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A comment on Utah Bans Police from Searching Digital Data Without a Warrant, Closes Loophole. Parent comment

Re:Utah Bans Police from Searching Digital Data Without a Wa... by thaumasiotes on Friday April 19, 2019 @12:40PM (#19700915)
The current state of US practice is that most prostitution is called "human trafficking" when it's investigated or prosecuted. Cases investigated under the headline of "trafficking" generally do not involve coercion (in reality) or even allege it (in court). You can find a lot of prostitute-sympathetic coverage making fun of prosecutors for charging women with "trafficking" themselves.

Thus, we can say that the "human trafficking" exemption is really a prostitution exemption, and not what it sounds like.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Utah Bans Police from Searching Digital Data Without a Wa... by Zak on Friday April 19, 2019 @01:15PM (#19701214)
I dislike the use of the term "trafficking" in this context. We have a perfectly good word for coercing someone to perform labor: slavery. We have a perfectly good phrase for coercing someone to have sex: sexual assault.

I don't think slavery, sex slavery, or sexual assault are good reasons for removing safe harbor from sites that host user generated content. Instead, such sites have been, and could continue to be valuable resources for law enforcement.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Utah Bans Police from Searching Digital Data Without a Wa... by thaumasiotes on Saturday April 20, 2019 @02:14AM (#19705068)
Heck, Reason is running a story right now about a group of women suing Harvey Weinstein for "sex trafficking", with the theory apparently being that he availed himself of their services when they trafficked themselves: https://reason.com/2019/04/19/harvey-weinstein-is-not-a-sex-...

> Sexual assault and rape are bad enough on their own, of course. So why the need to force these cases into a framework that doesn't fit?

> Because the sex trafficking framework allows for a lot more prosecutorial possibilities.

> Plus, sex trafficking is such a buzzword that cases employing it are guaranteed to get more attention.

[ Parent | on HN ]