 AM PST
- The USA is no more a free country. Thanks to layers we can no longer be free to express our true feelings. Everyone is offended by everything these days. Countless lawsuits prevent true freedom of speech. Our law enforcement became ineffective for fear of being accused of being racist or brutal. Our courts are overrun by bleeding heart lawyers and judges who give criminals countless free passes to reign havoc on our society. Lawyers go after "soft targets" like churches or legitimate businesses trying to make life easier for an average Joe. Question to the sheriff and Cook County ADA "How many criminals did you fail to prosecute because you focused your scarce resources to go after a soft target like craigslist.com?" How are you gonna make life easier and safer for your constituents by fighting a fight no one but a few money hungry lawyers want you to fight?
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