Nine women face felony prostitution charges and hundreds of their customers have been arrested. Florida says it's the real victim.
"I think that we have to understand though that it is not as simple as that."
Authorities are walking back big claims about an international human-trafficking ring involving Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
It's also part of a larger national attack on massage parlors and sex workers.
As the lawsuit against FOSTA hits appeals court, three essays about the law that everyone should read.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown talks about DHS's "Blue Campaign," which is pushing hotel and airline workers to call the feds if they suspect human trafficking.
Plus: Lionel Shriver on cultural erasure and Stormy Daniels on strip-club labor laws
Plus: New York's CBD-foods crackdown, Laura Loomer gets booted from PayPayl, and more hits from last night's speech.
How big hotel chains became arms of the surveillance state.
The senator and presidential hopeful went to bat for dirty prosecutors, opposed marijuana legalization, and championed policies that endanger sex workers.
The Super Bowl is around the corner and a popular sex trafficking myth is back.
2018 was a mixed bag, but that means there was still a lot of good news.
A national strategy for arresting sex buyers and letting local cops wiretap sex workers are among the approved changes.
A Tucson Weekly investigation finds that federal funds to "fight sex trafficking" are actually perpetuating it.
Plus: Trump endorses sentencing reform and Bitcoin's value continues to fall.
How indie media entrepreneurs James Larkin and Michael Lacey became the targets of a federal witchhunt.
The porn wars haven't died, they're just packaged differently.
The ruling is a major win for Backpage founders James Larkin and Michael Lacey, as well as a strike against government overreach.
Plus: fight against FOSTA continues and Tennessee trooper reports Democrat for visiting falafel restaurant.
Plus: why Gary Johnson will be good for the Senate, "toxic culture" at the TSA, the dismissal of an anti-FOSTA lawsuit, and a new economic freedom index.
The PATRIOT Act fell out of fashion-but swap "human trafficker" for "terrorist" and let the civil liberties infringements roll!
Activists petition to stop a sex-doll shop.
But the real problem here isn't human-trafficking troops, it's regulators raising crime panic.
Plus: Another one of NYU professor Avital Ronell's teaching assistants talks, and Tucker Carlson goes after Amazon.
Matt Welch interviews Brown (and others, including ex-Reasoner Lauren Krisai) from 9-12 ET.
An inside look at how indie media veterans James Larkin and Michael Lacey became the targets of a federal witchhunt.
Plus: digital privacy concerns down 11 percent since 2015
Representatives of the oldest profession were on Capitol Hill fighting FOSTA and SESTA, with our online freedoms hanging in the balance.
Misleading claims about people smuggling serve only to justify the government's already bloated surveillance and law enforcement powers.
The Delaware Criminal Justice Council found it difficult to "justify the resources that have been expend on so few" participants with such a "low rate of success."
The federal charges against Mack highlight how human trafficking hysteria harms vulnerable women.
The White Slavery Panic of the late 19th/early 20th centuries caused Congress to pass the vaguely-worded Mann Act. It allowed the FBI and prosecutors broad discretion to go after individuals they didn't like.
Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer turned over the company and seven other executives in exchange for leniency.
Indictment reveals money-laundering, conspiracy charges, and a tricky federal law known as the Travel Act.
Site had long been a target for sex work and sex trafficking advertisements.
5 editorials call for the federal government to thwart Sinclair's expansion efforts in wake of creepy promo video; meanwhile you can count the number of anti-FOSTA eds on one finger
The ruling allows a civil suit against Backpage to proceed for one of the case's three plaintiffs.
While America gawks at tales of consensual Trump-spanking, Internet freedom is coming under legislative and cultural attack
The great content crackdown has begun.
The measure will "make it harder, not easier, to root out and prosecute sex traffickers," said Sen. Ron Wyden, one of only two senators to vote no on FOSTA.
Reason editors dispute presidential notion that "trade wars are good, and easy to win," and also argue over the Oscars.
Device makers would be required to block porn, prostitution hubs, and all content that fails "current standards of decency."
Disney allegedly lobbied against the bill behind the scenes.
The bill makes "promoting prostitution" a federal crime, holds websites legally liable for user-posted content, and lets states retroactively prosecute offenders.
In a series of protests, strip club workers and their allies are pushing back against abusive policing.
Minneapolis is being transformed into a police state.
They also arrested her younger friend for prostitution.
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