Tech Companies Are Leading The Fight Against Child Porn While The FBI And DOJ Complain About Encryption Helping Child Abusers

from the get-a-clue-[cough]-gentlemen dept

We hear so much from law enforcement agencies about how much tech companies -- and their encryption offerings -- are turning America into a lawless frontier where the criminals always win and the cops are eternally hamstrung. We mainly hear this from two law enforcement agencies in particular: the FBI and the DOJ.

Local cops seem to be doing just fine, but outside of Manhattan blowhard/DA Cy Vance, everyone seems to feel a rising tech tide lifts all cop boats. But these agencies insist we're "going dark." And they insist tech companies are screwing both cops and the public by allowing users to protect their communications and devices from criminals and snoopers alike, even if it means things are ever-so-slightly more difficult for criminal investigators.

But these arguments are being made using facts not in evidence. Tech companies do care about crime, public safety, law enforcement's concerns, and the general insecurity of having devices filled with personal info being carried around by the vast majority of the American public. And tech companies are doing far more to address all of these concerns (rather than just the law enforcement concerns touted by the FBI, et al) than the federales are willing to admit.

First off, tech companies are engaging in the "adult conversation" about lawful access. They're just doing it in a way the government doesn't like. They're approaching this with caution and concern, while the FBI and DOJ dishonestly claim the only "real" solution is unfettered, on-demand access to devices and communications.

White papers have been written. Honest discussions have been had. But these are ignored because they don't offer the "absolutist" options federal agencies desire. It's the DOJ and FBI who are engaging in the equivalent of kicking and screaming while ignoring the real adults in the room.

More evidence that tech companies are doing more to help than to hurt is rolling in. Casey Newton reports for The Verge that the fight against child sexual abuse is being lead by tech companies, and that law enforcement agencies are the beneficiaries of their contributions.

An example from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children drove the point home. The organization has long operated a tipline in which people can report coming across child pornography and other incidents of abuse. In the late 1990s, the tipline received 200 to 300 reports per week, said Michelle DeLaune, NCMEC’s chief operating officer. But as the internet gained adoption, and platforms began collaborating with the organization, reports to the tipline exploded. In 2018, NCMEC received more than 18 million reports of exploitative imagery.

Strikingly, 99 percent of those reports come directly from the tech platforms. Through the use of artificial intelligence, hashed images, and partnerships between companies, we’re now arguably much better informed about the scope and spread of these images — and are better equipped to catch abusers.

Notably, these reports originate from communications platforms the DOJ and FBI have complained about.

A Facebook executive says that the company bans a whopping 250,000 WhatsApp accounts a month for sharing child exploitation imagery.

The implication that tech companies are doing nothing to respond to and to prevent criminal activities are, to put it politely, horseshit. These federal agencies have a vested interest in portraying tech companies as villains presiding over an internet Wild West. They want favorable court precedent and legislation.

As tech companies appear villainous -- something not helped by their numerous appearances in front of Congressional committees -- all branches of the government are more likely to screw tech companies into behaving as extensions of the federal government. This screws users and customers as well as the companies they use, but no price is too high to pay… as long as it's paid by others.

Filed Under: backdoors, encryption, going dark, law enforcement

AT&T Ponders Dumping DirecTV After Investor Backlash, But It's Not Likely To Help

from the yeah-that's-not-gonna-work dept

As we just got done noting, investors have finally started to grumble about AT&T's obsession with merger mania (aka "growth for growth's sake"). AT&T, you'll recall, spent more than $150 billion to acquire Time Warner and DirecTV in a bid to dominate the streaming video and online advertising space. But the deals saddled AT&T with so much debt, it forced the company to raise rates despite rising competition, driving many of these customers to the exits. Oh, and AT&T's being sued by other investors for allegedly lying about it. It has also largely bungled its TV branding in general.

