Category: reason

In the United States and around the world, it’s
becoming increasingly popular for police to fight prostitution by
going after clients. This tack—often referred to as
“the
Nordic model“—is supposedly more progressive than targeting sex
workers themselves. 

A
study published this week by medical journal BMJ
explores how the criminalization of sex buyers affects the safety
and working conditions of sex workers. Researchers from the
University of British Columbia and the Gender and
Sexual Health Initiative interviewed 31 street-based sex
workers in Vancouver, Canada, where policies that criminalize
clients were adopted by local law enforcement in January
2013. 

While police “sustained a high level of visibility,” they eased
charging or arresting sex workers and showed increased concern for
their safety, according to the interviews.

However, participants’ accounts and police statistics indicated
continued police enforcement of clients. This profoundly impacted
the safety strategies sex workers employed. Sex workers continued
to mistrust police, had to rush screening clients and were
displaced to outlying areas with increased risks of violence,
including being forced to engage in unprotected sex.

Whether cops are arresting sex buyers or sellers makes little
difference—it still drives the practice underground and makes it
more dangerous for those engaged. Researchers concluded that
“criminalization and policing strategies that target clients
reproduce the harms created by the criminalization of sex work, in
particular, vulnerability to violence and HIV/STIs.”

Targeting johns, buyers of sex, also increased the total number
of sex-work-related arrests in Vancouver, from 47 in 2012 to 71 in
2013. 

The BMJ study comes as
Canada is debating whether to adopt the Nordic Model. In
December 2013, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that laws
prohibiting brothels and prostitution were
unconstitutional, giving the parliament 12 months to rewrite
them. Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay is expected to release
a new prostitution bill today, patterned on practices in Sweden,
Iceland, and Norway. In those countries, selling sexual services is
legal but purchasing them is not. 

It’s not much of a model to emulate. “Evidence from Sweden,
Norway, and now Vancouver confirms that criminalizing clients does
not eliminate the sex industry but has a significant negative
impact (on) sex workers,” said University
of Ottawa criminology professor Chris Bruckert. 

Yet it’s not just Canada looking to get Scandinavian with its
sex work laws. Cities and states across the U.S.—including
Boston,
St. Louis, and
New Jersey—have been planning and testing out similar
strategies and touting it as progress. 

As government agencies have started

assessing ways to regulate Bitcoin, big companies nationwide
have begun to warm up to the decentralized, cryptographic
currency.

Facebook can now be used to send or receive Bitcoin payments
with friends through QuickCoin, which launched on May 21.
All a user has to do is log in through the social media site, find
a friend, click send, and the specified amount is automatically
transferred. One disadvantage that advocates of Bitcoin have had to
grapple with in bringing the currency mainstream is the relatively
long wait time that it normally takes for the block chain—the
public ledger for transactions—to confirm a transfer of Bitcoins.
Quickcoin was developed in a way that allows for transfers to be
instantaneous regardless of time or day, though. 

Apple has angered many Bitcoin enthusiasts over the past several
months by inexplicably pulling popular Bitcoin wallets such as
Coinbase and Blockchain from their app store. Some users were so
enraged that they resorted to
obliterating their iPhones. Apple reconciled with customers at
the Worldwide Developer’s Conference earlier this week. They
unveiled their new
App Store Review Guidelines, with an added section on digital
currencies that will now allow Bitcoin applications to be developed
and used on iPhones. Section 11.17 explains, “Apps may facilitate
transmission of approved virtual currencies provided that they do
so in compliance with all state and federal laws for the
territories in which the app functions.”

Dish Network
announced last Thursday that it would begin accepting Bitcoin
as payment for their pay-TV subscription service in the third
quarter of 2014, making it the largest company in the world to
start using Bitcoin. It will be using Coinbase as its payment
processor. Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, said, “We’re
excited to support DISH and their current and new subscribers for
their bitcoin transactions. This is a large step forward in the
growing momentum of customers paying companies in bitcoin for
things we do every day, like watching premium TV.”

