EXCERPT The Berlin Turnpike A True Story of Human Trafficking in America Raymond Bechard

Day Seven: Paved With Good Intentions A history of Craigslist and their complicity in human trafficking.

DAY SEVEN
101 Paved with Good Intentions
In some ways, the Berlin Turnpike still serves as a means of retreat from the world at large. On weekends, it is now home to a significant cruise scene, as hundreds of vintage cars and trucks make their way back and forth out on the blacktop, a faint echo of our unspoken deal with the roads we build that they will take us someplace we havent been, show us things we havent seen, and keep alive our dreams of escape. Connecticut Magazine - 2007 The Internets great promise is to make the worlds information universally accessible and useful. So how come when you arrive at the most popular dating site in the United States you find a stream of anonymous come-ons intermixed with insults, ads for prostitutes, naked pictures, and obvious scams? Wired Magazine 2010 Entering cyberspace can be a sign of an authentic search for personal encounters with others, provided that attention is paid to avoiding dangers such as enclosing oneself in a sort of parallel existence, or excessive exposure to the virtual world. Pope Benedict XVI - 2011 At various points in its history, the Berlin Turnpike/Wilbur Cross Highway/North Broad Street, Connecticuts version of this common American Road has been called Gasoline Alley, The Pike, The Strip, the Neon Strip, the Gold Strip, Torch Alley, and Death Alley. Likewise, its counterpart in the virtual world has been called the Internet, the Web, Cyberspace, Online, and the Information Super Highway. Now, more than being close to our homes, the essence of the Berlin Turnpike has entered our homes. Every online computer is an on ramp to the increasing availability of sex for sale. It is no longer necessary to drive to whatever resembles the Turnpike in a particular town in the United States. One neednt open the back pages of the local entertainment weekly. The Internet is now the longest, fastest, most populated highway in the world for prostitution, commercialized sexual exploitation, and the abuses described by witnesses in the Paris trial. Is this really the best we can do? asks Gary Wolfe of Wired Magazine. In a design straight from the earliest days of the Web, Craigslist is intentionally simple and at this point in the webs history, virtually retro in its appearance and function. Like a drive down the Berlin Turnpike, cruising through Craigslist brings visitors to another era a time when dial-up access and AOL.com were cutting edge. Here, its 1995. By online standards, it is the webs version of the gravel road James MacDonald opened in 1909. The archaic design, now firmly established as its unique brand, is a major element of Craigslists unique character and representative of its anachronistic corporate perspective. In fact, MacDonalds initial optimism about his new road being a thing of beauty, helpfulness, and joy is echoed in the words of Craig Newmark, Craigslists founder and majority owner. Speaking philosophically about his namesake, he based the company on a simple premise, People are good and trustworthy and generally just concerned with getting through the day. Ignoring the days-gone-by design, users around the world have made Craigslist the most popular job-

search site, beating its competitors Monster, CareerBuilder, Yahoos HotJobs combined. It is also the nations greatest apartment-hunting site, often the first and only choice for people seeking a place to rent or a roommate. Craigslist started in 1995 as an online mailing list containing information about events of interest to computer-minded people in the San Francisco Bay area. As it began to gain local popularity, Newmark added programming to the site, which allowed readers to post their own messages and information. His story is not unlike others who found riches in the digital era. I worked for IBM for 17 years and then realized that I needed to get going and I got myself a job at Charles Schwab in San Francisco. I started Craigslist . . . around the time I was leaving Schwab. Back then it was just a hobby. But in 1999, I made the thing into a real company. In 2000, people were kind enough to help me learn that, as a manager, I suck, which is why Jim Buckmaster is the boss now. Jim Buckmaster was hired by Newmark as a programmer in 1999. One year later he was promoted to his current status: chief executive officer. Since then, Buckmaster has managed every aspect of the business and its strategy for growth, a slow, blob-like, seemingly unstoppable accretion of new Craigslist cities, each an exact clone of the others, launched with no marketing or publicity. From the beginning, Craigslist explained its tremendous business success by facilitating face-to-face transactions. Whether users of the online classified advertisement site were connecting with each other to buy or sell something, find employment, locate housing, trade goods, barter or have sex, Craigslist was being used by nearly 50 million people in the United States every month in 2010. Next to sites like Facebook, Twitter, or even Google, it was the most important community site going and yet the most underdeveloped, according to Wired Magazine, which also concluded, it isnt worth trying to compare its traffic to competitors because at this scale there are no competitors. As such, traditional print newspapers, which rely heavily on classified ads as their main source of income, look upon Craigslist as the bane of their existence. According to Craigslist, the website facilitates billions of human interactions each month, many of them face-to-face, among tens of millions of U.S. users, nearly all of whom are well-intentioned, lawabiding citizens seeking legitimate ends. The incidence of crime relating to use of Craigslist is extremely low. However, despite Craigslists best efforts, it is not and cannot be zero, and any incidence of crime across tens of millions of people will generate enough crime stories to keep the newspapers, who compete with us in the classifieds business, busy reporting. Correct or not, Craigslist is often blamed for the death of long established newspapers because the vast majority of its classified ads are free. The only listings requiring money are employment opportunities which cost $25 to $75, depending on the city in which they are posted; apartment listings by brokers in New York City which cost $10 a piece; and until September 2010, adult service listings which also cost $10 each. The latter did not always carry a fee. Declaring what law enforcement officials, pimps, human rights advocates, and trafficking victims had known for years, Cook County Illinois Sheriff Thomas Dart clearly explained that Missing children, runaways, abused women, and women trafficked in from foreign countries are routinely forced to have sex with strangers because theyre being pimped on Craigslist. By 2008, everyone was aware of what

was buried in the shallow pages of Craigslist. Somewhere, someone was bound to step up first and do something anything. The somewhere was Hartford. The someone was Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. On Thursday, November 6, 2008, everything was about to change for Craigslist in ways that no one could have predicted unless they were holding a calculator or understood simple arithmetic. It was on this day that Richard Blumenthal along with several other states did Craigslist an enormous and highly profitable favor. While standing next to the 67 tall Jim Buckmaster, Blumenthal held a press conference at his 55 Elm Street headquarters in Hartford, a few blocks away from the Federal Courthouse where the Paris case had been tried 18 months earlier. There, Blumenthal who was the leader of a new coalition working to curtail certain ads on Craigslist proudly declared that Connecticut and 39 other states have reached an agreement with Craigslist under which the online classified ad website will act to deter and crack down on prostitution ads in its erotic services section. The press conference had been in the making for more than a year. After receiving a letter complaining about erotic services advertisements and other online content from the mother of a 13-year-old Connecticut girl in early November 2007, Blumenthal contacted Craigslist through a letter of his own stating, I am certainly concerned that children may have access to such explicit material. I would appreciate your review and response to the complaint, as well as any suggestions for improvement. He also included a copy of the letter from the girls mother. Craigslists response was not what the Attorney General was looking for. In a four-page letter, Barry Reingold, a Craigslist lawyer, expressed sympathy for the mothers desire to protect her children from personal advertisements that are intended for adult eyes only, and suggested using web content filters, the software of which was freely available, easy to use, and effective. For the next few months both sides argued back and forth, albeit mildly, through letters and phone conferences. While Craigslist began to make small concessions in the enforcement of its terms of use policy, the progress in coming to a meaningful resolution was slow and very quiet. The media was never told of the ongoing negotiations. Things didnt stay quiet for long. Plainville is perhaps the most aptly named town in Connecticut. With 17,000 residents living on its 10 square miles, Plainville rests about 14 miles southwest of Hartford and seven miles west of the Berlin Turnpike. Like its neighbor, Berlin, Plainville also claims to be the geographic center of Connecticut. They also have an annual hot air balloon festival and you can pay your local tax bill on the towns website. Its a nice place to live a quiet place. Certainly, prostitution was unheard of in Plainville, at least until March 19, 2008, when the Plainville Police Department gave Connecticuts Attorney General the smoking gun he needed. For months a woman had been placing her ad in Craigslists escort section. And since January 2008 Plainville police officers, all posing as one interested john, had been communicating with her through e-mails. Having gathered enough information, one of their officers went undercover, wearing a wire, to the womans home on Bartlet Street. After he made arrangements to have sex for money with

her, she was arrested. The police also found the womans 17-month-old baby sleeping peacefully in an adjacent room. Richard Blumenthal used the case to go public with his campaign against Craigslist. He began by writing a letter to Barry Reingold on March 27, 2008, this time releasing the letter to the public. I am astonished and appalled by Craigslists refusal to recognize the reality of prostitution on its website despite advertisements containing graphic photographs and hourly rates, and widespread reports of prostitutes using the site, Blumenthal wrote, continuing, Your company denies the undeniable, incomprehensibly and unacceptably. Jim Buckmaster responded on his April 2, 2008 blog stating he was stunned to hear Craigslist recklessly slandered as profiting from prostitution, and that, Craigslist will not be used as a punching bag for false and defamatory statements. Having whizzed right past the point of no return a point where both sides were going to find a solution out of the public eye the time had come for a sit down. In July 2008, Jim Buckmaster, accompanied by two Craigslist attorneys, traveled to a coffee shop in Rye, New York, to meet face to face with Blumenthal and his staff. Over the course of several hours they were able to work out the beginning of the agreement they would announce side-by-side four months later in Hartford. After spending the autumn of 2008 finalizing the details of their deal, Blumenthal and Buckmaster were of one accord at their November press conference. Together, the two men explained that listings in the erotic services section of Craigslist would no longer be free of charge. A credit card would need to be used and a small fee would be charged for each listing. As the cameras rolled, Jim Buckmaster commented on his companys new way of doing business. It raises the accountability for people posting to the category. Our well-intentioned users dont want to see illegal activity on the site, either. In a subsequent press release, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal proclaimed, Requiring phone numbers, credit cards and identifying details will provide a roadmap to prostitutes and sex traffickers so we can track them down and lock them up. Previous to this months-in-the-making agreement, someone posting an erotic listing only needed to anonymously sign-on and upload their advertisement and photos, the exact method Blood used to post Maries listings. These postings could be listed by an individual for services they were offering personally or by a third party in the same manner Dennis Paris posted listings for his escort service in the Hartford Advocate. Like all other classified listings on Craigslist, potential customers simply needed to open the webpage of their general geographic location, click on erotic under the services section (right between the creative and event services), then choose which category they wanted; the most popular of which was w4m Women For Men. The next page was a simple menu of headlines each of which could be chosen with another click, thereby bringing up the individual pages each featuring a female (or sometimes two), usually with sexually explicit photos, some text about her desire to be with you, the cost of the service by the hour or half-hour (prices often quoted in roses or kisses instead of dollars), options for in- or out-calls, and a phone number. The next steps in the transaction occurred exactly as explained in the Paris trial. Whether or not a

