AHHH whats my friend Travis gonna do.. Well he was busted and aressted but at least the hooker was hot. But more to the point. Its not just the content its the fact that Craigslist has a Section for it. If they dropped erotic services (services implies money is exchanged and erotic implies ima getten me some) and let the hookers post in the normal looking for love (or the clap) area they would be fine.

Yeah but naked swedish maids are under that section too and that is not illegal.

Like HD-DVD, Craiglist is banking on adult services to stay alive.

"Erotic services" are legal. Prostitution is NOT legal in most of the US and Europe... I can't say what the law may say in other parts of the world. Craig's list is offering merely a place for services which are legal to be bought/sold. They aren't breaking any laws.

Why can't people be made to take responsibility for their OWN actions instead of trying to make someone else the guardian? Going after Craig's list for giving people a place to post nefarious services is the same as Cook County suing ITSELF for providing a public sidewalk where the prostitutes are actually standing to offer their wares.

their wares..., LOL! I agree though.

Beautiful analogy!!! (y)

Local newspapers run these kinds of ads too, remember, anyone can offer sex for money, the crime only happens when the money is actually exchanged. Since Craig's List is free, no money changes hands, therefore Craig's List can't be held liable. Were Craig's List being paid to host these advertisements, then it could be said they were profiting from illegal activeties, but they aren't

That said, too many sherrif's are making the news as of late. These elected officials juts need to do their job. The better they are at their job, the less they should be in the news.

Hmm it kinda smells like the same thing TPB is going thru at the moment...

I watched MSNBC's special on trafficked women and it was horrifying. These pimps kidnap and force women to do these things and advertise regularly on Craig's list. I know they're only a media forum, but they cannot hide behind the first amendment when the lives of countless victims are at stake. At the very least, they need to remove ads that promote escort services and prostitution. I always wondered how escort services are legal when prostitution on the street clearly is not. Americans need to realize the problem is not the women, it's the scum enslaving them and the men using them.

Go figure... this seems a lot like the pirate bay case. "You cannot hold us responsible for what our users do".

On one hand, its like saying Gun's Kill people... and matches start forest fires right?

If they're nailing TPB for this, then they should nail Craigslist as will.

Left hand, meet right hand.

Wow JWL3 who knew Craigslist was the hub of human trafficking. Because you saw something on the discovery channel about it, doesn't mean it should become your crusade. Get over it

Prostitution is legal in most of Europe. What's illegal is the existance of a pimp.

The defense actually used something like this as an example. They likened the pirate bay to be like an open forum like craigslist, but that it couldn't be held responsible for any of the child pornography that could be exchanged through it.

Why didn't anyone tell me about this!!!!
I'm off to craigslist

"hey there baby do you need to be" ...oh, sorry.

I thought I was already there.

I know I'll get -20 for this comment, but Craigslist is a cesspool. It isn't just about the erotic services. You have to be very careful and weary about who you deal with on this site. I have made a few purchases and sales on there and most people are very strange that I have met. One guy was pretty decent though and I still communicate with him from time to time.

One thing I also don't like is that if you're looking for a small item that can easily be shipped, most of the time people on there want local pick up only. So say your item is about 100 miles away sure you could drive to it but it'd be cheaper to just send it via USPS and use paypal. Ebay has a lot of advantages over this site. More legitimate people, less weirdos, and better buyer/seller protection.

I know a few women that advertise on craigslist. Craigslist now charges $5 per erotic service ad. And to the cops: Stop wasting your time on prostitution and weed and try to prevent murders instead of just investigating them.

Hadn't heard that... In any case, it's still not against the law to sell 'erotic services' (this doesn't include sex for $$$ because THAT is illegal in their county.) I would advise the prostitute-tracking cops to maybe do a sting operation or something. Advertising a legitimate service and advertising sex for money are very much NOT the same thing (no matter how close some may view them.)

It's about the money folks. Law "enforcement" is big business. If Caigslist were breaking the law, they'd be charged. Since they're not, It appears that the Sheriff is filing a civil case... for money. The Sheriff doesn't want to stop prostitution, he wants money. Plain and simple.

Prostitution should be legal, period, end of discussion. If you're a do-good Bible-thumper and don't like prostitution THEN DON'T BUY A HOOKER!!! What happens between 2 consenting adults is nobodies business, if clean and classy brothels were around, you'd see far less sexual assault crimes, but once again, our Christian majority in America is sending their people to DC and applying 17th century logic to 21st century problems, and epic failing, as always.

