The US government should never have prosecuted Deborah Jeane Palfrey

The US goverment undertook a three-year investigation and prosecution of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, no doubt costing millions of taxpayer dollars.  She was the Washington, DC madam who was convicted of setting up sex for men in the DC area, including one Senator and several high government officials. 

She was convicted, not of prostitution, because that is a state crime rather than a federal crime, but of financial reporting and various other violations.  Facing years in prison, she committed suicide.

Even in ordinary circumstances, it seems odd that the federal government would devote its supposedly scarce crime-fighting resources into a massive investigation of this woman who hooked up escorts with guys who were willing to pay for sex.  But for the past seven years I’m told that the federal government has been going full-tilt to investigate people who are keen to explode bombs in our crowded cities, killing thousands of us at a time.

Given these other, and vastly higher, priorities for federal investigative resources, it bogles my mind that so much federal time and money was spent investigating and prosecuting this woman for arranging consensual sex for money.

I’m positive my conclusions on this matter are not shared by the following groups: bluenose prudes, hard-core law and order types whose mantra is “it’s a crime, prosecute it, end of story”, and most wives (who have a strong interest in being their husbands’ sole outlet for sex, and don’t mind one bit if any government agency expends vast resources to keep it that way).

Some of you will no doubt say prostitution is a crime.  If you want that changed, go to the legislature.  But that’s not the point.  The point is the federal government shouldn’t be expending these vast resources to punish what is really a minor violation of state laws.

And another thing that should worry those few of us left who worry about the increasing power of the federal government, the strict financial reporting requirements faced by banks and credit card issuers, and the draconian new laws, have made it much easier for a powerful federal government to prosecute people. 

This is pretty much how Elliot Spitzer, until recently Governor of New York, was caught. 

I wouldn’t mind these reporting requirements and laws as much if they were reserved for use against those people who seem likely to kill lots of us, i.e., terrorists.  But the government has demonstrated that when it gets powers such as these, it will use them indiscriminately.