> In a concession to law enforcement, the act will let police obtain location-tracking information or subscriber data without a warrant if there’s an “imminent risk” of death, serious physical injury, sexual abuse, livestreamed sexual exploitation, kidnapping, or human trafficking.
A fairly reasonable exception which is then randomly extended to also cover prostitution and porn. Oh well.
I do have to question why they needed a specific emergency exemption for "livestreamed sexual exploitation" when that "exploitation" would not qualify as "sexual abuse". (If it were abuse, then it would already be covered under the exemption for sexual abuse!)
Livestreamed sexual exploitation was undoubtedly included as a way to extend law enforcement a way to act on "distribution of an intimate image" as defined in 76-5b-203.
Abuse and exploitation do, in fact, have different legal definitions in Utah.
Livestreaming a sexual act without the consent of the 2nd party wouldn't be covered under sexual abuse, as the party is consenting to the sexual act. But, would be covered as exploitation, if the party doesn't consent to the distribution of their image [2].
I'm a huge critic of the church's influence on our legislature, but it's not an extension to porn and/or prostitution. If anything, it's a strengthening of privacy.
For people who aren't familiar with "the church" mentioned above, it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints AKA LDS Church AKA the Mormon Church[1].
In Utah the Church has a large (usually indirect) influence over politics. They don't often pick sides, but with some social issues like Gay marriage and legalized Cannabis they have specifically reached out to members encouraging them to vote a certain way.
Well, a couple years back an internal PPT and videos from "the church" was leaked that documented how the church considered a legislator from a state in the northwest "in their pocket".
The legislator wasn't even coerced - he would just regularly report back to church leaders and ask for guidance on which way he should lean on specific issues.
If the church has that kind of direct influence out of state, it stands to reason they at least have a similar level in Utah where most of the legislature and politicians are Mormon.
It was from MormonLeaks, I'm sure. Look through their history. It was at the same time as the "bubble" PPT that listed the church's largest "adversaries" or "problems" and John Dehlin was one of the bubbles LOL.
It's Utah. The state is basically run by the Mormon church so religion informs what crime are considered serious. Of course the flip-side is that most "progressive" states (with a few possible exceptions I can think of) would almost certainly bent over backwards to avoid curtailing the power of the police to search the documentation of people's private lives like this. Everything's a tradeoff.
I think Utah is a bit more complex than that. As you note the LDS Church holds significant sway in the state, however like much of the Mountain West of the USA, the actual popular politics feature a combination of libertarian and socialist tensions rather than simple social conservatism.
Salt Lake City for example was the first major US city I encountered the audible cross-walk indicators for the visually impaired. And not just here and there, but all over the city. Salt Lake City has had popular gay and lesbian mayors and a vibrant and resilient collection of various sub-cultures that may not be desirable to the LDS Church but persist nonetheless.
I would hesitate to call the current mayor popular. She's not seeking a second term for a reason. I'd also question how strong the socialist tensions are. There's definitely tensions between moderate old guard pro-regulation republicans and libertarians with a small vocal minority of socialists.
I may have conflated the popular Mayor Rocky Anderson's human rights activism for gay people along with the current lesbian Mayor Jackie Biskupski with whom I am only superficially knowledgeable and as you point out my phrasing was incorrect. I haven't lived in the city for a decade and only recently visited for a conference, but found it the same lovely corner of the country with a less oppressive culture than when I lived there.
Mostly I was just trying to point out that while the media and popular culture reduces parts of the world to simple caricatures, usually the particulars are more complex and nuanced.
The current state of US practice is that most prostitution is called "human trafficking" when it's investigated or prosecuted. Cases investigated under the headline of "trafficking" generally do not involve coercion (in reality) or even allege it (in court). You can find a lot of prostitute-sympathetic coverage making fun of prosecutors for charging women with "trafficking" themselves.
Thus, we can say that the "human trafficking" exemption is really a prostitution exemption, and not what it sounds like.
I dislike the use of the term "trafficking" in this context. We have a perfectly good word for coercing someone to perform labor: slavery. We have a perfectly good phrase for coercing someone to have sex: sexual assault.
I don't think slavery, sex slavery, or sexual assault are good reasons for removing safe harbor from sites that host user generated content. Instead, such sites have been, and could continue to be valuable resources for law enforcement.
Heck, Reason is running a story right now about a group of women suing Harvey Weinstein for "sex trafficking", with the theory apparently being that he availed himself of their services when they trafficked themselves: https://reason.com/2019/04/19/harvey-weinstein-is-not-a-sex-...
> Sexual assault and rape are bad enough on their own, of course. So why the need to force these cases into a framework that doesn't fit?
> Because the sex trafficking framework allows for a lot more prosecutorial possibilities.
> Plus, sex trafficking is such a buzzword that cases employing it are guaranteed to get more attention.
Yeah, but that happens after your door's been kicked down. We see this all the time with city and state $bad_thing "task forces". The many of the cases they bring evaporate in court if they make it that far but the damage is done.
Thing about the US courts: until that happens and precedent is established, there's no "correct". Both are equally plausible based on how past laws have been expanded past some people's ideas of reasonable. It's the whole "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it" concept.
“Smelling marijuana” is easy to push with plausible deniability.
Claiming there is imminent risk of sexual abuse is really difficult to justify on the fly. It may happen, but that’s going to be a tough edge case for cops to abuse.
> I do have to question why they needed a specific emergency exemption for "livestreamed sexual exploitation" when that "exploitation" would not qualify as "sexual abuse
To identify and locate underage camwhores (who are presumed to be put up to the task).
Being forced to simply flirt with men all day constitutes exploitation, not abuse.
The nature of livestreams mean there is little to go on unless they're broadcasting, hence the exception.
I do have to question why they needed a specific emergency exemption for "livestreamed sexual exploitation"
My guess is to prevent internet-based sex-tourism: watching stuff that's illegal where you are, streamed from somewhere else, like another country or continent.
A fairly reasonable exception which is then randomly extended to also cover prostitution and porn. Oh well.
I do have to question why they needed a specific emergency exemption for "livestreamed sexual exploitation" when that "exploitation" would not qualify as "sexual abuse". (If it were abuse, then it would already be covered under the exemption for sexual abuse!)