People who get involved with prostitution have a very serious addiction. Do a google search on beefeater500, he has the most prostitution reviews on the internet. Many of the girls he sees are on craigslist.
http://beefeater500.blogspot.com/

whilei disagree with prostitution and piracy ... i don't think officals can hold eitehr site responisble for crimes commited by it's users ... this is BS , like some one said they should arrest the city officals for providing hookers with their sidewalks.

I guess the Cook County voters need to decide if their sheriff should be attention-whoring filing garbage lawsuits or doing something more productive with the time they're paying him for.

Will he next sue the various publishers of Yellow Pages? There's a lot more money to be had there, I'm sure with enough time and effort, they can determine which escort services or strippergram companies will offer more than is legal. It could take many, many months and lots of business to get the offer though, so having strippers working the poles at the police station for the next few years would just be part of the investigation.

We should legalize, regulate and tax prostitution. Health services should be provided to the prostitutes and a fund should be set up (from a portion of the tax revenue) to help educate or re-train those who want to get out of prostitution.

While legalizing and regulating it is probably the smartest thing to do, shouldn't the sheriff be thankful for craigslist. If all that prostitution is centralized, doesn't it make it a lot easier to set up sting operations and arrest pimps and human traffickers.

If your an uptight prick or a press whoring sheriff, then I guess making prostitution slightly less convenient would be your goal, but if you actually want to stop human traffickers, shouldn't you be trying to arrest them?

craigslist gave me crabs

"Just to prove my point we put our own ads on Craigslist," Dart said. "One of them read '15-year-old looking for sex,' and it got three hits including one from a convicted sex offender. We put up '14-year old looking for sex.' Nobody filed any complaints and that one was left up. So its clear there's no policing going on. Craigslist, part of your site is being misued. Work with me to rectify it. Monitor it and I'll go away."

Ok, so the sheriff and his apparently have nothing better to due police force, admit to putting up prostitution ads on Craigslist. So they are doing the very thing they don't want Craigslist to do. Also it seems a little strange that while they could have put up, since they were going to anyway, a regular ol' "prostitution ad" why did they go the route of 15 and 14 year old prostitution ads? Sounds to me they are just looking to bust Cragislist for something they cannot be held accountable for, but they know if it involves 15 and 14 year old's it provides more pressure. They willing put up underage prostitution ads sick, sick, sick, police. Makes you wonder what their motives truly are or maybe just where the heads are. They could have easily put up a regular prostitution ad. Lets not forget, that they admit nobody filed a complaint. Well with all the ads that are on Craigslist it would only make sense that if no one complains then no one is going to look at any one particular ad and determine if it needs to be taken down or not. The police need to realize that Craigslist along with other such sites have probably even less man power than the sick sheriff and his police force have and so follows that unless a complaint is made about a particular ad nothing will be done about it. As for the last statement by the sheriff "Work with me to rectify it. Monitor it and I'll go away." the sheriff is seems to be acting like a mob boss. Do what I say or else. That sounds like intimidation imo.

While the motives of the sheriff may be good ones it does not justify they way in which they tried to prove their point, they went too far with the underage prostitution ads that they themselves put up, and in no way excuses, what I feel is a intimidation tactic.

Health services are provided to prostitutes in Berkeley, CA to my knowledge already. Legalizing it allows the state to collect taxes since it is a service. That's how they do things in parts of Nevada.

"progressiveprogress"

Why don't you legalize everything that is "difficult" to enforce then? You call a 16 year old trafficked teen a "consenting" partner in sex?

It never ceases to amaze me the moral decrepitude of left wing liberals. There really is no line you won't cross, right? Abortion - hell yeah. Murder - sympathize with the murderers, not the victims. Drugs - they should be discounted at Walmart. Walmart - ban it. Unions - yes. Corporations - evil. White people - bad and responsible for other's (terrorists + criminals) actions. Black people - oppressed and not responsible for own actions.

parrdacc: you're an imbecile. Cops set up stings all the time. So if you saw a cop on a sting operation, you'd say that he had nothing better to do than "entrap" johns and normally law-abiding folks?

Putting up ads to temp pedofiles is not illegal dumb@ss. It's to catch the people who would otherwise be answering the real underage ads online posted by pimps. Online a d-bag who frequents underage prostitutes (like you?)would be pissed off about being misled.

They aren't talking about underaged prostitutes. That is prohibited by craigslist entirely. Also cops do stings on the prostitutes at random. Problem is, there isn't much or any money in arresting people for this sort of thing and that is probably why it is so widespread. Why arrest people who can't pay or post bail? That's kinda like how nearby where I work sure a bum can jay walk or lay down and take a nap in the middle of an intersection, but if someone who has a job (black, white, hispanic, asian it doesn't matter) does the same thing, a police officer will issue a ticket.