john found the ad in a newspaper or Craigslist, he would make the call. A time and place would be carefully arranged. This was another factor in the extreme popularity of Craigslists erotic ads: free advertising that could be placed instantly with no identity and available to anyone around the clock. The john didnt even have to find a newspaper; just open his computer. Under the November 2008 agreement, free listings became a thing of the past. After that point, anyone going through the sign-in process for posting an erotic ad was prompted to purchase the ad by inputting a valid credit card and working phone number. After processing the credit card transaction, Craigslists automated system would call the persons phone number with an electronic voice stating a specific numerical code or pin, which the user would then type into their posting application. These two new steps were done in order to have the credit card and phone number on record, thereby making it possible for investigators to track the users information. The system did not change at all for the buyer the john. Anyone seeking erotic services would have noticed absolutely nothing different in the process of finding the girls. But this was only the beginning of the agreement which had Craigslist donating all the income from the new erotic services listing fees to charity. The deal brought cheers from many Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) known more commonly as charities like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which signed onto the agreement as well. Ernie Allen, their president and chief executive officer, proclaimed, I think its win-win. Its an example of Craigslist being concerned and taking a real leadership role in ensuring that these kinds of abuses and illegal activities dont happen. That day, Blumenthal said, Craigslist acknowledged and addressed this problem and agreed to safeguards that better protect children and help stop sex trafficking. Its commitment to sue unscrupulous companies should help halt criminal activity. Its search software will help law enforcement and NCMEC track down and rescue exploited children. The fanfare was short lived. Placing ads within the confines of the November 2008 agreement did not in any way necessitate the use of a true credit card or phone number designated to an individual or company. For years, a simple cash card could be purchased instantly and anonymously at thousands of legitimate retailers around the world. For some, as little as $20 can be added to their value using only cash. Then they are used exactly like a credit card with the exception of having no identity attached to them. Pre-paid cell phones work exactly the same way. They are purchased with cash and without providing any identification. The result is that investigators have no real way of tracking who is using either the cards or the phones. To this day, the system to track down and rescue exploited children on any website can easily be sidestepped by making a 10-minute trip to Walmart. Additionally, said Sherriff Dart of Craigslists concessions, pimps are working around these requirements by using stolen credit cards and posting ads in new sections. Craigslists system, he claimed, had undergone virtually no change. While having several easy methods to avoid detection under the new system was good news for those perpetrating commercial sexual exploitation through Craigslist, the good news for Craigslist itself was even better. Had anyone bothered to check the math, their bragging about the agreement might not have been so loud. The true result of the deal was that the coalition had opened the door for Craigslist to

make millions more each year profits derived directly from prostitution and human trafficking. Insisting that Craigslist require credit cards to be used in the transactions for the erotic services ads and charging a small fee of perhaps $5 per ad (multiplied times tens of thousands of erotic ads posted each day) led to enormous amounts of cash being added to Craigslists coffers. Overnight, the previous hole in their income statement transformed the illicit ads into Craigslists fastest-growing source of revenue. There was, of course, that agreement to give erotic services income to charity. Then in April 2009, another Craigslist Killer made the headlines and provided Craigslist with the solution to their previous philanthropic promise. Philip Markoff, a 23-year-old Boston University medical student, was accused of beating, then shooting Julissa Brisman to death on April 14, 2009, at the Copley Marriott hotel in Boston. Police claimed Markoff contacted the young woman through Craigslist. They also said this was not his first offense against a woman he found online. Four days earlier, Trisha Leffler was said to have been bound and robbed at gunpoint by Markoff at the Westin Copley Place hotel in Boston. Finally, on Thursday, April 16, at a Holiday Inn Express in Warwick, Rhode Island, Markoff was accused of attempting to rob yet another Craigslist connection. Security cameras caught many of Markhoff s alleged crimes. The Boston police made a positive identification of him. They searched his apartment in Quincy, Massachusetts, and found a gun hidden in a hollowed out copy of the book, Greys Anatomy, $800 in cash and a bank card belonging to Trisha Leffler, along with digital evidence on his home computer. Subsequently followed by police for days, Markhoff was arrested on April 20, 2009, on Interstate 95 in Walpole, Massachusetts while driving to Foxwoods Casino with his fianc, Megan. He was charged with armed robbery and kidnapping for the events of April 10 and murder in the death of Julissa Brisman on April 14. None of this came as a surprise to Sheriff Tom Dart in Illinois, who, one month prior to the killing of Julissa, saw the weaknesses of the 40-state coalitions agreement and declared, Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation. Certainly everyone from those involved in the crime investigation, to activists, the media, and especially Craigslist was aware this was not the first murder with a Craigslist connection. On Sunday, May 9, 2009, a few weeks after Markoff was arrested, Craig Newmark made his way to Eden Prairie, Minnesota, for a memorial concert held in honor of Katherine Ann Olson, a high-school valedictorian and graduate of St. Olaf s College where she was a theater and Hispanic studies major. Newmark had become close to Katherines family since her death in 2007 and made a personal donation to a scholarship fund established in her name. Newmarks presence at the memorial was a surprise to outside observers, but not to her family. On October 25, 2007, just a few days before Richard Blumenthal would receive the letter from the young girls mother in Connecticut, Katherine Olson responded via e-mail to a Craigslist ad placed by someone looking for a babysitter. Having posted the ad, posing as a married woman named Amy, Michael John Anderson, a 19 year old living in his parents home in Savage, Minnesota, returned Katherines e-mail. As Amy, he asked her to come to her split level home in the Savage suburb and

babysit between 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. When Katherine arrived, Anderson somehow got her upstairs to his bedroom, where he shot her in the back with a .357 handgun, dragged her downstairs, and tied her ankles in red twine. He then placed Katherines body in a sleeping bag and dropped her in the trunk of her own car. He drove to the nature preserve a few blocks away and abandoned the car there with Katherine locked inside. One week after Katherines murder her father, Rolf, began looking through the mail in his office at the Richfield Lutheran Church where he is the pastor. The mail had piled up since he had been away tending to his daughters death. One piece of mail stood out, however; a FedEx envelope from San Francisco. It was, Mr. Olson recalled later, Nothing fancy, just a sheet of paper with his handwritten message with his sincere condolence. The letter was from Craig Newmark. In it he wrote, Please contact me if you want to talk further. Heres my e-mail, heres my phone number, Im available anytime. It was so informal, recalls Katherines older sister, Sarah. Thats how they (Craigslist) are. Its like a brief text you would send to your friend. Speaking to those gathered at Katherines May 2009 memorial, Newmark said, Im saddened that we met under these circumstances, but I am truly inspired by the Olson family, and I extend my love and friendship to them. He didnt stop there. Assisting prosecutors in the trial of Michael Anderson, Newmark had the staff at Craigslist carefully research and compile a 127-page document, detailing every time Anderson ever used the site, whether it was clicking on a link, posting an ad, or answering someone elses. Since he was familiar with the sites technical aspects, Craiglists customer service manager, Clint Powell, testified at the trial as well. Powell explained to the jury how Anderson had used Craigslist to find women, using phrases like, Looking for fresh faces for a new video and Web site...new talent only. Also need 18-plus virgin willing to be in a video. Based partly on the information and testimony provided by Craigslist, Anderson was found guilty in the murder of Katherine Ann Olson and received a life sentence without parole on April 1, 2009. He was the first person the media referred to as a Craigslist Killer. There have been others. In June 2007, Donna Jou, a 19-year-old honor student at San Diego State University, died from an overdose of drugs given to her by John Steven Burgess, whom she had met on Craigslist. He dumped her body in the Pacific Ocean. Also in June 2007, Christian Marton, a 21-year-old Dallas man, responded to a bogus Craigslist carfor-sale ad. When he arrived at the address he was robbed and shot to death by Kendrick Demus. In October 2008, Haroon Khan, who was selling his car on Craigslist, was kidnapped and stabbed to death by Travis Zoellick and Tammi LaFave after they responded to his online ad in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In March 2009, George Weber, an on-air reporter for WABC radio in New York City, was stabbed to death by John Katehis, a 16-year-old whom he had met for rough sex through Craigslist. In June 2009, 21-year-old Heather Snively was stabbed to death and her unborn son was cut from her body by Korena Elaine Roberts in Oregon. The two met via Craigslist to buy baby clothes. In November 2009, Bob Tombo was shot to death in Miami after arranging through Craigslist to sell his Rolex watch to Brandon Jefferson, who was arrested for the murder.

