Witness to the Persecution

Here’s a story on a blog post by the CEO of Craigslist blogging on the fact that the Attorney General of South Carolina has promised to prosecute Craigslist corporate executives for aiding and abetting if any of its adult ads result in acts of prostitution in the state of South Carolina.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster has threatened to prosecute Craigslist executives for aiding and abetting prostitution if an ad on the Web site leads to a prostitution case in South Carolina.

In the post on his company’s blog, Buckmaster linked to a publication in Greenville he said has a larger number of adult ads and more explicit content than his Web site. He later updated the post to point out a publication in Charleston that listed 19 adult ads on Friday.

In contrast, Buckmaster said the Greenville “adult services” portion of his site has had one ad for the past three days with a photograph of a completely clothed person, while the recently closed “erotic services” section had eight ads, none of which had obscene texts or nude pictures.

McMaster’s office did not return a phone message left Saturday.

Buckmaster said no one would consider suing or conducting a criminal investigation into either traditional publication.

“But if for whatever reason you were so motivated, would you target a venue with 9 PG-13 rated ads, or one with 250 XXX rated ones?” he asked on his blog.

Earlier this week, Craigslist pledged to eliminate its “erotic services” category and screen all submissions to a new “adult services” section before being posted. New postings in the “adult services” category will cost $10.

McMaster, a Republican who plans to run for governor of South Carolina in 2010, has met with Craigslist attorney Bart Daniel of Charleston, who explained the change. But the attorney general said Friday his office still planned to monitor the site closely.

I know it’s easier to get elected taking on the big bad out of state company than it is the organized crime thugs who run the local prostitution rings and adult content rackets (who are probably using Craigslist too — just without specific info on the corporate end — and you purveyors of strip clubs and local adult entertainment make no mistake — you are giving your money to organized crime), but this highlights a pet peeve of mine (I hate to say trend because I’ve done no quantative analysis) — politicized prosecution.

If Craigslist were part of a larger effort to end prostitution in South Carolina I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But this threat comes with no stats on the prevalence of Craigslist-enabled prostitution/child porn, etc. over say 2 years ago or why it’s worse than local magazines with worse ads. It appears to be what I think it is — a knee-jerk reaction to the Craigslist murder up in Boston. Threatening to put people in prison is not — should not — be an arrow in one’s political quiver. Put moral pressure on Craigslist, threaten to regulate them or ban them even, but prison for political leverage is beyond the pale in my mind.

I’m no friend of Craigslist. I’m open to their prosecution — so long as everyone that can be gone after is gone after. I don’t like the singling out.

I may be overreacting — feel free to tell me how.

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