Having previously been a member of The Free Speech Coalition while I was still actively producing for several fetish themed websites for my old company, I had been told many times that the FSC was a valuable resource, and believed this blindly. I had been told that the FSC was not only an advocate of the adult producer’s ability to both produce and profit from adult videos, but also an advocate for adult performers, since they are just as important as the people who produce adult videos.
So after the massive breach and exploitation of adult performer’s private information occurred in conjunction with a site that was fueled by hate speech which the founders of that site most likely hoped would incite violence towards adult performers occurred, my initial reaction was that the FSC would protect us.
However, after my email to them, and the polite but dismisive reply I received back, a few things became quite clear to me..
1. The FSC is a “trade organization”. Which means, if it doesn’t affect their bottom line, or the producers they represent in the near term, they’re not truly interested.
2. Being a “trade organization” their first objective with the APHSS is enable producers to start producing in a cost effective manner as quickly as possible and be able to contain any outbreaks so that CAL OSHA doesn’t finish off the adult industry- both of these are financial motives on behalf of producers. The FSC’s second objective, should they ever get around to it, would be the education, safety, and security of adult performer’s.
3. Most likely the response I received was comprised at least in part, from cut and paste pieces of other emails or documents, as it didn’t actually address some very specific questions I had for them.
Here is the email I wrote to them:
“Hi Diane and Joanne,
We don’t know one another, but I know of you and the work that you do. Thank you.
I think that the new adult performer database idea is good, and if Peter Acworth will be playing an active role in it’s implementation, I have an optimistic view on it’s success.
But it’s 5:35am on a Tues morning, and I still can’t sleep.
My professional/performer name is January Seraph, I’ve been involved in fetish and femdom videos as a performer since 2005, and also as a small scale producer. Currently, I also work as a professional Dominatrix, and rookie adult website developer. I have worked in some facet of the adult industry for over a decade, and if I have my way, that will not change. I love that I’ve had the freedom to express my love of adult erotic pursuits in various mediums.
Although my personal information has not yet been posted in connection with my performer name on the PWL site, I’m resigned knowing that eventually it will be, as there have been recent queries in the forums regarding my performer name…
This last year has been difficult for me due to events not related to the PWL problem directly, but currently being affected by it peripherally. I spent 3 months going through rounds of court to get a restraining order against someone who was harassing me, unrelated to the PWL situation. This is the second time in 10 years I’ve been forced to seek the court’s assistance in this regard, one of the potential hazards of working in adult. Due to the somewhat controversial nature of my work, I also receive random, arbitrary pieces of hate email, and threats, via my public email accounts, and other social media avenues. My general feeling of uneasiness in Los Angeles had grown over the last year, and was one of the deciding factors in my decision to relocate to San Francisco. I’ve been careful to not have my physical residence or work address be used in any account billings or known physical addresses so far but as I’m finalizing the details with various companies regarding my business and personal accounts, that is becoming more and more difficult.
My story is not unique, every single adult performer I know has been the victim of some form of harassment from people who are opposed to adult entertainment. But until recently, we could all at least hope that our adopted stage names offered us some thin veil of protection. But that simply isn’t the current reality.
I’ve been considering changing my legal name as some sort of preventative remedy, but since I don’t see myself changing careers anytime soon, and my company’s info has to be somewhat transparent, I know that it might slow down future harassment, but will not stop it. It is also problematic that existing legislature dictates that if someone changes their legal name and or social security number, there has to be a paper trail connecting their previous legal name to the new legal name, which makes that process essentially useless as a measure to protect one’s information and physical self.
I found this CA government sponsored program online, Safe At Home , which extends different measure of document suppression and increased privacy protection to those who have been victims of violence or stalking, but I think more noteably, to anyone who works at a reproductive health organization who claims that they are fearful… http://www.casafeathome.org/Safe_at_Home_how.htm Each state has it’s own version of this program..
How does Safe at Home work?
If you are a survivor of domestic violence, stalking or sexual assault or if you are living in fear as a provider, employee, volunteer or patient of a reproductive health care clinic, the Secretary of State’s Safe at Homeprogram can help keep your assailant from finding you.
Safe at Home will give you an official, substitute address to use in place of your real home address.
All first class mail, legal documents and certified mail will come to our offices here in Sacramento. We will forward them to you and keep your real address confidential. Mail is forwarded within 48 hours.