In March 2010, Jennifer Papain, a 26-year-old who was listed in the adult services of Craigslist in North Patchogue, New York, was strangled to death and left in a shallow grave after arranging to meet a man through her online ad. Chad Johnson was arrested for the crime and led police to the grave. In April 2010, James Sanders was shot and killed in Edgewood, Washington, by a group of people who arrived at his home to look at a diamond ring he listed for sale on Craigslist. Joshua Nathan Reese, Kiyoshi Alan Higashi, Clabon Berniard, Jenna Nicole Ford, and Amanda Knight were arrested and charged with their involvement in the crime. In July 2010, 21-year-old Tiara Pool was stabbed to death in her Jacksonville, Florida, apartment after arranging to meet 19-year-old David Kelsey Sparre whom she had met on Craigslist. In December, 2010, the decomposing bodies of four women in their 20s were found in the thick underbrush of Oak and Gilgo Beaches, secluded areas of Long Island, only an hour away from New York City. By April, 2011 the remains of eight women had been discovered in the area. All were apparent victims of a serial killer. And all had been listed on Craigslist Erotic and Adult services. Months earlier, on Sunday, August 15, 2010, Philip Markoff s lifeless body was discovered in his Boston jail cell with a plastic bag tied over his head and a severed artery. The word Megan was scrawled in his own blood on the walls of the cell. We added the fee only after numerous pointed requests from law enforcement that we do so. Jim Buckmaster In 2008, it had been the arrest of a woman for prostitution in Plainville, Connecticut, that had tipped the scales for Richard Blumenthal. Then, with the murder of Julissa Brisman in Massachusetts, just five months after he stood next to Jim Buckmaster to congratulate him on the agreement to deter and crack down on prostitution ads and declare that Craigslist acknowledged and addressed this problem, Blumenthals perspective had changed. What happened in Boston is only the tip of the iceberg. There is human trafficking, child exploitation, illicit drug activity, all associated with these kinds of ads because the bottom of the iceberg is much, much bigger than anyone understands. Buckmaster, loyal to his perspective that Craigslist was just another classified advertising company, posted a blog clearly his favored method of communicating with the world stating, Unsurprisingly, but completely contrary to some of the sensationalistic journalism weve seen these past few weeks, the record is clear that use of Craigslist classifieds is associated with far lower rates of violent crime than print classifieds. However, with respect to this new paid category for advertising by legal businesses, we will experiment with some of the methods traditionally employed in paid print classifieds. While some have said that the only things Craigslist is guilty of killing are newspapers, the Phillip Markoff story quickly became national news, placing a glaring spotlight on the erotic listings. On May 13, 2009, as an unspoken consequence of the killings, Craigslist announced it was completely removing the erotic services category of its website ... and that effective today for all U.S. sites, a new category entitled adult services will be opened for postings by legal adult service providers. Craigslist also promised to begin manual pre-screening all adult service ads. They claimed this would allow their reviewers (all of whom are practicing U.S. attorneys) to reject ads that did not comply with our posting standards, standards much stricter than those typically applied by telephone yellow pages or newspapers. Under the new adult listings, which were located in the services section (right between pet and

automotive), customers chose which category they wanted; the most popular of which was w4m Women For Men. The next page was a simple menu of headlines each of which could be chosen with another click, thereby bringing up the individual pages each featuring a female. After the change, the Los Angeles Times asked Craigslist for a precise definition of legal adult services. Susan Best, a spokeswoman for Craigslist, responded in an e-mail, The typical definition (i.e. go look in your office yellow pages under escort and massage) sensual massage, escorts etc. The only real difference was the photos. They were not quite as explicit as they once had been. Nevertheless, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan declared the switch a fundamental and very significant change to how Craigslist works. Referring to the new adult listings she said, Youre not going to have the volume of it, youre not going to have the ease of it. Contrary to Madigans prediction, Craigslist and the pimps using the adult category came out on top again. According to Peter Zollman, executive editor of the Aim Group, an Orlando, Florida, consulting firm which investigates and reports on media, classified advertising, and information technology, By changing the category from erotic services to adult services Craigslist very neatly sidestepped the agreement it had signed making the attorneys general look like chumps in the process and eliminating the requirement that they donate revenue to charity. Profits rose even further when Craigslist changed the small fee for the ads from $5 to $10, twice as much as those for erotic services listings. Jim Townsend, AIMs editorial director observed that the ads, like those continuing to be published in the Hartford Advocate, proved that people, even criminals, were willing to use a credit card. AIMs 47-page report about Craigslist, released in April 2010, predicted the website company would generate $122 million in revenue and profits of $88 to $99 million in 2010, up 22 percent from 2009. This kind of growth, with virtually no investments or expenditures, can only be attributed to the simple fact that Craigslist meets some basic human needs with startling efficiency. By meeting these needs, however good or bad, Craigslist was bigger than ever, while enjoying more traffic than either eBay or Amazon. Another remarkable perspective was found by comparing the number of people employed by these three companies. At the time eBay had more than 16,000 employees. Amazon had more than 20,000. Craigslist had 30. Per employee, it generates more than $4 million in revenue and profits of $2.9 million to $3.2 million. If the company were ever sold, the likely price would run into the billions. This was an astonishing accomplishment by any measure. By far, the one item in AIMs report that most captured the attention of the media, lawmakers, and activists was the estimation that Craigslist had realized $36 million in revenue from its adult service listings in 2009. AIM also determined that one-third of Craigslists total revenue was generated by the newly named category. Displaying the kind of eerie loyalty which trafficking victims often have for their pimps, the growing popularity of the sites adult listings was lauded mostly by those listed there. Its really easy to use and you get a great response, explained Trisha Leffler, one of Markoff s alleged victims. Its very lively. However, as they had promised, Craigslist did give some of the money away. Without releasing information on recipients, financial documents, or verification, Jim Buckmaster claimed the Craigslist Charitable Fund, established in 2008, had donated $2.7 million to various organizations and causes. Not

everyone accepted their generosity. When the company attempted to give an unsolicited gift of $25,000 to the Minneapolis-based group, The Advocates for Human Rights, their Board politely turned it down, stating they, cannot accept the funds because Craigslist generates a high percentage of its profits from adult ads. This market fuels the human sex trafficking industry. It is the exploitive behavior resulting from these ads that makes our efforts necessary. While more victims continued to be listed on the site every day, the revelation of this new, enormous source of profits elevated the level of bickering between legal authorities and Craigslist officials. On April 22, 2010, 18 months after he stood with Jim Buckmaster at their initial press conference in Hartford and in response to AIMs findings, Richard Blumenthal wrote a demanding letter to Edward Wes, one of Craigslists attorneys from the international law firm, Perkins Coie: A cursory review of the adult services section still reveals posts that are clearly for illegal prostitutions. Even though some of these ads attempt to shield their true purpose by pretending to be for legitimate adult services, they remain blatant solicitations for sex. No longer in the mood to travel to Connecticut and stand with Blumenthal in his office, Jim Buckmaster made his reply on CNN, saying, Even politicians looking to advance their careers at the expense of Craigslists good name grudgingly admit, when pressed, that we have made huge strides, and that Craigslist is virtually alone among advertising venues in vigorously combating these problems. Echoing the call of trafficking activists, government officials, and victims, among others, Malika Saada Saar, founder and executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, an NGO advocating for justice, dignity, and policy reform for vulnerable women and girls offered a far less complicated and perhaps obvious solution, Craigslist should set the industry example and shut down the adult services section until it can create a comprehensive surveillance and monitoring system that ensures children are not being bought and sold for sex. While not mentioning his improving balance sheet, Buckmaster had a response for those who believed that eliminating the ads was a panacea. Some have called for shutting down the adult services section of Craigslist. Fortunately, most concerned parties seem to realize that declassifying adult services ads back into Craigslist personals, services, and other categories, and offsite to venues that have no interest in combating trafficking and exploitation or in assisting law enforcement, would simply undo all the progress we have made, undermine our primary mission of evolving Craigslist community sites according to user feedback, set back the efforts of our partners in law enforcement, and exacerbate the very societal epidemic we all seek to end. At this point, Blumenthal was not about to stop with another letter to another lawyer. After Craigslists $36 million in adult profits was revealed, and after his letter to Edward Wes, he also issued a subpoena demanding that Craigslist produce, among eight other items, all documents relating to the contribution of 100 percent of the net revenues from the sale of advertisements in Craigslists erotic services or adult services category, including, but not limited to any decisions to limit or cease such contributions. It was a worthy, but legally pointless, effort. All logical or moral arguments, legal maneuvers, pleas, protests, petitions, and public outcry aside, Craigslist did not have to do or change a thing including responding to a subpoena. Craigslist was a privately held company, (Newmark, Buckmaster and eBay owned most of it) which means they were not

obligated to report any information within the same regulations and guidelines as are publicly traded companies. Also, they were not breaking any laws. Websites are literally immune from being held liable for their role in these crimes, Representative Jackie Speier told Congress in September 2010. Today, websites escape liability even when an ad on their site results in child prostitution, rape or death. Like all American-based websites, Craigslist was protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the U.S. Communications Decency Act of 1996. Section 230 of the latter Act has been interpreted to mean that owners and/or operators of websites are not publishers and therefore not legally liable for the content others place on their sites. Commenting on the legality of Craiglists adult listings, Ryan Calo, a senior research fellow at the Stanford Law Schools Center for Internet & Society, declared They can absolutely keep it up. The law is pretty crystal clear on this. In the United States these laws consider a website similar to a bulletin board placed in a town square. The owner of the bulletin board is not responsible for what people pin to the cork. Or to look at it another way, a motel owner is not held liable for a human trafficking violation taking place in one of the rooms he is renting for the afternoon. On April 21, 2010, Wethersfield Police Department detectives conducted a prostitution sting at a motel located on the Silas Deane Highway, stated a report submitted by Wethersfields Chief of Police James Cetran. By using Craigslist, his report continued, detectives contacted suspected prostitutes and found that three of them appeared to be working out of the same motel on the Silas Deane Highway. Detectives conducted surveillance of the motel in question and did witness what appeared to be a young male customer entering the motel. After a short time, the same male was seen leaving and was stopped by detectives. The male suspect admitted to paying for sex in the motel and told officers he was in a particular room. Detectives proceeded to this room and arrested one female for prostitution. Detectives will continue to address future incidents of prostitution at locations on the Silas Deane Highway and the Berlin Turnpike. While strongly and very publicly urging, threatening, and chastising Jim Buckmaster to remove Craiglists ads for prostitution and other sexually oriented postings, Connecticuts Attorney General had yet to address an equally obvious issue: the back page escort service ads of the Hartford Advocate, the free alternative newspaper which served as the very channel of human trafficking crimes being broken in Connecticut as proven so clearly in the Paris case. While it is true Craigslist does not report the news in Connecticut nor does it endorse candidates for political office, Blumenthal had enjoyed mostly positive support and endorsements from the Hartford Courant and its subsidiary publication, the Hartford Advocate for many years. These advertisements, still printed weekly in the heart of Richard Blumenthals jurisdiction, were readily available at hundreds of locations in free-standing wire racks including locations at the Attorney Generals building and the State Capitol in Hartford during and long after the Paris trial and the Craigslist controversy. The scrutiny aimed at his company alone sparked the inevitable why me questions from Jim Buckmaster. Referring to other outlets for adult service listings, he defended Craigslists efforts against CSE, stating, Lagging behind are the large mainstream Internet portals, the major search engines, large telephone companies (yellow pages), major newspapers, chain operators of alternative weeklies, etc. which derive vastly more revenue from adult service ads than Craigslist, while doing far less than Craigslist to combat exploitation/trafficking. Better questions for AG Blumenthal questions I

