Think Progress: Bush going after Porn Industry

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

Just three days after President Bush enlisted porn star Mary Carey and pornographer Mark Kulkis to help him raise $23 million, I was surprised to receive this message from Family Research Council President Tony Perkins:


"I just met with Attorney General Gonzales and right now he is launching a major effort to prosecute the porn industry. He intends to smash these criminal enterprises on the Internet and elsewhere with a special new obscenity strike force."


The first step to crippling the porn industry: drain their resources by encouraging large political contributions.

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1118

[coloradodem2005]

1. Ok.

Do what is politically convenient. Eh Darth Dubyous?

[Taxloss]

2. Wow, Way to alienate hs core vote.

[achtung_circus]

5. Nah,

except for one severe Moran, mostly they're saying so what?

<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1423397/posts>

Of course that one is entertaining as all get out.

[Sapphire Blue]

3. Well, there goes all of the Repubs 'reading material'

[Stephanie]

4. Think! Like the Clean Air Act, this will only help his corporate sponsors

increase their profits. They will make sure that you can't access any adult website without handing over a credit card. They will say it is to protect the children. But really it will be to protect the profits of the major conglomerates that make billions from porn.

Right?

[BattyDem]

6. Not a smart move

Americans may not care about an unnecessary, illegal war ... but they are going to get really pissed if you take away their porn!

[Cocoa]

7. makes me think of Ashcroft and the New Orleans prostitutes

he got the hookers, but missed the 9/11 terrorists.

I wonder if Gonzalez is also avoiding public airliners like Ashcroft was in the summer of 2001.

[Mythsaje]

8. Something tells me

that they're going to get a little busy dodging the slings and arrows of a fickle press to be worried about a little thing such as porn websites.

I'd be more concerned if it were congress setting out to do something about this right now, with bipartisan support. But it's not happening.

Just my take on it.

[Stirk]

9. That's not serious, is it?

If it is, it's an intensely stupid move. It'll be received like the Schiavo controversy. It'll highlight the wacked out fundamentalists who want to get government into your pants, and seriously piss off everyone else.

[Boomer]

10. Hah!

The cable coporations make waaaay too much money from porn to ever let it be seriously restricted.

Should be an interesting battle of two heavy-weight special interest groups in direct opposition to each other. What will those poor Republicans do to keep the money flowing in from both sides?

[blogslut]

11. The assault has already begun

As some of you know, I work for the Internet porn industry and within the past month we've been dealt two very damaging blows.

One, you heard about already: the Top Level Domain extension .xxx

While .xxx sounds good on paper, it doesn't in practice. Yes, registering a .xxx is voluntary at the moment but only for now. Eventually, somone in the legislature will force all sites with sexual content to relinquish their dot coms and register .xxx. A registration fee that will cost six times as much as a normal dot com or dot net.

There's also the problem of determining what sites do and do not belong in the .xxx TLD. Who decides these things? The registrar? The government? What about sites like scarleteen.com or sexuality.org? Both are informational sites that center on sexual issues.

Our second blow is one you may not have heard about: Changes to record-keeping requirements in TITLE 18/Chapter 10/Section 2257. These record-keeping requirements are also known as the Traci Lords law. They are designed to make sure that photographers have documented proof that models are over the age of eighteen. It's a good regulation even though there has never been a prosecution of anyone for violation 2257.

Before the changes (Ashcroft changes/Gonzalez enforcement) to the regulations, only the photographer was required to have a Model's Real Name and date of birth. When the photographers sold the content, they would release the Model ID info in a sanitized form ie: Blacked out real name and address.

Now, ANY webmaster that displays sexual imagery on their site is considered a primary producer. That means any goober with a few bucks can buy a set of pics and get a model's real name and address. This puts the models in harm's way and you know what the DOJ says about it?

WE DON'T CARE.

If you care about supporting free speech and people's right to make a legal living, if you care about the safety of models, please visit the Free Speech Coalition at:

www.freespeechcoalition.com/

[mongo]

16. Hopefully the Free Speech Coalition, Et All will be able to secure

a TRO against the rule from being enforced.

http://www.avn.com/index.php?Primary_Navigation=Articles&Action=Print_Article&Content_ID=231124

This law will make most of the videos in circulation now non-compliant.

In addition to the points you made above, the new regs:

Require the full name of the registrar to be given in the 2257 compliance notice. Currently, if a video says "Custodian of records 123 porn alley, chatsworth" - it will be illegal. or even "d smith custodian of records".

If a movie has ending credits, the 2257 compliance notice must be at the END of the film. Today, every movie puts the notice before the film.

And aparently, I as a retailer I am responsible for at least some due dilligence to checking that my inventory is compliant. Not exacly sure how I'm supposed to watch the 1700 ever changing movies in my inventory.

I could go on and on about this.

[Fovea]

12. Judging by the sucess of the hunt for ObL, Iraq, Etc

You will be seeing money shots on the billboards of all interstate highways by Sept.

[Deja Q]

13. Porn is illegal? In some backwards states, yes... but federally now?!

There are gay republicans too... kill us all so they can survive. Obviously I have no qualms over the non-issue regarding others outing such sycophants.

[Disturbed]

14. Gonzales didn't seem concerned about..

a male prostitute advertising his services on the Net and visiting the WH. Wonder why not?

[mongo]

19. It's always been illegal on the Federal Level

and in 40 states.

Here is how it works. There can be no prior restraint of free speech in America, so there is no way to ban a movie before it comes out with a movie review board etc (like there was up to the 60's in some states).

The way the law is written, any movie with explicit content (or even nudity here in Ohio) is chargable under the law. It is then up to a jury to decide if it is obscene and therefore illegal, under the Miller test:

The Miller test was developed in the 1973 case Miller v. California. It has three parts:

Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,

Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,

Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

So, basically under the law I can be charged with pandering obscenity (up to 5 years in jail under federal law) if they can find a jury that would convict under the law. The way business like mine survive is by having a good lawyer at the ready, and the fact that these prosecutions are expensive for both the government and the defendent.

These prosecutions also tend make the county officials charging the offense look like foolish prudes - well most places anyway. You won't find a whole lot of porn stores in Utah for example.

[LeftyDarthBrodie]

15. Placating the wingnut base

I don't honestly believe they will do anything about this. They have two big initiatives going on now, destroying social security with privatization and renewing as well as increasing their assualt on our civil liberties through the unPatriot Act.

[progressivebydesign]

17. Make Love Not War. I say it's time for that bumper sticker to return. n/t

[jokerman93]

18. That's a laugh

Everyone knows these repressed fundie wingnut types (bush's "flock") are most avid users of Internet porn. Anyone ever notice that a lot of porn spam has random quotes from the bible on the bottom? I've noticed that for years. Great way to peak the guilt that fuels the fires of lust baby!

This is big business. It'll never fly. Porn is too much fun!

:evilgrin:

LOL.

[mongo]

20. Just wondering why a website that bills itself as "progressive"

would say something like this:

The first step to crippling the porn industry: drain their resources by encouraging large political contributions.

Apparently, protecting free speech is not a progressive issue for them.