Convicted child trafficker living at children’s centre

The Ontario Provincial Police have issued an advisory over a convicted child trafficker living at a children's center near Barrie. The man, who says he ran an escort service which hired a minor who used fraudulent ID, called the advisory "ridiculous".

Man convicted of human trafficking of children is living at Ontario children’s centre: police | Global News | Ryan Rocca:

July 17, 2023 - "A man previously convicted of human trafficking of children is living at an Ontario centre offering services for children with autism, police say, prompting a community safety advisory. Lauriston Charles Maloney, 42, 'resides at, and has regular access to' the Beating the Odds centre, which offers services for children with autism, police said. 'Maloney is a convicted sex offender with several prior convictions, which include human trafficking of children,' the advisory read.

"OPP Sgt.  Jason Folz told Global News Maloney faced charges in Peel Region and was convicted in 2004 and 2013. 'It’s a total of 16 criminal charges related to human trafficking and trafficking of minor age children, which has put him on the sex offender registry,' Folz said.... Maloney is not under any conditions relating to associating with young children, Folz said....

"The OPP said they were releasing the information as a precautionary measure. 'Members of the public are reminded that, although "Maloney does present a safety risk, his rights are guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” the advisory said. 'As such, the Nottawasaga OPP will act to protect these rights if they are infringed.'

"Police said they issued the advisory after a 'careful review of the offender as it relates to issues of public safety.' 'The Police Services Act permits the commissioner of the OPP, the local chief of police, or his/her designate, to make public notification regarding high-risk offenders in the community if the community’s safety will be enhanced by the release of the offender’s personal information,' the OPP noted."
Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/9837508/man-convicted-human-trafficking-living-ontario-childrens-centre/

Illustraton courtesy True North

OPP warn that child sex offender lives at daycare for kids with autism | True North | Cosmin Dzsurdzsa:

July 18, 2023 - "Amber Maloney, the owner of Beating the Odds, said her husband is not connected to her business. 'Yes, we share the same property address, but he does not work with these kids. He has his own job that brings him off-site and allows me to operate solely without him,' she wrote in a statement to CTV News....

"In an interview with CTV, Maloney called the police advisory 'ridiculous.' 'For every child, there is a supervisor who watches that child individually. It’s one-to-one therapy. So, no, I have no interaction with the children,” [he] said.... 'It’s just ridiculous that this is how they are trying to... make me look like some sort of predator.'

"Maloney claims he was convicted because he ran an escort agency from 2002 to 2004. 'I would be picking up women and bringing them to hotels with a company as well as collecting money and sometimes booking hotel rooms for the girls … Those charges were as a result of collecting money for the girls performing sex acts.' He claims one of the girls was a minor. 'It was in evidence that this girl provided false identification, but you’re still held liable as a company if somebody even provides false ID.'

"CTV requested court documents to confirm Maloney’s convictions but they were not provided."

Read more: https://tnc.news/2023/07/18/sex-offender-daycare-kids1/

Update, 11:30 pm - 

Convicted sex offender and wife arrested by Ontario police after public warning | Western Standard | Arthur C. Green:

July 19, 2023 - "Lauriston Maloney, 42, and his wife Amber Maloney, 36, were taken into police custody on Wednesday morning and charged with multiple offences related to recruiting, exercising control, exploitation, assault, forcible confinement, and financial benefit from committing a crime. A publication ban has been placed to protect any youth involved."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/news/convicted-sex-offender-and-wife-arrested-by-ontario-police-after-public-warning/article_4f2e2828-268f-11ee-8f7c-470877ed9c72.html

Sound of Freedom surprise hit film of summer

Jim Caviezel champions a Sound of Freedom: Movie Review | Oakville News | Tyler Collins:

July 8, 2023 - "In an especially strong summer at the multiplex, it’s a genuine surprise to have an adult, biographical drama with minimal marketing and a prominent social justice mission to be making the (mostly welcome) headlines it has. That’s the surprise in Angel Studios’ Sound of Freedom: somehow, one of Hollywood’s smallest movie studios has produced the first true sleeper hit film of the year, ... worthy of its quickly growing praise among audiences.

"The film’s real-life subject matter is harrowing to say the least - the film is a biography of real-life former U.S. Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard (Jim Caviezel) who leaves his agency job to begin special operations to free children who have been kidnapped, enslaved, and forced to work in the sex industry.

"Sound of Freedom primarily succeeds because the lead creative team are handling the uncomfortable subject of modern child abduction and sex slavery with the sensitivity and urgency it requires. It’s a deeply uncomfortable plot that’s handled with great care and an appropriate respect for the discomfort audiences will feel. This is the most effective Hollywood film to address the subject, with director Alejandro Monteverde effectively galvanizing action from the audience.... 

