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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?"
U.S. Justice Department Prepares Assault on Pr0n
About damned time, too. The Long John Silvers giveaway was bad enough.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Let's hope so. Indian women are hot.
I hope they do a better job than the director of 'Anal Assault 5' .... Or do I?
I fail to see how this war will help gas prices at all? What's the point? :)
I for one welcome our new Indian porn actresses.
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
All mediums are used for porn almost as soon as they are made, and AFAIK none has every stopped being used. No laws are going to stop it.
then lets go after the easy targets.
It is amazing what an election year can cause with regard to a countries policies and priorities.
...they pry it from my glazed, sticky fingers!
They are going to say the pr0n you download isn't yours and that you can't make copies.
how I would get a job there. Everytime I try to browse pRon at work from 9-5 my boss gets quite annoyed and threatens to end my contract. This guy is getting PAID to do it??!! And he is ALLOWED to??!!
"Department officials say they will send 'ripples' through an industry"
Perhaps they mean "jiggles"?
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To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
You'd think with it's war against religious fundamentalists in other countries (and one in which the Bush administration was touting that one of the reasons for attacking these countries is the lack of freedom the countries allow their citizens), that the U.S. would eliminate it's own Taliban killjoys. Nope. Instead these strict politicians get elected to office. My opinion is that people are just about the same no matter where in the world you go.. whether it's Afghanistan or the U.S.. the only difference is the magnitude of how corrupt the power hungry people have become.
This is of course being spear-headed by John Ashcroft, a very conservative christian. The very same John Ashcroft who spent $8000 of taxpayer money to cover up the bare breast of the statue of Lady Justice.
He once gave a speech at Bob Jones university, that contained such amazing lines as "Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus."
If he's offended by the bare breast of a statue, just imagine what he thinks of porn. That this man holds public office frightens me very, very much.
This from a man who is *so offended* by the statue of Justice in the Supreme Court building, he ordered it covered up.
Talk about a right-wing freako nutcase. This is our government, folks. Get used to 4 more years when Bush steals the election again in November.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
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).
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.
Physicists get Hadrons!
"Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography"
/. crowd. It's just as well it cold in there...
Hmm...sounds like a day in the life of the
You break all the laws of physics and you seriously think there wouldn't be a price?
Asscroft wasn't elected. He was appointed.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I mean, seriously, of all the things they could have picked........if there's anything us Americans like more than our booze and weed its porn and sex. Is Ashcroft BEGGING to have a lynch mob show up at his front door?
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Who's Pr0n? Is he the dictator of some oil-rich middle eastern country... :)
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Browsing at +5 -- check.
+3 bonus to funny -- check.
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Let the comments roll in!
No, really.
The only possible conclusion I can draw from this is "I don't partake, therefore it's bad and no one else should be able to, either". I guess this is the same line of thinking that still has people up in arms against homosexuality. "They're doing something I wouldn't do! Let's get 'em!".
Ashcroft, a religious man who does not drink alcohol or caffeine, smoke, gamble or dance
Great, so we better shut down Nevada, kill all breweries, tobacco companies, coffee importation, and *gasp* Rock and/or Roll while we're at it!
They're going to try to go after a multi-billion dollar industry because its material "is obscene by community standards". Um, just who exactly do these people think are paying these billions? Hate to break it to you, folks, but Mr. and Mrs. Joe American. Consentual pornography is, by definition, acceptable by community standards. There wouldn't be so much of it if it wasn't.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
...is that instead of turning the other cheek, so many of them are bound and determined to be assholes about content that they don't like, but other people do.
I think Martin Luther put it best when he pointed out that chastity was unrealistic and stupid to try to hold priests to.
Most groups don't seem to try to legislate morality on other folks. I don't agree with, say, ecoterrorism, but I don't think that radical environmentalist speech should be suppressed. But religious conservative types *do* try to mobilize and dictate what content people want to view (or at least make it more difficult and uncomfortable for them.)
May we never see th
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.
Apparently, if you're rich/famous (Janet Jackson) or a Warner or some large movie studio, you can get around the law by showing anything *but* the nipple on national TV. I have seen programs on "family" channels, which I couldn't watch with my family without a certain amount of awkwardness. And it's not just visuals...highly suggestive but just-under-the-legal-limit dialogs are okay too - if you are a large company.
I read in the article that they're planning to strike against some HBO programs too - and I hope they either go ALL the way, and get over their hypocrisy and sue everybody including their "pocket liners" in the industry OR even better, leave normal pr0n alone, and go after child-pr0n etc as is more logical/practical.
'turds.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Does anyone doubt our country is run by facists?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
"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."
First, where do I sign up, and second, I sure as hell hope there are at least cubicle dividers between these "computer forensic specialists".
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While obscenity is a Federal crime, the standards applied are "community standards".. So right-wing nutheads from will be determining what's "obscene" in San Fransisco. Presumably, pictures of gay couples getting "married" would be found obscene...
And you've got to love this:
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.
NOOOOOOoooooooooooo!!!! Think of the Children! They'll grow up to be all, all.. European-like!!
Can't have that happening!
