My Column Will Now Occur Weekly, On Fridays. Thanks For The Support & Reading.
Happy Friday, Everyone.
With the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell occurring last week, and Jeffrey Epstein—who did not kill himself—being back in the news, our topic of discussion today is one that I will not be sugar coating.
Before we begin, however, I would like to mention that Maxwell’s lawyer’s argument is that the federal charges against her are “meritless.” Interesting. We have all seen the Netflix series, right? I mean, come on. I wonder how much Jeff paid for that lawyer. I mean, Ghislaine, my bad.
Sidebar: if you want to follow a potentially vital constitutional and civil rights case that does have merit, I would advise you to read this tweet. The attorneys on the case advocating on behalf of our constitutional rights are quite the powerful litigators. Sort of real-life Harvey Specters.
Back to our topic for the day, it will be difficult to read, because its unthinkable to imagine, but it is the reality for millions of people around the world. That is my disclaimer if you are of the faint of heart.
We will be talking about the New Slavery: Sexual Slavery. The Slavery no one in the Fake News Media or Main Stream Media wants to talk about because its real, it happens right before our very eyes, and it’s a reality we will no longer ignore. (Also, there are still people currently enslaved as well in Africa and the Middle East, but we ignore that too. This isn’t to distract from those horrors.) The New Slavery is something we can actually do something about.
The American Golden Leaf Recovery & Protection Act is a bill that is first and foremost, near and dear to my heart. Out of all the legislation I have written so far, this is one I won’t cede ground on. Because we cannot cede any, they need us. We will answer the call.
The American Golden Leaf Recovery & Protection act, inspired by my wonderful and amazing friend, June N. Foster’s fictional novel, The Girl and the Golden Leaf (shameless plug: you should buy it, you won’t regret it). The Girl and the Golden Leaf is the namesake for our counter-human trafficking bill I have been working on since reading this novel.
Thankfully, too, June introduced me to Timothy Gill, a former CIA Agent, and owner of Specter Security Group and the nonprofit Ghost Orchid Coalition, who has become like a mentor to me and it was an honor to work on this bill with him and his team. There’s something about that name Specter.
Tim’s security company does executive and event security. He started noticing signs of human trafficking occurring at many music festivals and he started to research and investigate the topic more. Long story short, he and an amazing group of former-senior level FBI, U.S. State Department, Special Forces, Department of Defense, and CIA Professionals started Ghost Orchid Coalition to counter human trafficking.
There is a difference between counter- and anti- human trafficking. Anti-human trafficking is responsive. Counter-human trafficking stops it from happening. It’s the difference between calling the cops to stop the robber, or pulling out your 12 gauge and racking a slug instead. Except, these victims don’t have either.
This act seeks to decimate foreign terrorist and domestic organized crime funding operations, here, in the United States and abroad through enhancing counterterrorism and counter-human trafficking efforts by federal agencies, state and local law enforcement, and a public-private partnership with security and intelligence companies.
For the purposes of this Act, the definition regarding the Victims of human trafficking in the United States and abroad, shall mean to include: men and women, adults and children, and foreign nationals and any United States Citizen, no matter what country they are in or wherever they are. Foreign governments who do not cooperate with federal law enforcement with the recovery and protection of United States citizens abroad on their foreign soil will face economic sanctions.
I was not aware of this until we started working on this Act, but it makes sense when you think like a businessman. Because that’s what transnational organized crime syndicates, and terrorists think like too, not all of them, but someone has to foot the bill. There is no such thing as a free lunch. These Victims are their products. And they treat them as such. Like they are nothing. Because they are nothing to the terrorists and evil people who facilitate such a horrific business. What do you do when your iPhone gets too old? That’s what the terrorists do too. Except human traffickers, like Communists, shoot their victims. Or human traffickers rape Victims to death, sometimes for sixty times a day, multiple customers at a time. Chained to walls. Shackled to beds. Beat until Broken. Drugged. Raped. Repeat. Everyday. 24/7. 365. Talk back? Bullet in their head. No questions ask. Bad products lose profit. Can’t have that.
I told you, I wasn’t going to sugar coat anything. Don’t get mad at me. I warned you.
Sex trafficking serves as an illicit financial engine for all Transnational Organized Crime and terrorist groups: MS-13, Russian/Ukrainian Organized Crime, Latin American Cartels, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and many other evil actors on the global stage, are in conjunction working together to facilitate the global human trafficking market. It happens everywhere, especially 24/7 cities such as Las Vegas, Atlanta, New York, Paris, Nashville, Los Angeles, wherever they can make money.
