http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.ob...-home-headlines

Administration wages war on pornography
Obscenity: For the first time in 10 years, the U.S. government is spending millions to file charges across the country.


Originally published April 6, 2004
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 guestrooms 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.

The Justice Department recently hired Bruce Taylor, who was instrumental in a handful of convictions obtained over the past year and unsuccessfully represented the state in a 1981 case, Larry Flynt vs. Ohio.

Flynt, who recently opened a Hustler nightclub in Baltimore, says everyone in the business is wary, making sure their taxes are paid and the "talent" is over 18. He says he's ready for a rematch, especially with Taylor.

"Everyone's concerned," Flynt said in an interview. "We deal in plain old vanilla sex. Nothing really outrageous. But who knows, they may want a big target like myself."

A recent episode of Showtime's Family Business, a reality show about Adam Glasser, an adult film director and entrepreneur in California, had him worrying about shipping his material to states more apt to prosecute. It also featured him organizing a pornographic Internet telethon to raise money for targets of prosecution.

Drew Oosterbaan, chief of the division in charge of obscenity prosecutions at the Justice Department, says officials are trying to send a message and halt an industry they see as growing increasingly "lawless."

"We want to do everything we can to deter this conduct" by producers and consumers, Oosterbaan said. "Nothing is off the table as far as content."

Money and friends

It is unclear, though, just how the American public and major corporations that make money from pornography will accept the perspective of the Justice Department and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Any move against mainstream pornography could affect large telephone companies offering broadband Internet service or the dozens of national credit card companies providing payment services to pornographic Web sites.

Cable television, meanwhile, which has found late-night lineups with "adult programming" highly profitable, is unlikely to budge, and such companies have powerful friends.

Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, which offers "hard-core" porn on the Hot Network channel (at $11.99 per film in Baltimore), was co-chair of Philadelphia 2000, the host committee that brought the Republican National Convention to Philadelphia. In February, the Bush campaign honored Comcast President Stephen Burke with "Ranger" status, for agreeing to raise at least $200,000 for the president's re-election effort. Comcast's executive vice president, David Cohen, has close ties to Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Tim Fitzpatrick, the spokesman for Comcast at its corporate headquarters in Philadelphia, declined to comment on the cable network's adult programming. But officials at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which Roberts used to chair, said adult programming is legal, relies on subscription services for access and has been upheld by the courts for years.

"Good luck turning back that clock," said Paul Rodriguez, a spokesman for the association.

Ashcroft vs. consent

In a speech in 2002, Ashcroft made it clear that the Justice Department intends to try. He said pornography "invades our homes persistently though the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet," and has "strewn its victims from coast to coast."

Given the millions of dollars Americans are spending each month on adult cable television, Internet sites and magazines and videos, many may see themselves not as victims but as consumers, with an expectation of rights, choices and privacy.

Ashcroft, a religious man who does not drink alcohol or caffeine, smoke, gamble or dance, and has fought unrelenting criticism that he has trod roughshod on civil liberties in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, is taking on the porn industry at a time when many experts say Americans are wary about government intrusion into their lives.

The Bush administration is eager to shore up its conservative base with this issue. Ashcroft held private meetings with conservative groups a year and a half ago to assure them that anti-porn efforts are a priority.

But administration critics and First Amendment rights attorneys warn that the initiative could smack of Big Brother, and that targeting such a broad range of readily available materials could backfire.

"They are miscalculating the pulse of the community," said attorney Paul Cambria, who has gone head to head with Taylor in cases dating to the 1970s.

"I think a lot of adults would say this is not what they had in mind, spending millions of dollars and the time of the courts and FBI agents and postal inspectors and prosecutors investigating what consenting adults are doing and watching."

The law itself rests on the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Miller vs. California, which held that something is "obscene" only if an average person applying contemporary community standards finds it patently offensive. But until now, it hasn't been prosecuted at the federal level for more than 10 years.

Since the last time he faced Taylor, Flynt's empire has grown into a multimillion-dollar corporation with a large, almost conservative-looking headquarters in California, where he and executives in dark suits oversee the company's dozens of men's clubs, sex stores and more than 30 magazines.

"He's basically crusaded against everything I've fought for for the past 30 years," Flynt said. "This is for consenting adults. They have the right to view what they want to in the privacy of their own home. And even if they don't enjoy these materials, they still don't want to be looking over their neighbors' shoulders."

