Stop SESTA

To Whom It May Concern,

On paper, I am a trafficked person.  Some in government would like to label me a victim.  But I am no victim.  

Sex work has made possible my American dream.  It has enabled me to become a small business owner and purchase a home.  Please don’t make new victims by persecuting people like me or those that support me. The hardworking people at places like Eros, Backpage and Slixa are good people who have sex workers’ interests at heart.  They allow us to be safer by giving us the ability to stay off the streets.  

You are smart, talented people.  Surely you can structure better legislation than SESTA to protect the vulnerable besides eviscerating Section 230’s protections.  Citizens United established that restricting access was restricting speech.  Is not my speech just as important to protect as that of any other citizen?  Am I not an American?

SESTA and Section 230 is an issue of free speech.  An issue that is at the core of all the values we Americans hold dear.  It is a right enshrined as the First Amendment of our constitution. 

Our freedoms should not be sacrificed at the altar of government-knows-best.  Security and liberty are one and the same.  As Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."  

If you won’t listen to me, please listen to our Founding Fathers.  They structured our government to restrict it from its own capacity for oppression through our nation’s constitution.  

May I continue to have the liberty to pursue what makes me happy.

Sincerely,

A Proud American