"Angel Studios is known for making faith-based movies, but there’s balance in showing the drama and maintaining plot suspense with Tim’s faith-based character motivations to rescue the children he does. That’s also an accurate reflection of the real man the character is based on.... 

"[A] large amount of the film’s box office success over the last few days is attributed to heavily skewed right-wing audiences who were advertised to on extremist American news outlets in the marketing campaign. Don’t mistake the film, however, as propaganda: it’s a balanced story with a deeply moving and necessary message....

"[T]here are some brief moments of on screen distress, .... [and s]ome of the statistics shared about child sex trafficking at the end of the film are stirring and hard to watch, but it’s never so heavy-handed you’re forced to look away.

"Other than the slightly too-long run time and pacing, Sound of Freedom is a well-crafted drama that deserves to be seen in theatres. This is one of the year’s biggest surprises, worthwhile for not just faith-based viewers but all adult audiences."

Read more: https://oakvillenews.org/reviews/sound-of-freedom-movie-review/

Biden picks fellow drug warrior as running mate (video)

Kamala Harris Is a Cop Who Wants To Be (Vice) President | Reason - Elizabeth Nolan Brown:

August 11, 2020 - "The Democratic 2020 veepstakes are over, and Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) is the winner. Joe Biden announced Tuesday afternoon that he had picked Harris to be his running mate as he seeks to become the next president of the United States.

"The good news is that it keeps Harris — who has a long and authoritarian history on criminal justice issues — far from the Department of Justice. There was some speculation that should Biden win, he would name Harris as attorney general. As American's top cop, Harris would have the potential to do much more damage than as vice president. The bad news is that it puts Harris next in line for the presidency should anything happen to Biden and sets her up nicely for a future presidential run.... 

"Harris — who served as a district attorney in San Francisco and attorney general of California before becoming a senator in 2016 — has a troubling history when it comes to law-and-order issues and is despised for it by many young left-of-center voters; she consistently chose to protect law enforcement prerogatives and to stonewall reform in California, beyond the minimum demands of her role as the state's top cop. That's a particular liability as Americans streets are still erupting with protests over police violence and calls for criminal justice reform."

Read more: https://reason.com/2020/08/11/kamala-harris-is-a-cop-who-wants-to-be-vice-president/

PATRIOT Act warrant misused in FL sex sting

Sneak-and-Peek Warrant for Hidden Cameras at Florida Massage Parlors Faces Scrutiny - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Elizabeth Nolan Brown:

March 4, 2019 - "A central component of the recent investigation into Chinese massage-parlor sex was the secret installation of hidden cameras at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida. Now defense attorneys are challenging the legality of this move. Permission for such surveillance stems from a provision of the PATRIOT Act that was passed with promises only to use the power against possible terrorists....

"In this case, police secretly filmed massage rooms in January 2019.... Caught on camera getting a massage and maybe more were New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and dozens of other men, who now face misdemeanor charges for allegedly soliciting prostitution. Workers and managers at the businesses were also arrested and stand accused of prostitution and racketeering.

"Police were able to secretly install the surveillance cameras thanks to a sneak-and-peek warrant. Such warrants were sold after 9/11 as a way to stop terrorism, but in practice they've mainly been used in investigations of drug crimes.

"Of the more than 11,000 such warrants issued in 2013, for instance, only 50 were related to terrorism; 9,401 were parts of drug investigations. In 2011, 5,093 of 6,775 requests for sneak-and-peek warrants were related to drug cases; just 31 were related to terrorism.....

"Now they're being used to stop prostitution under the guise of busting up international slavery rings.... [J]ust as local cops and federal authorities have used anti-terrorism tools to prosecute potheads, they've been keen on attacking all prostitution (a misdemeanor crime under local laws throughout most of the U.S.) as 'human trafficking,' a federal crime. Police in Palm Beach and Jupiter counties have been trotting out that claim this time too, although no sex trafficking or forced labor charges have been filed.

"As with so much of this case, that claim looks strange in light of the fact that the authorities spent months visiting and watching these businesses but not rescuing the women that they now say they suspect are trafficking victims....

"Several folks quoted by the Sun-Sentinel suggest that this case represents an unprecedented use of sneak-and-peek warrants — but that's not true even within Palm Beach County. As the same paper noted in 2014, Palm Beach authorities ran a similar massage-parlor sting operation back in 2007. They used a sneak-and-peek warrant to install cameras and catch sex acts on video back then, too. In that case, one massage parlor worker was arrested for prostitution and 25 men were arrested for solicitation of prostitution."

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2019/03/04/sneak-and-peek-warrant-for-florida-sting
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Did Robert Kraft even commit a crime?

