The Feds Have Seized Backpage.com

The Party's Over for Backpage.com

The federal government went ahead and seized control of Backpage.com, a well-known escorting site on Friday. The government organizations involved in the seizure include the FBI, the Postal Inspection Service, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, as well as the United States attorney general offices in Arizona and California. The government also raided the Arizona home of the site's co-founder Michael Lacey on Friday.

Because of the site's pretty open escorting ads, it has been fighting lawsuits from federal and state governments for years since, you know, consensual adult prostitution is illegal in the majority of places in this country that we live in even though it should not be. Child sex trafficking and adult sex trafficking? Yep, roast the fuckers who do that. Taking a person's consent away and selling them for sex is completely fucked up.

Unfortunately, our fine government is not making a distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex workers and is just totally cool with destroying the places online where consensual sex workers meet their clients. The Congress has passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act which makes websites liable for what people say and the business that they do on their websites, which runs counter to the active Communications Decency Act. Craigslist has voluntarily closed its online personal section, another place where escorts would find clients.

Our president has yet to sign the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act into law. Click here to help stop it from becoming law.