Publisher of Sex-Trafficking Ads Isn't the Criminal

It takes a lot to turn a publisher of sex ads into a First Amendment hero. But the attorney general of California has managed the feat. By charging Carl Ferrer, the chief executive of Backpage.com, with pimping and sex trafficking in minors, Kamala Harris has seriously breached the constitutional wall meant to protect the free press. Ferrer -- and the two controlling shareholders of the online classified marketplace Backpage -- aren’t charged with actually arranging sex for pay. They’ve been criminally charged based on a claim that Backpage is designed to, and does, publish third-party ads for sex trafficking. On this theory, essentially any publication that sells ads could be outlawed -- and that’s almost any publication on earth.

When I last wrote about Backpage, it was to point out that the company has a valid First Amendment argument to deny a U.S. Senate subcommittee access to its editorial policies. In retrospect, a Senate subpoena and a highly unusual vote to hold Backpage in contempt was small potatoes, constitutionally speaking.