U.S. declares War on Porn

Baltimore Sun ^ | April 5, 2004 | Laura Sullivan

[Quick1]

WASHINGTON -- Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography. This job, which Nguyen does earnestly from 9 to 5, surrounded by a half-dozen other "computer forensic specialists" like him, has become the focal point of the Justice Department's operation to rid the world of porn.

In this field office in Washington, 32 prosecutors, investigators and a handful of FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Nothing is off limits, they warn, even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in rooms of major hotel chains.

Department officials say they will send "ripples" through an industry that has proliferated on the Internet and grown into an estimated $10 billion-a-year colossus profiting Fortune 500 corporations such as Comcast, which offers hard-core movies on a pay-per-view channel.

[Quick1]

Interesting. Hopefully it works as well as that "War on Drugs" thing we had a while back.

[Hunble]

I like porn....

[thoughtomator]

If it does, every schoolkid in America will have ready access to porn.

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[cyborg]

Another government tax boondoggle. Unless it's children, who CARES?

[AdamSelene235]

We might as well go all the way:

The Prohibition Party

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I think the problem may be that they have to look in order to find the child pornography, so all falls under their gaze.

[maxamillion]

Me too...

[mylife]

They can stop it and shouldnt try to unless there are innocents involved,

BUT there should be some regulation on the dispersal of porn to try to keep it from readily falling into the hands of kids.

Kids are gonna find it, but it shouldnt show up unsolicited.

In the old days a kid wasnt gonna walk into the porn shop and thats the way it should be.

[mylife]

thats they cant stop it

[cyborg]

Sheesh. Well I guess someone has to do it. I saw child porn once. When I refreshed the page to get the URL to forward to the FBI the page was already taken down. Unreal.

[quantim]

Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography.

Like so many federal jobs, a waste of time and a total waste of tax dollars.

[cyborg]

Parents really need to be vigilant. I agree pop up ads and the like should not show up unsolicited. Incidentally, I got a XXX pop up while visting the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog *LOL*

[breakem]

Our government IN ACTION or is that 1 word?

[mylife]

I saw plenty of dirty pics as a kid, but it didnt just show up in my reasearch as I was doing homework on the computer

[Andyman]

In a short time we went from a President who viewed it to a President who fights it.

[Hunble]

Today, if you get exposed to child pornography, you can bet that there is some Government employee posting it.

This is how they justify their jobs.

[antiRepublicrat]

spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years.

It's not like they have anything better to do with those millions, like catch kidnappers and kiddie porn producers, stop terrorists, etc. I'm sure they'll be just as successful as they were with the WoD, and maybe even manage to drive the business underground, depriving the government of tax revenue and increasing the likelihood of women getting abused.

[oceanperch]

Wonder what the job criteria is to watch porn all day.

Do the men get debriefed at the end of the day?

Does it lesson their desires for their spouse in the private life, like eating chocolate untill you get sick?

I think this is a good job for women not men. We would be more objective.

[cyborg]

There are plenty of good internet filter programs and there are internet dial ups who screen XXX pics from their servers. I suggest every parent have either a filter program or get server based filtered company thing. There is a lot of porno out on the Internet but I am skeptical anytime the government expresses an 'interest' in internet policing.

[Quick1]

Wait, was that an argument for the legalization of prostitution I just heard? :)

I should have guessed this thread would be quite popular...

[Dan from Michigan]

We got Iraq, Afghanastan, border problems, and a bloated defecit, but Porn(outside of Child Porn) is a major priority? C'mon.

[mylife]

I agree. I just see so many folks who just accept internet porn in their mail boxes as part of internet life.

It just shouldnt be so in your face.

A person should have to actively seek it to find it not actively block it

[Jaysun]

I should hope that they aren't TOO serious about this. It would put my neighbor's wife in a real quandary. How would she continue her business that caters to bizarre people who like to see pictures of unattractive women that walk about in public wearing nothing but a viking helmet? How would I continue my photography business that focuses on taking nude photographs of unattractive women in public wearing nothing but viking helmets?

This is just too much.