Can't the FCC step in and prohibit the use of the words fuck, shit, piss, cunt, motherfucker, cocksucker and tits? (New CHEESE tits!)
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
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.
It's interesting that the government looks for market-based solutions to behavior that actually kills people like dumping mercury into the air, serving arsenic-laden water to towns, or creating vehicular death-traps but when you offend their puritan sensibilities they go for the jugular--even when the market clearly says that a HUGE chunk of the electorate is all for a little obscenity.
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." I hate it when I sit down for a nice family dinner and we get interrupted by a call from those pesky phone sex companies. Worse still are the unsolicited porno mags that I get in the mail daily. And there's nothing more annoying than coming home at night and finding a porno tape that somehow materialized in my VCR. Kudos to you John Ashcroft, you truly are a politician for the people.
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I posted a good article about how the Xbox2 won't be using ATI or Nvidia, and it was shot down. But this article makes it?
I should have posted how Xbox 2 was going to stream P0rn on the net, I guess.
It's really wonderful that we're able to focus on naughty pictures and movies that American citizens legally buy. Obviously all the terrorists, murderers, rapists, Enron execs, and thieving digital pirates are safely behind bars, otherwise we couldn't spare the manpower.
Wait... what?
Yeah, the violence is nothing to worry about right -- people getting beaten to a pulp (Fight Club), shot through the head, mutilated, etc. -- what damage could that cause to society?
On the other hand, people engaged in various consentual sexual acts, there's nothing dangerous or immoral about this! I'm not saying that violence should be banned either, just that it's bizarre to censor sex and still allow showing people getting their brains blown out.
Blowing the shit out of civilians in foreign lands, taking stewardship of their natural resources, selling them land mines, protecting the opium crops of our allies, looking the other way as our allies sell nuclear weapons technology on the black market, channelling hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to the "defense" industry, making sure Joe SixPack is armed to the teeth back home, destroying our own natural resources, canceling Constitutional rights as necessary, etc. etc.? Good. A God-given duty, in fact.
Wake up, folks. The only thing the religious fanatics that have leached into our government do not insist upon is the use of burkas by American women. OK, they also allow them to be on the same floor in public buildings.
But John A vs the porn industry; John A doesn't have a chance.
Porn like weeds has its roots deep and will surface and thrive in any scrap of dirt, through the tiniest of cracks.
So I say let Johhny Boy fight his porn war, maybe that'll distract him from doing some real damage.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Terrorism, war, hunger, poverty, homelessness, child abuse, disease, et al. We should be dealing with those issues first. Leave consenting adults alone. But should be be surprised that this administration is wasting tax payers money on this?
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
I pay my taxes, and make payroll on time.
I comply with the law, while still standing up for my first ammendment rights.
I do my best to screen our tallent to make sure that they can handle doing this type of work. Sometimes when it looks like they don't really want to do this type of work, but they're just down on their luck, I'll buy them dinner and help them consider other options.
I even use 100 percent recycled 2 ply Facial Tissues (The brand is seventh generation, btw) when... testing... the product.
In my morning review of all the sources that I get my news from, I continue to watch the Bush administration and their wacko and corrup cronies continue to wage murder under the guise of war to line their own pockets, while continuing to push these insane and unrepresentative extreme right religious agendas, that were bought and paid for by the religious right.
After that, I go through the considerable frustration of trying to forge business partnerships with other business such as banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, etc, etc, to be able to function in the business world. All the while being discriminated against because the widgets I happen to sell have some naked bits.
I choose between people who often have little interest in supporting my business, but would love to freely copy my work, and the people who want to throw everyone in prison for copying anything, and at the same time throw me in prison for making it.
However I don't let either group of assholes get to me. Instead, I remember that there are more people out there who will choose to support what I'm doing in order to see that I keep doing it.
I don't spam. I don't film anyone who is a minor. I work as hard as the next guy, trying to make the economy recover.
However, until I get arrested, just for exercising my first ammendment right to speech, the speech that I'll be making will be against Bush, Cheyney and Ashcroft.
Why go through all this? Why not just go back to being a database programmer working in a cube somewhere? Because I love what I do. I've built my own company from the ground up, and kept it going. The fundamentalists aren't the only people who believe in what they're doing. They're also not the only people who will stick up for their way of life.
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Here in Los Angeles county where unemployment is higher then the national average, it's estimated that Pr0n accounts for over 100,000 jobs. Great idea Johnny Asscroft! Get RID of jobs during a recession!!
You take away a person's porn they will not vote for you!!! Mark my words :)
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
This is what bugs me so much about these ultra-conservatives. I may or may not feel that porn is wrong, but I don't want them deciding it on my behalf!
I guess they have nothing better to do... no terrorists left to hunt for, so they're going after "immoral" people. *sigh*
I personally feel that some kinds of porn ARE wrong.
Consider child porn. Some people say that children are capable of understanding sex. Some say they are not. Either way, the risk of psychological damage is great enough that that we should play it safe. (Actually, I think child porn is a horrible violation of a child's rights, but the "play it safe, because you can't be sure" approach is easier for some people to buy.)