Attorney General Eric Holder has made
an announcement:

[T]he threat posed by Islamic extremist satellite
groups—from al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, to al-Shabaab in
Somalia—and individuals inspired by their violent ideology remains
a significant concern. We must remain vigilant against this threat
both here and around the world.

But we also must concern ourselves with the
continued danger we face from individuals within our own borders
who may be motivated by a variety of other causes from
anti-government animus to racial prejudice. To that end, I am
announcing today that the Department of Justice is reconstituting a
committee on domestic terrorism that was first established nearly
20 years ago under my predecessor, Attorney General Janet Reno, in
the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing….The revived
group—known as the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee—will be
comprised of leaders from components within the Department of
Justice, and co-chaired by a member of the U.S. Attorney community,
the National Security Division, and the FBI.

This committee will coordinate closely with U.S. Attorneys and
other key public safety officials across the country to promote
information-sharing and ensure an effective, responsive, and
organized joint effort.

Contrary to at least one early
report, the revived committee’s purview will not include
incidents like last year’s Boston Marathon bombing, since the men
accused of that crime appear to have been influenced by foreign
groups. The focus will be on purely homegrown activities, according
to a spokesman for the Justice Department.

In other words, Washington’s terror-hunting apparatus intends to
focus more attention on the domestic front. What exactly that will
mean in practice remains to be seen, but civil libertarians are
wary. Gabriel Rottman, the American Civil Liberties Union’s
legislative counsel on the First Amendment, has already condemned
the committee. “Given the already lenient standards for when the
government can launch an investigation,” he tells me, “the
announced task force is both unnecessary and an invitation to
investigate Americans because of the beliefs they hold, not because
of any wrongdoing.”

• The Federal Reserve says auto sales led
  modest growth in the economy last month, but payroll firm ADP
  reports an
  unexpectedly low 179,000 private sector jobs created in May
  (and April numbers were revised downward).
• Twenty-five years later, people still wonder about the identity
  of the
  mysterious man who faced down a tank in Tiananmen Square. Ten
  of thousands of people
  gathered in Hong Kong to mark the anniversary.
• The Taliban
  released video of the handover of American prisoner Bowe
  Bergdahl to U.S. forces. His exchange for Guantanamo detainees
  
  shows no sign of becoming any less controversial.
• In case you’re wondering, Hillary Clinton still
  plays coy over whether she’ll run for president in 2016.
• Google is rolling out a Chrome extension that will
  encrypt Gmail. Much gnashing of teeth at the NSA to ensue.
• Unshockingly, Syria’s President Bashar Assad won
  reelection in a stage-managed event. He had two “opponents,”
  both approved by the government.

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Well, on the bright side, the
time Spokane County Deputy Scott Kenoyer spent having sex with an
ex-girlfriend was time not being spent harassing citizens for
jaywalking or having marijuana or what-have-you. Nevertheless, some
may be appalled that the Spokane, Washington, county sheriff has
been forced to hire Kenoyer back after terminating him for
literally fucking around rather than working his beat. After
Kenoyer’s union pushed the matter into arbitration, Kenoyer is
again on duty having successfully argued that his punishment was
too harsh.

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich has responded by sending out a memo to
all his deputies explaining that having sex is not part of the job
duties and will get you fired.
Via KREM in Spokane:

“I never dreamt I’d ever even see such a memo,” Knezovich said.
“I’m shocked I had to make this statement. Sex on duty is not
tolerated, nor is lying.”

Sheriff Knezovich said he was worried that giving deputy Kenoyer
his job back would make it seem like it was alright to have sex on
duty. In the memo, Sheriff Knezovich said that sex on duty was a
breach of the public trust and a breach of the Sheriff’s Office
code of ethics; core values and officer safety.

“My legal adviser advised that in order to keep this from being
a precedent, it had to be very clear,” said Sheriff
Knezovich.  “This agency has established a very firm policy
that if you have sex on duty or falsify an official document
intentionally, you will be terminated.”