[antiRepublicrat]

Just read the full article:

said pornography "invades our homes persistently though the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet,

Gotta love propaganda. Porn only "invades" via some spam, and that is a very specific problem. Porn by all other methods is chosen by the consumer to come into the home.

[antiRepublicrat]

Wait, was that an argument for the legalization of prostitution I just heard?

That's a different subject, but I'm for that, too. I've just seen too many countries where it's regulated, and abuse and disease are much rarer there, plus it's taxed.

[Starve The Beast]

I notice that this article quotes Larry Flynt (who opposes Bush to the point of making up stupid rumors about him) several times, as well as some other pornographers.

About half way through the piece, it just turns the blowtorch full blast on John Ashcroft, with a bunch of innuendo but no actual facts. The article really seems to object to Ashcrofts' Christianity, for some reason.

My judgment: This article is a fake, just another loony hit piece on Bush by America's unbiased media. Read the article closely; notice how it doesn't really say anything.

[hasegawasama]

Indeed. yes. yes.

[isom35]

hmmm...a war against porn. So would traci lords be a defector from the enemy side? If we capture some porn actresses and put them in a POW camp, can I be a guard?

[Quick1]

Get in line, buddy. :)

[agitator]

This is nothing but a typical government shakedown, no different than any of the other shakedown operations they run. Here's how it works. Govt targets some producer of pr0n and then through threats amounting to extortion (I'm shocked!) gets the producer to agree to stop producing pr0n under their current business and to forfeit (pay tribute) to Uncle Sham to the tune of a couple of hundred thousand dollars (which to the pr0n business is just an expensive cost of doing business.) They take that $200k and use it to fund their next extortion of their next target. The idea here isn't to stop it, it's to create a self-funding shakedown operation that makes nice headlines for the "folks."

[Quick1]

I thought it was a possiblity until I checked Google News.

Article from the Miami Herald

Mercury News

Charlotte Observer

[Starve The Beast]

Mmmmm, you're right, this is worse than I thought.

I notice that what they seem to be targeting is 'obscenity', as opposed to pornography, but that's not much comfort. A DOJ that spends time and money going after something that subjective scares me a lot more than pictures of people having sex with animals, or whatever.

Thanks for the info.

[oyez]

Sounds like trial lawyers about to make some money.

[ellery]

We're at WAR with Islamofacists, some of whom live among us. Priorities, people.

[Tamzee]

Today, if you get exposed to child pornography, you can bet that there is some Government employee posting it. This is how they justify their jobs.

The most ludicrous statement I've ever seen posted at FR.

[RightWingAtheist]

I find it interesting that of all the industries and businesses in the country, the sex industry is the only one the liberals want completely unregulated.

[weegee]

The "standards" that HBO follows today are far removed from what was considered "acceptable" 20 years ago. Real Sex will show full frontal shots of she-males making out nowdays.

Where do you draw the line?

Not saying that an adult who wants to watch such freakshows on cable should be denied his program choice but should it be tolerated on Warner Brothers' signature pay-movie channel or should it be on an "adults only" channel?

[ArmstedFragg]

The nature of Associated Press is that each member files stories for the use of other members. From the looks of it, one of Knight-Ridder's reporters picked up the AP filing from Baltimore, rewrote it, then put it on the wire to Knight-Ridder's clients. (Or, in the alternative, the Baltimore reporter rewrote the KR story)

At any rate, the stories you linked to are all the same Knight-Ridder story bylined to the same reporter.

So... repetition of the story doesn't bolster its credibility if it all comes from the same source.

[weegee]

Scratch the surface of the porn industry and you'll find organized crime operating.

Traci Lords was underage when she made all but her final film (which she owned).

The Girls Gone Wild producer has escaped child porn charges since a judge ruled that those tapes are not pornography (although he still employed a minor who was too young to legally sign a release). He was also facing charges of being a drug dealer but I don't know where that stands today.

Larry Flynt contracted a murder hit against Bob Guccione.

