"Under the guise of fighting sex trafficking, legislators have been offering up a slew of bills that will make things much worse for plenty of people not involved in this heinous crime. Elizabeth Nolan Brown, who is the go-to expert on all sorts of government abuse done in the name of sex-trafficked children, has tallied up the current stack of legislative paperwork floating around the halls of Congress. Spoiler alert: it's a lot.
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Currently, the forerunner for "worst" is one that makes a mockery of federal wiretap statutes. The laws governing government eavesdropping have been modified over the years with an eye on protecting something even more sacrosanct than someone's home: someone's private conversations. Wiretaps are only supposed to be used for felonies -- dangerous, possibly life-threatening criminal activities. They're supposed to be issued only when law enforcement has exhausted all other options and subjected to strict oversight to prevent their abuse. (Note: what's supposed to happen and what actually happens are two very different things.)
What they're not supposed to be used for is small-time stuff -- misdemeanors and other low-level, non-dangerous crimes. But that's exactly what legislators are hoping to do: expand wiretap authority to cover the consensual exchange of money for services.
One such measure would expand state and local government authority "to seek wiretap warrants in sexual exploitation and prostitution cases" (emphasis mine) and mandate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute of Justice conduct a "study on the long-term physical and psychological effects of the commercial sex trade." It would also give the Department of Homeland Security a mandate to develop protocols "for implementation across federal, state, and local law enforcement" on how to screen people "suspected of engaging in commercial sex acts" for the possibility that they have been trafficked. The screening process would also be applied to people suspected of working in violation of any labor regulations, including occupational licensing rules.
Combine this new authority with government officials' natural tendency to name-and-shame anyone involved with consensual sex work and you've got a whole can of wiretapped worms just waiting to be exploited for maximum public damage. Add to that the underlying assertion that sex work is some sort of illness that must be studied by the CDC and, presumably, "remedied" by even more ridiculous, harmful legislation."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170610/09541437555/legislators-want-to-open-up-wiretap-laws-to-target-sex-workers-their-customers.shtml
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Currently, the forerunner for "worst" is one that makes a mockery of federal wiretap statutes. The laws governing government eavesdropping have been modified over the years with an eye on protecting something even more sacrosanct than someone's home: someone's private conversations. Wiretaps are only supposed to be used for felonies -- dangerous, possibly life-threatening criminal activities. They're supposed to be issued only when law enforcement has exhausted all other options and subjected to strict oversight to prevent their abuse. (Note: what's supposed to happen and what actually happens are two very different things.)
What they're not supposed to be used for is small-time stuff -- misdemeanors and other low-level, non-dangerous crimes. But that's exactly what legislators are hoping to do: expand wiretap authority to cover the consensual exchange of money for services.
One such measure would expand state and local government authority "to seek wiretap warrants in sexual exploitation and prostitution cases" (emphasis mine) and mandate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute of Justice conduct a "study on the long-term physical and psychological effects of the commercial sex trade." It would also give the Department of Homeland Security a mandate to develop protocols "for implementation across federal, state, and local law enforcement" on how to screen people "suspected of engaging in commercial sex acts" for the possibility that they have been trafficked. The screening process would also be applied to people suspected of working in violation of any labor regulations, including occupational licensing rules.
Combine this new authority with government officials' natural tendency to name-and-shame anyone involved with consensual sex work and you've got a whole can of wiretapped worms just waiting to be exploited for maximum public damage. Add to that the underlying assertion that sex work is some sort of illness that must be studied by the CDC and, presumably, "remedied" by even more ridiculous, harmful legislation."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170610/09541437555/legislators-want-to-open-up-wiretap-laws-to-target-sex-workers-their-customers.shtml