Cases and results

Taylor, who has been involved in the prosecution of more than 700 pornography cases since the 1970s, including at the Justice Department in the late 1980s and early '90s, declined to be interviewed. But he did talk to reporters for the PBS program Frontline in 2001, when he was president of the National Law Center for Children and Families, an anti-porn group.

"Just about everything on the Internet and almost everything in the video stores and everything in the adult bookstores is still prosecutable illegal obscenity," he said.

"Some of the cable versions of porno movies are prosecutable. Once it becomes obvious that this really is a federal felony instead of just a form of entertainment or investment, then legitimate companies, to stay legitimate, are going to have to distance themselves from it."

The Justice Department pursued obscenity cases vigorously in the 1970s and '80s, prosecuting not necessarily the worst offenders in terms of extreme material, but those it viewed as most responsible for pornography's proliferation.

Oosterbaan said the department is employing much the same strategy this time, targeting not only some of the most egregious hard-core porn but also more conventional material, in an effort "to be as effective as possible."

"I can't possibly put it all away," he said. "Results are what we want."

The strategy in the 1980s resulted in a lot of extreme pornography - dealing in urination, violence or bestiality - going underground. Today, with the Internet, international producers and a substantial market, industry officials say there is no underground.

Obscenity cases came to a standstill under Janet Reno, President Bill Clinton's attorney general, who focused on child pornography, which is considered child abuse and comes under different criminal statutes. 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. There is no real gauge of just how obscene a jury will find pornographic material.

The majority of defendants indicted in federal courts over the past year have taken plea agreements when faced with the weight and resources of the Justice Department. More than 50 other federal investigations are under way.

In 2001, though, one interesting case emerged from St. Charles County, Mo., the heart of Ashcroft's conservative Missouri base. First Amendment lawyer Cambria defended a video store there against state charges that it was renting two obscene videotapes that depicted group sex, anal sex and sex with objects.

Cambria won, convincing a jury of 12 women, all between the ages of 40 and 60, that the tapes had educational value and helped reduce inhibitions. They reached the verdict in less than three hours.

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.

Either way, Nguyen, father of a 2-year-old girl, and his co-workers spend their days scouring the Internet for the most obscene material, following leads sent in by citizens and tracking pornographers operating under different names. The job wears on them all, day after day, so much so that the obscenity division has recently set up in-house counseling for them to talk about what they're seeing and how it is affecting them.

"This stuff isn't the easiest to deal with," Nguyen said recently while at his computer. "But I think we're going after the bad guys and we're making a difference, and that's what makes it worthwhile."

Larry, don't worry,
on the internet they find weasel a bigger target than you are...

That is the scariest man in the world right now

People chastised the Taliban for holding such extreme views

The only thing missing is burkas and I wonder if Ashcroft has ideas about those too...

Remember, this guy will NOT make a distinction bewteen the Rob Zacaris of the world and the guy shooting "softcore teen models".

While I'm normally not the tinfoil hat type, this madman has me at least glancing at the box of renyolds wrap sitting on the kitchen counter...

vote Democrat 04' !

FREE BUSH

That is the scariest man in the world right now

People chastised the Taliban for holding such extreme views

The only thing missing is burkas and I wonder if Ashcroft has ideas about those too...

Remember, this guy will NOT make a distinction bewteen the Rob Zacaris of the world and the guy shooting "softcore teen models".

While I'm normally not the tinfoil hat type, this madman has me at least glancing at the box of renyolds wrap sitting on the kitchen counter...[/b][/quote]


Ashcroft has some wacky personal views, those shared by a very narrow minority in the US. However, I have yet to see him act on them and push and agenda. He follows and enforces the laws that are on the books.

For as Conservative as he is, he is not an activist at all, and really has not been much of a thorn at all. Is this because of 9-11? Maybe. Will this change in the future? time will tell.

I think the arguement that the clock cannot be turned back is a solid one. The cat is out the bag.

Yeah, but they will try and chase that cat away from their backyard :rolleyes:

I think some kind of crack down is due.

The reality is there is a lot of things that have gone on to much. I am surprised the feds want to go after more then just KP. Let's face it they have not done a great job handling that. It is rampant.

I would like to see a CDA 3, one that can pass Constitutional muster. If it elminated tons of free porn, and required certain record keeping this would help the industry.

This quote makes the most sense to me:



There is lawlessness in this industry, and its not just with obscenity but also with theft, credit card fraud, copyright violations, etc...

