rentboy office raided

[mike carey]

Mike Carey makes the point that supporting the defense of the Rentboy 7 will help defend the boundary between escorting and. But the Indieagogo isn't a legal defense fund; it may be used that way, but the funds are meant to provide general support for the owner and employees who've been arrested.

Yep, I realise that it is not a legal defence fund. My view is that anything we can do to help these people will make it easier for them to defend their cases. If they can secure an acquittal, the DHS (et al) assault on escorting will hopefully be blunted.

[TruthBTold]

I found this section of the Huffington Post article to be telling:

 

"Dart acknowledges his anti-trafficking and prostitution efforts have their critics -- primarily people who think law enforcement are merely criminalizing a transaction that should have long ago been legalized. But whether the crime is called sex trafficking, pimping or prostitution, Dart says he sees "no distinction."

 

"That's always been a tough one for me," Dart told The Huffington Post. "How is it any different when a man who gives a woman food or shelter, or coerces her with drugs or abuse, than when someone is brought in from outside the country.'"

 

And while Dart concedes there are some women who engage in sex work of their own choosing and without the involvement of a pimp, he says such instances are rare -- and still unsafe."

 

If you can't see the difference between sex workers who do so on a consensual basis and those that are coerced in some way then you really have lost site of the harm to the public. The policing that Dart is in charge of is meant ensure that there is no harm to the public, including the sex worker. Moreover, I am not sure where he is getting the statistics that the vast majority of sex workers are engaging in a sex transaction on a non-consensual basis (that may or may not involve a pimp) or that any consensual sex transaction is unsafe at its core. Until he can prove those basic assumptions, then he is merely enforcing the age old hysteria that sex work is evil, nasty and sinful. Better left to the church than to a rational society.

[MiamiLooker]

I think that Rentmen thinks they are protected from what happened to Rentboy, while in reality they are just as vunerable. In short, it's what you called "their American presence" what I find a risk.

 

You don’t think Rentmen is getting adequate legal advice?

[+ stevenkesslar]

And while Dart concedes there are some women who engage in sex work of their own choosing and without the involvement of a pimp, he says such instances are rare -- and still unsafe."

 

If you can't see the difference between sex workers who do so on a consensual basis and those that are coerced in some way then you really have lost site of the harm to the public. The policing that Dart is in charge of is meant ensure that there is no harm to the public, including the sex worker.

 

Thank you, TruthBTold.

 

To me what you just said is such an important point, and it's where Tom Dart undermines himself. Honestly, my guess is even most people who are turned off by the word "prostitution" would know that what Dart said above is just not possible.

 

He is admitting to being a Puritan, and a prohibitionist. While there may not be majority support for the decriminalization of prostitution, I am pretty sure there is not majority support for Puritanism, or absolutist prohibition.

 

It is a strategy that when applied to the female escort community means telling tens of thousands of women that what they are doing consensually to earn a living is wrong, and unsafe, and in fact is not even consensual. It really doesn't matter that the specific actions taken make the women he wants to save less safe, in their own words. If they simply understood they needed to be saved, they would be safe. And I'm sure he feels whatever they need to be safe - housing, food, legal services, immigration visas - are things he can provide. Okay, maybe it all breaks down in practice. But the reason he can get away with it is that it is the case that some percentage of women in fact are being trafficked, and should be "saved."

 

When applied to the Gay community, it breaks down even more. Not only because Gay men do not need to be "saved" from their own sexuality. The basic argument runs right into the face of everything we've been organizing for. Since there are no Gay men preying on helpless women to be found, the complaint had to make Gay sex itself sound predatory. This was not incidental to the complaint. It is fundamental to making the case that this is a "global criminal enterprise" worthy of the time and effort of a federal agency created to stop terrorists.

 

The other thing it does is undermines the very basis of what I'm calling "community policing," or any concept that involves partnerships between police, sex workers, and community-based organizations that have done the best job actually "saving" trafficked sex workers. When there is only a single "one size fits all" way to understand a complicated problem from a Puritan perspective, there is simply no way you can build effective partnerships, which is I think exactly what Congress intended, and what the public actually wants.

[+ quoththeraven]

QRT, I agree with most of what you wrote, and there is more.

 

While RentMen may have legal presence in the UK, their website seems to be running on US soil. Just like you I had understood that prostitution in the UK is legal, while the solicitation part of it is not.