In what appears to be an intentional leak designed to suggest that AT&T is taking these concerns seriously, a report emerged this week in the Wall Street Journal (non paywalled alternative read here), suggesting that AT&T may now try to offload DirecTV after paying $67 billion for the company back in 2015:

"The telecom giant has considered various options, including a spinoff of DirecTV into a separate public company and a combination of DirecTV's assets with Dish Network, its satellite-TV rival," the Journal report said, citing "people familiar with the matter." It's still early in the process, so AT&T could end up sticking with DirecTV. "AT&T may ultimately decide to keep DirecTV in the fold. Despite the satellite service's struggles, as consumers drop their TV connections, it still contributes a sizable volume of cash flow and customer accounts to its parent," the Journal reported."

AT&T's decision to spend billions of dollars on a satellite TV company on the eve of the cord cutting revolution was always seen as a shaky bet. Especially given AT&T's decision to freeze most serious investment in the company's fixed-line broadband business. That said, the money DirecTV is currently making is helping to pay off the company's enormous debt load (AT&T's currently in the running for the most heavily-indebted company public letter wasn't kind to AT&T. Notably, the investors took issue with AT&T's belief that you dominate a space by throwing billions of dollars at mergers, something Wall Street usually is keen on thanks to short term gains:

"We firmly believe that AT&T’s M&A strategy has not only contributed directly to its profound share price underperformance, but has also caused distractions that have contributed to the Company’s recent operational underperformance."

That's a polite way of saying AT&T can't just buy its way to domination. But Elliot's suggestion to offload DirecTV won't help much.

The debt from a decade of merger mania would remain, and while the announcement of a sale might boost the markets slightly (allowing Elliot to exit semi-gracefully), it wouldn't fix what's broken at AT&T. Telcos like AT&T and Verizon still suck at wandering outside of their core competencies (building and running networks, lobbying to crush competitors), the result of being government-pampered monopolies for the better part of a generation. As we've seen with Verizon's Go90, AOL, and Yahoo face plants, these companies simply aren't good at adaptation and competition because it's an alien construct.

AT&T executives desperately want AT&T to be Google and Facebook, and have eyed both companies' ad revenues jealously for the better part of the last two decades, thinking that money is somehow owed to them because they own the underlying network (that's really what the net neutrality fight was about). They seem to believe growth for growth's sake and lobbying are the path to domination, but while that worked well in the broadband space, it's not going to work quite as well in helping them gain stature in other markets.

Especially given that as lumbering monopolies fused to the nation's intelligence agencies, neither AT&T nor Verizon has the ability to actually innovate in the space, which is why AT&T's current TV branding efforts look a lot like road kill. AT&T will remain saddled with millions of aging copper and phone lines it is (like most US telcos) too cheap to upgrade despite billions in tax cuts and regulatory favors. Mindless merger mania won't fix the DNA-level problems that plague Ma Bell, and neither will selling off a core component of the company's bumbling, but ongoing, attempt to dominate the video advertising space.

Filed Under: competition, consolidation, cord cutting, divestitutre, mergers, satellite tv, streaming, tv
Companies: at&t, directv

California Senate Passes Statewide Ban On Facial Recognition Tech Use By Law Enforcement

from the more-of-this-please dept

San Francisco has already banned the use of facial recognition tech by local law enforcement. Oakland did the same thing a couple of months later. Pretty soon, it's not going to matter where you are in California. If you're a law enforcement agency, facial recognition tech is off-limits. Here's the latest news on the biometric front from the EFF.

A.B. 1215, authored by Assemblymember Phil Ting, prohibits the use of face recognition, or other forms of biometric technology, on a camera worn or carried by a police officer in California for three years. The Assembly passed an earlier version of the bill with a 45-17 vote on May 9. Today’s vote of the Senate was 22-15. We are pleased that the Senate has listened to the growing number of voices who oppose the way government agencies use face surveillance.

The bill doesn't just ban facial recognition tech. It also targets other biometric surveillance methods that have been enjoying the side benefits of mission creep over the past several years.

(1) “Biometric data” means a physiological, biological, or behavioral characteristic that can be used, singly or in combination with each other or with other information, to establish individual identity.

