Free Speech Victory

I never saw this announced on any news forum, but on October 20th Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart's suit against Craigslist was tossed out in federal court. You remember the suit – the sheriff publicized it well and then South Carolina AG joined in with his own legal threats. I am only aware of the outcome as it was included in my Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) EFFector List news.


Matt Zimmerman wrote:

On Tuesday, the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois agreed with craigslist, throwing out Dart's complaint in its entirety, confirming that Section 230 immunized craigslist from the allegation that it constituted a "public nuisance." The court made a number of important observations regarding the attempt to saddle craigslist with responsibility for the behavior of its users.

The main points in the decision:

The phrase "adult," even in conjunction with "services," is not unlawful in and of itself nor does it necessarily call for unlawful content. ... The same is true of subcategories. Plaintiff is simply wrong when he insists that these terms are all synonyms for illegal sexual services.


Intermediaries are not culpable for "aiding and abetting" their customers who misuse their service to commit unlawful acts.

Read the court opinion here: Dart v. Craigslist Opinion

Let this be a lesson learned for the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI) in Orlando, and for every publisher (print and internet) that the agency managed to threaten into submission. If you have no clue as to what I'm stating, simply click on the "Public Records" link and read every thinly veiled threat the agency made to Craigslist and the final agreement with Orlando area publisher, the Orlando Weekly. Read The Yellow Pages Fiasco to learn more about this agency's longstanding attack on publishers in the Orlando area.

Each publisher should have stood their ground for free speech and stated the same thing to the bully agency that I have since 1994: See you in court!

Now that is a real victory!