Aug. 20--Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has long been frustrated with Internet sites that he says openly and profitably promote prostitution and online sex trafficking. Dart says it would be impossible for him to investigate the thousands of people who post advertisements for escort services and erotic massages. So he took a different route. He targeted credit card companies that allow their cards to be used to buy classified ads for these services.
In June, Dart sent letters to Visa and MasterCard requesting that they stop allowing their cards to be payment vehicles for ads on Backpage.com, a website where people sell old baby clothes and car parts but also escort services, body rubs, strippers and, well, you get the idea. Listed recently on the site's adult pages:
"Now hiring! Exotic laborers! Northwest suburbs."
"Well educated, normal, dependable, safe man looking for an arrangement. $350. Oak Brook."
"Let me be your naughty secret! Chicago."
"Two girls at once. Help me cross something off my bucket list. $900. Schaumburg."
Dart told the credit card companies that more than 20,000 prostitution ads are placed every month on Backpage. Backpage has said it makes every effort to screen advertisers and reports suspicious cases to law enforcement.
The credit card companies did respond. Visa and MasterCard stopped doing business with Backpage. (American Express had canceled its relationship with Backpage several months ago.) MasterCard said it cut ties with Backpage because it reserves the right to end ties with unsavory or undesirable retailers. Online gambling, for example, is one area where some credit card companies have declined to allow their products for transactions. In a statement, a spokesman for Visa said the company could not comment on why it ended its relationship with Backpage due to pending litigation.
So Dart won. Sort of. Because there's a problem with how he went about this.
Backpage, arguing that its business has been crippled, sought and quickly received a restraining order that forbids Dart from lobbying credit card companies to block their cards from being used to buy ads on the website. U.S. District Court Judge John J. Tharp called Dart's actions a "plainly unconstitutional" prior restraint of speech. "The Constitution does not allow censorship by a vigilante with a badge seeking to impose his views of what is or is not permissible speech," the judge said.
On Backpage, even legitimate buying and selling of baby clothes or garden equipment or used books is severely limited if you can't use a credit card to pay to advertise them.
Dart is not going to prevail in this courtroom.
That doesn't mean he won't ultimately get his way. Dart says he put pressure on the credit card companies because he didn't have the manpower to investigate every case of allegedly illegal activity.
We'd argue that given the sheer breadth of such activities, Dart's crusade has gone as far as it realistically can, or should. This calls for an approach beyond the scope of a county sheriff.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and her cohorts in several states have stepped up scrutiny of Backpage.
And, last week, U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., responding to Dart's effort, said he and several other members of Congress have formally asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Backpage. Kirk Co. point to a successful federal effort last year to shut down MyRedBook.com, which facilitated sex trafficking until the FBI shut it down.
We hope the feds treat Kirk's request as urgently as they would other allegations of misconduct in this realm. If the weight of law enforcement and prosecution eventually falls on someone, though, it should be on those who are committing crimes, not on credit card firms with which they do business.
That said, Dart deserves praise for being proactive in taking on the illicit sex trade. The credit card companies deserve applause for taking a stand against obviously questionable transactions. They put Backpage up against a wall. Good.
If Backpage wants to stay in business, it should be forced to be much more scrupulous in what it allows to get published. If the company cannot properly screen its questionable advertisements, it should take down the adult services page altogether. Stick to garage sales and used furniture.
Because no one actually believes "exotic laborers" means lawn mowing services. A little common sense and accountability from Backpage would have kept the law enforcement authorities at bay.
Too late for that now.