We have shown as a industry we cannot police ourselves - that we are racing to the bottom... so the Feds are going to intervene. If they do it with a scapel rather then a meat cleaver most of us at Oprano will benefit from it!

...and the biggest pornographer on the Internet today is weasel,
on his own admission,
Ashcroft must start with him,
chop off the head and the rest of us will follow!

you think he calls Ashcroft and volunteers like he called FTC on me????

What the FUCK does computer forensics have to do with surfing porn?

I agree that we could crack that $afe wide open, if the FBI was more alert, and did some kind of policing of the industry.

However seeing how the goverment is dealing with other "moral" issues like gambling, meds etc. then I do fear that they will hit the industry in the supply chain instead of only going after the "obscene" content.

feds, go for the head!!!!

Ashcroft has some wacky personal views, those shared by a very narrow minority in the US. However, I have yet to see him act on them and push and agenda. He follows and enforces the laws that are on the books.

For as Conservative as he is, he is not an activist at all, and really has not been much of a thorn at all. Is this because of 9-11? Maybe. Will this change in the future? time will tell.

I think the arguement that the clock cannot be turned back is a solid one. The cat is out the bag.[/b][/quote]
You don't think they could find a bible belt small town to bring a company that even does only "vanilla" porn up on charges? You want to spend a shitload of money defending yourself against obscenity charges?

Nothing in that article suggests a scalpel approach Mike. Nothing.

Nothing in that article suggests a scalpel approach Mike. Nothing.[/b][/quote]


TE this is an article. I judge by actions.

So far the actions I see have been a scapel. I am not going to kid myself, I know that people like Ashcroft see all porn as evil. However, I do think vanilla porn is now accepted in majority of communities.

Did you read this part?

TE this is an article. I judge by actions.

So far the actions I see have been a scapel. I am not going to kid myself, I know that people like Ashcroft see all porn as evil. However, I do think vanilla porn is now accepted in majority of communities.

Did you read this part?

[/b][/quote]
Yes, but do you think that will deter him? Or will they just try a different location to get the elusive "vanilla" porn conviction that will get 1000 times the press coverage this successful defense will that I am sure they want to get so as to try and get a rolling snowball effect? It still costs a lot of money for people who SHOULDN'T have to be defending themselves in the first place.

I am certainly not arguing that stuff is anywhere near perfect in this biz. If they stuck to the extreme stuff I wouldn't mind it a bit.... but they aren't and people that shouldn't have to go through that kind of mess are.

Ashcroft has some wacky personal views, those shared by a very narrow minority in the US. However, I have yet to see him act on them and push and agenda. He follows and enforces the laws that are on the books.

For as Conservative as he is, he is not an activist at all, and really has not been much of a thorn at all. Is this because of 9-11? Maybe. Will this change in the future? time will tell.

I think the arguement that the clock cannot be turned back is a solid one. The cat is out the bag.[/b][/quote]
That's because Ashcroft is one of those sneaky types

For years, he's been trying to push for more FBI and CIA powers and was always rebuffed...then suddenly September 11 happens and he's getting legislation passed through that he was trying to fight for.

He won't get out there and be loud and proud, but behind the scenes, he'll be slowly rolling over rights to pursue his own biblical agenda.

The ONLY reason we didn't see more anti-porn actions sooner is because of September 11th...

I heard a whisper that Ashcroft is taking a personal interest in what happens with the Sweets case in Canada.

Can you back up these words with proof of actions taken by the feds?

Bush and Ashcroft made it clear BEFORE they were elected that they were going to go after porn.

Be thankful for this time you were given. At least now there is a chance to vote them out before anything real happens.

FREE BUSH in Nov.

You already provided that right in this thread Mike.

oooh oooh its like a political riddle!

:rokk:

Please Keep Ashcroft

Online porn seriously needs to be cracked down upon and cleaned up

NO FREE PORN ACCESSIBLE TO MINORS

GO ASHCROFT!!!
GO ASHCROFT!!!
GO ASHCROFT!!!
GO ASHCROFT!!!
GO ASHCROFT!!!
GO ASHCROFT!!!
GO ASHCROFT!!!

oooh oooh its like a political riddle!

:rokk:[/b][/quote]
The article only mentions a few instances.

Hardly a epidemic.

>>Ashcroft, a religious man who does not drink alcohol or caffeine, smoke, gamble or dance

fuck no wonder he's coming after us ... he's bored shitless!!!! :biglaugh:

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”


How many instances do there really need to be before it should be taken seriously? I mean, they are openly spending taxpayer money to run a team that does nothing but investigate adult content, they have publically stated their intention to go after even vanilla porn, and there are more prosecutions going on right now then there have been in the past 10 years combined.