understand he is finally starting to be asked where is his outrage toward all of these companies? Not immune to political ideology or legitimate legal battles, Newmark and Buckmaster used the exposure they were gaining as an opportunity to push their own agenda. On August 16, 2010, both men giddily posted separate blogs, revealing their discovery of a site called Loquo.com, a Spanish language classified advertising website owned by eBay. At the time, Craigslist was embroiled in an ongoing and bitter legal fight with eBay, a minority partner in their business. Both companies had sued each other beginning in April, 2008, with eBay claiming that Newmark and Buckmaster acted improperly to dilute eBays minority 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist to less than 25 percent. A few weeks later Craigslist sued eBay for, among other things, unlawful and unfair competition, misappropriation of proprietary information, phishing attacks, and something they called, free-riding. Basically, they were claiming eBay took information and expertise from Craigslist in order to launch a competing classified advertising business, called Kijiji. Its a story fraught with accusations of broken promises, backroom deals and deception, leaving an established Internet giant fighting to preserve its valuable stake in a well-loved classified advertising website, explained Alexandria Sage, an e-commerce journalist who followed the complex story from the beginning. As a result of their corporate war, the two sides were constantly looking to discredit each other, with eBay getting unlimited assistance from all those speaking out against Craigslists adult listings. Then, Buckmaster and Newmark discovered Loquo.com. With eBays previous CEO, Meg Whitman, running for governor of California, Newark revealed the eBay-owned Loquo features thousands of paid ads offering various sexual acts in exchange for money ... Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman was fully aware of this business during her tenure at eBay. To be clear, Loquos ads were sexually explicit in the extreme, far more graphic than Craigslist ever allowed on its site and readily available to anyone on the web in America. When Meg Whitman was CEO of eBay, the company began a business strategy which included the acquisition of online classified advertising businesses. They acquired Loquo in the spring of 2005 as part of that strategy. At the time, the sites eroticos profesionales section presented very few ads or pictures. Since then, the ads had become an enormous online portal for CSE in Spain. However, by August 18, 2010, a mere two days after Craiglists reveal, anyone visiting Loquo.com from a computer within the United States found a single white page with only these words: Our apologies, LoQUo is not available in your country. Clearly, someone in the Whitman campaign had sent a message to eBay shut it down now. With their blogs, the two men not only embarrassed a major political candidate, but managed to kill a major sex-for-sale website in the United States a site that was offensive to anyone with compassion for CSE victims. Cynics might claim they were only trying to rid themselves of strong competition. After all, Loquo.com was potentially taking customers away from Craigslist. While that may be true, there was clearly more going on that was hidden from the eyes of the public. Businesses and politicians, each with their own agendas, often collide, and, if examined closely enough, expose their true nature and character. Whatever his personal motivations may have been, Buckmaster held the ability to ask pertinent questions. Referring to the fact that Craigslist was an easy and safe target whose business was distanced from the realm of journalism, he made another strong challenge to politicians, saying, Could the

blessing of politicos on voluminous pornographic sex-for-money ads in journalistic media have anything to do with the need for positive coverage and campaign endorsements from said media? And for journalists, many of whom work for newspapers and websites with adult listings similar to the Hartford Advocate, he asks, is it possible that criticizing Craigslist is more career-friendly than taking their own employers to task? A similar inquiry came from South Carolina, where the Attorney General in that state, Henry McMaster, had taken on Craigslist with the same fervor as Blumenthal. Like Blumenthal, who was a Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat in 2010, McMaster also had higher aspirations and was running for governor of his state as a Republican at the same time. Ann Bartow, a professor of Internet law at the University of South Carolina School of Law, claimed McMasters public campaign against Craigslist, while ignoring South Carolina newspapers which blatantly advertised escort services in the same manner as the Hartford Advocate, suggested a political motivation. Why Craigslist? she asked. Newspapers run the same ads, but they have people locally who would stand up for them, and he didnt want to alienate the newspapers that would be reporting on his campaign. On October 24, 2010, just days before the historic elections of that year, the Hartford Courant - owner of the Hartford Advocate - endorsed Richard Blumenthal in his U.S. Senatorial bid stating, Hes a master in making strategic alliances in and out of government to accomplish his goals, as hes shown in teaming with other attorneys generals on cases involving several states. At the same moment, the Hartford Advocate, which declared you should vote for every Democrat running for federal office, also had very positive things to say about Blumenthal. As the people of Connecticuts top legal advocate, the attorney general has been tenacious and unwavering. He helped shake dangerous pervs from Craigslist... A few pages later with no apparent fear of exhibiting blatant hypocrisy the Advocate printed this advertisement in their Escorts section: BARELY LEGAL Gorgeous Blond sweet, sexy & petite Super Hott-Guaranteed!!! 54, 115, 34B-23-33, Pictures Avail. 860-xxx-xxxx in/out On November 2, 2010 Richard Blumenthal defeated Republican Linda McMahon in his race to become Connecticuts next Senator. As the Berlin Turnpike runs through the heart of Connecticut, one of the most densely populated areas of America, the Internet runs through the very core of our flourishing global cyber-nation. It can be argued that for the first time in history, there exists a new, virtual boulevard of humanity, forever changing, evolving, and growing beyond anyones ability to measure or manage it. Once this highway was built, there was no stopping where human nature would take it. Like nothing before it, the web crosses over borders, cuts through cultures, passes by religions, and runs over ideologies. It has no beginning. No end. No destination. Reflecting on his companys role in and influence on this anarchic artery of communication and its transforming mores, Jim Buckmaster attempted to bring the argument to a deeper philosophical level when he stated, As all people of conscience will agree, human trafficking, and child exploitation are utterly despicable and horrendous crimes . . . As a community site facilitating billions of human interactions among more than 50 million Americans each month, we face many of the same difficult social problems that have faced communities throughout the ages.

Forcing independent, online corporations to change their ways is an exhausting and frustrating exercise. Reaching out to their network of NGOs and individuals across America, two anti-trafficking groups, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Prostitution Research and Education, called for a protest of Craigslists facilitation of sex trafficking in front of Craigslists offices located in a Victorianstyle home at 1381 9th Avenue in San Francisco. The impending protest made national news and advocacy blogs were sizzling with the exciting details. Thousands of postings called for everyone to rally against Craigslist on July 8, 2010, at noon. This is when the huge protest would begin. The organizers promised the media an excellent story especially since the event was co-sponsored by 75 leading human rights and anti-trafficking organizations and prominent individuals including Equality Now, End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT-USA), Center for World Indigenous Studies, Soroptimists International of the Americas, Nevada Coalition Against Sexual Violence, Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres, Asian Americans for Community Involvement, as well as Gloria Steinem, author Victor Malarek, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Congresswoman Jackie Speier. News and information was coming fast and furious in the days prior to the protest. Every few hours, a new e-mail would arrive, a new article would appear, or a new blog would be posted. Finally, Craigslist would be forced to listen to the throngs of outraged citizens who were invading its home turf. Then, July 8th came and went. Accurate news reports following the event were very difficult to find. However, of the few eyewitness accounts available, one reporter gave this review, The crowd, numbering around 20 or 30, was made up of protest organizers, press, a couple of skateboarders passing by and 2 counter-protesters. Oh, and a documentary film crew. The protest was a dismal exhibition. The press barely gave it a passing glance. Yet, the truth of the failed event did not deter the organizers from spinning it with the same disingenuous flare so often employed by Craigslist. Fortunately for them, the media was looking for a story and wasnt terribly concerned with accuracy. Without bothering to check its facts, the New York Times later reported that, representatives from dozens of anti-prostitution groups gathered outside the companys headquarters on Ninth Avenue in San Francisco to demand an end to adult advertising. No one was about to let the facts get in the way of their interpretation of the truth. There are societies of a national scope which aim to create healthy sentiment by emphasizing the grave dangers of the social evil. Such are the American Federation of Sex Hygiene and the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, operating through meetings, lectures and printed matter; the American Vigilance Association, which, originally organized to secure legislation and law enforcement as respects the White slave traffic, has now extended its operations so that it is actively engaged in a propaganda that touches the entire field of commercialized vice; it publishes a monthly periodical, Vigilance. Commercialized Prostitution in New York City 1913 After Markoffs suicide and AIMs report of Craigslists newly acquired $36-million revenue stream, Blumenthal, having lost more than half of his original coalition, and 17 other State Attorneys General sent another vitriolic letter to the company on August 24, 2010 in reality, the only thing they were legally empowered to do.

This time, they acknowledged the companys potential forfeiture, We recognize that Craigslist may lose the considerable revenue generated by the Adult Services ads. No amount of money can justify the scourge of illegal prostitution, and the suffering of women and children who will continue to be victimized in the market and trafficking provided by Craigslist. While their latest letter meandered its way into the media during the predictably slow news season of August 2010, CNN reporter Amber Lyon tried a different tactic: She dragged Craig Newmark out from behind his blog. Were here at George Washington University, and we just found out that Craig Newmark . . . is going to be speaking here today at a tech conference. He doesnt know were coming, and hes been very media shy lately about all of these allegations against him, she told CNN viewers. Armed with prints of recent adult listings from Washington D.C., she caught Newmark exiting the building. What are you guys doing to protect these girls? she asked. Newmark said nothing. Lyon proceeded, You guys say in the blog that you will remove any ad that looks like the person might be suggesting theyre going to offer sex. Look at this ad. It says, young, sexy, sweet and bubbly. Clearly here, she writes, $250 an hour. I mean, what do you think shes selling in her bra and underwear, a dinner date? And shes in her bra and underwear. Have you reported this to us? Newmark asked. What are your guys doing? You guys say you screen all these manually on your blog. Ive never I dont know what this is. Have you reported In Jim Buckmasters blog, he says these are being screened. Have you reported this to us? Why do I have the responsibility to report this to you when its your website? Youre the one posting this online. I just want to know, I mean At this point Newmark walked away from Lyon, the camera, and the issue. Buckmaster was angry, telling Lyon directly, There is a class of journalists known for gratuitously trashing respected organizations and individuals, ignoring readily available facts in favor of rank sensationalism and self-promotion. They work for tabloid media. Your stunt has veteran news pros we know recoiling in journalistic horror, some of them chalking it up to a decline in CNNs standards, which is unfortunate. Then everything changed sort of. A few days later, without comment or explanation, Craigslist replaced its adult services link with a black, unlinked censored banner. The ultra-quiet switch was made late in the evening of Friday, September 3, 2010, just as the Labor Day holiday was beginning in the United States. Perfect timing if their intention was to stay out of an unwatched three-day news cycle during the long weekend. Another change came less than a week later. On Thursday, September 9, 2010, the censored tag was removed. Adult and erotic ads on Craigslist were gone in the United States. It all disappeared without a whisper from Jim Buckmaster or Craig Newmark. Politicians, NGOs, and the media immediately fell over each other taking credit for their victory. As Craigslist continued to list its free, explicit erotic services throughout the world, attorneys general, nonprofit representatives, and reporters ran to their microphones and websites eager to glow in self-

