<story><title>Why Everyone Should be Concerned By the Seizure of MyRedBook.com</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/whose-redbook-why-everyone-should-be-concerned-seizure-myredbookcom</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>davorak</author><text>&amp;gt; The website is pretty clearly operating across state lines. If the website is based in California (just made that up), runs on servers in Texas, and it allows users in Michigan to solicit sex from users in Florida, it&amp;#x27;s pretty clearly engaging in interstate commerce.&lt;p&gt;A web site has to police the addresses of user base for user to user interactions?  Are their examples where ebay, amazon, or similar service has to proactively police its user or suffer criminal charges for user to user interactions?</text></item><item><author>learc83</author><text>&amp;gt;Congress may regulate it as part of interstate commerce&lt;p&gt;The website is pretty clearly operating across state lines. If the website is based in California (just made that up), runs on servers in Texas, and it allows users in Michigan to solicit sex from users in Florida, it&amp;#x27;s pretty clearly engaging in interstate commerce.&lt;p&gt;Even if the website limited users to just one state, the federal government could still potentially regulate it under the interstate commerce clause provided the intrastate commerce substantially affects interstate commerce.&lt;p&gt;-Note: the site by itself doesn&amp;#x27;t have to have a substantial effect. It just has to be part of a potential substantial cumulative effect--that is to say, hundreds of intrastate sex advertisement websites would, together, have a substantial cumulative effect on interstate commerce, so congress would be justified in banning all sex advertising websites, even if individually they don&amp;#x27;t engage in interstate commerce.&lt;p&gt;Edit: This comment assumes that the website was in fact facilitating prostitution. This may or may not be the case, I have no idea.</text></item><item><author>chillingeffect</author><text>I wish the EFF had stated the case as an issue of state&amp;#x27;s rights.&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia:&lt;p&gt;The regulation of prostitution in the United States is not among the enumerated powers of the federal government. Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is therefore exclusively the domain of the states to permit, prohibit, or otherwise regulate commercial sex, except insofar as Congress may regulate it as part of interstate commerce with laws like the Mann Act.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, that site is also legal in parts of Nevada where prostitution is legal.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see how the federal government has jurisdiction in this matter.  The Mann act is for interstate commerce.  Perhaps this applies, but I think a real lawyer could share their related experience.&lt;p&gt;10th Amendment, btw:  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people</text></item><item><author>tomasien</author><text>Thank you for posting this. EFF makes the site seem like purely a forum and it just wasn&amp;#x27;t - it doesn&amp;#x27;t change MY personal opinion of this matter (I am against the takedown STRONGLY) but it worries me when people with whom I agree seem to miss the mark on providing an accurate representation of the facts. I&amp;#x27;m not suggesting it&amp;#x27;s intentionally misleading, but I think it doesn&amp;#x27;t get it exactly right.</text></item><item><author>panarky</author><text>This issue is more ethically ambiguous than the EFF acknowledged in their post. The EFF only links to the legal and health forums, while the FBI claims the sites &amp;quot;were used to facilitate prostitution&amp;quot; [0]:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  advertisements for prostitutes... menus of sexual services,
  hourly and nightly rates, and customer reviews of the
  prostitutes’ services.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
You can see an example of an advertisement here (NSFW): &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20130521131010/http://forum.myredbook.com/dcforum2/DCForumID20/188351.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;20130521131010&amp;#x2F;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;forum.myre...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not arguing for or against sex work, just illustrating that this takedown is not a clear-cut case of censoring a vulnerable community&amp;#x27;s non-commercial political speech.&lt;p&gt;Is the EFF saying the FBI should have targeted specific illegal posts instead of taking down legal material as well? I support the EFF in their important work, but they&amp;#x27;re more credible and effective when they tell the whole story, including the complicated part.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fbi.gov/news/news_blog/operators-of-myredbook.com-website-arrested-on-prostitution-and-money-laundering-charges&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fbi.gov&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;news_blog&amp;#x2F;operators-of-myredbook.com...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JorgeJetson</author><text>All counts of the indictment, including the money laundering, are based upon two conditions.  Both must be true for any of the counts in the indictment to be judged a crime.  These two conditions are:&lt;p&gt;a) use of interstate mail and communications for illegal activity&lt;p&gt;b) the illegal activity is specifically a violation of the California code prohibiting prostitution: facilitation of prostitution.&lt;p&gt;So the federal indictment is completely dependent upon the criminal violation of a state law.  However, myredbook, or its owners, have never been indictment, let alone convicted, by the State of California.  This is after more than a decade of operation.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore there is a federal law stating that web site owners &amp;#x2F; operators do not take any legal responsibility for the content provided by others.  It does not matter if the web site owners charge or not charge these other parties for using the site.&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a really really bad legal case.  