(2) “Biometric surveillance system” means any computer software or application that performs facial recognition or other biometric surveillance.

(3) “Facial recognition or other biometric surveillance” means either of the following, alone or in combination:

(A) An automated or semiautomated process that captures or analyzes biometric data of an individual to identify or assist in identifying an individual.

(B) An automated or semiautomated process that generates, or assists in generating, surveillance information about an individual based on biometric data.

It forbids direct use by California law enforcement agencies, as well as prevents them from asking agencies outside the state (including federal agencies) from deploying this tech on their behalf. It also blocks state agencies from using cameras (body, dash, stationary) that utilize this tech.

If this bill is signed into law, California will become the first state to ban this tech. Existing bans by two major cities make this decision a whole lot easier and greases the logistical wheels for statewide deployment. In doing so, state legislators are showing they recognize the negative effects of unchecked surveillance deployment. Much of what the state is seeking to curb is listed on the bill's statement of intent, which makes it clear this government isn't willing to sacrifice its citizens and their freedoms to make law enforcement's job a little easier.

The use of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance is the functional equivalent of requiring every person to show a personal photo identification card at all times in violation of recognized constitutional rights. This technology also allows people to be tracked without consent. It would also generate massive databases about law-abiding Californians, and may chill the exercise of free speech in public places.

In addition, facial recognition still isn't great at the thing it's supposed to do: recognize faces. Early adopters have been generally unconcerned about the tech's unreliability, putting the onus on citizens and legislators to rein it in before it does any major damage. So far, California seems to be ahead of the curve, limiting its use prior to law enforcement rollout.

Other cities and states can do the same thing, but as it stands now, only three cities in the US have bans in place. And two of them are in California. Hopefully more legislation like this is on the way elsewhere -- bans that put citizens ahead of government agencies and their innate desire to place the people they serve under surveillance.

Filed Under: california, facial recognition, law enforcement

LeBron James Declares Victory In Losing Bid For 'Taco Tuesday' Trademark

from the generic-taco dept

It was only a couple of weeks ago that we wrote about LeBron James, part-time NBA superstar and full-time taco-lover, and his attempt to get a trademark for "Taco Tuesday" in the markets of podcasts, entertainment services, and social media. As we mentioned in that post, the idea that LeBron could get such a trademark on a fairly descriptive and widely used term is insane. Nearly as insane, as we noted, as the fact that the Taco John's chain already has such a registered trademark. It was the latter bit that we, as well as many other commentators on the topic, predicted would be the reason LeBron's application would be denied, as it would be identical to an already registered trademark.

But the USPTO never ceases to amaze, it seems. While the USPTO did in fact deny the application, the confusing trademark it cited in doing so wasn't Taco John's, but another application for an advertising company out of Nevada.

But there was another preceding trademark filing which Yahoo Finance also caught for “Techno Taco Tuesday” that proved to be a key piece in the downfall of James’ attempt to lock up the rights to Taco Tuesday.

The techno twist on the Tuesday was actually trademarked by a Las Vegas entertainment company back in 2018, specifically for the “advertising and marketing services” category for which James was seeking protection. As such, James’ application was denied for being “confusingly similar to the registered mark.”

Okay, so the USPTO decided that the fact that both applications included "Taco Tuesday" and the "Techno Taco Tuesday" application was both filed first and was in the same market as James' application. That might normally be the end of the story, and a particularly boring one at that, except that LeBron's team is declaring victory. Why?

Well, because of the other reason the USPTO gave for refusing to approve the trademark.

However, it’s not all bad news for the Los Angeles Laker. James could still respond to the USPTO filing with added or adjusted language within six months if he so chooses. And according to what someone in his circle reportedly told ESPN, James still may have achieved what he set out to do by establishing “Taco Tuesday” as a generic term to cover for any legal claims that could be brought against his use of the term.

“In this case, the applied-for mark is a commonplace term, message, or expression widely used by a variety of sources that merely conveys an ordinary, familiar, well-recognized concept or sentiment,” the USPTO examining attorney wrote in the declined trademark filing.