 

To illustrate what we're really talking about I compare a website running escort ads with the printing and distribution of flyers containing ads for escort services. The printing and distribution part is solicitation / promotion and that part seems to be done partly or entirely on US soil. I think that the solicitation / promotional part can't be done on US soil legally and I don't think it can be done on UK soil legally either.

 

The information I found suggests that RentMen's website is running on US soil, which brings the solicitation / promotional part under DHS authority and therefore under US authority. I think that if Rentmen would choose to have their website running on UK soil instead of US soil, their website would not be under US authority but under UK authority instead, although still not operating legally.

 

As their website seems to be running in the US that part of their operations falls under US authority. I think that the US government can easily prosecute and ask for the extradition of those responsible for the activities, provided there's an extradition agreement between the US and the country where the individuals are located, which is the case with most countries.

 

In the current situation, and assuming their website on US soil, I don't think it makes a big difference where their headquarters are based. A company with their headquarters in Colorado that's legally selling weed there can't have a facility in Arizona where the weeds are growing. Although their activities in Colorado are likely to be legal, their operations in Arizona would be not.

 

Bottom line, I think that if part of the operations of a company takes place in a jurisdiction where these operations are not allowed, those responsible for the operations are still taking a risk, no matter where these responsible ones are hanging out.

 

I think that Rentmen thinks they are protected from what happened to Rentboy, while in reality they are just as vunerable. In short, it's what you called "their American presence" what I find a risk.

 

Again, I'm not trying to know better. I'm not trying to scare the (you know what) out of anybody either. I'm trying to wake up a few people here and there.

 

If you don't agree with me, I'll be very happy to hear.

 

Anton.

 

The UK prohibition on public solicitation is about buying and selling sex in a public location. (Technically we're talking about Britain, Wales, and Scotland; Northern Ireland recently prohibited the exchange of sex for money.)

 

http://spl.ids.ac.uk/sexworklaw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

That legislation has been introduced to bar the advertising of sex work (and that such advertising in public phone booths is already banned) demonstrates that it is not currently prohibited.

 

While it's true that the internet has an international reach and websites based elsewhere can violate US laws, the crime itself generally has to originate in the US as well as have effects in the US. (This is different from civil liability, where business presence is sufficient for both jurisdiction and liability.) Some criminal laws have extraterritorial reach -- US law against racketeering (RICO), which was used against file sharing site Megaupload and its employees based on the predicate offense of criminal copyright infringement, is one of them -- but laws regarding sex work do not have this extraterritorial reach. Sex work is not one of RICO's predicate acts, which is why the Rentboy defendants were charged under the Travel Act, not RICO.

 

Those being sought also must be subject to the jurisdiction of US courts. If those targeted are not physically present in the US but engage in business and expressive activities in another country that are legal there, it would be difficult to execute a US arrest warrant or to obtain extradition. Success on either score would be tantamount to US law trumping conflicting local law, a brazen violation of the concept of sovereignty. That would be like Russia expecting to be able to enforce its anti-gay law through the US courts.

 

On the other hand, commercial interests of importance to governments in all the relevant jurisdictions were at stake in the Megaupload case, which is why a concerted international effort was possible. Even so, Kim Dotcom's extradition hearing is only taking place now, more than three years after the site was seized and two years after Megaupload's successor, Mega, was launched. Moreover, government success on the merits is open to question; much about the Megaupload seizure appears to be an overreach, as preceding cases were resolved through civil litigation, and many of the facts alleged in the indictment are either more inflammatory than relevant or will be difficult or impossible to prove.

 

If shutting a site down is difficult or impossible because local law conflicts with US law, then it becomes a less attractive target. What's the point of pursuing an entity you can't easily shut down whose principals you can't easily reach? That doesn't result in the kind of splashy headlines that prosecutors look for. Best case scenario for prosecutors is if they can prove that the defendants personally uploaded copyright-protected material to the site, which is the basis on which one of the defendants pled guilty earlier this year.

 

In the end, this analysis is just my personal opinion. It doesn't constitute legal advice, which I can't give anyway because I'm retired from practice. Fellow forum members with legal training, please chime in if I've gotten something wrong. I've reviewed tax prosecutions on behalf of the government, am familiar with the Federal Rules of Evidence, even made a civil RICO claim once while in private practice, but I never specialized in criminal law.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Bottom line, we don't know what the situation is with Rentmen, nor would it be prudent for them to share that information here. I'm not even sure how useful it is for us to discuss what we've independently found out about Rentmen. As a former government employee I realize that time and resources are precious, but it would be a mistake to think scrutiny of this site is a thing of the past or that no use would ever be made of information that government personnel would be unlikely to unearth on their own - not because it wouldn't be possible, but because there are plenty of other tasks requiring attention, leading any follow-up investigations not integral to the original one to be reactive, not proactive.

