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Sen. Dianne Feinstein
(D-Calif.) is once again attempting to swell federal power and
erode civil liberties by preying on fears about sexual
exploitation. Today, she and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) introduced the Combat Human Trafficking Act, a
bill that would expand federal and state wiretapping authority,
mandate that the Department of Justice (DOJ) spend more time
investigating and prosecuting buyers of sex acts from
trafficking victims, and increase criminal penalties for buyers by
legally defining them as human traffickers.  

What could be so bad about going after those who buy sex from
trafficked individuals, especially sex-trafficked minors? For one,
the bill doesn’t require a buyer
to know that an individual has been trafficked
or is under 18 years of age to be criminally liable. But, more
broadly, the bill seems largely aimed at additional encroachments
on American privacy and expansion of federal law enforcement
power. 

Sen. Portman said the legislation “sends a clear message to
those who victimize children that we will prosecute you to the full
extent of the law.” But we already have plenty of laws available to
prosecute those who sexually victimize children. Purchasing sex
from a minor should absolutely be illegal—and it is! But what do we
gain by now defining all individuals who do so as sex
traffickers?

We’ll get more people in prison, I guess—if anyone who purchases
sex from a 16-year-old is now a human trafficker, not just a
statutory rapist, they’ll be subject to a 10 year mandatory minimum
sentence. Somehow this seems more punitive than public
safety-oriented. (Also, expensive.) 

We’ll also get the DOJ poking around more in the affairs of
anyone involved in buying or selling sexual services. Under the
bill, “the Attorney General shall ensure that Federal law
enforcement officers are engaged in activities, programs, or
operations involving the detection, investigation, and prosecution
of individuals” who “obtain, patronize, or solicit a commercial sex
act involving a person” who has been trafficked.

Under the best of circumstances, this is going to lead to
increased harassment of (willing) sex workers and enhanced
monitoring of any space where they congregate. But by playing a
little loose with the definition of trafficking (as
anti-prostitution crusaders are wont to do), the bill also provides
a potential direct mandate for DOJ to target sex workers and their
clients. 

But isn’t arresting child sex traffickers and rescusing
trafficking victims worth it? It’s a worthy endeavor,
certainly. It’s also one that DOJ is already empowered to do. This
bill doesn’t make it more possible for DOJ to fight traffickers, it
uses fighting trafficking as a guise for giving federal and state
law enforcement more power. 

Here’s a more detailed look at what the Combat Human Trafficking
Act would do, from a Feinstein press release:

• Clarify that a buyer of a commercial sex act from a trafficking
  victim can be prosecuted under the commercial sex trafficking
  statute (18 U.S.C. § 1591)
• Make a seller or buyer of a sex act strictly liable, with
  respect to the victim’s age, if the victim is under the age of 18,
  thereby sparing child victims from having to testify and be
  re-traumatized
• Establish a minimum period of five years of supervised release
  for a person who conspires to violate the commercial sex
  trafficking statute (§ 1591), thereby making conspirators subject
  to the same term of supervised release as those convicted of
  attempting to violate the statute or of violating the statute.
• Require the Bureau of Justice Statistics to prepare an annual
  report on the number of arrests, prosecutions, convictions and
  lengths of sentences regarding sex trafficking offenses prosecuted
  in state courts.
• Direct the Department of Justice to ensure that each anti-human
  trafficking training program it offers includes training on
  effective methods for investigating and prosecuting the buyers of
  sex acts, and to ensure that federal law enforcement officers
  investigate and prosecute such individuals.
• Expand federal and state wiretapping authority to cover all
  human trafficking offenses, specifically peonage, involuntary
  servitude, forced labor, child sexual exploitation, child
  pornography production, slavery and involuntary servitude.

Feinstein’s press release justifies these moves
thusly: 

Human trafficking is a $32 billion industry worldwide, making it
the second largest criminal industry behind the drug trade. The
U.S. Department of Justice estimates that up to 83 percent of sex
trafficking victims are American citizens, and the average victim
is first trafficked between ages 12 and 14. According to the
California Department of Justice, California is one of the top four
destination states for trafficking victims.

