Congress Wants to Let Cops Wiretap Sex Workers, the CDC Study Them, and Homeland Security Screen Them

Congress Wants to Let Cops Wiretap Sex Workers, the CDC Study Them, and Homeland Security Screen Them –
By Elizabeth Nolan Brown / June 9 2017

So far this year, federal lawmakers have introduced more than 30 bills related to “sex trafficking,” which many in government now define to mean all prostitution. This week alone brought three new efforts. And following the familiar pattern of the drug war, these measures mostly focus on giving federal law enforcement more “tools” to find, prosecute, and punish people for actions only tangentially, if at all, connected to causing harm.

One such measure would expand state and local government authority “to seek wiretap warrants in sexual exploitation and prostitution cases” (emphasis mine) and mandate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute of Justice conduct a “study on the long-term physical and psychological effects of the commercial sex trade.” It would also give the Department of Homeland Security a mandate to develop protocols “for implementation across federal, state, and local law enforcement” on how to screen people “suspected of engaging in commercial sex acts” for the possibility that they have been trafficked. The screening process would also be applied to people suspected of working in violation of any labor regulations, including occupational licensing rules.

Homeland Security would also train crimefighters nationwide on how to investigate prostitution customers for their alleged “roles in severe trafficking in persons.” And Attorney General Jeff Sessions would be required to instruct law enforcement across the land that their efforts to fight human trafficking must “include a demand reduction component”—i.e., must target prostitution customers. Sessions would also have to declare “that commercial sexual exploitation is a form of gender-based violence,” opening the way for possible hate-crime enhancements for anyone who tries to pay for sex.

Continue to reason.com article: http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/09/trafficking-victims-protection-act-2017