 

Again, I'm not trying to know better. I'm not trying to scare the (you know what) out of anybody either. I'm trying to wake up a few people here and there.

 

I appreciate what Anton is doing, and I see no real conflict between what the two of you are saying.

 

There is a ton of speculation going on about why Rentboy was targeted, and whether or not there was more known to be going on than what was actually stated in the complaint. But what we know for sure is that this was not a completely sloppy effort by the government. If they want to go after other Gay websites, or straight ones, I think we can rest assured they will figure out where they are legally domiciled, and on the basis of what federal laws they have authority to do so. Anton doesn't need to help with that. So I take what he is doing as what he says: a wake up call. In some ways, he's saying the same thing you are, QTR. If any of us somehow don't get the fact that every website, and everyone that uses them, is somehow vulnerable, if only because the website you like to read over coffee may be about to disappear, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

 

The real interesting question to me is this: WHO made the decision to target Rentboy, and was it simply naive, or did those individuals really think it would play well with the media, a jury, or the public? Targeting Rentboy and Gays undermines what is arguably the best, bipartisan argument the federal government has had for a century to target prostitution, going back to the Mann Act - that it victimizes innocent and helpless women and children across interstate lines. Targeting Gays now is particularly bad timing because, mostly, the public simply no longer cares about what Gay men choose to do in private. I'm pretty sure they don't want to be forced to hear about it. That is probably not good news for DHS, because it's not me and you that are forcing this issue into the public realm right now - it's DHS, by targeting and presumably prosecuting Rentboy. If it was a decision made based on naivete about Gays, they will eventually figure that out. If it is based on a calculation that the public or media will actually change its mind, and decide they do want to recriminalize aspects of Gay sex, at least where it is believed to be "paid for," I'm not sure how that will play out with the public and with the media.

 

I actually take a different view than you, QTR. In fact, given that you were a former federal employee, and I simply have worked with a lot of them, you should understand what I'm about to say better than me. I hope DHS is reading this site. We may not be perfect people, but we are not sexual predators. And while DHS may not be perfect, we all have to know that it is in our interest that they do their job, and do it well. I don't want to sound naive, either, and argue that what happened is based solely on ignorance. But I actually do believe its likely that some of this was based on ignorance.

 

Does anybody really believe that hot on the heels of the same sex marriage victory, the Obama Administration made a calculated decision to piss off Gays, even Gays who don't hire escorts and don't care to talk about this in polite conversation? Does anybody really believe that Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton (who is married to a guy named Bill Clinton) wants their Administration to be known by Gays as the purveyor of a new version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" or worse - as the President that set about to turn lots of female and male college kids using escorting to avoid student debt into felons? I've made plenty of bad political calls in my lifetime, but this is a really hard one to figure out for me.

 

I think most federal employees are decent people, and the surveys available online prove that DHS employees in particular feel they do important work, and they care about their jobs. This has to be understood in that context. They are not the enemy. ISIS and wacko terrorists who kill Marines and churchgoers are. At the risk of sounding terribly naive, my own belief is that one outcome of this is we're going to figure out we're actually closer to being on the same side than we are to being each other's enemies.

[+ VeryHappyCustomer]

No need to speculate. This is networking 101. No fancy sleuthing required.

 

rentmen.com is hosted at a data center in the Netherlands. That data center is owned by Chicago-based SingleHop Corp... A very sticky wicket, because Chicago is in Cook County, home of Sheriff Tom Dart (discussed earlier in this thread).

 

Geeky footnote:

1. Ping to get the IP address.
    
   
2. Query ip2location to find the physical server: http://www.ip2location.com/demo/107.6.181.11
   
3. Verify with traceroute. When I checked, packets flowed directly from my US-based ISP to a router at level3 in the Netherlands. And thence to a nearby data center.
   

[+ stevenkesslar]

rentmen.com is hosted at a data center in the Netherlands. That data center is owned by Chicago-based SingleHop Corp... A very sticky wicket, because Chicago is in Cook County, home of Sheriff Tom Dart (discussed earlier in this thread).