KREM has the memo posted on their site for all to read. The
falsification comments come from Knezovich’s claim that Kenoyer
lied and said that he was on a break at the time of the
interaction.

Probably the most serious accusation against Kenoyer
inadvertently came from his own union representation, who
essentially called him a lousy lay. He is
quoted by KREM saying the deputy shouldn’t be punished for “90
seconds of indiscretion.” Harsh! Work on your game, Kenoyer! No
wonder she’s his ex now.

The kicker: The sheriff’s department found out that Kenoyer lied
about what he was up to during an investigation of a Spokane police
officer who was accused of stalking this same woman.

Well known gay author and advice columnist
Dan Savage recently spoke at a University of Chicago Institute of
Politics seminar. Some students who attended the event denounced
him for repeatedly using the word “tranny,” which made one
transgender person in the audience feel uncomfortable and “unsafe.”
According to
The Chicago Maroon:

The incident occurred when, according to several sources, Savage
and [IOP fellow Ana Marie Cox] began discussing his personal
history as a gay man. According to a first-year student and member
of the LGBTQ community who asked to be identified as Hex, Savage
used the slur t—– as an example in an anecdote about reclaiming
words. Cox then added, “I used to make jokes about t—-ies,”
audience members recounted.

“That was one of the most hurtful parts,” Hex said, explaining
the perceived insult was that Cox used the slur to refer to the
group of people she joked about. “In that context, it was like
being applied to all transgender people,” it said. (“It” is Hex’s
chosen pronoun.)

In a statement, the IOP said, “A guest used language that
provoked a spirited debate. The speaker was discussing how hurtful
words can be repurposed and used to empower; at no point did he
direct any slurs at anyone.”

Hex saw matters differently:

Hex asked Savage and Cox to use the term “T-slur” instead of the
actual word. According to second-year Sara Rubinstein, an executive
director of QUIP (Queers United in Power), and Hex, Savage then
named other slurs, asking if they were suitable to use instead.
“Obviously [he attempted] to threaten me and make me feel
uncomfortable in that space, which was pretty successful,” Hex
said.

By all accounts, Savage made no deliberate effort to threaten or
perturb the student. Maroon columnist Anastasia
Golovashkina investigated
the accusation and determined that what transpired was nothing more
than a dialogue over the acceptable uses of words like “tranny.”
And though Hex claimed that Savage and Cox repeatedly interrupted
it, multiple students told Golovashkina that Hex was the one doing
most of the interrupting.

Nevertheless, an activist
started a Change.org petition to pressure IOP to issue some
sort of condemnation of Savage. The petition also demanded that the
University of Chicago vigorously police usage of “hate speech” in
the future.

Ironically, Savage’s entire purpose for bringing up the word was
to discuss strategies for overcoming its negative and hurtful
associations.

There is of course no better way to reaffirm a word’s evil power
than by making it unsayable. Many students,
unfortunately, have committed themselves to the mindset that
everything that bothers them should be banned—or at the very least,

should come with a warning label so that they may avoid ever
encountering a troubling word or concept.

I would say that people who feel existentially threatened
by language itself need to get over themselves, but I would
probably be accused of hate speech.

The New York Taxi & Limousine
Commission (TLC) seems to be set on demonstrating the old saw that
no good deed goes unpunished.

On Monday, TLC officers impounded the car of 25-year-old Yeshaya
Liebowitz and issued him a $2,000 citation, the Daily News
reports. His crime:
offering free rides to cancer patients as part of his work with
the Jewish charity Chesed. 

“I tried to explain to him we’re not a car service,” Yeshaya
Liebowitz, 25, said of the Monday misadventure in Borough Park,
Brooklyn.

The TLC officer wasn’t interested and instead made off with the
car, leaving the two sick, elderly passengers stranded on the side
of the road and Liebowitz holding the hefty citation.

