WASHINGTON – I’m feeling inspired today. Not just inspired, but empowered to the point I believe with the stroke of a pen (if I still owned a pen) I could change the world … assuming the world weren’t filled with a bunch of dummies crying loudly about “freedom of expression” and carrying such big protest signs they can’t hear or see the obvious wisdom of my plans and proscriptions for a better society, that is.
First, let’s address the reason I’m so inspired this morning: It’s a bill called the “If You Oppose this Bill, Then You’re an Evil, Perverted Bastard Who Hates Kids Act of 2017.”
Wait, sorry, that’s a different bill. The one that has inspired me is a piece of legislation with similar intent but a slightly more nuanced title: “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017, or “SESTA.”
In case you aren’t familiar with the word “enabling” it’s something a lot of people do with alcoholics, drug addicts and (evidently) sex traffickers.
Enabling can be a tricky concept, because as it turns out, you don’t even have to give a drunk a bottle of booze to “enable” him. Apparently just letting him crash on your couch from time to time after a night of heavy drinking qualifies.
At any rate, presumably most of you aren’t allowing sex traffickers to sleep on your sofa (or providing them with free alcohol and drugs, I hope) so you might be asking yourself, “ho is enabling all these sex traffickers and how are they doing it?”
The answer, of course, is liberals and progressives. To be fair, there’s also Backpage, but that’s probably just a coincidental function of the site’s owners being liberals and progressives.
Thankfully, Congress is going to nip this whole sex trafficker-enabling thing right in the bud (or perhaps in the butt, or wherever it is congressmen nip things), and the Provocatively-Entitled Act of 2017 SESTA is just the vehicle by which such nipping ought to occur.
How will SESTA work, though? I’ll let a statement published by the bill’s most alliteratively-named sponsor, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, do the heavy lifting here.
“This carefully crafted legislation offers three reforms to help sex trafficking victims,” the statement explained (presumably without enabling anyone reading it). “Allow victims of sex trafficking to seek justice against websites that facilitated their victimization; Make knowing, commercial conduct that assists, supports, or facilitates a violation of federal sex trafficking laws a crime; and Enable state law enforcement officials, not just the federal Department of Justice, to take action against individuals or businesses that violate federal sex trafficking laws.”
Well shit. So much for my belief nobody was being enabled by this statement, eh? It’s right there in black and white; this bill clearly is going to enable state law enforcement officials.
That’s OK, I suppose, so long as it’s not this state law enforcement official, or this one, or perhaps this one. I mean, so long as Congress doesn’t enable them directly, I’m pretty sure none of you would buy one of these sickos a single drink, much less let him sleep in your living room, right?
Where was I? Oh right; I was being inspired.
The way the Only A Horrible Person Wouldn’t Vote For This Act of 2017 SESTA enables law enforcement and helps victims is by making sure everybody knows Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act “was never intended to provide legal protection to websites that facilitate traffickers in advertising the sale of unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims.”
I must concede, this claim by the sponsors of SESTA is true. Section 230 of the CDA, just like Section 512 of the DMCA, was intended to make it virtually impossible to sue websites owned by tech companies which contribute a lot of money to various Senators’ reelection campaigns for copyright infringement, defamation and various other civil torts.
What the sponsors of SESTA are really trying to say here, I think, is Section 230 wasn’t supposed to give Backpage cover for its pimping and accessory-to-pimping activities.
Now, some of you might be thinking to yourself “If they have proof Backpage was knowingly facilitating prostitution and sex trafficking, can’t law enforcement go after Backpage for those things without fundamentally altering an important safe harbor provision which has allowed the modern internet as we know it to develop and flourish?”
The Senatorial answer to that question is, of course: “Sure, but without passing a bill with a compelling title which signals I’m being really aggressive about stamping out online sex trafficking and implicitly paints all who oppose my legislation as monstrous supporters of the illicit sex-slave trade, how will I raise campaign contributions using this issue to pander to my freaked-out, scared-shitless voter base?”
Look, the last thing any of us want to do (aside from letting sex traffickers drink from our liquor cabinets while living rent-free in our guest houses, of course), is to make life harder for the people who write press releases for Senators, or those who raise money for them.
That’s just one of many reasons why we should all come together and make our voices heard in strong, unyielding support of the Only People Who Knowingly Aid And Abet Sex Traffickers Would Ever Even Consider Voting Against This Act of 2017 sorry, I mean SESTA.
If we don’t support SESTA passionately, vocally and unambiguously, not only will it lead people to think we support sex trafficking, it might also mean websites could continue to allow end-users to publish comments without fear being held strictly liable for those third-party comments. And that would be a travesty because… uh… because…. Hmm. OK, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure why that would be such a travesty.
I do know it would be such a travesty, though – because I just finished reading a draft of another new bill we should all support: The “What A Travesty It Would Be If We Maintained Any Sort Of Indemnity For Websites Against The Criminal Behavior Of Third Parties Who Use Those Sites Act of 2017.”