 

[+ quoththeraven]

I found this section of the Huffington Post article to be telling:

 

"Dart acknowledges his anti-trafficking and prostitution efforts have their critics -- primarily people who think law enforcement are merely criminalizing a transaction that should have long ago been legalized. But whether the crime is called sex trafficking, pimping or prostitution, Dart says he sees "no distinction."

 

"That's always been a tough one for me," Dart told The Huffington Post. "How is it any different when a man who gives a woman food or shelter, or coerces her with drugs or abuse, than when someone is brought in from outside the country.'"

 

And while Dart concedes there are some women who engage in sex work of their own choosing and without the involvement of a pimp, he says such instances are rare -- and still unsafe."

 

If you can't see the difference between sex workers who do so on a consensual basis and those that are coerced in some way then you really have lost site of the harm to the public. The policing that Dart is in charge of is meant ensure that there is no harm to the public, including the sex worker. Moreover, I am not sure where he is getting the statistics that the vast majority of sex workers are engaging in a sex transaction on a non-consensual basis (that may or may not involve a pimp) or that any consensual sex transaction is unsafe at its core. Until he can prove those basic assumptions, then he is merely enforcing the age old hysteria that sex work is evil, nasty and sinful. Better left to the church than to a rational society.

 

The statement that consensual sex work (which I don't believe is as rare as Dart thinks) is still unsafe (hence wrong) boggled my mind too. Society's view of sex work is colored by patriarchal sex-negative attitudes, which is ironic because patriarchal attitudes themselves cause many of the evils that are attributed to sex work. Women are viewed as recipients of male desire in need of rescue instead of as autonomous human beings with the ability to make their own decisions. Sex work by women who aren't trafficked is still oftentimes a matter of survival, not preference. It's a job, not a calling the way most male sex work is, that requires that they service, flatter and deceive their clients (for example, as to whether they had an orgasm or otherwise enjoyable sex) rather than the enjoyable experience that most male sex workers and their clients aspire to. This is all down to women having less social power than men, in part because they don't possess the physical strength that men do, and therefore operating within a power imbalance that is not as applicable to male sex workers.

 

The patriarchal model of sex and female sex work, which condemns while at the same time enforcing oppressive norms, is a huge impediment to advancing the welfare of sex workers generally. Female sex work will continue to be portrayed and perceived as coercive and degrading as long as sex is viewed as something women resist and are only willing to exchange for something men can provide them like security, commitment, status, or possessions. The prevalent view of female sex work as coercive and degrading will continue to inform public policy regarding all sex work because female sex work is a larger part of the industry and because it would be considered discriminatory to enact laws differentiating between male sex workers and female sex workers even though they may operate under significantly different conditions.

 

The long and the short of it is that efforts at solidarity and community organizing are likely to fail without an agenda that is broader than the LGBTQ community. It is truly unfortunate that most feminist organizations have not yet realized that their perspective on sex work denies female agency and is beholden to the patriarchy they oppose, but perhaps situations like this will begin to convince them. Treatment of of sex work as a valid choice, whether by law or practice, is a logical byproduct of a society that embraces consensual rather than coercive sex and morality for everyone, not just for LGBTQ folks or others outside the sexual mainstream. In that regard, heterosexuality itself needs to be "queered" -- made more equal and based on free choice rather than fear.

 

A good description of the difference between coercive sexuality (often called rape culture, in my view pretty much synonymous with heteronormativity) and consensual sexuality (or consent culture) can be found here. Let me quote the simple and appealing description of consent culture: Some people decide that sex (whatever that means to them) would be fun and then have mutually enjoyable sex with each other. Isn't that what we all want?

Also, before I sign off, I want to register an objection to using "Puritan" to mean "sex-negative." Yes, the Puritans were an earnest bunch who were anti-sodomy, anti-adultery, and believed sex was for the purpose of procreation and creating a family unit. But they were not opposed to premarital sex. They were opposed to casual, uncommitted sex. The modern equivalent, the United Church of Christ (successor to the Congregationalists, which is the formal name for the Puritans), has done a 180 on this and is the most liberal mainline Protestant denomination outside of Unitarian Universalist Association, supportive of LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, and consensual sexuality. It would be more accurate to use the term "Victorian" instead.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Also, before I sign off, I want to register an objection to using "Puritan" to mean "sex-negative."