But when you have consenting adults engaging in acts that are intended to be viewed only by consenting adults, who is being hurt?
Here, the "play it safe" argument lands on the side of choice. Children aren't born with much knowlege, so they are to be guided and protected so that when they grow up, they can make informed choices. Until they DO grow up, their rights are restricted. But once they have reached a certain age, the responsibilities for their actions moves from their mentors to themselves, and with that responsibility also comes many freedoms.
So, to play it safe with children, we shield. To play it safe with adults, we allow them to choose. This seems very reasonable to me.
So, while I may feel grossed out by seeing a scat video, I don't feel the need to restrict other informed adults from having a different reaction.
Now, you may ask, is it HEALTHY for people to be watching these sorts of things? Violence can teach violence, and playing with feces is linked to certain mental disorders. Could certain kinds of porn make viewers mentally unhealthy?
Possibly. But consider the FDA and the Surgeon General. The FDA has laws which protect consumers from unknowningly buying foods which contain harmful chemicals, etc. Science has been used to prove that certain chemicals and microbes are harmful. Similarly, tobacco and alcohol containers sport labels which warn of their potentially harmful effects. But once again, science (and many DUI deaths) have proven that people need to be warned about these things.
But (a) Science has not shown any compelling evidence that porn is bad for your health, and (b) you are still allowed to buy alcohol and tobacco.
So, if the government wants to put a warning label on porn that says "we're not absolutely sure, but watching this could possibly harm your mind", then I'm all for it!
But that is the extent to which they should interfere. Oh, and I am definately in support of prosecuting child pornographers.
The sound you just heard was Larry Flynt dropping a bucket of money in John Kerry's lap... right next to the dancer.
I wonder what kind of dirt Flynt might have on DoJ people. He outed one congressman during the Clinton impeachment. I can only dream that he has something on Ashcroft. But, that might be asking a bit much.
"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. :-)
Yeah, but the problem seems to be that he thinks he was _annointed_.
In my community it's offensive for extremely hot women to wear clothes. It offends God, whom created such beauty to be observed.
I need to find some hotties to sue.
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..."
Huh?
I don't know about you, but porn doesn't send me mail, call me, pop in my VCR (even if I had one), or switch my (can't-purchase-individual-channels-yet) cable tv channels to make me watch it. If he wants to pick a fight with malware that pushes porn into the machines of people whose only crime was to be stupid enough to use ms-outlook that's fine, but somebody needs to explain to him the difference between push and pull technologies (insert sexual pun here).
Well, that's the thing. When the Bushies first came into office, Porn was at the top of their list. Then 9/11 happened and Ashcroft was distracted by the opportunity to stomp all over people's Civil Liberties with the support of Congress.
So now he's just going back to his original plan.
Amusingly, he got the job after losing a Senate race to a dead man (Mel Carnahan). No joke!
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
Most interesting seems to be the suggestion that the 1970's ruling, which required the application of community standards of decency, must consider the community into which the product was introduced. Here we see a product released over the internet. The producers say this is subject to the [average] standards of the community of the whole internet and not just the town where the order was sent. Of course these internet standards will be different than those of the folks in Pittsburgh. But this raises even more questions...
If a purvey of putrid porn is prosecuted under state law, but the standard of decency is that of the internet as a whole, do we expect a jury of local folks to be able to set aside their personal feelings and understand that the rest of the world feels differently? Or must we find a way to draw a jury from the whole of the internet? Certainly states cannot compell jurors from other jurisdictions... the problem goes on.
In the end, I suspect we'll endure the total federalisation of yet another aspect of the law.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
ashcroft is the goatse man. scary but true.
sulli
RTFJ.
I guess now I have to get a girlfriend. Damn ASHCROFT!!! Damn those REPUBLICANS!!! VICTIMS they say!? Yeah, only if they count the occasional cramping I get in my hands. I want Clinton back damnit!!! Then, I can be a pervert in peace and not feel shameful about it.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
... I actually read the article.
The investigation team seams to after some very extreme stuff.
Anyhow I find it curious that they mentioned something like near-european like tolerance of pornography. What's that supposed to mean?
Yes, believe it or not, you can see naked women on billboards advertising skin lotion. You can see naked women (and/or men) on magazines. Open them up and you see: Guess what? Naked women and/or men. Just that. No extreme posing, no sick and somewhat unaestetic pussy tearing or any of that kind of stuff.
As prudish as a large portion of US citizens may be, the most extreme (and sick) porn I've ever seen comes from the US. I strongly suspect there's a link there somewhere.
I met an american once who noticed the same. He said like 'Yeah, here in germany you keep turning your head for those magazines laid out right next to the newspaper and you're all mixed why no one's irritated. But when you look inside it's cuddly inocent naked girls, much softer porn than what you see in the american editions.' Right on.
I'd say it may be time for you across the pond to lighten up a little, no? Ok, so some people say the US may be founded by all the crazy religious fanatics that got chucked out of europe a few centuries ago, but aren't things changing for the better over there? Or are they getting whorse?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
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.
There is an interesting problem in ethics that arises from the pornography debate (and some other debates also.)
