U.S. Justice Department Prepares Assault on Pr0n

An anonymous reader writes "The Baltimore Sun is reporting that the Justice Department is preparing to reawaken old laws to fight the war on ... no, not terrorists... porn! And not just the kinky stuff either. In the age of Internet connectivity, will this mean these jobs are headed to India too?"

Comments

If they can not get OBL,

[Anonymous Coward]

then lets go after the easy targets.

It is amazing what an election year can cause with regard to a countries policies and priorities.

Dear dear dear

[Space cowboy]

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

The perfect antithesis then, to all the people who pay for the 'products' on sale. The line "Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?" springs to mind. Have you in fact checked he's still alive ?

Sure, I'm dead-set against kiddie porn - string them up by the bollocks and burn them over a slow fire. Sure, there are other people being exploited in this industry. Newsflash: there are people being exploited in *all* industries - it's just that society places a higher importance on sex than fishing, cooking, or cleaning (for example).

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.

Yep, now we see, he is dead. In the water that is. When a public figures decide to go on a non-popular crusade, they're dead men walking. I suppose there's an outside chance (only in the US, [grin]) that he *might* be right - witness the uproar over 1 cm^2 of female flesh after a certain kickabout recently... Naaah.

Simon.

Re:Dear dear dear

[orthogonal]

But that reminds me: isn't the U.S. the country that imprisons (and tortures ("heals", "treats")) children if they touch *each other*?

Actually, the U.S. has just charged a fifteen year old girl with possession of child pornography, and sexual abuse of children, for emailing naughty pictures of herself.

And they intend to try her as an adult.

Kafka couldn't have come up with better folks: "Little girl, you're too young to be able to consent to sex, so those pictures you took of yourself are pictures of a child, and you kept those pictures of yourself, so that's possession of kiddie porn.

"But young lady, you're old enough to know better, so we intend to try and convict you as an adult -- and force you to register as a sex offender -- as a kiddie pornographer, and child molester, no less -- for the rest of your life."

(P.S., I submitted this for Slashdot's "Your Rights Online" about a week ago, but it was rejected.)

I work in the industry

[jCaT]

And frankly, a lot of companies are scared. At this point everybody is just making sure their 18 USC 2257 links are up to date, and hoping for the best. The company I work for recently stopped selling videos (actually, before the Extreme Associates case) for the reasons listed in the article... and we've maintained a list of states that we will not send tapes to, exactly for the reason that got EA busted. That whole inter-state commerce thing can really get you in trouble.

If they are actually going to go after the major TV and cable networks over their hardcore stuff, the industry as a whole is screwed. The majority of the "good" sites out there now make the spice channel look like hotel porn.

I just hope that Bush gets voted out in november, so that we can ditch Ashcroft. He is completely out of touch with morality in this country! I'm not trying to say we should be selling explicit hardcore porn from vending machines, it has its place in our culture, and he and his cronies seem to not see that.

Actually true...

[MooseByte]

"Yeah, I can still remember about the first readings of erotic material over the telegraph"

Actually one of my old friends who served in the Navy (comm ops) told me about how they used to keep the morse code students interested - every now and then they'd slip a section of a porn story into the interminable copying sessions.

You'd get keel-hauled for doing that these days, but I imagine it kept folks going. :-)

Non-consensual porn.

[Rimbo]

I enjoy porn as much as the next red-blooded male, provided the next red-blooded male is currently spanking the monkey underneath a trenchcoat in a slimy XXX-rated film house, or skipping work to order yet another lap dance from a stripper. Maybe I enjoy porn more than the next red-blooded male.

Either way, this move is overdue.

Most of what I see is fine, if filthy. But there's a large portion I see where the subjects are clearly not volunteers.

Rape porn. "Hidden cameras." Girls under 18. "Amateurs" who don't look willing. You may not see a gun in the picture, but the girl keeps nervously looking at someone off-camera, instead of enjoying her hot dog.

It takes the fun out of wanking. I want to objectify women who want to be objectified, thank you very much.

It's past time for a crackdown. The government has my blessing.

Re:The law's the law

[sflory]

Isn't this the same Ashcroft who had some poor Canadian pulled off a plane. (Which was making a stop over in the US.) Deported him to Syria, and told them he's a terrorist. After about a year Syria deported him home, and said they were sure he wasn't.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/10/16/arar021016
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109153,00.htm l

Re:Only Extreme?

[The Unabageler]

I was employed by a pr0n company for 4 years, writing and maintaining the members area software and the affiliate system software. so, surfing our members area was definately a large part of my job.

It's overrated.

Re:stupid dang "goody two shoes" USA pollies

[Vancorps]

I'd say America has matured but currently there is a big religious movement caused in no small part by 911 and then the problem kept growing from there at the convervative movement gains more and more momentum. This is against the common morals of I dare say most of America. Look at TV over the last say seven years, the stuff that is allowed on broadcast TV has greatly changed, of course, now there is always someone that attempts to go a little further than a group of people are willing to go and you end up with this taking steps backwards that you see cause of the Janet Jackson incident which is considered stupid by a good portion of this population.

Maybe I give America too much credit but I think its come a long ways since the times when you couldn't even say pregnant on TV.

Ashcroft needs to wake up that's for sure, I'm not sure that guy knows what country he lives in. Everytime I look at him and look at his policies I think Nazi Germany, the guy scares me more and more because Bush keeps fucking giving him more power, way more power than the attorney general was ever supposed to have.

I hope this will be a very active election year, last election all of America made the mistake of being apathetic, who'd have thought things would turn this drastic since the two candidates in the last election were more or less the same. America did not elect someone to change things and Bush has sure done a great job of forgetting that.

Anywho, porn employs a good chunk of us IT people, I'd like Ashcroft to please leave it alone.

Don't you know?

[daniel_yokomiso]

It happened a few years ago: Yahoo Erotica Editor Fired for Excessive Programming.

Re:stupid dang "goody two shoes" USA pollies

[cavemanf16]

Please for the love of America can we stop stating Ashcroft == Bush == elected?! No, I voted for Bush who I felt would do a much better job with international military matters as well as give us a tax cut. He gave us a tax cut, and has handled international matters quite well considering the situations he's had to deal with (in my book, feel free to disagree). I DID NOT VOTE FOR ASHCROFT and never will!

Most people would probably lump me in the category of "conservative Christian", but Ashcroft is waaaaayyy far right of where I'm at. In fact he's bordering on (if not outright) fanatical. Yes, there are certain freedoms granted to every American by the Constitution that Ashcroft continues to trample horribly. I may be repulsed and disgusted by what some of you choose to do in your spare time, or even get paid to do, but according to the governmental regulations provided by the Constitution, you're not doing anything legally wrong! So I agree, Ashcroft is about the crappiest Attorney General ever, but please stop whining about how the "conservatives" elected him. Please? I elected Bush, but I'd never vote for Ashcroft, even if it meant abstaining from a vote. Some of us "conservatives" hate his policies as well!