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 ...
(CNSNews.com) - Cultural conservatives are cheering the federal obscenity prosecution of a Los Angeles pornography distributor and two of its executives while pointing out that it is the first such indictment of an L.A.-based pornography firm in a decade. Most of the adult film industry is based in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.
The 10-count indictment originates from a federal grand jury in Western Pennsylvania and names Extreme Associates, Inc., of North Hollywood, as well as the husband-and-wife team of Robert Zickari and Janet Romano of Northridge, Calif.
Extreme Associates' website touts its content as the "Hardest Hardcore on the Web." The indictment is based in Pennsylvania because that is allegedly a location where Extreme Associates mailed three of its videos.
Anti-pornography groups such as Morality in Media hailed the indictment as an encouraging sign after what the group criticized as an unofficial 10-year moratorium on obscenity prosecutions.
Obscenity laws were vigorously enforced between 1987 and 1993, Morality in Media stated in a press release, but prosecutions were almost non-existent during the Clinton administration and the first two years of the current Bush administration.
U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, who is prosecuting the case in Pennsylvania, told CNSNews.com: "There has been very little enforcement of the federal obscenity laws in the last 10 years."
With this indictment, however, "the pornography industry is now on notice that the Justice Department is now taking steps to enforce federal obscenity laws," Buchanan said.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who upon taking over the Justice Department in 2001 signaled that he would revive the Justice Department's anti-pornography efforts, released a statement following the indictment of Extreme Associates.
"Today's indictment marks an important step in the Department of Justice's strategy for attacking the proliferation of adult obscenity," Ashcroft stated.
"The Justice Department will continue to focus our efforts on targeted obscenity prosecutions that will deter others from producing and distributing obscene material. I congratulate the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Postal Inspectors and our other partners whose hard work and dedication made these charges possible."
Patrick McGrath, spokesman for Morality in Media, told CNSNews.com that while it might have taken a "little bit longer than perhaps we would have liked" for the Justice Department to begin prosecuting pornographers, the indictment is an encouraging sign.
"We see it as what we hope is the proverbial first step in a journey of a thousand miles," he said. "We know that there are other cases in the works, and we just think that this is what we hope is the first of many obscenity prosecutions."
Neither spokesmen for Extreme Associates nor the individual defendants could be reached for comment before this story was published.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Kaufman and Damon King of the Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section will join Buchanan in prosecuting the case.
"The lack of enforcement of federal obscenity laws during the 1990s has led to a proliferation of obscenity throughout the United States, such as the violent and degrading material charged in this case," Buchanan said in a statement.
"Distributors of obscenity may be prosecuted under federal law in any district in the country where their products are sold."
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Does this counter your perceived bias? Shall I dig up some more from more "trustworthy" sources?
Selection of Attorney Bruce Taylor Should Send Strong Message to Smut Peddlers in America
By James L. Lambert
February 3, 2004
(AgapePress) - In a move which should send a clear message to the porn industry, Bruce A. Taylor has been hired by the U.S. Justice Department, effective this week. Taylor will be working as a senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General based in Washington, DC.
Prior to his new role in the Justice Department, Taylor was the president and chief counsel of the National Law Center for Children and Families (NLC), a Virginia-based firm with a strong reputation in assisting cities and municipalities around the country to regulate the pornography industry through enforcement of local and national laws. Before joining the NLC, he was a senior trial attorney for the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice.
According to the NLC website, Taylor first served as a prosecutor and assistant director of law for the City of Cleveland, Ohio, where he prosecuted more than 600 obscenity cases, including an argument before the United States Supreme Court. He also served as assistant attorney general of the State of Arizona.
Taylor's vast experience has included representing public officials, law enforcement personnel, and citizens in civil lawsuits on civil rights, zoning, Internet pornography, nuisance abatement, criminal procedure, defamation, and federal challenges to federal, state, and municipal laws.
Taylor is known for his strong belief in upholding federal obscenity statutes and as a strong defender of victims of the porn trade. As a long-time friend of Taylor, Dr. Judith Reisman is "thrilled to hear about Bruce's appointment." The author and researcher says she is "cautiously optimistic" that Taylor will make an impact in justice's effort to limit and restrict clear violations of federal law by elements of the porn industry. Reisman, though, understands that politics could potentially play out in the Department by possibly restricting efforts to seriously prosecute new obscenity cases. She concludes by saying that "it is about time that the government shows concerns more about the massive rape of children vs. the profiteering of pornographers."
William P. Kelly, Esq. worked for many years as an investigator for the FBI and provided key testimony in the 1986 Commission on Pornography. Now retired from the FBI, he recently said he is "elated to hear this news [of Taylor's appointment]." Referring to Taylor's fine reputation, Kelly said "Bruce is one of the two top obscenity prosecutors in the country."
Taylor's now-vacant position at the National Law Center will be addressed this week in a board meeting of that non-profit organization. The NLC is still actively assisting individuals and municipalities in defense of their rights against intrusion by the porn trade, and continues to ask individuals to support their efforts through financial contributions.
See No. 27.
So9
If you have to request the service and/or there's a parental control on the cable box, then I have no problems with it. Personally, I just get basic cable.
Nasty stuff happens when you force an industry to be underground. BTW, Traci Lords used fake ID, and the child porn guy likely was just not being as careful as he should have been. I doubt either included a conscious effort to use a minor in porn, except on the part of the girls.
Maybe somebody should do a factual, realistic portrayal of the Starr Report. What do we say about community standards then?
Maybe if Ashcroft wouldn't make it so easy for them...
After all, not everyone believed it, but it was easy for the press to paint Hillary as a power-hungry shrew.
Good point. Ashcroft doesn't smoke, drink or dance. Watch out if you do any of these things, because after the porn kings he could be coming for you.
Use them wisely.
Darn, I blink once and I miss the news that Osama has been captured, Al-Qaeda was rolled up like a cheap rug, all the old security holes in homeland security are now sealed up tight, and the FBI has nothing better to do.
Sadder to think that others feel the government must spend purloined tax money to do something about it.
Perhaps not eradicate it, but make it less accessible to children.
This could be accomplished easily enough. Though I am against most Fedril Gubmint regulation of the Internet, I would agree to legislation requiring adult content providers to use a ".xxx" domain rather than a ".com" domain. For example, "www.cheerleadersgettingspankedandlovingit.xxx".
This would make it quite easy for filtering software to reject popups from .xxx domains, and allow parents better control over their kid's access to porn on the internet, while still allowing access to legitimate medical and research sites, say for breast cancer research.
Conservative values = MYOFB.
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