Assume for the sake of the argument that it is proven that use some kind of pornography leads people to behave in ways that damage others. (E.g. by watching violent pornography, men become more likely to commit rape.) Furthermore, assume that there is no damage involved in the production of the material (E.g. they are filming simulated rapes, not real ones.)
Is this grounds for banning that type of pornography?
The Utilitarian argument: Availability of this material provides entertainment, which is good. It leads to more rapes which is bad. The badness of the rapes very heavily outweighs the goodness of the entertainment, so overall we are much better off to ban the pornography.
The Libertarian argument: Everyone is responsible for their own actions. If a man commits rape, he is 100% responsible for having done so, whether or not he has watched violent porn. It is unjust to prevent one person from choosing to use this porn because its availability might lead some other person to choose to commit a crime.
(I personally would argue for a middle ground between these extremes, but here I'm more interested in presenting the issues than in arguing for a particular resolution.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
See. This is what happens when your whole family walks in your room and catches you jacking off with a porno mag when your a teenager. You get emotionally scarred for life and grow up to be a pornophobic Attorney General.
So let me get this straight, John Ashcroft, whos never even seen a woman penetrating herself with the local prize winning giant cucumber, wants to tie up who knows how many police, fbi agents and judges pursuing a massive 'war' on pornography so that thousends of people can join prisioners from the 'war on drugs' and the 'war on terrorism'? Actually this is a great idea, now the police that would otherwise be busting 12 year-olds for downloading music will be doing something else and im sure the porn industry outside america will be delighted with the news! btw europe is laughing at you guys, you cant even swear on tv!!? you cant even show 1 nipple?!?! land of freedom? dont make me piss myself!
:(
er 50 quid says blair or the eu will follow with their own draconian war on porn within 6 months
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I remember a recent article on the BBC web site that covered the topic of American sensitivity to sex etc compared to other countries. I can't find the link right now but it was an interesting third party insight. /. I have been given more reasons to be proud to be a Canadian than I have had in my whole life. We are not flag wavers or Anthem singers, but damn, we sure use our heads when it comes to sensibility.
I really don't know what to say about this. It appears to me, IMHO, things will not get better or freer(sp) in the United States until the bible thumping nut jobs y'all vote in, or let steal elections, are put safely back into the padded rooms from whence they came.
Over the last few weeks here on
I am not nocking the United States, where would the world be without you guys? Oh yeh.... nevermind...
Feed my eyes...
Ashcroft is going take the tax payer's money and try to assault the First in court again, which the U.S. justice system will let him do over and over again for ever. In countries where these things are handled by laws that are set down in books, he wouldn't even get to court until the legislative changed the law itself -- and fat chance lawmakers would be caught debating pornography at a time when U.S. combat deaths in Iraq are climbing to at least a dozen a day. The War against Terrorism can't be too pressing if Ashcroft can take time off to push his puritan agenda.
The whole SCO-farce has shown how bad the U.S. legal system is for companies and customers -- IBM and RedHat will still be in court years after German judges bitch-slapped SCO so loud it resonated all the way back to Utah. Ashcroft is demonstrating why the current U.S. system cannot protect the individual's rights adequately. Not that this could surprise anybody after parts of Cuba were turned into Bush's private holding pens, to the horror of the rest of the civilized world but with the go-ahead of U.S. courts...
Time to admit that the system is beyond fixing, time to admit that case-based law needs to be dumped where all those other countries have already put it: On the scrap heap. Other countries don't have to go through this kind of crap, and there is no reason we should have to, either.
The 'Puritan conspiracy' theory (us vs. them) is less useful here than the 'Alcohol analogy', IMHO. Alcohol can be consumed legally in moderation, but extreme use needs to be policed precisely becuase it is an addictive substance: it interferes with the end user's ability to self-regulate its use.
In the case of pr0n, people get addicted to the 'hyperreal' (ie. exageratedly artificial) presentation of sex, and it undermines their relationships with others (who can become permanently objectified), their self-esteem, and their bank balance. (Wo, nearly thought I mistyped 'bonk balance' for a minute there... but if their capacity for relationships suffers, then that's a point as well.)
For these kind of reasons, bars in the western world are not legally allowed to sell alcohol to someone who is drunk. When will the pr0n conglomerates take similar reponsibility for their 'customers' (if they wish to use the term with any credibility at all)?
If your job was to surf for extreme porn all day, is it still considered slacking if your boss catches you browsing softcore?
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.
Time to call Childrens Services, Nyuyen surfs porn all day, he must be an unfit parent. Take his child away.
The knife cuts both ways, go after the puppets in government with the same tactics. This is why you triple check your IRS reportings, and make sure that girl you making home sex tapes is over 18.
The right wing controlled Government will go after you with all its powers, and any little law can be used against you. Fight back with the legal system, they will use it against you. (A man sued a judge in montana, the judge classified him as a terrorist.) (A gay couple has to fight all the way to the supreme court to fight for their right to be gay. You can thank Texas.)
The legal system is neither just nor fair. The hardcore religious faction is on par with the Taliban, they just use the courts instead of violence. The voilence comes after you loose in court, while you are being handcuffed and thrown in a cell.