That sound you hear is the clicking of computer mice as every restaurant that has a Taco Tuesday event is bookmarking this ruling for when the Taco John's people come calling claiming trademark infringement. I can't imagine it's going to be terribly long before some company, or group of companies, seek to invalidate the Taco John's trademark that TJ's has wielded like a cudgel for so long, because this statement by the USPTO is fairly clear: "Taco Tuesdays" is generic as all hell.

We cast narrow eyes at LeBron for filing this in the first place, but if he can end the madness that is Taco Tuesday trademarks, even I'll call him King.

Filed Under: generic, lebron james, taco tuesday, trademark

Court Shoots Down Cop's Assertion That Driving Without Breaking Any Laws Is 'Suspicious'

from the scofflaws-not-even-bothering-to-break-the-law-anymore dept

Must be tough out there for cops. Literally everything is suspicious. And there are only so many hours in the day. Since no court is willing to end the tradition of pretextual stops, anything that can be described as suspicious has been used to initiate fishing expeditions.

A few courts have called out this tendency to view almost everything humans do as indicative of criminal behavior. This is one of the better call-outs, as it gives some indication of just how many "training and experience" assertions the court has had to wade through while dealing with law enforcement assertions about reasonable suspicion.

A logical reasoning sequence based upon some “training and experience” — because drug traffickers have been seen breathing, then breathing is an indicia of drug trafficking. Because they normally have two hands, then having two hands is an indicia of drug smuggling. Silly — maybe, but one can wonder if that is the direction we are heading. Whether it be driving a clean vehicle, or looking at a peace officer, or looking away from a peace officer, or a young person driving a newer vehicle, or someone driving in a car with meal wrappers, or someone driving carefully, or driving on an interstate, most anything can be considered as indicia of drug trafficking to law enforcement personnel.

Maybe this is because drug smugglers just happen to be human beings and being such, they tend to engage in the same innocuous acts in which law abiding citizens engage. See Gonzalez-Galindo v. State, 306 S.W.3d at 896 (observing that “[c]riminals come in all makes and colors. Some have hair, some do not. Some are men, some are not. Some drive cars, some do not. Some wear suits, some do not. Some have baseball caps, some do not. Some want attention, some do not. Some have nice cars, some do not. Some eat spaghetti, some do not. And, sometimes, some even engage in innocent activity.”)

This is in addition to these data points, all presumed to be "suspicious" behavior by law enforcement officers:

• Refusing to consent to a search
• Driving on a public road at night
• Driving attentively while black
• Driving a registered vehicle

That's the standard law enforcement holds itself to. Fortunately, some courts refuse to accept this lower standard of suspicion. The Arizona Court of Appeals is one of those courts. This recent decision [PDF] overturns a lower court's inexplicable support of a cop's extremely dubious "reasonable suspicion" claims. (via The Newspaper)

The defendant was pulled over by a police officer shortly after leaving a bar. According to the unnamed officer, the defendant's driving was suspicious. Here's what the officer observed:

At the June 2018 evidentiary hearing, the officer testified that, while on patrol for a DUI task force on December 7, 2017 around 9:30 p.m., he first observed Flynn when he was exiting a strip mall parking lot near Dobson and Guadalupe Roads in Mesa. The strip mall contained several restaurants that were open at the time but, because the officer knew there was a hole in a fence on the opposite side of the complex that separated the strip mall parking lot from an adjacent bar, he followed Flynn for approximately two miles. During this time, the officer estimated Flynn’s speed at between twenty-eight and thirty-five miles per hour, never reaching the posted limit of forty-five miles per hour. In the course of following Flynn, the officer observed no traffic violations or other clues of impairment.

This was the entirety of the officer's assertion: that he had observed literally nothing else than a person leaving a strip mall and driving home while obeying all traffic laws and otherwise appearing to be sober.

