Friday, January 16, 2009

Hard Out There for a Pimp

Washington DC police will celebrate the inauguration by fighting crime.  Or violating constitutional rights of free assembly, take your pick.

Apparently, they are going to establish "prostitute-free zones" -- actually called that, or PFZs for short -- in which they will give a $300 fine to groups "of two or more persons found congregating in a public space or property within the PFZ for the purpose of engaging in prostitution or prostitution-related offense."  (And no, this doesn't apply to Congress.  They can still gather wherever they want.)

But seriously.  Is it really that easy to get the hookers off the streets?  Because if it is, then why don't they do this all the time?  Prostitution is illegal -- we checked with Elliott Spitzer.  

We assume that they don't usually do this because of the whole civil-rights question, which boils down to "how do you know why they're congregating?"  Freedom of assembly and all that.  And if that's what makes the PFZs unworkable on a normal day, why are they suddenly workable now?

Please tell me that we aren't celebrating Obama's inauguration with a wholesale violation of Constitutional rights.

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