So remember folks, BUSH is pulling the FBI off terrorism to fight PORN. PORN didnt bomb the trade towers on 911.
Bush wants everyone to have broadband. The DoJ wants to rid the internet of porn. I don't think the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. (no pun intended - well, ok, it is)
Most of slashdot probably already downloads warez and music. Porn would just add another offense to most peoples list. Just imagine if you got the repeat offender penalty though. Life for jerkin your girkin.. Good thing I'm in Canada or I'd be screwed.
Moo!
I heard over the weekend that 70% of American men age 18-34 visit a porn site at least once a month (and I'm guessing the other 30% just don't admit it), so this might be an uphill battle.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Dude, you need to start making campaign contributions. Seriously, they are only going after your industry because they think there won't be repercussions to their bottom-line. Buy a congressman or two, they are surprisingly affordable.
PS, this is not a joke. Freedom is not free, you gotta pay your toll if you want to keep it.
This article provokes a knee-jerk reaction against John Ashcroft, but the man has been quite fair in his carrying out of the laws of the United States, regardless of his personal beliefs. If you don't like anti-porn laws, fine. But then please work on your congressmen to deal with Title 8, Part I, Chapter 71 of the U.S. Code, at a minimum.
Much of the porn for sale in the United States is being sold solely because law enforcement has looked the other way. Nonetheless, the sale of the stuff routinely violates national, state, and local laws. You can't blame the attorney general when he devotes resources to battling clear violations.
Personally, if porn is the mark of an enlightened Western society, I'll take a little less enlightenment.
It is a sad but inescapable fact of modern America that most of the populace has left the defense of basic first Amendment values to commercial pornographers. I'm glad to hear this guy's voice, but it is disappointing that we aren't hearing many more such voices among Americans who don't make pornography for a living.
Thanks. Comments like that one help me to feel like I'm not alone. I always tell people that you want your first amendment fights to be in the "fringe" areas like porn... Because when it's in the places where all the "normal good decent" people live, you've got a serious problem, and the games probably already over.
HaXXXor.com - Naked Chicks Teach You How To Ha
This isn't a crusade against porn. This is that scumbag Bush and his scumbag friends bitchslapping a $10 billion industry for not contributing to the kickback fund.
It's obvious that the current administration is in it for as much money as they can get away with stealing. The porn industry would probably do better coughing up a few mil in 'contributions' than it would legal fees incurred fighting the good fight.
Charge a 15 year old girl for sending nudie pictures of herself to people she met in chatrooms.
Yeah, jack, once Ashcroft gets all the fetishists, he's a-gonna sit right back and say "missionary position porno is a-ok by me! Whack off to that till it hurts!"
Sure he will.
"Divide and conquer"? Who dem two -- never hear of dem!
At this point it's traditional to quote Revered Niemoller's
What's less well-known is that Niemoller didn't speak out because until 1934, Niemoller was a fan of Hitler, and indeed, Niemoller's fame came from favorable Nazi reviews of his autobiography --and the Nazis gave him favorable reviews because Niemoller, in an afterword to the book, expressed hope that Hitler would bring about a "National Revival".
It was only when Hitler surprised Niemoller by essentially abolishing Christianity (by trying to absorb all German Churches into one, more or less pagan, "Reich Church"), that Niemoller decided it was time to speak up.
Like you, Niemoller thought Hitler would only go after the extremists -- for you, that's the fetishists, for Niemoller, a good conservative nationalist, it was pretty much as he states, Communists, Socialist, and Trade Unionists -- and would leave more "normal" stuff -- in your cases, plain vanilla porn, in Niemoller's plain vanilla Lutheranism -- alone.
The thing is, totalitarianism require control, and especially moral control. That's why totalitarians either abolish religion and substitute sonething else -- a "Reich Church", in Hitler's case, official state atheism in Stalin's -- or they impose their religion and morality on you -- like the ayatollahs in Iran or John Ashcroft here in the U.S. Without that control, totalitarianism is on shaky ground, because until it is ceded all moral authority, people might believe they can still think for themselves, and question authority.
Ashcroft's crackdown is just another way to cement control -- in this cases control over what we do in the privacy of homes, and control over our definition of "obscenity."
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
when are these morons going to wake up and realise.. hey, its just a body, in its natural form, doing what its supposed to do, or what it enjoys doing. Oh hang on, their religion is built on crap like "sex is evil, sex is a sin" to keep everyone but the REAL wierdos sinning. Now Im not advocating child pornography, nor anything in which all involved parties have not consented to the action, but really, its 2004 for cripes sake, GET OVER IT ALREADY. if you werent all such prudes, you wouldnt mind explaing to your kids how sex works, without geting all embarrassed. I mean, it is HOW THEY WERE CREATED!!!!!. Note that this rant (and yes I realise it is a bit) is not aimed at all americans, or even the majority of americans(in fact the issue is world wide), just at those people who are too silly to realise a natural human act and desire when they see it. Unfortunately, these can screw it up for everyone else.
watch "the money masters" on google video
It's time to get tough. No wimpy ribbons this time. It's time for the Bukkake Ashcroft Campaign for Free Speech.