 

The patriarchal model of sex and female sex work, which condemns while at the same time enforcing oppressive norms, is a huge impediment to advancing the welfare of sex workers generally.

 

Okeydoke, QTR. Point taken on "Puritan." I prefer the word prohibitionist to describe people like Dart anyway. I think it's more or less accurate, and it implicitly conveys the idea that the whole strategy is based on a lack of reality. To personalize this into the difference between two cops named Tom, we need less Tom Dart, and more Tom Potter (whose daughter, by the way, is a lesbian cop):

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Potter

 

I actually think that throwing Gay men into this mix creates an opportunity for dialogue that wasn't there before. I'm mostly ignorant on why there is a split between feminists who see prostitution as demeaning to women, and female sex workers who see prostitution as empowering. What seems fair enough to say is that both sides have some good reasons to feel the way they feel, because reality is complicated.

 

What also seems fair enough to say is that there is no or little natural animosity between liberal feminists and Gay men. If anything, you can assume a natural alliance. That isn't the case if we (Gay men) just make a boatload of assumptions and act like bulls in a China shop. But I think on the face of it Gay men aren't looking to create environments where vulnerable women are victimized, and liberal feminists aren't looking to create environments where Gay men feel their sexuality is being demonized and their privacy is being violated. To use your words, I don't know that Gay men have a deeply vested interest in the patriarchal model of sex work. At the very least, this situation creates an opening for dialogue.

[MiamiLooker]

Hi ML,

 

 

I hate to write it, and please don't see it as an attack on you, but merely as a response to your question, but in the years that are now behind us Rentboy either did not get legal advice, or it was inadequate.

 

I hope you agree.

 

Kudos, Anton.

 

ps: I guess I made my point. It's time to get off the soap box I had found.

 

I certainly don’t see a response to my question as an attack on me. In addition to “Rentboy either did not get legal advice, or it was inadequate,” is it another possibility that Rentboy had adequate legal advice, but chose not to follow it? And don’t you think Rentmen, which was the subject of my question, is currently getting legal advice regarding their operations, which includes the location of their servers?

[+ FreshFluff]

The statement that consensual sex work (which I don't believe is as rare as Dart thinks) is still unsafe (hence wrong) boggled my mind too. Society's view of sex work is colored by patriarchal sex-negative attitudes, which is ironic because patriarchal attitudes themselves cause many of the evils that are attributed to sex work. Women are viewed as recipients of male desire in need of rescue instead of as autonomous human beings with the ability to make their own decisions. Sex work by women who aren't trafficked is still oftentimes a matter of survival, not preference. It's a job, not a calling the way most male sex work is, that requires that they service, flatter and deceive their clients (for example, as to whether they had an orgasm or otherwise enjoyable sex) rather than the enjoyable experience that most male sex workers and their clients aspire to. This is all down to women having less social power than men, in part because they don't possess the physical strength that men do, and therefore operating within a power imbalance that is not as applicable to male sex workers.

 

The imbalance of physical power certainly keeps male escorts safer than female.

 

But "the enjoyable experience that most male sex workers and their clients aspire to?" With all due respect,that seems like a pretty rose colored view of sex work, whether male or female. Juan, Legendary Dave, Steve Kessler et al. are wonderful men who view escorting as a calling. But they don't necessarily represent male sex workers in general, some of whom undoubtedly do exactly what you've described to put themselves through college or otherwise support themselves.

 

Likewise, the clients on this forum are unusually sympathetic towards escorts' needs. But even here, escorts often talk about clients who demand that they cum and the steps they take to meet these demands. Female escorts lie about orgasms not because their clients are more demanding, but because as women, they can.

 

Granted, my knowledge of sex work is entirely second hand.

[Lookin]

The real interesting question to me is this: WHO made the decision to target Rentboy, and was it simply naive, or did those individuals really think it would play well with the media, a jury, or the public?

 

Last night, 60 Minutes repeated a segment on Memex, a new search engine analytical tool that was developed by DARPA to track bad guys all over the world. When I watched it several months ago, I thought it was interesting but, when I watched it last night, pieces began to fall into place forming a picture of how Rentboy may have come into the government's crosshairs.

 

Unlike Google and other commercial search engines, Memex is able to search the entire web, including temporary pages that don't stay up long enough to be indexed by other search engines and the so-called 'dark web' that accounts for the 95% of the web that most of us never see. Memex is also able to easily track email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifiers across multiple web pages and display graphically how these pages are linked to one another. In addition to websites, it also tracks chat rooms.