If you were put in charge of guarding prisoners in the War on Porn, you'd likely be looking after some wiseguys. Maybe some 4-eyed geeks too (the kind who created SPAM, autodialers, spyware, and popup-hell code).

[EGPWS]

Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography. This job, which Nguyen does earnestly from 9 to 5, surrounded by a half-dozen other "computer forensic specialists" like him, has become the focal point of the Justice Department's operation to rid the world of porn.

It's a nasty job, however thank God we have people with such a conviction for the American way that they have the fortitude to tolerate such a grueling job!

I wonder what the pay is? I'm a person of conviction!

[ozzymandus]

Sheesh. And I just paid my taxes today.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography. This job, which Nguyen does earnestly from 9 to 5..."

... with frequent bathroom breaks.

[EGPWS]

Interesting. Hopefully it works as well as that "War on Drugs" thing we had a while back.

As undesirable as the industry is I DO feel we have Wars to win which take priority at this time.

[weegee]

From deeper in the article:

The department's most closely watched case involves "extreme" porn producer Rob Zicari and his North Hollywood company Extreme Associates. The prolific Zicari is charged with selling five allegedly obscene videotapes, which he now markets as the "Federal Five," that depict simulated rapes and murder.

Almost reveling in the charges, Zicari's Web site says, "The most controversial company in porn today! Guess what? Controversy ... sells!"

The case hangs on a strategic move by the Justice Department that could make or break hundreds of future cases. Instead of bringing charges in Hollywood, where Zicari easily defeated a local obscenity ordinance recently in a jury trial, department officials ordered his tapes from Pittsburgh, Pa., and charged him there, hoping for a jury pool less porn-friendly.

Industry lawyers and top executives contend that the courts should rule that because the tapes were ordered on the Internet, the "community standard" demanded by the law should be the standard of the whole community of the World Wide Web.

The Internet is filled with ample evidence of even more hard-core or offensive material from abroad, they say, and someone in Pittsburgh should not be able to determine what someone in Hollywood can order.

So much for community standards. The culture war is being fought one battle at a time.

Anyone making a film about the Clinton presidency would be remiss if they did not include simulations of rape and murder. This must be tolerated in all explicit sexual videos. < /sarcasm >

[mikenola]

The ensuing years saw an explosion of porn, so much so that critics say that Americans' tolerance for sexually explicit material rivals that of Europeans.

That tolerance could prove to be the obscenity division's biggest obstacle. Americans are used to seeing sex, experts say, in the movies, in their e-mail inboxes and on popular cable shows such as HBO's Sex and the City.

Fact is lots and lots of people watch pornography, and its a major industry now. I thought Freepers were pro freemarket? If people didnt want it, the industry wouldnt exist, no?

Which takes precedence , the collective decisions of the free market, or the moral evangelizing of the Ashcroft DoJ?

[Ichneumon]

... with frequent bathroom breaks.

LOL! Funniest post I've read all day.

[Redcloak]

It's about time! I've been warning them for years that porn is dangerous and, up until now, it hasn't been a priority with this administration. Any day now, a wild-eyed porn queen is gonna crash her giant, silicone titties into a skyscraper and kill THOUSANDS!!!!!!!!!!

PORN KILLS!!

</sarcasm>

[weegee]

It's a crime to send pornographic materials through the mail without prior consent. Not so for cable, email, websites, etc.

It is also a crime to provide pornographic materials to a minor.

Addressing these problems does not have to include the prohibition of any pornography. Everyone always fears the worst.

Scatalogical, beastial, and violent porn have historically had a difficult legal standing. 2 (and possibly all 3 of those fetishes) are legal activities to engage in (depending on where the act takes place). Then again, age of consent for sex is as low as 14 in some communities yet it is illegal to film anyone under 18 engaging in sex.

Even when homosexual sodomy was a crime in Texas, same sex porn was not automatically declared "obscene".

[pete anderson]

I am just really happy that the FBI is investing its limited resources to fight Porn instead of Terrorism. Perhaps they can also take some people off of the Terrorism beat and have them not only fight porn but also Jaywalking and smoking in public!

Nice Job Mr. Ashcroft!