1. Download a picture of the Attorney General.
2. Make a color print of the picture.
3. Jerk off on the picture. Do not look at the picture while you jerk off. Well, you could, but I don't want to know about it. I suggest you close your eyes and think of Asia.
4. If the face of the man who wrote "Let the Eagle Soar" isn't liberally (heh) covered with spooge, GOTO 3.
5. Take a picture of your Bukkake Ashcroft. Do not, REPEAT, do not use a flatbed scanner.
6. Post this picture on your home page. Or use someone else's site if you're so inclined.
7. ?????
8. Free Speech!
I guarantee that if enough people do this, it'll have an effect that a million EFF ribbons couldn't hope to match.
Maj. Kong
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
I hear there's quite a few recently unemployed ex-Taliban who are highly skilled in the areas of repression, banning things and generally sticking their nose into other peoples business.
They should be perfect for the role.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
> Temporary injunctions also work well for business disruption.
That Bush administration, always looking for jobs.
How many people does the porn industry employ? From production to video stores in has to be a giant industry.
This is what you get when you mix politics and religion, people.
Lets restate that a little bit, it is the only way that is acceptable to you.
And who the fuck do you think you are to tell me what is acceptable to me?
If your only answer is your belief then just believe what you want and let others believe what they want.
Not doing so makes you equally close minded as Islamic fundamentalists (who incidentely will quite agree on this specific issue of sex and marriage)
Frontline did an excellent documentary called "American Porn", where it talked about how obscenity prosecutions were put back on the agenda when Ashcroft was confirmed. They had meetings with old US attorneys who did obscenity work in the 80s, and this was only put on hold because of terrorism concerns. (You can watch the entire episode online.)
Two of the most interesting points: one US attorney basically said that no prosecutor should ever lose an obscenity trial since there is (no matter what the Supreme Court tells you) a common decency standard in 99% of the US: penetration. The second interesting bit is that one of the porn industry's main attorneys came up with a list of things never to be filmed if the company distributing it wants to stay in business.
I think that the government's resources could be better spent elsewhere, and for the most part consider myself a libertarian, but after seeing some of the more extreme parts of the porn business covered in the documentary I think I would be hard-pressed to not call it obscenity.
This is truly a disturbing parellel.
This guy basically just looked at something that a LOT of people shell out their hard earned money for and said "I don't like it, let's crack down".
This guy is absolutely off his fucking rocker. I want to know what he bases this crackdown on? Has a large portion of the consenting adult population suddenly decided to go on a porn-free diet? Does he have persuasive documentation to show that a significant number of children are being adversely affected by pornography despite a reasonable effort from parents to monitor their children?
I don't know how many more people I speak for when I say this. But, Mr. Ashcroft. Get the fuck out of my life. If you don't have better things to do with your time than this, you don't have anything worthwhile to do with your time, and I'm tired of paying your salary.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
This will end up like the war on Alcohol (1920's) and the War on Drugs. Miserable failures that do nothing but give more power to organized crime. If they have a problem with porn then they should put a tax on it, Same with drugs. Ashcroft strikes me as the type that would make it illegal to copulate accept for the purpose of procreation.
Now really...
If you're in the prawn... er, pr0n industry and you are fearing outsourcing, I don't think you should be worried about India.
Regardless of whether you're an actor, a cameraperson, a producer, or a computer geek - you should be worried about Central and Eastern Europe.
This outsourcing wave has been underway for years already. On 01 May it's going to become a whole lot cheaper, as certain borders vanish into memory.
So please, before you take yet another jab at the Indians, have a look around the industry in question.
It's really shocking how often self-proclaimed "open-minded" (or even self-proclaimed "smart") people around here default to these borderline-racist positions.
This Like That - fun with words!
Actually when he first became junior senator, he litteraly had friends annoint him with oil, like the old kings of Isreal.
This guy is crazy, check it out
Moral conservatives constantly say that liberals want to make the US into somekind of utopian society yet IMO it's the conservatives that want to make the US into the "United States of Jesus" or some other claptrap.
I have a great idea: Leave people the fuck alone. So long as all parties are adults and consenting let them be. Pray, fuck or smoke a joint, I really don't give a shit, it's your life not mine. Whatever happened to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? Oh, I forgot, AG Ashcroft believes dancing is a sin (no shit, he really believes this) so porn must become illegal.
I can't believe how fucked up this country has become. BTW, the Democrats have done their share to fuck things up too. Term limits people, that's the only way we'll get ourselves out of this mess.
Over a dozen brave US Marines died today holding their position in Iraq and the DOJ has the balls to bring this crap up? We are truly FUBAR.
pherris quietly puts on a fire retardant suit and watches his karma head south.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
You're assuming that the consumers of pornography would otherwise be "normal" people if they weren't exposed to porn. The majority of people can look at porn without it becoming a problem. It is the minority who are affected, when "it undermines their relationships with others."
