Every time I see a pic of John Ashcroft, I shudder at the thought that he could so easily hire clones of his to harass the adult industries with endless civil suits and prosecutions.
A half dozen of the religious right lawyers are Anthony Comstock clones waiting to happen, waiting to be appointed as a Deputy Atty General, whenever they take a breather from the war on terrorism. Comstock put over 3000 people in jail for obscenity, contraceptive sales, and abortion during just a few years. Most of the Ashcroft inner circle have never had a bbjteoku. LOL. They start workdays with prayer meetings. They have not decided to have an Internet escort task force yet - yet.
I look at this from the standpoint of a committed hobbyist, a retired former federal litigator and professor who taught federal evidence, the art and science on how to get documents and testimony into evidence in court trials, or just as support for a search warrant. Of course my role was always to keep out evidence, and to quash search warrants, but you have to know all sides of the issues, or you lose. The Bush-Reagan judges use their discretion against defendants.
My point is that every website I've seen needs much better terminology, for what it's worth, and that data needs to be kept where it cannot be seized in a surprise raid, state or federal. Paper trails of course need to be minimized. If you search FindLaw.com for federal prosecutions in the adult field, you find a considerable amount of activity that goes unpublicized. You see that computers and servers are routinely seized, as are bank accts, all kinds of assets, credit card receipts, phone records, even ATM records, and condoms by the carton.
Nobody has the greatest language on websites because no one has put his or her mind to it very well, and not I by any means.
I don't do law any more, just write about it.
A few examples from this website:
"Fee Paid" could be "Donation for [College Fund, Childcare]"
Fee paid is too blunt, too direct an admission of an element of a prostitution charge.
"Services Provided" is also too blunt, considering what follows.
"Favorite Activities" might be better.
The standard provider disclaimer is another piece of usually bad English - the coincidental sex theory. LOL
I look at how these would sound in front of a judge and jury.
If it doesn't pass the laugh test, think of better terminology, and continuously keep this in the back of your mind.
Hobbyists and providers need to make it difficult for the prosecution in every imaginable way to prove any case.
The changing of names, location, and modus operandi on a regular basis helps, because usually the feds at least take a long time to prepare a case. There are books around about how to become as invisible as possible, and the learning process in this must be ongoing. Evidence is what a judge allows in, and the more it is double or triple hearsay, or unauthenticated documents, the better off you are. LE will prosecute the cases that are provable, and the further away from that you are, the better.
I hope this was a useful start, and was not read by too many undercover agents with their separate identities for screening. NLOL. On a lighter note, I had a great time last week trying to corrupt several college vixen masseuses who had been usually rather close-mouthed about it. The fun is detailed in a few reviews, as are the failures too. 4 hits, and 2 strike outs, one of which was a first time ever latex hj from hell. LOL
-- Modified on 5/21/2002 2:17:11 PM