The New York Daily News
has been reporting on a recent push by the Taxi & Limousine
Commission to crackdown on gypsy cabs—unlicensed drivers who pick
up passenger or help out neighbors, friends, or relatives when they
need a life in exchange for some cash. 

Gypsy cabs, of course, are the original
ridesharing technology. Lyft without the pink mustache, Uber
without the app. Ridesharing makes taxi commissions
awfully nervous. And when powerful monopolists get nervous,
they tend to get mean.

This incident has a “happy” ending. A local politician
intervened and the summons was dismissed. But those charity workers
had better be careful. Challenging urban taxi commissions can be a
dangerous move, just ask Reason‘s own Jim Epstein who
was
arrested for trying to film a meeting of the D.C. Taxi
Commission.

:

Vincent LoGiudice, a Nassau County, New York
police officer, pleaded not guilty yesterday to multiple felony
assault charges related to his beating, caught on tape, of Kyle
Howell, an unarmed 20-year-old, during a traffic stop. Cops
initially arrested Howell for assaulting cops and claimed he was
trying to ingest a bag of marijuana after they stopped him, but
prosecutors dropped the charges. Victims of police brutality are
often the target of false charges, but cops are rarely indicted for
those same incidents. Not this time; a grand jury decided to indict
LoGiudice. Nevertheless, he remains employed by the Nassau County
Police Department and enjoys the support of his fellow officers.

Via News 12 Long Island:

In a strong show of support, many Nassau County police officers
surrounded LoGiudice as he entered the courtroom. A rally
supporting him was held after he pleaded not guilty.

“He is absolutely overwhelmed with emotion with the overwhelming
support, not only by the entire Nassau County Police Department,
but police departments in the region,” said LoGiudice’s attorney
William Petrillo.

Howell and his family were present in the courtroom during the
arraignment.

“It just shows that all these people here are just supporting
police brutality,” Howell told News 12.

You can watch surveillance video of the beating here:

For those of you who haven’t checked out MAD magazine in a
while, the old publication still has life in it.

Original here.

This Thursday, June 5, Zócalo Public Square and
Arizona State University are co-hosting a debate event in
Scottsdale (featuring former Reasoner Dave Weigel, among
others) on the topic “Is
Goldwater Libertarianism Dead?” In advance of the
discussion, the public-affairs website has published a
mini-symposium on “What
Did Barry Goldwater Leave Us?“

My contribution is headlined “Believing in the potential of
individual pursuits free of government meddling,” and begins this
way:

For a charismatic, larger-than-life sonofabitch, Barry Goldwater
had a pretty humble view of his impact on politics and the world.
“I don’t think I’ve had the great influence that is attributed to
me,” Mr. Conservative told The
Phoenix Gazette just after stepping down
from his fifth and final term in Congress. If pressed, he might
cough up a regional intra-party success: helping tilt the GOP away
from the stuffy northeastern establishment, and toward the
wide-open Sun Belt.

So it’s left to us to chart the legacy strains of Goldwaterism.
Start here with the obvious: In 2014, a half-century after
Goldwater helped galvanize a new generation of self-consciously
ideological young conservatives and libertarians into winning the
GOP presidential nomination, another attractive upstart senator in
his early 50s has vaulted himself near the top of the Republican
field, on a message of constitutionalism, limited government, and
fiercely independent thinking.

Go to
the link for the full piece and others, including one from The
Heritage Foundation’s Lee Edwards, who writes in part:

Goldwater’s greatest legacy is that, despite 80 years of
progressivism, a majority of Americans still want less, not more,
government. They still understand the senator’s famous maxim that
any government big enough to give you everything you want is big
enough to take away everything you have.

The intrinsic libertarianism of most Americans is confirmed in

Gallup and other polls, in the election of small
government senators like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and governors like
Scott Walker and Mike Pence, and in the Tea Party that has not
faded away but continues to play an influential role in electoral
politics.

Reason on Barry
Goldwater here.