It's a big assumption to say that they are capable of having a normal relationship with others in the first place. Perhaps the reason they turn to porn is because they are, in fact, incapable. Porn is not the cause of problems, it is the effect.
And, similarly, taking it away doesn't fix those problems. In fact, if porn were made illegal, I think we'd see an increase in rapes and similar crimes -- from people who need other outlets for their sex drive.
Honestly, it's rather narrow-minded to believe that all people are "normal," and it's things like porn and drugs and alcohol that turn them into freaks. Of course the "normal" people can be content without porn and drugs and alcohol. They have good genes, they were raised right... They have what it takes to be happy, without needing vices to get them there.
Everybody else, though, needs certain things to help them through their struggles. If they need those things, then taking them away won't make their struggles any better, and would often make them worse.
So there's no benefit in going after porn. People who choose to view it do it for a reason. If they don't need porn to get them through life, fine. Nobody's forcing them to look at it. But if they do need it, then taking it away would be infringing upon their rights.
Remember: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. "
Conservatives *are* for free markets. Bush, Cheney and Asscroft aren't conservatives. They're right-wing radicals.. i.e. fascists.
I wish more people would realize this. I generally vote either independent or democrat, but I tend toward libertarianism (not the kind represented by the Libertarians, but that espoused by President Jefferson). I do not believe a completely unregulated free market is the right way; otherwise, we end up with corporations in control, as they wield all the power. (Kind of like we have now.)
Just wanted to clarify, so you know my biases.
But: those fuckers in control right now are *not* republicans in anything but party affiliation. I've known too many republicans, held intelligent and useful discourse with republicans, and generally agree with most of their viewpoints.
Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and the others in charge of our country do *not* practice republican ideals: small government, reduced spending, fiscal responsibility, and a respect for personal liberty and responsibility.
They are fascists, pure and simple.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Just visit www.prawnography.net if you don't believe me.
Filthy, absolutely filthy. How can the government allow people to publish this smut--and online, where anybody can access it! Please, won't somebody think of the children?
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
I really don't give a shit, it's your life not mine. Whatever happened to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?
Indeed... I think all this really illustrates how we've strayed from the founding principles of this country... as such, we're definitely on a fast track to being totally fucked.
pherris quietly puts on a fire retardant suit and watches his karma head south.
If you're modded down, it's truly a sign of how screwed up things are and how brainwashed the masses have become...
I know this has been said, but... what the hell?
A: This country was founded on the premise of the government not being allowed to control what we do in the privacy of our own homes.
B: Consenting adults!!! People who are offended by pr0n don't have to watch it.
C: Without pr0n, what are people going to wank to?
68.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
...and they elected a dead guy instead of re-electing Ashcroft.
Way to drive away those independant voters during an election year. Let me tell you something, you can outsource a man's job to the moon but never, EVER fuck with his porn.
if you werent all such prudes, you wouldnt mind explaing to your kids how sex works, without geting all embarrassed. I mean, it is HOW THEY WERE CREATED!!!!!.
To ad on top of your point of view, then its ok to show people get killed and beaten on tv but not making love.
Or let's talk about fear factor, I think its les degrading for a human being to make love live on tv than to eat cow turd just to entertain the masses.
Anyway I am certainly not advocating to ban any of those issues I am just saying that using the public money and resource on those matters is the most stupid thing that a government can do.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
PITTSBURGH (AP) ? A 15-year-old girl The girl, whose identity was withheld, was accused of sending out photographs of herself in various states of undress and performing a variety of sexual acts. She sent them to people she met in chat rooms on the Internet, police said.
. . .
She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.
Rest at the URL.
So if you're a 15 year old with a Webcam. . . Ashcroft says that it is not only illegal to send out nude photos of yourself, but it is even illegal to take and keep nude photos of yourself on your own hard drive.
If the DOJ is so well funded that they can fight terror and send little girls to jail at the same time, maybe it's time to start looking into cutting their budget. They obviously don't need it to protect Americans.
If Bush manages to get himself reelected after this kind of crap, time to look for a free country.
Tech Public Policy stuff
- Razor Magazine suddenly started coming to my home every month. I have a feeling it might have been because I subscribed to Men's Fitness a decade ago -- when it was about fitness and not about sexual technique (I canceled when they switched for that reason).
- Walking through a mall and Victoria's Secret has a 12-foot high photo of a completely nude woman in the window.
- Stores display unshrouded soft porn
- South Beach Diet banner ads
- Spam (which you noted as your sole exception)
- Women jogging down the street in training bras. Folks, the first bra on TV was the 1986 Playtex cross-your-heart bra commercial -- 10 to 20 years after the so-called sexual revolution. Immodesty accelerated through the 90's.
- Even at the office -- before 1990, sleeveless dresses were considered improper work attire. They used to be called "sundresses." Now stores don't even sell dresses with sleeves.
Your standards may be different than mine, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be able to choose whether or not to consume what was considered porn in 1980.He covered up the statue of Justice.
You can't get any more ironic, symbolic, or prophetic than that.