congratulatory pride over the removal of adult service listings in the United States. Our investigation helped spark a national conversation and outrage, claimed Amber Lyon of CNN. Change.org, a popular, pep-rally collection of blogs delivering human rights information unfettered by basic standards of journalism, took exclusive credit for Craiglists removal, rating it their own #1 Victory for 2010. Change.org members teamed up with anti-trafficking groups in a massive campaign to get Cragislist to shut down their adult services sections, which had become the biggest source of ads for sex trafficking victims in the world. After 11,612 Change. org members signed a petition to founder Craig Newmark and a coordinated campaign published letters of protest from girls formerly sold for sex on the site, Craigslist shut down its U.S.-based adult ad pages. Consequently, they all had a new problem to face. Having built their organizations, missions, mailing lists, and waves of willing donors around the fight against Craigslist, the anti-trafficking community scrambled to keep the war going. While ignoring the blatant and persistent ads in print newspapers in their hometowns, all selling escort classified ads like those in the Hartford Advocate used by Dennis Paris, 100 people from the anti-trafficking field standing with solidarity and unity wrote another letter to Buckmaster and Newmark on September 14, 2010. While this is a positive step, the letter stated, Craigslist is a global company, and it has a global responsibility. More Craigslist sites exist around the world that still feature erotic sections where trafficked children and women are being sold for sex through your website. The reality that you have not made the same improvements globally across your site reveals a disingenuous and inconsistent response on your part. It seemed in their efforts to protest American girls being sold on Craigslist, they overlooked the fact that these represented only a fraction of Craiglists sex-for-sale advertisements worldwide. Many of the letters signers were also supporters of the 20-person protest outside Craigslists headquarters a few months earlier. The letter, like the protest, had little effect except on the organizations abilities to share in bragging rights and motivate donors to financially support their individual agendas. As this was all taking place, AIM released a new report, which projected Craigslists earnings from their adult section for all of 2010. Had they remained active, the ads would have made $44 million. With conservative estimates of this much profit, what finally made them remove the ads? Perhaps the two major owners looked at the reality of what was facing them and realized it just wasnt worth the money. Standing their ground had become more than just a hassle. It had the potential to become an existential nightmare. Most notably, they found themselves getting increased attention from federal officials at the White House, Department of Justice, and Congress. Earlier that summer, Jim Buckmaster and William Powell, Craigslists customer service & law enforcement relations director and Craig Newmarks boss at the company met with White House advisors, representatives of the Justice Department, and the office of the Vice President. Of the meeting, Powell would later say, We left with the consensus of all present that Craigslists best practices for managing adult services could be used as a model for the countless other venues that currently host unmoderated adult content, do not assist law enforcement, and do not engage in best practices. While attempting to give the impression that the meeting was a productive and agreeable summit, its real result was that Craigslist had graduated from being targeted by several state officials to those at the federal level. The website was now on the Executive Branchs radar and they knew it. The end of their American adult service listing was only a matter of time.

While this was taking place, Newmark had been asked to testify in front of a congressional committee on the matter of domestic minor sex trafficking. Not one to seek the spotlight, Newmark realized it was less than two months before mid-term elections and everyone running for office was looking for quality airtime. Going after the list bearing his name was the perfect campaign issue for candidates. No downside. No opposition. He knew they were going to skewer him. Having squirmed through less than 60 seconds of unbearable awkwardness with the CNN reporter, Newmark was not going to go through hours of merciless grilling on live, national television. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, the old, explicit version of Craigslists erotic section was going strong. And that was exactly where many of the American adult girls landed. Immediately following the removal of the controversial listing in the States, Craigslists London erotic listings featured a girl from Tennessee. A girl from Seattle was advertised through Vancouver. Several girls in New York City were exhibited through the sites Toronto listings. And months after adult listings were removed from Craigslist, many of the same ads had migrated to the sites casual encounters section, including this one: Need some company? Lonely? Need a dinner date? Or some arm candy at the casino? Well when the hell are you gonna call ole vinnie here and let me solve that freaking problem? Affordably. With dime pieces. If you cant afford freaking $40 an hour then you dont need to be hinting for entertainment you need to be hunting for a job: THEN call me !! Seriously, get your big dumb ass on the phone with me and let me solve your campanionship problems. Call me at 860-xxx-xxxx. Unlike the real world, there are no borders in cyberspace. The johns knew where to go and what to do. Craigslist is employing proprietary technical measures to force the migration of adult services ads from Craigslist to other venues, Elizabeth McDougal, legal counsel to Craigslist told Congress a few days after the ads were removed. Frequent spot-checking by Craigslist and third parties indicate that these efforts have been largely successful, and traffic at other venues for adult service ads has risen significantly due to this migration. The changes did nothing to reduce the demand in the marketplace. Men still wanted to buy women for sex. Then, using the same strategy they did during the previous Labor Day holiday weekend in America a few months earlier, Craigslist stealthfully removed the entire erotic service listing from their website throughout the world on December 20, 2010. Knowing it would be a time when most people are too busy to keep track of the news just five days before Christmas the final removal of the controversial section barely received any mention in the media. By that point, however, the victims, purveyors, and customers of commercial sexual exploitation had also migrated to hundreds of other websites whose sole purpose was to make money offering sex for sale online. As John Gabriel did with his horse on the Berlin Turnpike in 1913, Craigslist had simply put a bullet into the head of its dying animal from a bygone era. There was no victory, except for the politicians, media, and charities who used the changing of one word on a website to grab as much attention, ratings, and money as they could. Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested for a while at least. The people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day. The righteous cry against the white slave traffic is such a toy. It serves to amuse the people for a little while,

and it will help to create a few more fat political jobs parasites who stalk about the world as inspectors, investigators, detectives, and so forth. It is much more profitable to play the Pharisee, to pretend an outraged morality, than to go to the bottom of things. Emma Goldman 1911 E-mails and blogs are easy. Press releases are simple to write and deliver. Facebook messages are short and sweet. And online petitions take only a few seconds to sign and join (along with providing the charity enough of your information to ask you for a donation in the future.) However, as illustrated by the failed attempt to protest the Craigslist headquarters in July 2010, the real work of addressing human trafficking takes more than mass e-mails and phone calls, more than getting organizations and people to sign on without making a real commitment, and much more than spinning the news. It takes one-to-one, hard, dirty, self-sacrificing work. It takes a willingness to be humiliated, embarrassed, shamed, poor, rejected, and broken. In other words, it takes a profound determination to walk in the shoes of the victims; to follow them down into the pit and guide them on their way up and out. During the 19th century, The Underground Railroad was established by abolitionists to lead runaway slaves in the South to freedom in the North, mostly to Canada where slavery had been abolished in the 1830s, often through Connecticut. Entry points for fugitive slaves in the state included Old Lyme, New Haven, and Stamford among others. From these towns they were often sent to Farmington, one of the busiest and boldest communities in the abolitionist movement, frequently involved in overt and covert activities in the fight for equality and justice. Neither underground nor a railroad, the enormous system for moving slaves to freedom was complex, secret, and extremely dangerous for everyone involved. Having escaped, runaway slaves would often travel by night; using the North Star as their only guide. After making contact with anonymous participants in the illegal railroad, slaves would then be escorted, smuggled, or directed to the next location on their long journey to liberty. The people associated with the Underground Railroad only knew about their role in the scheme and were intentionally ignorant of the entire operation. For instance, they might only know where and when to meet fugitives and then where to send them, without ever knowing the steps prior to or after handling them. Code names were given to people and places along the way. For instance, the resting spots often private homes or churches where the traveling victims of slavery slept and ate were called stations and depots which were held by station masters. (One such home still stands on Main Street in Newington, Connecticut, a short distance from the Berlin Turnpike.) Then there were the conductors who would do the dangerous work of staying with the fugitive slaves as even the northern states laws saw them from one station to the next. Often former slaves themselves, a conductor would sometimes act as a slave and, in any way possible, enter a plantation to work. Once a part of a particular plantations life and servitude, the conductor would organize and direct the others to escape and travel north along the secret route to freedom. Day and night, they were putting their lives at risk. Not only were the conductors hunted by the former slave masters, but by the law all along the way. They were looked upon as thieves stealing

