South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster gets served his final humiliation: a federal judge, U.S. District Judge Weston Houck, blocked him from prosecuting Craigslist management, at least until he’s made a final decision on the case. From the order: “Until the Court rules on the merits of craigslist’s claims, Defendants and their attorneys and staffs shall refrain from initiating or pursuing any prosecution against craigslist or its officers and employees in relation to content posted by third parties on craigslist’s website.”
The consent order granting the restraining order is embedded below.
McMaster started the war earlier this month by threatening criminal prosecution against Craigslist and Craigslist management for allowing pornographic images and ads for prostitution on the South Carolina Craigslist site. Craigslist took extraordinary steps to comply with McMaster’s demands, despite the fact that legal experts questioned if McMaster even had a case.
Craigslist stood firm and filed suit against McMaster in federal court. McMaster, now facing charges of his own, declared victory and ran away.
This final humiliation just makes it clear that no one on the planet with a shred of common sense seems to side with McMaster. The man is running for governor of South Carolina and is using Craigslist to make headlines. The evidence of his douchery is overwhelming:
- His office has never prosecuted a prostitution case in his seven years in office.
- McMaster ignored sites with far more prostitution listings to go after the higher profile Craigslist.
- The EFF says “Attorney General Henry McMaster has no case”
- Local South Carolina press ripped him apart.
- Techdirt calls McMaster a liar
- 80% of our readers would rather lose South Carolina than Craigslist
- South Carolina residents seem to agree.
I’d say we’re done here, although I still think Craigslist should permanently shut down the South Carolina site and ban South Carolina IP addresses just out of spite. But the good guys won one today, which is increasingly infrequent. Time to celebrate.
Update: In other South Carolina news, they found that missing 555 pound teenager. Sigh.
LoL! Thats funny! This would be a “memorial” weekend for the poor chap!
most appropriate caption for him.
Way to go Craigslist. I’m happy to hear good news like this.
Take that Greg Collier.
Freedom of speech homie. Look it up.
With Freedom comes responsibility. Looking forward to the final ruling.
Viva la revolución
“The evidence of his douchery is overwhelming”
lol
i may tone that down a bit.
Yeah, “evidence” is a strong wording compared to say… “display”. As a plus, alliteration is what all the cool kids in the newspapers go for these days… and newspapers RULE.
awesome.
No need to tone down anything. This mans deserves to get bitchslapped all the way to the coffee machine.
nooooooooooo, please don’t!!
that’s the killer line in this post.
love it!!
Good news for Craigslist but now that the New York Attorney General is going after them, are we going to see the same caricature of New Yorkers that SC was subjected to?
McMaster threatened their personal liberty. that’s where he crossed the line from normal political douchery to serious asshole.
I still say we trade South Carolina fur a few containers of HDTVs.
we all would.
Nice suggestion to cut SC out of Craigslist. It would represent only a 0.5% revenue reduction, but a huge public statement.
South Caroline. Where the state bird is Strom Thurmond wearing the confederate flag, as a cape.
http://www.yout...0DZbeA#t=02m57s
I am impressed by the way Craigslist response to the matter.
Them trying to change for the good and then getting aggressive when they realised the intent was not for the good.
Even if this might not be what they did, I still admire their PR abilities
If this goes the way of Elliot Spitzer (the last AG we saw taking everyone in sight to court to further his political career), we’ll soon find out about all McMaster’s own personal “indiscretions” and he can crawl back under that rock. Hopefully he won’t get to be elected Gov first.
Gotta love how history repeats itself. Kudos to Craigslist for taking the high road and refusing to be bullied.
slap in the face* i challenge you to a dual! lol!
“I’d say we’re done here, although I still think Craigslist should permanently shut down the South Carolina site and ban South Carolina IP addresses just out of spite.”
Best idea yet!
Another blow to douschebaggedness!
Someone should write an EPIC “missed connection” about this guy on the SC Craigslist site.