 

http://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2015/02/08/8a288236-c5a5-48fa-9333-3dc011ce0923/thumbnail/770x430/85401a4574688bcc03604d5a77711bac/oodarpa1920.jpg

 

I haven't done a particularly good job of explaining how it works, but this segment on the 60 Minutes website does. The example used is sex trafficking, and how traffickers - and anyone who is linked to them - can be tracked across the country and around the world.

 

DARPA assumes strong links between sex trafficking and the flow of money into national security threats. Of course, you don't have to be a sex trafficker to show up on the screen; you merely have to be linked to a link to a link. Of particular interest are those who move from place to place.

 

While DARPA is the advanced research arm of the Department of Defense, it makes its discoveries widely available and, in this case, has made Memex available to law enforcement agencies. In particular, Cyrus Vance, Jr., shows up as an early and enthusiastic proponent of the technology.

 

Watching the segment again last night, I imagined Rentboy lighting up the screen with linked email addresses and phone numbers traveling across the country and around the world. Add in a connection to a suspicious visa request, and it would be nearly inconceivable that Rentboy wouldn't attract the attention of any law enforcement agency using this tool.

 

So, while it may be possible that DHS and New York law enforcement woke up one day and decided to go after Rentboy, I think it's also likely that Rentboy threw up lots of flags to law enforcement agencies getting their feet wet with Memex.

 

Though I'm not especially politically savvy, it occurred to me that it could be a feather in the cap of someone who was able to use this emerging technology to bring forward a criminal case.

 

Too bad they didn't wait for a good one.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Though I'm not especially politically savvy, it occurred to me that it could be a feather in the cap of someone who was able to use this emerging technology to bring forward a criminal case.

 

Too bad they didn't wait for a good one.

 

Actually, Lookin, I think your last statement really hit the nail on the head.

 

Honestly, I wish the spooks luck. If they had been able to use state of the art technology to figure out 9/11 and stop it, can you imagine what heroes they would be? Beyond that, the pain and agony thousands of families would have been spared from? Beyond that, the fact that there may never have been an Iraq War?

 

Here's the problem with this technology, and it's not really rocket science.

 

Some of this I've posted before, but I think it's worth repeating.

 

1. Lying and overreach discredits the program

 

 

To me, the NSA really was asking for political trouble in what they did. Did they really think this kind of blanket spying on all Americans was not going to come out, and that politicians were not going to object to it?

 

2. Faith in the validity of the programs is undermined, even by experts who support the basic purpose of the technology.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/31/nsa-director-heckled-at-conference-as-he-asks-for-security-communitys-understanding/

 

3. As a result, we throw the baby out with the bathwater

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/top-spy-bemoans-loss-of-key-intelligence-program/2015/09/09/a214bda4-5717-11e5-abe9-27d53f250b11_story.html

 

I think most Americans would support blanket spying on Afghans to try to detect and deter terrorist attacks on US soldiers. It doesn't surprise me that Afghan politicians might not like it, but as I said when I first posted this, that's exactly when I want a Donald Trump around. Fuck 'em. The reason this program was axed is because when it came out, Afghan leaders like Karzai went nuts.

 

It's actually sort of twisted logic on my part to use this as an example, since the reason the program to protect American soldiers was cut is because of Afghan politicians. But the point still stands: as the article says, using a program that makes sense in one context - keeping US soldiers alive - in a different context - garden variety crime fighting - is likely to undercut political support for the program.

 

I actually am glad that this kind of technology exists. The problem with the mass spying the NSA was doing, to oversimplify it, is that it was sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack by searching all over the US. This program is still looking for a needle in a haystack, but at least it's actually looking in the barn.

 

Bottom line, I don't think going after Rentboy was that politically astute, and if this kind of technology was used to do it, it was even less politically astute. What I'm hoping is that the NSA targeted Rentboy because Rentboy in a sense invited it, by waving an H1B visa application in DHS's face. That was definitely NOT politically astute. In that event, DHS can legitimately respond by saying, "What were we supposed to do?" It is their job to process these visa applications, and to ensure that they are not giving visas to terrorists. It's not a huge stretch to say they didn't want to be in the embarrassing position of giving visas to businesses that sound criminal.