property. Why, the common question would be, would anyone put themselves at risk to help a slave? The irony is that those with enough courage to fight for the freedom of others often lose their own. As novelist Jonathan Franzen points out, One of the ways of surrendering freedom is to actually have convictions. And a way of further surrendering freedom is to spend quite a bit of time acting on those convictions. The dynamics of bringing someone to freedom has not changed in the 150 years since the conductors often gave the last full measure of devotion for those trapped in the hell of slavery. This level of devotion a level higher than most are willing to make is also the only effective measure of saving and restoring the lives of those who are caught in commercial sexual exploitation in contemporary America. In all these months of protest the conditions of things in whole neighborhoods has not improved, but rather grown worse. Vice not only flaunts itself in the most open ribald forms, but hard-working fathers and mothers find it harder than ever today to defend their households from a rapacious licensiousness which stops at no outrage and spares no tenderest victim. Such a state of things cries to God for vengeance, and calls no less loudly to you and me for redress. Bishop Henry C. Potter - November 15, 1900 Craigslist was an easy and enormous target; in the long story of commercial sexual exploitation, it amounted to nothing more than another layer of pavement on the Turnpike. By the time they had capitulated and removed the adult target off their back, their increasing obsolescence as an online channel for human trafficking and prostitution was nearly complete. In fact, within days of Craigslist removing its adult listings, the army of politicians and activists that had mobilized against them immediately set their sights on Backpage.com. And with good reason. Backpage is much worse than we are, Buckmaster claimed, citing the growing classified advertising website, which covered more than 400 American cities by late 2010. He had a valid point shared by AIM Groups Peter Zollman, If some of Craigslists ads are sleazy, Backpage is a veritable cesspool. Backpage.com, with offices in Dallas and Phoenix, was owned and operated by Village Voice Media Holdings, LLC, whose flagship publication, The Village Voice, was arguably Americas original alternative weekly first published in 1955. The conglomerate owned several alternatives across America along with VoiceMedia, a marketing consulting group which claimed, If you want to reach fun, active people who go out and spend money, Voice Media is the smart turnkey alternative. The escort classified advertisements placed in the back pages of Village Voice print alternatives across the United States were nearly identical to those placed in the Hartford Advocate and used by Dennis Paris. However, those listed on the aptly named Backpage.com, the online version of these ads, had the Craigslist advantage of instant, daily postings along with multiple photos. The adult ads, posted in nearly the same manner as Craigslist, were unlike Newmark and Buckmasters company in one, very significant way: there were no rules. None. If Craigslist was the next evolutionary step of the old Berlin Turnpike, Backpage.com was riding straight out of the Wild West. Here, nothing was off limits. Nothing was forbidden. Nothing was

patrolled. Borrowing Craigslists Internet of 1995 look, a typical post-Craigslist adult era advertisement on Backpage, listed in Dallas, read, Hi im Erika. Im 18 and very open minded... Im ready to please and love doing it... Im new to this but very experienced... Please cum spend time with me Daddy... Ill be waiting.. *GFE* $Incall donations$ $75 for 15 mins$100 for 30 mins $1 for 60 I offer a Discreet, Safe & Clean Executive Suite location for respectable Gentlemen, Please serious inquiries only Ericas photos, obviously taken by someone else, showed a young, nude, White female posing on her hands and knees; her breasts and genitals exposed. Another listing clearly advertised a Boston escort service similar to, and perhaps much larger than, Dennis Paris enterprise: Want to party with some of the most gorgous women in new england known to man. Very hot professional upscale experiance females that know how to please. And we Do know how to please. Blonds brunetts reds. Italian russian german ebony french...there are plenty of candy girls to choice from that know how to satisfy! Very Very sexy! Each party rates vary from the amount of Candy Girls you choose. Call for appointments. Though very few had heard of Backpage, especially in light of the attention given to and market share enjoyed by Craigslist, it had become the new source for inexpensive, explicit, sex-for-sale advertising by 2010. Its position as a small competitor against the behemoth Craigslist also allowed them to operate well below the radar of public officials, human rights advocates, and the media who had all chosen Craigslist as their singular pariah. The johns knew about it and thats all that mattered. To protect themselves further, Village Voice Media had chosen to give Backpage a back seat on Blumenthals turf. Shying away from the legal pressure and spotlight of Connecticut politics, Backpages extensive list of adult services, including: escorts, body rubs, strippers & strip clubs, dom & fetish, TS, adult jobs, and male escorts, were not available under their Connecticut listings during the war between Blumenthal and Buckmaster. Backpage had shut down the entire section in the state. In time, the controversial categorys absence did not last. By Wednesday, November 9, 2011, perhaps emboldened by Blumenthals Senate victory and consequential absence from his previous position as Attorney General, Backpage quietly slipped adult onto their Connecticut page. Four days later in the idyllic Nutmeg State community of Simsbury, police made the first known prostitution arrest in the towns three century history. The advertisements for the woman they charged with the crime (along with a man who was charged with promoting prostitution) were found in the new Connecticut escorts section of Backpage.com. Pointing out that Craigslist was continually cooperating with law enforcement, Buckmaster pointed an accusatory finger directly at Backpage, arguing, You do not hear about arrests connected to the vast majority of adult services advertising because the venues hosting those ads do not cooperate with law enforcement, do not urge their users to be on the lookout for and report suspected trafficking and exploitation, do not participate in reporting programs, do not consult regularly with experts and advocacy groups, and, in fact, do not take any of the preventive measures we have taken. Looking on the bright side, the potential for progress would be enormous if all such venues would adopt the practices that Craigslist has established.

As the company had proven in the Katherine Ann Olson case, Craigslist never hesitated in assisting criminal justice in their investigations and prosecutions of offenders. There was no argument that the police universally agreed Craigslist was extremely cooperative whenever there was a legal issue. And there was no doubt that the one-stop-sex-shop that was Craigslist allowed everyone easy access to the illegal activities going on there including law enforcement. They could, if they had the motivation and manpower, go to Craigslist and virtually wipe out the majority of commercial sexual exploitation in their towns overnight. Yes, it would come back. And yes, it would come back through Craigslist. But, like everyone else, they knew where to find it. This argument and the credit Buckmaster gives his company was negated by Blumenthals counter, While the perpetrators may eventually be apprehended and brought to justice, the victims - assuming they survive - will carry the scars for life. A similar repressive policy was instituted in 1907. Houses were closed; some owners with their madames and girls left the city and others betook themselves to flats and hotels. For three years, the business was timid, quiet, unobtrusive, gradually feeling its way back. By January, 1911, the promoters had all returned, keen to recoup; by the succeeding year, they had restored their former prosperity. Commercialized Prostitution in New York City 1913 Along with Craigslist, Loquo, and Backpage, thousands of regularly used sex-for-sale websites continued to experience dramatically increased traffic and profits by 2011. Once Craigslist eliminated its adult ads, every other site offering sex ads enjoyed a huge increase in users, sales, and revenue. One detective in San Francisco commented that his department was already combing through myredbook.com, which he called, a huge vehicle of online prostitution. Finding a dramatic growth in that sites commercial sex ads, he said, Im sure theyll be happy Craigslist is getting rid of these ads, but Im not sure how much difference itll make. Within hours of the adult removal, online hobbyists were busy advising each other about where to go next. Badlarry76 posted a question to his friends on USASexGuide.info titled, CL is dead. He asked, Are there any other CL type sites anyone would be willing to share with a fellow monger? JohnNh replied, A few off the top of my head: Tazlist, Adultsearch, freepostsite. Hope this helps! And PAustin suggested, There is sipsap and backpage also. Not wasting anytime, Gawker.com picked up the slack with Your Post-Craigslist Guide to Buying Sex Online, an article which provided a concise listing of the largest commercial sex websites with reviews of and links to each. They also explained, rightly, that if Attorneys General and anti-trafficking groups are actually serious about shutting down the Internet sex trade and not just jumping on a Craigslist panic wagon theyre going to have to look far beyond Craigslist. Many of the newer operations have become super savvy, with tons of features; and they take numerous legal precautions such as incorporating and setting up servers abroad. While new sites are added every day by enterprising web designers, often hiding offshore or behind a masked trail of discreet business entities, those that especially benefitted from Craigslists change were: Escorts.com A sophisticated listing of Escort Services from which users are able to seek escorts in their specific geographic region. Fling.com A nearly mainstream dating site; thinly veiled forprostitution. AshleyMadison.com Claiming to be a website for people who want to secretly cheat on their

spouses, they desperately try to go mainstream by boasting it has been seen on The View, Ellen, Dr. Phil, Larry King, Good Morning America and advertised on Howard Sterns radio show. AdultFriendFinder.com Another dating/prostitution site trying to go mainstream with advertising on thousands of other legitimate sites. Eros.com A prostitution site which makes it very easy to find victims of commercial sexual exploitation in specific areas near you. TheEroticReview.com (TER) A massive paid site which allows members to post reviews and chat about specific providers those selling sex and join forums to ask questions and get/give advice on practicing the hobby, which is what men online call their habitual use of prostitutes. BestGFE.com Similar to The Erotic Review in that men are able to review and discuss individual women, the quality of the services they provide, and pointers on how to access them. Here, however, the free content draws users. NaughtyReviews.com A massive and detailed listing of escort services with descriptions of females for hire that include categories for Escorts, Escort Agencies, Massage Providers, Massage Parlors, Strippers, and Strip Clubs. SeekingArrangement.com for Mutually Beneficial Relationship, the site offers a sugar daddy dating site where men with money can sponsor young sugar babes. InsiderEscortSecrets.com A listing and advice site that has hundreds of other links to adult entertainment and service provider sites. LVFever.com Based in Las Vegas, this site openly advertises specific service providers with photos, rates, and services provided. USASexGuide.info The Internets largest sex travel website, a vast collection of forums and discussion groups where men can trade information and contact women who are offering sex for money. CityVibe.com Disguising itself as a city entertainment guide, this site offers concise listings of prostitutes and commercial sexual exploitation victims in specific cities. CandyDoll.com A Japanese based site, the place where you can enjoy the beauty of little girls. We made collections of young and petite girls. You will definitely find these excellent photos worth to be called true masterpieces. Many of the photos were copied and pasted into photo albums on Facebook. EstablishedMen.com Advertising nationally on Sirius XM Satellite Radio which claimed to have 20 million subscribers Established Men began a paid mainstream media blitz soon after Craigslist bowed out of the game. Their radio commercial, running frequently on channels like CNN and FoxNews, was a one-man dialogue with an obvious subtext: The other day I was strolling down the street with my super hot girlfriend when I spotted my old nemesis from junior high, Andrew bleeping [sic] Sweeney. After 25 bleeping years I can finally rub it in Sweeneys face how I became disgustingly rich and famous and he turned into a fat, balding stiff. We meet again Sweeney! And what the bleep? His chick was hotter than mine! I busted my ass making myself famous and swine-face Sweeney over here ends up with this rockin babe who was deeevine. So I hired a PI and Sweeney, I found your secret. You met her on EstablishedMen.com. By far the easiest place to hook up with a chick. Dude, all you need is a