The officer tried to claim that the driver's inability to hit the posted speed limit was itself suspicious. This ignores that fact that a speed limit limits top speed. It does not make driving at a lower speed illegal, nor necessarily indicate the driver is impaired.

On top of that, the officer could not deliver any reliable testimony about his speed limit-related observations.

The officer testified he initiated the stop solely because Flynn left the vicinity of a bar and then traveled at a speed that varied but remained below the posted limit. However, the officer did not remember how many times Flynn’s speed varied. He did not have any clear recollection of where the fluctuations occurred or whether Flynn had been required to stop or slow down for any of the seven light-controlled intersections the pair encountered. Nor was he able to testify as to how frequent or great a speed variance would need to be to qualify as a clue of impairment.

With that, the suppression order is reinstated and the prosecution loses all the evidence the cop obtained during his suspicionless stop. The problem, of course, is that a ruling like this won't deter officers from performing suspicionless stops. It will just make them work a bit harder when crafting their assertions. People are still going to get stopped for completely bullshit reasons and allow taxpayers to fund the redress of grievances.

Filed Under: police, pretextual stops, reasonable suspicion

House Joins The Senate In Moving Forward On Plan To Massively Increase Copyright Trolling

from the this-is-bad dept

For quite some time now we've been talking about why the CASE Act, which sets up a special copyright "court" with lower barriers to entry for copyright holders, is such a bad idea. There are all sorts of problems with it, starting with the fact that we already have a massive copyright trolling problem, and the CASE Act is deliberately designed to make it worse. While supporters like to pretend that the CASE Act is the equivalent of a "small claims" court, it actually can lead to damages awards up to $30,000, which is way higher than a standard small claims court.

That said, as with so many copyright bills before it, Congress ignores all the problems associated with the CASE Act, because a bunch of vested interests pretend that there's some real problems solved by this law. So, once again, the bill has moved forward, this time with the House passing the bill out of the Judiciary Committee, meaning that it can go to a full vote on the floor. The end result here would be really dangerous for free speech online, but no one in Congress seems to care about it. Yet.

EFF is asking people to contact their elected officials in Congress to let them know that theyshould not massively expand copyright in this manner, which will only lead to that much more extortion and shakedowns, while creating even more chilling effects for free expression online.

Filed Under: case act, congress, copyright, copyright trolling, small claims

Something Has Spooked AT&T Enough To Warrant Bringing Their Top Lobbyist Out Of Retirement

from the pressing-legislative-agenda dept

For years, top AT&T Lobbyist Jim Cicconi was the man that drove much of the telco's controversial policy apparatus, most recently the company's successful quest to kill net neutrality and effectively neuter the FCC. Cicconi's charm was frequently on display in his blog posts whining about things like the FCC increasing the speed definition of "broadband", or in the company's astroturfing efforts to undermine most if not all consumer protections governing the telecom sector (though it's worth noting he wasn't particularly, personally keen on Donald Trump).

Cicconi retired a few years back, but his successor Bob Quinn didn't have an easy go of it. Quinn was fired after reports emerged that the company had paid former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen $600,000 (using the same shell company used to pay hush money to Trump’s alleged former partner Stormy Daniels) to gain additional access to the President, something AT&T called a "serious misjudgement." As a result, AT&T's entire External & Legislative Affairs (E&LA) group instead began reporting to AT&T General Counsel David McAtee to, one would assume, keep the unit on a more legal trajectory.

But this week AT&T quietly brought Cicconi back from retirement to tackle something that has apparently spooked the telecom giant:

"Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s long-time top policy exec who retired in September 2018, is back, at least temporarily, according to an internal AT&T note confirmed by a sources. AT&T said that move was made "given the pressing legislative and regulatory agenda we face in Washington D.C. and elsewhere." Cicconi Monday (Sept. 16) returned to AT&T Washington on an interim basis as senior executive VP or external and legislative affairs, reporting to AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson.

Plenty of things may have spooked AT&T enough to warrant bringing their former top lobbyist out of retirement, even if AT&T has been a historic beneficiary of (unearned) tax breaks and regulatory favors in the Trump era.