[+ stevenkesslar]

While DARPA is the advanced research arm of the Department of Defense, it makes its discoveries widely available and, in this case, has made Memex available to law enforcement agencies. In particular, Cyrus Vance, Jr., shows up as an early and enthusiastic proponent of the technology.

 

I'm being loudmouth, but thank you for posting that piece, Lookin, because it makes some really critical distinctions.

 

This is maybe giving Vance too much benefit of the doubt, but recall that he disassociated himself quickly from the Rentboy bust. I agree with the point he makes in the 60 Minutes video. It makes sense to me that a truly global criminal enterprise trafficking women might also be running guns and drugs, and if this kind of technology helps law enforcement target and bust them, I'm all for it, and I'm glad Vance is, too. Assuming he has the diplomatic skills and political savvy of his Dad, somebody like him would recognize that the worst thing to do is se technology like this in a way that The New York Times is writing editorials about turning college students into felons.

 

The other point this reinforces is that the prohibitionists are exactly wrong. If it weren't for the Web, including the dark Web, this kind of technology would not work. Granted, you can argue that we'd all be better off without the Internet, period, so that the Web couldn't be used to traffick women, kids, drugs, or guns. But assuming we'd all rather have the Internet, the "deal with the devil" is that allowing sites to exist that actually are used by criminals is actually what helps law enforcement catch the criminals.

[Kevin Slater]

Rentboy's founder Jeffrey Hurant was sentenced today to six months incarceration. Better than the three years the prosecution was asking for, but still fucked up.

 

Kevin Slater

[Larstrup]

Rentboy's founder Jeffrey Hurant was sentenced today to six months incarceration. Better than the three years the prosecution was asking for, but still fucked up.

 

Kevin Slater

 

Is there good-time available to him and do you know where he'll be serving his time?

[+ honcho]

Rentboy's founder Jeffrey Hurant was sentenced today to six months incarceration. Better than the three years the prosecution was asking for, but still fucked up.

 

Thank you for letting us know. Were this in facebook, I'd use the teary-eyed emoticon.

[coriolis888]

Rentboy's founder Jeffrey Hurant was sentenced today to six months incarceration. Better than the three years the prosecution was asking for, but still fucked up.

 

Kevin Slater

 

 

" - - but still fucked up." - agree -

 

This attack on rentboy by our federal employees made no sense.

 

This was a clear case of a victim less crime. What a waste of tax payer money.

 

Obvious example of "selective enforcement"

 

Here is a bit more about the sentencing -

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-hurant-ex-ceo-rentboy-prostitution-sentenced-prison/

 

-

[+ ArVaGuy]

So the Federal government spent all that money and resources resulting in only a six month sentence? This is ridiculous.

 

 

 

Rentboy's founder Jeffrey Hurant was sentenced today to six months incarceration. Better than the three years the prosecution was asking for, but still fucked up.

 

Kevin Slater

[+ ArVaGuy]

So the Federal government spent all that money and resources resulting in only a six month sentence? This is ridiculous.

 

 

 

Rentboy's founder Jeffrey Hurant was sentenced today to six months incarceration. Better than the three years the prosecution was asking for, but still fucked up.

 

Kevin Slater

[TruthBTold]

http://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2015/08/25/95b27350-16a2-430d-be2b-db87b32494bc/resize/620x/47889d664b6a59768c70a16143fbbdd8/2015-08-25t183043z8361929gf10000182382rtrmadp3usa-crime-rentboy.jpg

 

Don't you feel so much more "secure" knowing that the government will be spending more money on keeping Mr. Hurant in prison?

[TruthBTold]

http://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2015/08/25/95b27350-16a2-430d-be2b-db87b32494bc/resize/620x/47889d664b6a59768c70a16143fbbdd8/2015-08-25t183043z8361929gf10000182382rtrmadp3usa-crime-rentboy.jpg

 

Don't you feel so much more "secure" knowing that the government will be spending more money on keeping Mr. Hurant in prison?

[+ sniper]

So the Federal government spent all that money and resources resulting in only a six month sentence? This is ridiculous.

 

How much did they actually spend? Remember they got to confiscate a couple million from Hurant. Civil forfeiture is prosecution for profit.

[+ WilliamM]

"Prosecutors wanted him to serve at least a short term to deter operators of other escort services from similar misconduct, while his lawyers have argued that he deserves no more than probation."

 

from the CBS article above

 

I hope he survives those 6 months in jail.