Seriously, you waiting til nobody is left on oprano?

Hoop, I am not happy with Ashcroft's stance, but I think this industry has pushed to many boundaries and needs to be curtailed some. Do I want Ashcroft doing it? Not really, but who will.

As far as who I am voting for, the lack of porn prosecutions is not even in my top 10 concerns politically.

It is tax time Hoop, have you been enjoying your tax break? :D

Mike, there was a time when what you are doing now was pushing boundaries

To Ashcroft and his Nazi scumbag followers, YOU are EQUAL to those envelope pushers...

These people aren't content with regulating porn, they want to eradicate it....there is a huge difference

You think people like this will stop with Steve Sweet or Rob Zicari? After they get rid of the "extreme" they are going to go after bondage porn, then gay porn, then interracial porn and so on...

Like I said before, it's not quite time to build that tinfoil hat yet, but you might want to keep an eye on the reynolds wrap in your kitchen...

Mike, there was a time when what you are doing now was pushing boundaries

To Ashcroft and his Nazi scumbag followers, YOU are EQUAL to those envelope pushers...

These people aren't content with regulating porn, they want to eradicate it....there is a huge difference

You think people like this will stop with Steve Sweet or Rob Zicari? After they get rid of the "extreme" they are going to go after bondage porn, then gay porn, then interracial porn and so on...

Like I said before, it's not quite time to build that tinfoil hat yet, but you might want to keep an eye on the reynolds wrap in your kitchen...[/b][/quote]
Sykk I understand your point, that is why we have a system of checks and balances. It is not just up to Ashcroft and the few people who beleive like he does. If so we would have been gone a long time ago.

The part of being a democratic country is the leaders reflect the community - normal porn is pretty much mainstream now.

The clock cannot be turned back, technology won't let it!

Yippie
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5171076.html

hooper, you make a good point ... but without offering a solution, its just repeating the same crap that has been said in patent cases, visa issues, all the things that came before to try to destroy us ...

yeah yeah we have to band together or they will come get us all ... HOW do you get an industry full of people who don't like each other or who are just out to make a buck for themselves to do something about this? and WHAT exactly do we do?

everytime someone pops up with a solution they want money to 'fight' ... but most of the people offering to fight for 'me' with 'my' money, i've never heard of.

so, i ask again, WHAT do we do apart from complain to one another that we aren't doing anything?

Excellent!!!

The sooner the better!

Clean up the Internet or at least what can be done from America!

There's a lot more we can all do locally..it doesn't have to be an industry effort...

we can start voting for changes on a local level...while a single vote might not matter in a nation-wide election, several votes on a local level can make a difference...

I don't remember who it was that said it (perhaps George Carlin) but we get the government we deserve.

In America, where it effects me, I'm glad I have a vote and a voice...however small that voice is...I'm not so sure it can make a difference nationally, but I know it can locally. So, if we get the ball rolling locally, it's a start.

This is where a lot of these Nazis will want to go after us...locally.

Imagine having to defednm any of our sites in Utah! I'm related to a good portion of that state and it's not a state I would want to be defending myself on ANY porn charge, whether it's a throatfucking site or simple single girl masturbating in nice lighting with good photography....

Excellent!!!

The sooner the better!

Clean up the Internet or at least what can be done from America![/b][/quote]
I remember a content set I licensed from you..it had a vampire girl masturbating with a sword...I wonder what Adolf Ashcroft would think of that?
;-))))))))

I remember a content set I licensed from you..it had a vampire girl masturbating with a sword...I wonder what Adolf Ashcroft would think of that?
;-))))))))[/b][/quote]
Producing that and purchasing it was a risk we both took :D

I have wet dreams about COPA becoming law and P2P networks getting shut down due to copyright infringements

ah to dream ........

There's a lot more we can all do locally..it doesn't have to be an industry effort...

we can start voting for changes on a local level...while a single vote might not matter in a nation-wide election, several votes on a local level can make a difference...

I don't remember who it was that said it (perhaps George Carlin) but we get the government we deserve.

In America, where it effects me, I'm glad I have a vote and a voice...however small that voice is...I'm not so sure it can make a difference nationally, but I know it can locally. So, if we get the ball rolling locally, it's a start.

This is where a lot of these Nazis will want to go after us...locally.