One, the company is facing a growing investor revolt due to ongoing TV subscriber losses and the growing sense that just maybe spending $150 billion on mergers (making AT&T the most indebted company in the world) may not have been the best choice. AT&T saddled itself with debt to dominate the streaming space, only to find subscribers running to the exits in the wake of company decisions to raise rates to pay off said debt. AT&T's problems are compounded on that front by an array of new, overcomplicated brand offerings that have even confused AT&T.

There's several other issues that could be making AT&T nervous, not least of which is growing calls for more meaningful privacy legislation in the wake of endless hack and location data scandals. AT&T lobbyists successfully convinced Congress to kill modest FCC rules on that front a few years ago. They've also been hugely successful in convincing lawmakers that "big tech" should be the exclusive focus of Congressional, regulatory, and antitrust scrutiny while telecom gets a free pass. But efforts in California to pass tougher privacy rules (despite the flawed and rushed nature of some of the language) may be making AT&T brass nervous.

AT&T execs are also likely nervous about a looming decision in the 23 AG lawsuit against the FCC (for repealing net neutrality without basing said decision on, you know, actual facts). Should the FCC lose that lawsuit (a ruling in which is expected to drop any day now), some or all of the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules (and corresponding authority) would be restored, and Cicconi is likely the perfect candidate to complain endlessly about the terrible unfairness of AT&T not getting its way in press and policy venues.

Filed Under: bob quinn, jim cicconi, lobbying
Companies: at&t

Buried Whistleblower Report Apparently Involves President Trump's Conversations With A Foreign Leader

from the all-very-above-board-and-not-worrying-at-all dept

At the very last minute of last week -- prime government news-dumping time -- Rep. Adam Schiff announced the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was (perhaps unlawfully) refusing to turn over a whistleblower report to House Intelligence Community.

That the ODNI would blow off its oversight isn't unusual. The Intelligence Community has long treated its obligations as mere suggestions, leaving it to whistleblowers and leakers to expose wrongdoing. What was a bit more unusual were the allegations being buried: what was forwarded to the ODNI by the IC Inspector General suggested the Trump Administration itself was involved.

The Committee can only conclude, based on this remarkable confluence of factors, that the serious misconduct at issue involves the President of the United States and/or other senior White House or Administration officials. This raises grave concerns that your office, together with the Department of Justice and possibly the White House, are engaged in an unlawful effort to protect the President and conceal from the Committee information related to his possible “serious or flagrant” misconduct, abuse of power, or violation of law.    

Whatever is contained in the unseen report, the ODNI definitely does not want to talk about. Not even behind closed doors with the House Intelligence Committee. The New York Times reports the head of the ODNI has blown off Rep. Schiff's demands.

The acting director of national intelligence will not testify before Congress this week or immediately hand over a whistle-blower complaint to lawmakers, escalating a standoff between Capitol Hill and leaders of the intelligence agencies.

What little information has surfaced is still pretty much detail-free, but the ODNI's general counsel sent a letter to Schiff that adds a bit more to the theory these still-buried allegations involve top-level White House officials.

The complaint involves conduct by someone “outside the intelligence community” and does not involve intelligence activity under the supervision of Mr. Maguire, the general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Jason Klitenic, wrote in a letter on Tuesday to Mr. Schiff that was obtained by The New York Times.

It is definitely someone outside of the intelligence community. The Washington Post blows the lid off the report the ODNI doesn't want to hand over to Congress. It indeed goes all the way to the top.

The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said the former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

One of the officials said the communication was a phone call. Given the time frame, it appears to be one of several phone calls to world leaders Trump made in the preceding weeks, including a July 31 call to Vladimir Putin and communications with Kim Jong Un during the summer. Given the troubling things Trump has said publicly about these two, it doesn't stretch the imagination much to assume he's said some legitimately worrying things to them behind the scenes.