The American Golden Leaf Recovery & Protection Act (yes, I love typing that), will strengthen and expand current anti-human and create dedicated line-item funding for counter human trafficking will be granted to those Executive Department agencies which exhibit matrix-based neutralization operations against traffickers. That’s the fancy political way of saying we’re going to arrest or incapacitate the traffickers before they can kidnap the Victim through a multifaceted informational approach. The Act will accomplish this by using public-private partnerships strategically located throughout the United States. These partnerships will come in the form of intelligence centers and operational surveillances teams to detect, deter, and disrupt the trafficker threats.
Why? Does this expand the scope of Government? Yes. Is this conservative? Yes. The government does have its purposes, well, our Constitutional Federal Republic form of government does. To protect We the People from harm, especially foreign harm. And to preserve, protect, and defend our inherent and inalienable God-given rights enshrined within our Constitution.
The reason for strategic locations and this Act is the historical impotence of Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement agencies unable to neutralize such threats due to overarching priorities, that we pay for, like the War on Drugs, Counterterrorism, and Organized Crime, Foreign and Domestic.
Attacking our 21st Century War on Slavery on those three fronts, having the vast focus of our resources on them, is a losing strategy. Clearly. The Act, along with creating new laws, will properly enable the necessary resources to these fronts and combat the global three-stage human trafficking network, funding + logistics=operation. Funding= Human Victims. Let’s not forget that.
Human Trafficking is a profitable business. Around $150 billion a year in profits, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), Global Estimates of Modern Slavery in 2018. (Thanks for the research, June.)
For all the hating on capitalists and their dirty, greedy, no good profits, we hear about, I sure do hear silence on this subject. We fought a whole war over slavery before. Americans won under the leadership President Abraham Lincoln and then-General turned-President Ulysses S. Grant.
The American Golden Leaf Recovery & Protection Act will hold pornographic websites, such as Porn Hub, and sexual services platforms, such as Eros.com criminally liable to the extent of their knowledge or willful ignorance. Ignoring the elephant in the room because it is profitable does not free you of guilt. In fact, it makes you complicit and an accessory to the fact. Sort of like those police officers who sat and watched George Floyd get murdered. Guess what? They’re getting charged, too.
I learned a lot of Latin in law school. Most of it is annoying and confusing and I still have to Google ones that I see that are new. I only use a few I find useful. My favorite is Lex Talionis, which means the law of retribution. And I am an adherent to that.
The American Golden Leaf Recovery & Protection act, most important and my favorite, will enhance the criminal punishment to meet the crime: life in prison without the possibility of parole, or capital punishment. I hope we use the latter a lot more for those who have earned it. Why?
Because that is what Human Traffickers do to the Golden Leaves. Well actually, they’re more brutal: enslave the Victims until they are no longer profitable and dispose of them. So why should we do anything different to the Human Traffickers? Are the lives of the Golden Leaves not worth upholding? You tell me. I am all ears.
The American Golden Leaf Recovery and Protection Act will not only serve as a force multiplier for Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement Agencies by providing the necessary resources in rural areas in America where these disgusting things involved in facilitating this new form of slavery operate and store our Golden Leaves.
They do this because they know there aren’t enough resources there to stop them. And we haven’t done anything about it. What kind of system is that? This is on our domestic soil. Bring the troops home, Spend the money Here. We can call it Operation Golden Leaf. Has a beautiful ring to it.
The horrors suffered by victims of human trafficking are unthinkable, yet a reality we cannot ignore, and one we no longer will. American and foreign national victims are being abducted before our very eyes and sold into sexual slavery for the pleasure of men with power and money. Our Golden Leaves are looking to the United States Congress and Executive Branch to be rescued.
Americans have already won one war over slavery, under the leadership of a Platform built for American prosperity. This one will be no different.
Chelsea Ann Padgett, J.D., contributed to this column: Chelsea Ann Padgett graduated from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, cum laude, in May 2020 with her Juris Doctor. Chelsea was a Senior Research Editor on the Florida Law Review. She wrote an article on 4th Amendment rights that was chosen for the Review’s July 2020 publication (forthcoming). Prior to law school, she received her Bachelor of Science from the University of North Florida in Political Science in 2017. Upon completion of the Bar exam, Chelsea will begin working as a civil litigator in Washington, D.C.