Imagine having to defednm any of our sites in Utah! I'm related to a good portion of that state and it's not a state I would want to be defending myself on ANY porn charge, whether it's a throatfucking site or simple single girl masturbating in nice lighting with good photography....[/b][/quote]
ok so you vote for someone locally who doesn't have an agenda against porn ... done that already. it doesn't seem to be helping much ...

If any australian webmasters are interested in forming a group to work with the Eros foundation (they fight porn censorship on our behalf) here in oz, please get in touch with me. The problem these guys face is that they don't know enough about the internet to know what they are defending, but they know the obscenity laws backwards and inside out and their voices are listened to in Canberra, where it counts.

You vote for the lesser of two evils.

I'm not suggesting that we begin singing "Michel row the boat ashore", start GIA3.0 and hold hands...

i'm merely pointing out that we each (usa residents that is, when in reference to usa politics) have a voice that is counted. if you vote for an administration that is actively coming after you, vote for an administration that has no chance of winning (e.g. green party), or if you simply fail to vote at all then you are being silent.

i'm not voting the kerry ticket. i'm voting the ABB ticket. (anybody but bush).

Mike, my taxes have not changed since bush has been in office because I do not invest in the markets and do not buy hummers. As usual the bush tax cuts sound broad and imporant, but actually apply to a minority.

Why any adult provider ever voted for the party that supported the christian coahlition instead of the guy who was getting bj's under his desk will always baffle me. It seems kinda obviously self destructive.

Who? Where?
The only thing I've heard about *are* the extreme cases, such as Extreme Associates.
Who are the undeserving folks that shouldn't have to go through this mess because the feds aren't sticking to the fringe stuff?

Hoop, with the money you make, you ARE the minority.
Bush's tax cuts are commonly bashed as being for the rich, but they're not. They've mainly benefited the lower middle-class folks which I have to assume you're above (having seen your boat, hehe).
His other tax breaks (like increasing the child credit) have greatly benefited poor folks - again which you're not.
Don't assume that his cuts/breaks only affect a minority because you yourself were not affected.

LOL@CJ concluding that Ashcroft is bored shitless.

Sykk the constant name-calling of modern-day Christians as "Nazis" and "Nazi scumbags" is ridiculous. I don't see any Christians rounding up herds of people and marching them off to gas chambers or using them as test subjects for horrific surgery experiments.
To equate one with the other - well - you *sure* you haven't opened up that Reynolds box?

This quote was interesting:
He said pornography "invades our homes persistently though the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet," and has "strewn its victims from coast to coast."

Victims? Invasion?
Last I checked, I had to pay money to have pornographic mail sent to me. I've never had anyone call me up unsolicited and start talking dirty to me except for my boyfriends in my younger years and my hubby once in a blue moon nowadays. A VCR can only work if YOU put something into it, yes? It can't just turn itself on and start blaring porn at you can it? Same thing with cable tv as the mail - you gotta pay to see anything (although the scrambled channels do have fleeting moments of near clarity for two seconds at a time if you really like your porn to be psychadelically colored and at a vertical slant).
The only thing I see there that is not victimless is the Internet, where people *do* get bombarded with unasked-for porn in their email and graphic language anytime they do an innocent search at Google. It's still hard as hell to "accidentally" end up on a porn site, unless you're a total fucking dolt (which admittedly, many people are), but the porn is coming at us from other directions than just sites we visit voluntarily.
If this man thinks that all 5 of these things are "persistently invading victims" who just want to live their life porn-free, he needs a dose of something. Perhaps reality?

Btw, I think it will take something a bit bigger than a scalpel to rid us of TGPs and free porn for the masses.
It's going to be a loooooong time (perhaps never) before people *have* to fork over money to see hardcore on the internet again.

Carrie, you know how sponsors started offering hosted galleries? and that all most tgp webmasters do these days is submit to each others tgp's?

give it a year and the only free galleries available will be the ones sponsors provide themselves, and a few professional tgp webmasters who will make private deals with their sponsors.

sponsors have their own ...

hosting
domains
traffic
content
employees

what makes you think 19 year old tgp webmaster can compete with sponsors who build and submit their own galleries without paying a webmaster 80% of the income?

sponsors with their own traffic have always survived through competitive times - the 'new era' is no different. look around at the number of sponsors getting into hosted galleries - the next step is to just remove affiliate links ....

TGP webmasters won't be around much longer - there will be nobody paying them for their traffic!