Posted on 04/05/2004 9:23:56 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
If it was illegal, it would be illegal to make and people would quit making it. It's pretty easy to track down the people making porn. Less porn and prostitution would be a great thing just like less liberalism would be a great thing.
That's why all porn should be illegal.
Metro-man BUMP
This metroman bump list is provided as a service to the metro-men because, by gosh, we need to be tolerant!
Much like the X rating system (which was not copyrighted, and XXX was nothing but an ad campaign dreamed up by David Friedman -"too much sex for just one X").
X (and .xxx) could be self-imposed. If you decide to classify your website as ".xxx" then you could be protected against prosecution for providing pornographic materials to minors. Since parents would easily be able to block out the domain (or even purchase a "junior" account from their ISP that does not permit such traffic) the responsibility to prohibit access to .xxx would reside with the users and not the operators (purchase would still require "age" verification).
Right now there is no "catch all" test to find websites that identify themselves as "adult only". NetNanny and other monitoring services are not complete. Also porn spam and porn popups would be able to be blocked under this approach.
Sites that identify themselves as .xxx would not be automatically protected against "obscenity" suits (beastiality, scat, violence, etc.) but adult only sites that do not classify themselves as .xxx would be more open for prosecution.
Why can kids not read Playboy (which has articles in addition to the photos of nekid ladies) if they can can watch HBO which sometimes airs full frontal she-male transexuals in sexual situations? Both content providers are offering some content that is acceptable for all ages and content which is for "adults only".
Yeah, like when we banned alcohol and everybody stopped making it.
But it shouldn't be a heavy governmental priority, especially by the FEDS who have no business involved there at all(10th amendment).
Bears repeating.
Prostitution is already illegal in most places, but prostitution services are readily available pretty much anywhere. In places where prostitution is legal (such as some counties in Nevada), the industry is regulated, disease is lessened, violence and organized crime can be more easily kept out of the business and it's easier to keep minors out of the trade. Making porn illegal will mean that mainstream, fairly respectable companies like Playboy and Vivid will be replaced by organized crime. That means more violence and more underage performers.
Maybe less porn and prostitution would be a good thing, but the best way to reach that result is to encourage people not to engage in such activities through moral and religious education.
AOL thinks so anyway and banned gun rights sites from their servers.
So be careful of 'unintended consequences' especially anything that near the words "defined as" or "refers to".
Much like meth being illegal stops the meth labs around here, or pot, or any other drug. All it would do is create another mafia, and of course a bunch of government bureaucrats will take their cut and protect them.
Less porn and prostitution would be a great thing just like less liberalism would be a great thing.
I won't disagree with you there, but I think intrusive government is a bigger evil than pornography. I can change the channel and decide not to waste my money on one, I can't do that on the other, and that doesn't even account for the snake in the grass that government can slip in when it comes to 'defining porn'(or 'indecency', or 'obscenity').
So should free speech; who needs it? So should everything that brings anybody happiness; who needs to be secure in the Blessings of Liberty?
"Traci Lords" got breast implants (do plastic surgeons accept fake ID?). "Traci" was the centerfold in Penthouse's "Miss America" issue (the one with George Burns on the cover). Top named industry directors worked with Traci Lords. She was good for business. This was not "underground" activity and I doubt that she was (or is) the only minor working in porn.
As to whether the producers of porn know when a model is underage... I talked with June Wilkinson (possibly the most photographed woman in Playboy). She started out as a stripper in England when she was 15 (totally nude and in the lead role). She was 17 when she was first photographed for Playboy. Playboy held onto those photos until she turned 18 (she was still a minor in those photos even if her "age" was now legal). She says that she is underage in anything shows her with dark hair.
As to whether it is legal for a minor to appear in porn, being past the "age of consent" does nothing to protect a minor who "consents" to appear in porn. A 15 year-old American girl is reportedly being prosecuted for posting naked photos of herself online.
Sorry, don't need it - don't project your own lifestyle on me.
I'm just trying to be sensitive and tolerant. Was master debator a play on words? That was clever! I'm surprised nobody thought of that say - 30 years ago.
If the DOJ wins this, I don't think it'll take too long before some of the national NOCs black-hole western Pennsylvania or Iowa or any other "conservative community values" areas.
It's doubtful she would have been charged with anything if she did not post those pictures online. It's doubtful whether a minor can actually be convicted of being in kiddie porn, though they can certainly be convicted of distributing it.
lol....hilarious. Chilly? Does Nguyen's workplace not have heating? Is he not allowed to put a plant on his desk or a colorful picture on the office wall? If the author is trying to convince us that this guy "has a rotten job, but somebody has to do it" she's failing miserably.
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