We’ve already chronicled in extensive detail S.C. Attorney General “Kneejerk” Henry McMaster’s aborted prosecution of the website Craigslist and the damage this PR debacle may have done to his gubernatorial ambitions.
Clearly, his grandstanding backfired in a big way, so politically-speaking the case is closed, right?
Wrong.
It turns out there’s actually a larger issue at stake – i.e. the ongoing use of the internet to procure sexual services and whether or not the modifications Craigslist has made to its website will aid or impede the prosecution of such activities.
Oh, and enhance the safety of American citizens.
For some much-needed common sense on all that, we turn to the lovely Melissa Gira Grant, who authors the award-winning blog Sexerati, which tracks the internet sex industry.
In an article published yesterday in Slate, Grant outlines how the Craigslist “concession” may not help
Craigslist’s erotic-services section was simply the latest and most visible underground marketplace, a sexual public square so easily accessible to consumers, providers, and window-shoppers that it made prostitution seem less risky. For sex workers, it actually was safer than working on the streets or advertising in a newspaper. Craigslist enabled sex workers to screen potential customers and to work for themselves rather than rely on a pimp or agency. With the erotic-services section, work conditions also improved for the vice squad, whose job was made all the easier by having a dedicated and high-traffic venue to police.
The most significant difference between Craigslist and a brothel is that the former voluntarily opens its “black book” of clients to police. The records Craigslist maintains on its users played a critical role in apprehending the so-called Craigslist Killer. The Boston Police Department reported that “Craigslist was cooperative in identifying and locating” accused murderer Philip Markoff; Craigslist spokeswoman Susan Best notes that “a digital trail left by those breaking the law” allows Craigslist to support criminal investigations in a way, say, a newspaper cannot …
First of all, props to Melissa for pulling off the whole “blond Goth” thing. That’s a rarity, although we must admit a bit of a hankering to see her in a black wig with some dark eye shadow on … and nothing else, obviously.
Wait … that was supposed to have been a “thought” … sorry.
What we meant to say is that she just hit the nail of unintended consequences squarely on the head with her artfully-employed hammer. Seriously, an ice sculptor with an itching inferiority complex couldn’t have expressed themselves any better.
McMaster and his fellow AG’s (or A’sG as the plural of Attorneys General actually goes) went out looking to score some cheap points with social conservatives … and Craigslist was an easy target.
Now, in addition to being exposed as common political hacks, it turns out they’ve actually made it harder to prosecute that which they were railing on in the first place.