This would fit into the DNI's claims the whistleblower report can't be handed to the House Oversight Committee because it contains "confidential and potentially privileged communications." However, it does appear Rep. Schiff and the Committee will at least finally be hearing something about the buried report. The Washington Post report says acting ODNI Joseph Maguire -- along with IC Inspector General Michael Atkinson -- will be testifying at a closed Congressional hearing about the whistleblower complaint, contrary to the earlier New York Times reporting.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean the public will hear much about the details. Whatever Trump said to whatever foreign leader will remain under wraps, even if the alleged "promise" has the potential to affect all of us.

Filed Under: adam schiff, donald trump, inspector general, national security, odni, whistleblower, whistleblower protections, whistleblowing

Daily Deal: The Ultimate Shopify And Ecommerce Expert Bundle

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

The Ultimate Shopify and Ecommerce Expert Bundle has 11 courses to help you get started using Shopify to easily market, sell, manage, and ship your products or services online. You'll learn how to set up a custom e-commerce website using Shopify, how to set up Facebook, Google, and Reddit ad campaigns, how to find a niche for your product and locate an audience, and more. There are courses covering selling on eBay, Amazon, and Etsy, working with Alibaba, and much more. The bundle is on sale for $39.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Feds Investigating Next Round Of Sites Accused Of Facilitating Sex Trafficking

from the whac-a-mole dept

The Wall Street Journal has a report about how both the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department are investigating three "massage and escort" sites accused of taking up where Backpage left off (that link is likely paywalled, but here's a Gizmodo summary of the same article). The article is interesting in that it explores how these three sites -- Rubmaps, Eros, and EroticMonkey -- are believed to be connected with one guy, David Azzato, who "was convicted in France in 2011 of profiting from prostitution through a European network of escort-ad sites." Azzato denies having anything to do with the sites, though the article highlights some evidence that at least suggests otherwise.

Either way, a few things struck me about the article. The first is the general futility of shutting down one or another such sites, because people move elsewhere:

“All three of those websites benefited substantially from the seizure of Backpage,” said Rob Spectre, ChildSafe.ai’s founder and chief executive.

In the article, it becomes quite clear that whoever is behind these sites -- whether it's Azzato or someone else entirely -- has zero interest in working with the US government to prevent trafficking. Contrast that with the recent reports that Backpage seemed to bend over backwards to work with the feds to prevent sex trafficking on the site. It raises a big question about what the actual goal is here.

Of course, part of the issue is the same one that comes up over and over again in these discussions: consensual sex work is not the same thing as sex trafficking. It's absolutely true that there can be overlap, but so much of this fight seems to break down along those lines. That was the point at which various reports suggest that Backpage's execs tried to draw the line. They were happy to help the feds stop actual traffickers -- but when some in the DOJ wanted to use Backpage to go after everyday consensual sex work, the execs said no.

And note that the Wall Street Journal piece seems to freely shift back and forth between prostitution and sex trafficking as if they're identical. That makes it difficult to have a serious conversation about the goals and tactics being used here. Generally speaking, people seem to use the language of sex trafficking to push for the attacks on these sites, but when it comes down to details, they're really just focused on prostitution.

A separate issue in the article is that it hints that the feds might go after American companies who provide services to the three sites in question (all of whom are based outside of the US):

It is true that website domains registered abroad may be outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law enforcement. But officials can request information from their U.S.-based technology providers and can seize those accounts through a court order, which could interrupt the websites’ operations. U.S. officials can also seek to prosecute individuals who own or run sites they allege are breaking U.S. laws.

Rubmaps, EroticMonkey and Eros all use San Francisco-based Cloudflare Inc., a web infrastructure and security company, according to domain records. Cloudflare didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Again, this seems like a pretty messed up way of going about all of this. Cloudflare is just providing some basic infrastructure and security services. If the feds think it makes sense to go after that company because some of its customers had illegal activities occurring on their websites, that opens up a whole bunch of serious questions about how deep the liability levels are supposed to go.

Filed Under: david azzato, dhs, doj, escorts, fosta, prostitution, sex trafficking
Companies: cloudflare