decent job and the ladies on EstablishedMen will be all over you. Check and mate, Sweeney. And here I thought you had some game. On the website, one young woman Lolita lists her Expectations of the men she meets with the words, Generous Gifts, Monthly Allowance. Instead of just contacting women on the site, men are urged to stand out from the crowd by adding a gift to your message. There is a list of gifts that can be sent automatically to the women listed including, White Pearl Earrings, Gold Watch Diamonds, or just a simple Platinum Card. And others, such as GlobalCourtesans.com, SexSearch.com, SeekBang.com, and AmateurMatch.com, cover all areas in the United States and offer the same service. For a fee, men can seek girls being sold in their area and contact them immediately to set up a date. Increasingly, social networking site profiles like those found on Facebook feature links to these and other sites for more discreet communications. Most of these websites require a subscription fee which would seemingly put the users at risk of identification. Thanks to the anonymity of cash cards, however, this is not a consideration. For many johns who take part in the hobby these sites offer an efficient means of communicating secretly with one another and exchanging information, as well as arranging for dates. Another important distinction is that the sites listed here are designed for men who actively seek sexfor-money. The females listed through online escort services wait to be contacted and then use the language of the hobby, communicating with men who already have knowledge of how it all works. It is the online version of girls standing on a street corner and waiting for men to approach them. I recommend the USA Motel on the Berlin Turnpike. I believe its in Newington right near the Ruth Chris Steak House and is about 10 minutes from Hartford. Theres literally about 50 motels on the Pike that have short stays, but thats definitely one if it not the best. $45 for a 2-3 hours. A very nice lady runs it. gmo11 - 2011 The changes brought about by Craigslists removal of their adult section were barely noticed by the johns who call themselves hobbyists online. These men use sophisticated, members-only review websites to anonymously exchange information about women who are being sold for sex, known simply as providers. The Erotic Review (TER) and BestGFE, the latter of which calls itself A Gentlemans Guide to Pursuing Perfection, are two of the most popular sites and cover all cities and towns in America. Men who register on the sites rely heavily on the coded, anonymous postings of others to, according to The Erotic Review, know exactly what to expect before you make the call and spend your hard earned money. The bonus is that the opinions expressed are real and not sent in by the adult entertainers themselves. Its about time! The men are not the only ones taking advantage of these sites. Often, the review sites are referred to in individual listings of girls posted on Craigslist, Backpage and others, with claims like Check me out on TER and youll see that I offer one of the highest rated services anywhere! A Backpage ad with the headline, Stunning Ukranian Gal For Bodyrubs 24/7! (Berlin TPK near Golf Course) included a link to her ratings on TER where Geoprober said I had seen the ads for a while and the one review here so I called her up and she was available, standard two call system directed

me to the hotel and then called her back, she met me at the door and I followed to the room. once in the room i decided on the 1/2 hour and she asked me to get comfortable.... Another reviewer, RequestedDaily, wrote, very tall, nice legs, her stomach was the only area that could use some work. Overall nice appearance.... The reviews on TER are detailed and graphic, but users have to pay a fee and establish VIP status in order to gain access to full exposs on service providers. A typical full review reads like this one posted by easyrider0226 on BestGFE: I met with Ariana on Thursday evening. I called her and she met me within 15 minutes of my call at a motel on the Berlin Turnpike. I can attest to the other reviews. She is a beautiful girl, thin (approx 110 lbs), small breasts and a fantastic personality. As it was our first meeting all services were covered, but the service and attitude was outstanding. 2 for the hour and worth every penny!! I will repeat often. P.S. I am extremely picky/fussy about looks/attitude and Ariana scores very high in both departments. Ariana garners several positive reviews with benhead saying, Went to see Ariana again a couple days ago and was not disappointed. She got a room at a cheap motel on the Berlin Tpke and I met her there. It was the first time she had tried this motel and she was not too pleased with it. Anyway, we had another great time. Men of standing have been heard to advise young men to patronize this class of house on the ground that there is less danger; everything is said to be sanitary, the inmates less vulgar, younger, and more intelligent. The external appointments are indeed good, and there is at times even an outward air of refinement. Costly dresses and valuable jewelry are worn; the women are young, sometimes attractive in appearance. Commercialized Prostitution in New York City - 1913 Once the men get comfortable chatting online, their level of peer advice goes far deeper than most men share anywhere else, even among close friends. In August 2010 the following verbatim exchange took place between two men on BestGFE. Paparazzi started by sharing, I think i finally learned my lesson over what Ive been getting lately. Ive seen so many bad providers that im tired of getting screwed over. I think it goes back to my days when i use to use the parlors in Hartford. I pretty much knew what i was getting, being a regular i knew most of the old girls and eventually got to know the new ones. I didnt have to worry about researching, but now .. I guess this is a whole new ballgame. Guess I gotta start thinking with the big head instead of the little one more often. Thanks guys... With the compassion and patience of a big brother, bigmike1234 replied, offering paparazzi this advice: i think you may be jumping the gun a little here. If everyone who had been burned a few times gave up on the hobby, there would be none of us left. If you stick to girls who are reviewed you will be fine. If you are taking a chance on someone who is not reviewed, you really have to go into the session understanding it might not be what you expect, and there is chance it could really suck. There is also a chance you may find a little hidden gem also. With each mistake, you learn how to weed out the bad providers a little more. Their phone attiude and what they say can tell you an awful lot about them once you learn to read the signals. Even the girls who are highly reviewed wont always live up to your expectations. These websites are the place to go for men looking for women with whom they have lost contact. steve9692 posts a plea to his fellow hobbyists about a girl he knew as megan all american White

girl/meriden, asking, has anyone seen her lately. i used to see her when she was working for a service. she used to stay at the flamingo or welcome inn on the Berlin Turnpike. I know like most of the girls that worked for this guy (her pimp) she did not like working for him and she may have quit or gone solo. she was very hot brunnette with clear blue eyes real gfe. any contact info would be awsome. No one replied. Along with reviews and warnings about individual women offering their services online and on the streets, the men can join discussion boards to ask questions and get information. Between January and June 2010, the following thread took place on BestGFE.coms Short Stay Recommedations section: Anyone know of any short stays in hartford or close to Hartford with short stay and the rooms are decent and offer porn. Looking for about 3hrs just to play? Any suggestions. - HELP!!! -blkmancumeth There are a bunch of places out on route 15 (aka the Berlin Turnpike), going from Hartford towards/in Newington. I havent hit them before, so Im not sure about comparing them specifically, but just drive down that strip and youll see a bunch. They have signs saying what they offer. Im pretty sure youll find one that meets your needs (and youll waste less time trying to find one by just driving down that strip). Go to google maps and look up motel newington ct berlin turnpike (or some combination) and youll see that theres a ton along there. - BadUser Grantmore Motor Lodge. When I was a kid this place used to advertise on the local TV station that they rented by the hour or by the night. They had luv tubs and mirrors on the ceiling, heart shaped water beds and porn in the rooms. It seemed like heaven to a 15 yo. It is in Newington on the Berlin tpk. like the fellow poster stated. I took a girlfriend there once in my early 20s but havent been back since. (20 years ago ) I dont have any real info just a little trip down memory lane. Good Luck. - Michman Try the USA. Its decent, relatively clean...meets all the specs you are asking, without looking downright slum pickings. - WSG-Stoner Grantmoor is a dive; Fifth Avenue is good. I would not go to the Grantmoor. It is dirty and really has gone to crap in the last 5 years. The Fifth Avenue, however, which is at the start of the Berlin Tpk from Hartford is very decent. Many of the rooms were recently renovated. Top two choices for me on Berlin Tpk are USA ; and Fifth. - tom1326 i used to use the advance hotel in branford off exit 56.i-95..it is now the roadway inn...i used to flip the owner $35 bucks for a couple hrs and he was cool with it.. he knew what i was doing and didnt care...he never had me sign in...the owner is about 60.. pakistani.. tall..nice guy..place is not the marriot, but its always clean..worked for me for years.. now i have em come to the house... and am i spoiled.. rabbit The Siesta in Newington on the Berlin Turnpike (Rt 5-15) is good. - carl white There is always the Flamingo Inn at the south end of the Berlin Turnpike in Meriden. Rooms are decent, usually runs $45 - Rick99 (In response to Flamingo recommendation): yeah sure. if you want to get pinched!!! owner calls LE (Law Enforcement) - happymonger1 Flamingo! Yes I have heard the same, used to be ok with the hobby. Has a new owner (a women, if I remember correctly)and she calls LE if she finds out about any suspicious activity!!!Stay Away!!! RICKYB58 I went to Flamingo and the provider paid for the room. I think she said 38 but she is a regular there

so maybe they give her a break. The room was nice and the management knows what it is for. I was surprised. Flamingo is good for people coming from New Haven and points south of Berlin Tpke. Aotoole Ive used the Flamingo on two occasions... both at the suggestion of the provider. I found the accomodations to be cute, discrete, and quiet. It is a little disconcerting at first being on a hill and hidden behind trees but Ive never had any problem at all there and both times the provider went in and got the room while I waiting in the car. Both times the provider (different girls) had told me the same thing... $30 - billt2 USA motel on the Berlin Tpke in Newington, up by Hoffmans Guns, with a DD next door. Parking isnt totally hidden from the parkway, but is obscured by trees and another building. Have to strain to see the cars. Rooms are very clean, non smoking available, mirrored wall, porno channel, $40 fee. Owner has never had any problems with LE to the best of my recollection and he likes it that way. Clamfritter Reviews are not limited to just the women and motels of the Berlin Turnpike. On Peter Tips Blog (She want it - I gotta give it to her.), Centerfolds strip club was given the following assessment from Peter: Theres some variation from girl to girl, but youll almost always get at least a solid grind and some skilled knee action, and most of the girls allow varying degrees of 2-way contact. Several of the girls will position their boobs on your face and it isnt uncommon for them to encourage you to take a handfull. Some of the girls give some over-the-pants hand action, and though I didnt get the feeling that extras are available, there are girls who will gladly do everything in their power to leave the customer feeling satisfied. Of course, the online reviews go far beyond this one strip of roadway in central Connecticut. Providing their own version of the Berlin Turnpike and gambling too are Connecticuts two large casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, located in southeastern area of the State. Alexwongter posted that he was, striking out with providers in the eastern, CT area that provide service to Foxwoods. Ended up calling Monets number via CL. Name verified hotel room. Appointment was set up easily and arrived on time as she said she would. Service was mediocre but she tried to be nice. Would not repeat. Review sites for hobbyists are not only growing in popularity and traffic, they are also becoming more sophisticated. Among other added features to their site, The Erotic Review, conducts polls which ask users questions like, How has the current economy affected your hobbying? Users choose between the listed answers: Very little or not at all. I have made very few or no changes. Ive had to significantly cut back. Ive slowed down some, but not too much. I am hobbying now more than ever! Since websites can be created easily and inexpensively, many providers have their own websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts dedicated entirely to their services. Marie explains how Blood kept ahead of her online competition. Sometimes the calls were in the middle of nowhere. By the time we were back to civilization he would take me to a location where he would shoot me up and I would go back to work. He would tell me about the new girls on Craigslist and how they were blackballing me. They knew I was the new girl on the block and I was monopolizing the business. Their customers were no longer calling them. They were calling me. They posted so much shit about me. Trying to persuade men from