For most participants, this is a no-cost mail forwarding service. Doctors and other health care professionals pay just a small fee for this unique service.
You can apply with an enrolling agency, such as a domestic violence shelter or reproductive health care facility. An enrolling agency will help you understand the program and provide assistance with completing the application paperwork.
As a Safe at Home participant you can also protect yourself and your family by suppressing your DMV records, registering as a confidential voter or applying for a confidential name change.
You can use your new P.O. Box address for mailing and an address designated by the Office of the Secretary of State for your contact address instead of your actual residence address with banks and financial institutions. Read more about the U.S. Department of Treasury Ruling.
Safe at Home has helped thousands escape the threat of violence. It can help you too.
My question to you is, given the massive personal privacy and medical record privacy breach that has fueled the PWL fiasco, would adult performers have a chance to be viewed at large as being a group with an elevated level of risk to qualify any interested party in being eligible immediately for the protections offered by the Safe at Home program? I would think that there is a case to be made that since, as a class, a substantial percentage of the industry has had their privacy rights violated, that, as a class, we may be extended additional personal safety protections. Is this an issue that the FSC would be willing to champion with the state department, or is it out of the FSC’s scope?
I have several friends who are currently listed on that horrid site, and it is causing them a great deal of distress, and I’ll venture to say an overall heightened state of constant anxiety and depression.
While forward moving plans are most definitely necessary and positive progress, I feel that there has been a lack of industry education or discussion about how to minimize the potential safety risks that more now than ever before are a reality for many in our industry. Aside from the safety risks, both related to disease and privacy breaches would the FSC be willing to take on the added task of being an informative induction presence of sorts to individuals who are considering entering the adult industry? Could the FSC see itself not only as the defenders of Free Speech, but also the supporters of the individuals right to privacy?
I sincerely appreciate the many different battles the FSC is fighting on our behalf, but I feel that this issue is actually more important and potentially harmful to performers, their families, and loved ones than the proposed changes by Cal OSHA regarding mandatory condom use. I believe the FSC is in a position to bring attention to the situation and facilitate changes that will at least somewhat minimize the damage that has been done to every adult performer’s privacy and safety.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Very Sincerely,
January Seraph
**It is now Thursday, two days after I initially drafted this email. I had hoped to CC many other studio executives and producers, but given that today I have started being actively publicly harassed online in addition to at least 20 other adult performers that I am aware of, I suddenly feel a more acute sense of urgency that this be addressed immediately.”
And here is the email I received back:
“Hello, January.
I regret getting back to you after such a long lag time; it’s just Diane and I in the office and we’ve been overwhelmed with issues, especially concerning CalOSHA. Thanks for calling me out on Twitter and making sure that I address your concerns.
We are aware of the PWL issue, as most industry members are at this point. One huge problem in dealing with PWL is that posting a person’s legal name is NOT, in itself a crime, even if that person is a performer. Whoever is admin for PWL must be being advised legally, because they do post things that walk the fine line of being illegal, but then they take them down quickly, before anyone thinks to get a screen capture to document the possible violation. I have heard of everything from performer’s family member’s addresses and phone numbers being posted, to pictures of performer’s kids.
Unfortunately, if those pix, names, info were first posted on Facebook, they are considered public domain.
Mainstream performers also are exposed to these dangers – that’s why you see people selling Maps of the Stars homes in Hollywood and there isn’t a thing they can do about it. Unfortunately, when you become a public figure – even under an assumed name – there is a certain amount of privacy that goes away with it because you have chosen to become a public figure, if you will. However, mainstream personalities do not often have to face the stigma/dangers attached to being an adult performer or sex worker. They also have plenty of money to protect themselves.
Being a professional entertainer is not the same type of occupation as being a bank teller or mechanic, especially if you are also a published author, spokesperson or expert in your field. Some level of public exposure has to be expected. If stalking is an issue that causes discomfort, fear and depression, any individual must weigh the worth of being in a public line of work, with the threats inherent.
If your information has not been posted on PornWikileaks, it is unlikely that it will appear – most of the data that appears now has apparently been gathered in a database breach and added to by the people who are helping the administrators of the site.
There are several people, however that were NEVER performers, and they have appeared at the site – so it’s NOT limited to industry people only. Imagine what it would be like to be a truly PRIVATE citizen, having only had your info entered into a database and being associated with the PWL site through NO action of your own, except for being one of the names in a huge download of data. The PWL people are not screening who they post very carefully, and they seem to victimize only people that speak out against them or contact them in any way. If it can be proved that they gathered the data they posted from a criminal act, like breaching a private database, then that is the crime – not invading people’s privacy or endangering, unfortunately.