I wish you would quit citing your lame poll, it’s really irritating. Like it holds some value or something.
New Poll:
Who would TechCrunch readers rather lose:
McMasters or Darren P.?
Very clever, you get a cookie.
I don’t mean to pass judgement or anything, but the honorable attorney general of south carilina looks like a cross dresser to me
hahaha! Yes he does
“I still think Craigslist should permanently shut down the South Carolina site”. But this will hurt innocent south caroliners for no fault of theirs.
I have a better idea. Whenever someone attempts to access craigslist from South Carolina the website should have a transition page that lists the bullet points above and the message “Think before you vote for this guy. Click to proceed to craigslist”
seriously, why not use craigslist and try to bring down the pimps or pedophyles who use/post to the site? making craigslist bring down all these things isn’t going to solve the real problem. these type of content will just surface up elsewhere.
I’m glad for Craig’s victory. But to ban people from South Carolina would do more harm than good. As the article points out, the local press “ripped him apart”. All IP banning would do is bring more harm to folks that value Craigslist. I think Craig is above such tactics.
Score 1 for Craigslist. Now that South Carolina made CL a lot richer by these new $10 posts in the Adult Services category, we just need to find a way to bring back Erotic Services.
At the end of the day, if it doesn’t happen there, it’s going to happen somewhere else. At least it was in a place where you can Track, Analyze & Research the problem.
Based on that fact, you can then Prevent, detect & correct the problem (if it truly IS a problem).
But either way, BRING BACK EROTIC SERVICES —
Or at least a new section that’s Free, whereas, we are trending: Cougar Place or Cougar Services.
i am assuming then that Newmark, Arrington et al will be raising money to support any and all candidates running against this guy in the next elections?
God no. I hope he’s president someday. The material he provides is awesomeness in a bottle.
It’s vital that McMasters get shut down here. Craigslist is a hugely liberalizing force in a state run by a repressive, conservative regime. But it’s slowly, painfully catching up to the rest of the country, largely thanks to the freedoms of the internet. It’s exactly this that McMasters and people like him are afraid of.
It’s not the sex at all, it’s the loss of control over the cultural conversation. Which makes it all the more important that craigslist take him to the mat over this.
Conservative regime? Hey, why don’t we just leave it as an aggressive AG asshole with nothing better to do? I live in NY where a very repressive liberal regime is taxing us to holy hell and not enough people seem to give a fuck. Want to talk oppression?
Try living here with the rising cost of everything with a hundred hands lining up on payday.
Let’s see…. take an asshole AG going after pimps and whores or living with super high taxation and a one party govt thats looking for ever increasing reveues.
Gee, that’s a real difficult choice there.
“Craigslist is a hugely liberalizing force in a state run by a repressive, conservative regime.”
What are you smoking? While Republicans are in charge, few are anywhere close to conservative! The only real conservative in state government is Mark Sanford and he has virtually no real power thanks to our horrible state constitution. He’s been bucked every step of the way by his own party.
This whole thing has nothing to do with South Carolina per se. It’s only about an asshole politician looking to make a big splash in his bid for the governor’s mansion. That’s all it is. It has nothing to do with the people of South Carolina.
I’m not originally from SC but I’ve lived here for almost 10 years and it’s a great place. Obviously Craig’s List finds something worthwhile here as do most of our residents. Come visit Charleston and see if you don’t want to return over and over. It’s a great place!
McMasters is an idiot. He has all the local talewnt posting in a place where his “officers can pick them off one by one and he is going to have it SHUT DOWN.
My guess is he is running his girls on Craigslist and doesn’t want to be found out,
If that is not the case, he just doesn’t get it and is the knuckle dragging, idiotic moron he appears to be.
Holden
Congrats on supporting craigslist.
Think its great that you take such a firm stance against power abusers.
Do you not worry that each time you do so you add to a list of powerful enemies who are willing to take cheap shots.
I hope you do know, but decide not to care 8).