calling me. They would post that I had diseases to scare the men away. They hated me. They wanted what I had. Only I didnt want what I had. They knew who my pimp was and they wanted to work with him. They wanted to get rid of me so he would be available to work with again. In this business everyone knows everyone in some sense or another. Even if it is only by picture or voice. Girls would call my phone asking for my pimp. I was trained to respond, I dont know what or who you are talking about. I work alone. They all knew I didnt work alone. I was making too much money and there was a mastermind behind it. They tried so hard to catch me too. They would set up fake dates with johns and try to catch me. Good thing my pimp was on his game and knew all of their tricks. Youre probably wondering how we were on top of our shit. Especially since we were in the car all the time. He had two blackberrys that we checked Craigslist on at least 50 times a day. Not to mention Eros, Cityvibe, TER, all of them. This was our lifeline to the underground world of escorting. This is why we were one step ahead of everyone else. It allowed us to be out on the road and doing business at the same time. While the Internet is mushrooming with sex-for-sale sites as previously described, something else has emerged, bringing an entirely new dynamic to human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Social networking websites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter have completely changed the game. Enormously popular and growing every day these free sites offer very powerful tools for men who are buying sex, pimps who are selling it, and pedophiles trading child pornography. In a brilliantly devious marketing ploy, pimps have used these sites in such a way that men no longer need to look for girls on the street corner or the Internet. Using social networking, the girls will come to them. Facebook faces a security challenge that few, if any, other companies or even governments have faced protecting more than 500 million people on a service that is under constant attack, said Simon Axten, a spokesman for Facebook, concerning security issues with his companys website. In the post-Craigslist world of online human trafficking, individual females are advertised extensively with personal pages of information, photos, and updates. It is the perfect forum to begin or continue conversations with potential johns. This has added a new dimension for pimps and other human traffickers to aggressively market females working in prostitution: Tugging. Now they can go looking for men pull them in instead of waiting for men to contact them. Even before the crackdown on (Craigslists) adult-services section, observed professor Venkatesh, sex workers were turning to Facebook. He further estimated that by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading on-line recruitment space. Some men, curious and perhaps willing to pay someone for sex, but unwilling to actively look for listings online, are open to having an attractive female friend them on Facebook and begin an innocent conversation. With millions of men sharing their profile on Facebook, it is extremely easy for those working in the sex industry to scour through profiles, seeking men in their geographic area who look like they have money to spend. This provides a new level of sex marketing efficiency since Facebook allows almost anyone to see enough information about an individual to determine whether or not they will make a profitable john. Once the man receives the friend request, and not knowing from whom the request came, he may

be curious enough to look at the senders profile. With no limitations on who sees her Facebook page, he will find a wealth of information to beguile him. The females profile begins with an exhibit of risqu photos, but still within the soft guidelines of the website so as not to raise any warning flags with its administrators. Her Wall will have references to her love of parties, men, and sex. Her updates will be perky, friendly, positive, and alluring. At this point, the man has two options: Confirm or Ignore the friend request from his sexy new contact. If he takes the bait and presses Confirm she will be able to see his entire profile. He will receive constant updates from her and invitations to Instant Message her on Facebook, all in an effort to draw him in. After a short time, his new female Facebook friend will invite him to follow her on Twitter as well. Then, she begins inviting him, and other men, to dance where she is dancing, party wherever she is that particular night, or stay wherever she is staying for the next few days. Women being sold are not only waiting on street corners. They are not only sitting by the phone waiting for men to call from their ads online. They are not waiting for e-mails and texts to come in. Now they are cold calling. Through legitimate and accepted websites like Facebook, they are knocking on the doors of men across America, peering into the windows of their virtual homes, and asking for an invitation to come inside. Creative methods of advertising sex for sale have always been as prevalent as the demand for it. Handing out small, printed cards was popular at social events in the early years of the 20th century. Usually these were available at any dance or party. In 1913 it was reported that During the progress of a dance in St. Marks Place, a young girl, hardly above seventeen years of age, presented a boy with a printed card advertising a ball soon to be held. When the card is folded, it forms an obscene picture and title. Far more blatant was the use of Facebook by pedophiles to connect with each other around the world in order to trade sexually explicit photos of young children another form of human trafficking under US law. Typically, these men find each other by posting similar interests to their Facebook profiles. Using common profile likes, such as the novel Lolita, the movie Thirteen, or any profile name including the words, young, kid, or child, pedophiles searching for explicit images of children can successfully search for their otherwise hidden brethren. In early 2011, one profile on Facebook, Marcos Teia, had more than 500 friends with whom he shared hundreds of these photographs directly on Facebooks pages. His Facebook gallery began with a single photograph of a young girl, perhaps six or seven years old. She was not smiling in the picture. With her head turned slightly to the right, she looked coyly at the lens. Her hair was coiffed in a highly stylized arrangement with green and yellow ribbons. Along with other makeup, she was wearing lipstick, eyeliner, and shadow. She was standing outside, a blue sky and unidentified foothills behind her. She was holding an inflatable Daffy Duck. She was completely naked. Most of the childs body is exposed in a sexual manner making this photograph a violation of Federal Human Trafficking laws. Anyone involved or possessing the photograph could be prosecuted. The photographer, the men posting it, and the men downloading it and keeping it on their computers were all guilty, according to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which states that trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children can take many forms, including child pornography. At the time, this was part of a collection that was growing online by the hour. Along with other

photos of naked, costumed, and posed children, the sexually explicit images are simply a collection called Model Kids on Marcos Teias Facebook page. Marcos is clearly an online avatar, a falsified Facebook profile that effectively hides the true identity of the person behind the page. Marcos Teias profile, which used Spiderman as a profile photo and has a Brazilian e-mail address, disappeared every so often. One day he was on Facebook with hundreds of friends whose profiles also exhibited sexually explicit photographs of children and adults on the social networking site and the next day he was gone. A few days later he was back, eager to confirm friend requests from anyone. Most of the reported 500 million users of Facebook probably thought it was generally safe from such content and well patrolled. With some privacy concerns, the vast majority of Facebook users, from private citizens to major corporations, NGOs, politicians, and even the President of the United States, had no idea that it was home to a massive collection of unreported pornography of all kinds. Having seen Marcoss profile, images, and friends growing worse every day, I reported him to Facebook several times which could explain why he vanished so often. Facebook may have deleted his account upon each of my reports. Yet he always returned a day or so later with the same name, profile photo, birthday, e-mail address, and, worst of all, sexually explicit photographs of children in his Model Kids collection. Then, Facebook groups began appearing with names like love little kids, anything goes, teen sex, and the like. A Facebook visitor must request permission to join these groups, though once the request is made, acceptance is generally given within minutes. The images here were far worse than anything I had encountered previously. These photos on Facebook were clearly a violation of several federal laws, including TVPA laws. The proliferation of illegal photographs was so profound that I immediately contacted the FBI by phone. The person answering instructed me to fill out an online form an IC3 at their Internet Crime Complaint Center. As I was doing so, I wondered if the FBI would send me to a website had I reported a bank robbery, a kidnapping, or a suspected terrorist. Nevertheless, I submitted the following statement: I am in the final stages of researching a book on commercial sexual exploitation in the United States. Much of the book focuses on the Internet and how it is used by those involved in human trafficking and child pornography. As an essential part of my research, I created a Facebook (FB) avatar (fake) profile. On January 27, 2011, at approximately 10:30 a.m. (EST), through the avatar profile, I requested acceptance into the closed FB group, sex litlle girls. [sic] Moments later, the avatar was accepted into the group by a profile known as Marcos Robson. At the time of the avatars acceptance, there were 30 photographs posted on this particular Facebook group. These photographs were explicit images of girls, appearing to range in ages between three and nine years. The images showed these girls involved in vaginal, oral, and anal sex acts. Some are bound with duct tape. According to the groups Facebook wall, sex litlle girls was created at approximately 7 pm EST on January 26, 2011 by a Facebook profile named Lourdes Tromcos. On January 27, 2011, at 11:15 a.m. EST, sex litlle girls had 51 members and the number of photos posted had grown to 37, including one with what appeared to be a female newborn and the genitals of an adult male. The following day, with my trust in the Internet having decreased that much further, I made the same report in person along with a colleague at the FBI offices at 600 State Street in New Haven, Connecticut. Without an appointment we were immediately interviewed by an exceptionally professional

and compassionate FBI Agent who took all the information we could give him. Though overworked and with a very busy schedule, the agent sacrificed a good part of his day to get a clear picture of what we had found on Facebook. Though the details of the meeting are off the record, I can say that we gladly provided him with the access information to my avatars Facebook account, thereby giving the profile I had created to the FBI for its investigatory use. Our intent was to report the crime we had witnessed and make the authorities aware that these images were not being traded among pedophiles via some hidden, back channel website flying under the radar. This was Facebook. While the people of Egypt were using the website to essentially overthrow their dictatorial government, these others were openly using Facebooks system to display and trade images of children being sexually attacked. It was also at this very moment in Facebooks young life that it had raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm, in a deal that valued the social networking site at $50 billion. In January 2011 this gave the company a value greater than most car companies, defense contractors, and other online businesses like eBay, Amazon, and most certainly Craigslist. Then the US State Department, unaware of these web-based exploitation issues, praised the company in their annual Trafficking in Persons Report released in June, 2011, saying, Whether through issuespecific media, or far-reaching platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, the growing capacity of new media allows concerned parties around the world to connect and share information with a speed and breadth of access unimaginable at the start of the modern anti-slavery movement just a decade ago.