So, if you want to stay off the site – don’t have contact with them is the best advice.
In fact, because I had tested at AIM several times myself, I expected my info to show up on PWL and it has NOT. In any case, my information is probably easily available online, since I have been writing since 2003.
By the way, here is a link to an article that I wrote about stalkers when I was with XBIZ in 2005. I have never used a pen name, btw.
http://www.xbiz.com/articles/10971/stalkers
I am sorry that you have become the victim of a stalker. If you can show that PWL had something to do with this individual obtaining your information, then there may be a way for you to be involved in the current investigation taking place around PWL.
It’s a problem that many performers face and that has become more difficult to control with the rise of the Internet… Things like driver’s licenses, divorce documents, tax documents, etc. are all available to the public. You have to be careful to have all your online sites covered by a proxy service so your name and address doesn’t show in the registration. Have you ever heard of a site called Spokeo? Go there, and enter a name, and it will bring up all sorts of information for a cheap fee – though much of the info is inaccurate, they do gather Google Earth picture of your house, relatives names, income info, etc. All from public record
Here’s my link on Spokeo, which I never signed up for and which I wrote to have my info taken down. There are a hundred sites like this one, where you can trace someone’s identity and info.
http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=Joanne%20Cachapero#:592605177
In fact, Diane Duke, my boss is a former director at Planned Parenthood of Oregon. She has told me that it is not uncommon for anti-abortion activists to post the names and addresses of abortion doctors and check them off as they are murdered, or otherwise run out of business. Here’s a link to Army of God that explains justifiable homicides against abortion doctors.
http://www.armyofgod.com/
While we may find this reprehensible, they have as much right to freedom of speech as we do. Murder is the crime here.
As for Safe at Home, I will pass on the information to legal folks that are trying to help in building a case against PWL. By now, I’m sure that you realize that there is bias against the adult industry population when it comes to the enforcement of certain laws. I’m not saying it’s right, but it exists. While we could lobby Sacramento to propose a bill that might provide sex workers with added protections, we would then have to find a legislator comfortable enough with standing up for the bill. That’s unlikely.
Just today, Canadian courts declared that they are not obligated to legalize or provide protection for sex workers, because prostitution is not a constitutionally protected activity. They sure don’t mind taking taxes from prostitutes, however.
FSC is a trade association that deals mainly with business issues of behalf of the adult industry. Right now, we are trying to organize the APHSS system to replace AIM’s database, and in phase two of its development, we plan on including educational info and tests for performers, to help prepare and qualify them for working in the industry. This is a needed component for the safety of performers and also to comply with CalOSHA. Peter Acworth has been invaluable in providing assistance with the database. My suggestion to you is to contact St. James Infirmary or the Center for Sex and Culture and see if you can form a group of performers that would like to start talking about and advocating on the behalf of industry members who have been stalked and help spread the word that way. As you can see from my article, published so long ago, that its not only performers that get stalked and brutalized – so I would think that you will find a sympathetic demographic out there, but I think you will also find people that will harbor the attitude that you were “asking for it.”
In the meantime, I have included a link for an article that offers women advice on how to clean up their online profile. There also are companies like Reputation.com, that will go through your online profile and clean it for privacy and protection – for a fee. I have no idea what their policy is toward performers or other individuals that use the Internet to offer services or sell content.
http://womenforhire.com/advice/beginning_your_job_search/create_your_digital_identity/
Sorry if it seems grim, what I have outlined here – but it has been like this for a long time. Even feature dancers travel with security, if they’re smart. The only thing you can do is keep your real identity as separate from your online/public persona as possible. That means choosing one or the other to take online.
I think you have good ideas, and that performers should group together and mentor each other in issues that affect them. Perhaps we can talk more about this, or I can direct you to the right people in the Bay Area to help you with this issue. This is a global problem because of the Internet, but at least in San Francisco, there are enough alternative marginalized groups that understand the dangers.
If I can help further, please contact me.
Cheers,
Joanne
Joanne Cachapero
FSC Membership Director
Office (818) 348-9373
P.O. Box 10480
Canoga Park, CA 91309
www.freespeechcoalition.com
http://fscblogger.wordpress.com
@FSCArmy #FSC “