At minimum the feds are presuming that the owners of my redbook would be convicted of a state crime, if the state would just prosecute them.  As we all know, the American legal system presumes innocence until being convicted in a court of law.&lt;p&gt;So legally the feds don&amp;#x27;t seem to really have a case.  All they seem to be doing is hassling the owners of myredbook with the intent of shutting the web site down.&lt;p&gt;So this totally appears to be someone in the justice department driving a moral or religious agenda and not really a legal one.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Everyone Should be Concerned By the Seizure of MyRedBook.com</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/whose-redbook-why-everyone-should-be-concerned-seizure-myredbookcom</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>davorak</author><text>&amp;gt; The website is pretty clearly operating across state lines. If the website is based in California (just made that up), runs on servers in Texas, and it allows users in Michigan to solicit sex from users in Florida, it&amp;#x27;s pretty clearly engaging in interstate commerce.&lt;p&gt;A web site has to police the addresses of user base for user to user interactions?  Are their examples where ebay, amazon, or similar service has to proactively police its user or suffer criminal charges for user to user interactions?</text></item><item><author>learc83</author><text>&amp;gt;Congress may regulate it as part of interstate commerce&lt;p&gt;The website is pretty clearly operating across state lines. If the website is based in California (just made that up), runs on servers in Texas, and it allows users in Michigan to solicit sex from users in Florida, it&amp;#x27;s pretty clearly engaging in interstate commerce.&lt;p&gt;Even if the website limited users to just one state, the federal government could still potentially regulate it under the interstate commerce clause provided the intrastate commerce substantially affects interstate commerce.&lt;p&gt;-Note: the site by itself doesn&amp;#x27;t have to have a substantial effect. It just has to be part of a potential substantial cumulative effect--that is to say, hundreds of intrastate sex advertisement websites would, together, have a substantial cumulative effect on interstate commerce, so congress would be justified in banning all sex advertising websites, even if individually they don&amp;#x27;t engage in interstate commerce.&lt;p&gt;Edit: This comment assumes that the website was in fact facilitating prostitution. This may or may not be the case, I have no idea.</text></item><item><author>chillingeffect</author><text>I wish the EFF had stated the case as an issue of state&amp;#x27;s rights.&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia:&lt;p&gt;The regulation of prostitution in the United States is not among the enumerated powers of the federal government. Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is therefore exclusively the domain of the states to permit, prohibit, or otherwise regulate commercial sex, except insofar as Congress may regulate it as part of interstate commerce with laws like the Mann Act.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, that site is also legal in parts of Nevada where prostitution is legal.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see how the federal government has jurisdiction in this matter.  The Mann act is for interstate commerce.  Perhaps this applies, but I think a real lawyer could share their related experience.&lt;p&gt;10th Amendment, btw:  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people</text></item><item><author>tomasien</author><text>Thank you for posting this. EFF makes the site seem like purely a forum and it just wasn&amp;#x27;t - it doesn&amp;#x27;t change MY personal opinion of this matter (I am against the takedown STRONGLY) but it worries me when people with whom I agree seem to miss the mark on providing an accurate representation of the facts. I&amp;#x27;m not suggesting it&amp;#x27;s intentionally misleading, but I think it doesn&amp;#x27;t get it exactly right.</text></item><item><author>panarky</author><text>This issue is more ethically ambiguous than the EFF acknowledged in their post. The EFF only links to the legal and health forums, while the FBI claims the sites &amp;quot;were used to facilitate prostitution&amp;quot; [0]:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  advertisements for prostitutes... menus of sexual services,
  hourly and nightly rates, and customer reviews of the
  prostitutes’ services.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
You can see an example of an advertisement here (NSFW): &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20130521131010/http://forum.myredbook.com/dcforum2/DCForumID20/188351.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;20130521131010&amp;#x2F;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;forum.myre...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not arguing for or against sex work, just illustrating that this takedown is not a clear-cut case of censoring a vulnerable community&amp;#x27;s non-commercial political speech.&lt;p&gt;Is the EFF saying the FBI should have targeted specific illegal posts instead of taking down legal material as well? I support the EFF in their important work, but they&amp;#x27;re more credible and effective when they tell the whole story, including the complicated part.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fbi.gov/news/news_blog/operators-of-myredbook.com-website-arrested-on-prostitution-and-money-laundering-charges&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fbi.gov&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;news_blog&amp;#x2F;operators-of-myredbook.com...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>adzicg</author><text>Many European gambling sites filter and self regulate users by origin country - to prohibit US users from gambling. In most countries here online gambling is legal and regulated, but there were a few cases in 2005 where US police arrested UK citizens - company directors - coming through their borders, for being involved in online gambling. As a result, most gambling operators decised it&amp;#x27;s safest to just block business from the US.</text></comment>