In A Truly Libertarian World, Robert Kraft Buying Sex Wouldn't Be A Crime - Jocelyn Glabach, Federalist Society:

February 25, 2019 - "Friday morning, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft found himself caught up in a prostitution sting spearheaded by Florida’s Jupiter Police Department.

"The details are still unfolding as to whether this was a consensual arrangement between two adults, or something more insidious involving sex trafficking. If it was the latter, one must wonder whether Kraft knew what he was getting into. But if this was run-of-the-mill prostitution, and he wanted to enter into relations with another consenting adult, and she with him, that should be none of our business.

"One of the pillars of libertarianism is self-ownership –– the idea that we have full autonomy over what we do with our bodies. Some gray area exists that divides the ideology on abortion, but sex is pretty standard: we are free to have sex with who we want, provided they are consenting and of reasonable age, and it should be none of the government’s business. So why would sex become the government’s business when money becomes a factor?

"One argument is that prostitution exploits women and elevates sex traffickers, so we ban it to [prevent] prostitution ... authorities ban X [and] supply goes down..... But what is the natural response?... X increases in value, a black market forms, cartels rise to power, organized crime grows, and the frequency of crime increases.... Prostitution, like marijuana, is not absolved from the laws of the market because of its implied immorality.

"[T]he solutions touted by the state of Florida ... won’t change demand in the slightest.... Just because the state wants people to behave in a certain way doesn’t mean they will. Wouldn’t it make more sense to attempt to get this industry out of the dark?

"All of this said, is sex trafficking the same as prostitution? Absolutely not. Sex trafficking deprives a victim of her autonomy and makes her a slave to her keeper. It is the antithesis of a voluntary contract, and sex traffickers should feel the full extent of the law over forcing their victims into compromising situations....

"Whether or not Kraft was a willing participant in voluntary prostitution or a knowing party in a sex trafficking ring is still unclear, but what is clear is that what consenting adults do with their bodies should not only be none of our business, and stand apart from the cancerous organized crime that is sex trafficking."

Read more: https://thefederalist.com/2019/02/25/in-a-truly-libertarian-world-robert-kraft-buying-sex-wouldnt-be-a-crime/
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HR 6729 expands Patriot Act surveillance powers

House to Vote on 'Human Trafficking' Bill That Strengthens PATRIOT Act Spying - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Elizabeth Nolan Brown:

September 24, 2018 - "A new bill that borrows language from the PATRIOT Act promises to nab human traffickers using the same surveillance techniques that law introduced to catch terrorists and their associates. We all know how that went... Now, legislators like Rep. Ann Wagner (R–Mo.) hope we won't notice if they feed us the same liberty-poisoning bologna with a new excuse.

"It's 'a disguised effort to expand the #PatriotAct,' tweeted Rep. Justin Amash (R–Mich.) on Saturday. 'GOP leaders put "Fight Human Trafficking" in the title to conceal the bill's true purpose: to give the government more power to unconstitutionally spy on law-abiding Americans without a warrant.'

"Wagner's bill (H.R. 6729) — the deceptively named "Empowering Financial Institutions to Fight Human Trafficking Act" of 2018 — is the latest in a long line of assaults on civil liberties disguised as attacks on the biggest crime panic of the decade, sex trafficking. Wagner [also] brought us the SAVE Act in 2015 and FOSTA in 2018, both of which take aim at online anonymity, web publishing, social media, sex workers, and free speech under the guise of saving children....

"H.R. 6729 would allow financial institutions, federal regulatory bodies, nonprofit organizations, and law enforcement to share customer bank records between them without running afoul of rules regarding consumer privacy and without opening themselves up to lawsuits.... But these entities need not demonstrate that the 'sharing was made on a good faith basis,' according to the current text of the bill....

"Cops working specific cases or pursing specific suspects can already obtain their financial records by going through court channels and using the subpoena process. What they want here is access to wide swaths of (subsequently shareable) financial data on customers accused of no crimes and facing no charges. And they want this data to be served up proactively by bank staffers ... and by nonprofits, who would be empowered to share information gleaned through the provision of social services.

"The language echoes Section 314 of the PATRIOT Act [which] was used by authorities to demand all sorts of information from banks. It also led banks to start dropping people with Middle Eastern surnames.... Jeff A. Taylor wrote here at Reason in 2004 [that] Section 314 turned out to be a 'ticking time-bomb for anyone a buttoned-down banker might consider suspicious'.... It would go on to be used ... as an all-purpose way for the feds to [monitor] random consumer financial transactions. A 2016 bill to directly expand Section 314 of the Patriot Act was narrowly defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives.....

"Introduced on September 6, Wagner's new bill has already received a first vote by the House Committee on Financial Services (44 for, five against) and five co-sponsors.... A full House vote is scheduled for Wednesday."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/09/24/house-to-vote-on-human-trafficking-bill
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