Yes, they’re actually claiming that American citizens make up
all but 13 percent of global sex trafficking victims.
It’s a bold move even within the typically-dubious realm of sex-trafficking
statistics (the idea that the average victim
is first-trafficked at 12-years-old is also suspect). None of these stats are
sourced. 

Unfortunately, this is the latest in a string of dreadful
bipartisan efforts from Feinstein, who earlier this year introduced
the “Stop Adverising Victims of Exploitation” (SAVE) Act with
Republican Sen. Mark Steven Kirk. (Ill.). That bill also exploits
sexually-abused children to push unconstitutional expansion of
federal law enforcement power. A wide range of trade an activist
organizations oppose the SAVE Act, which they describe as
creating “new and draconian federal criminal liability for websites
and other online services that host content created by third
parties,” while raising “serious free speech and privacy concerns”,
driving “truly bad actors—the traffickers—underground and
overseas”, and “subjecting wholly innocent individuals to potential
criminal liability for unknowingly running afoul of this sweeping
law.”

More than 900 Sicilian firms are now
publicly refusing to pay protection money to the mob. And they’re
getting away with their defiance, Jesse Walker writes, thanks to
one of the most remarkable social movements to emerge in the last
decade—a group that’s resisting the racketeers with tactics you’re
more likely to associate with Gandhi or the Arab Spring than a
campaign against organized crime.

View this article.

• President Barack Obama will be
  announcing
  executive actions on immigration tonight during primetime. But
  there’s a new episode of Arrow!
• A planned sitcom starring Bill Cosby has been
  canceled by NBC in the wake of sexual assault allegations
  against the comedian.
• The first marriage licenses to
  gay couples in South Carolina were handed out today, even as
  the state’s attorney general fights a federal ruling striking its
  ban down.
• Five students in Thailand
  have been detained for reportedly using the three-fingered
  salute invented by the rebels in The Hunger Games in front
  of the country’s prime minister.
• Speaking of The Hunger Games:
  Snow has killed six folks in New York State.
• The Department of Justice announced it has collected a record
  
  $24 billion in penalties for fiscal year 2014, three times the
  amount they gathered last year, thanks to some big bank
  payouts.

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There’s an ongoing fight in New Orleans over
policies related to public employees. Apparently the mayor, Mitch
Landrieu, has tried to implement changes under the “Great
Place to Work Initiative.” The changes would increase the
minimum wage for public employees to $10.10, make it easier to give
employees pay raises, and loosen rules requiring hiring managers
consider the best qualified candidates for a position.
Nevertheless, multiple public unions sued over the initiative,
arguing it made the city’s civil service less competitive.

The Civil Service Commission originally approved the proposal in
August, and earlier this month
voted on unspecified changes behind closed doors it said were
meant to knock the wind out of lawsuits. No details were made
available. After a few weeks of criticism, the Commission decided
to vote again, though it has not been transparent about what
exactly it voted in favor of the first or second time around. At
this week’s meeting, however, the Commission also addressed cop
pay. As The Lens
reports:

Later in the meeting, the commission approved a 20 percent pay
raise for police officers, based on a recommendation from the Civil
Service Department staff. Under the proposal, officers would
receive a 10 percent bump next year, to be followed by 5 percent
increases in years two and three.

Landrieu’s 2015 budget proposal, however, only accounts for
a 5 percent increase, and Landrieu has not committed to continued
raises in 2016 and 2017. Funding for the raises will ultimately
have to be allocated by the City Council.

Will Landrieu accommodate the generous raise in exchange for
less opposition to his attempt to take more control over who is
hired to public jobs? No matter who wins, New Orleans residents
lose.

The New Orleans Police Department did not face any serious
reforms despite a decades-long negative image reinforced by the
actions of some cops during and after Hurricane Katrina. A few
months ago,
cops shot a man they pulled over in the head and “forgot” to
tell the media who shot him.