I've been following this case closely since the NY AG filed a civil suit against Big Apple Oriental Tours late last year under pressure from Equity Now, a feminist group. Equity Now was also instrumental in getting videotravel.net shut down and getting new laws enacted in Hawaii that made travel agencies that organized sex tours illegal.

I follow it because of the precedent it sets and the slippery slope I fear it leads us down. If travel agencies can be charged criminally as promoting prostitution for organizing sex tours, how long will it be before owners of information sites like this and others are also targeted? It is true that there is a distinction between sex tours and informational sites, but again, when someone wants to change society they start big and work their way down the chain. Once these feminists groups get all the sex tour agencies shut down and laws enacted that make them illegal, they will come after sex travel information sites as well.

Spitzer is a rising star in the Democratic Party, but I disagree strongly with him on this one.

"Two businessmen were slapped with criminal charges for allegedly using a Queens travel agency to book sleazy sex tours to Southeast Asia, the Daily News has learned."

"Big Apple Oriental Tours was anything but a traditional travel agency, hooking up customers with hookers in Thailand and the Philippines, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said."

"For about $2,500, customers got a seven- to 10-day trip that included airfare and information on where to find mamasans, bar managers in strip clubs who would arrange trysts with prostitutes, Spitzer charged after a year-long probe."

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/176083p-153269c.html

Slippery Slope indeed!

This was all made possible by the new laws pushed by Bush and Ashcroft. Prior to these laws taking effect , it was only illegal if the the agency in question actually took money for sex, rather than just made travel arrangements. Now you only have to prove intent., ie making a travel arrangement to file a criminal charge.

Someone on this board who makes arrangements for another monger to travel abroad to have sex, may be liable for criminal penalties. This site very well could be used as evidence should they connect the monger to the handle.

OG

Although I am not by any stretch of the imagination a fan of Bush or Ashcroft, I doubt the law that these people were charged under was passed under their watch. Spitzer is a state attorney general, I believe, and would have charged under state law, not federal law. Thus, at most, Bush/Ashcroft might have contributed in an indirect way to the atmospherics that led to the prosecution, but not to the prosecution itself. If anyone has contrary information, I would stand corrected.