Actually this is exactly what they did. Once we told them we were going to fight it they pressed _more_ charges. We couldn't sell pipes because they would just bust down on us again, doubling the number of charges. The headshop went to shit quickly. Everyone was trying to run a business while not knowing if they would be spending decades in federal prison and after that being laden with untold amounts in fines.
After months of _getting to_ court and spending thousands on lawyers we caved. The DOJ and whatever Ashcroft wants it to do has an unlimited budget. We realized that it wasn't worth it. Most of us had deteriorating mental heath, some considering suicide. We took 2 years federal probation.
It really isn't funny. No one smoking pot. Some places can still sell wooden and clay pipes, everyone can sell rolling papers, and you can always buy and apple at a supermarket. Some have gotten better at rolling, some are putting their health in worse danger (depending on your view of MJ on the lungs) because they use tinfoil and pop-cans.
What really IS funny is many glassblowers started making glass dildos. No joke.
http://www.glassfantasy.com/
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
There are a lot of small businesses -- I hesitate to say "mom and pop outfits" tho you do see those occasionally ;) -- who will bear the brunt of Ashcroft's pathological desire for control. Larry Flynt can afford the lawyers, somehow I doubt that Wifey's World (just an example, no I didn't do any work for them) can ... and fucktarded bullies like Ashcroft always seem to go after the people who can't fight back.
Oh, and thank you for not spamming. Advertising responsibly is tough enough in any industry, but spammers just give pornographers a bad name.
As far as I'm concerned John Ashcroft is waging war on the American people. I don't see anything difference between him using the power of the state to attack pornography, and other regimes using the power of the state to attack political dissidents. Porn is harmless. I don't particularly like it myself, at least not the crude garbage that accounts for 95% of it. But even though I don't like it doesn't mean I don't appreciate its value as a tool for creating a healthier society. Porn serves a very important purpose, and that is to make sex and sexuality something that is seen as ordinary and commonplace. When talking about sex is as uneventful as talking about the weather then society will be a lot better off. As it stands right now there are still an awful lot of neurotic people out there. Talk about sex and they get all twittery. Some even become angry or embarassed. Why? Because they've been conned into thinking of sex as something bad, or something to worry about. That is not just stupid, its sick. For many people like that there just isn't anything that can be done, except wait for them to die that is. Luckily people aren't born that way. Instead they are psychologically conditioned to have those thoughts and feelings. This conditioning is little more than mass brainwashing. Its end result is a person who has fixed ideas and emotional responses that don't change, even if he or she has experiences that would warrant that they change. They are impaired from thinking, impaired from forming their own conclusions, and impaired from changing their minds when the facts dictate that they should. They feel bad and anxious about sex because they were made to feel that way about it. This brainwashing depends upon lies. And not just lies, but lies told within an environment where the truth is hidden and questions and curiosity are strongly discouraged. This is what has commonly been called sexual repression and it is a form of mental and emotional torture. Porn undermines it, and if for no other reason than that it is a positive influence. Not because porn shows sex accurately or truly, but because it prevents sex from being made into a secret shame. I hate to say this because I'll sound Alec Baldwin, but if Ashcroft's crap is allowed to fly, I do belive I may leave the country.
This country is going to shit in a hurry in general . The american people are stuck between neo-bolshevik nimrods on the left, and puritanical pinheads on the right. How are we supposed to elect a wise and prudent government when this what we have to build it with?
Ashcroft has, in one fell swoop, angered and incensed me more than just about any of the crap I've seen come from the left over the past decade. You have to go all the way back to the 60's to find something that the left has done to top this nonsense.
Any SOB who will put a man like Ashcroft in power and give him free reign to persecute the American people sure as hell isn't going to get my vote.
I'm at a loss for words. I think my beer money's going to be going to the EFF and the ACLU this year.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
It happened a few years ago: Yahoo Erotica Editor Fired for Excessive Programming.
Disclaimer: If I disagree with you I'm probably trolling...
I make porn. That's what I do. I work a 50 to 60 hour week.
I checked out your site.
There was something missing, though.
I didn't see any big banner ad reading: "Attorney General Ashcroft wants to make it illegal for you to visit this site. Vote John Kerry for President."
Now, I understand that you might be reluctant to put up such a banner, since it's pretty well documneted that Ashcroft targets those, like pornographer Rob Zicari and bong seller Tommy Ching, who he thinks are "defying" him.
But presumably you have some contacts with other porn site owners. If you all put up the banner at the same time, even Ashcroft can't single out every one of you.
You must do what, of all people, Howard Stern is doing: you have to take the fight to your customers, make them aware of what's going on, make them realize that the fight is for their rights too.
In the short term it will scare away some customers, and lose you some business.
But better a short term slump than being shut down and sent to prison.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
I personally am not worried about actions against porn. If it were gone, I wouldn't really care. IMO ideas, ideals, thoughts, beliefs, inspirations, etc... must not be censored whether I believe them or not. Artwork - images to evoke a reaction (wherever that reaction may be) is up to society as a whole to compromise on what is an acceptable standard. Images that promote excitement about abuse of rights or innocence (child porn, bestiality, rape, torture) need to be destroyed and their producers disabled from ever creating it again.
The huge pro-porn posts on here are incredibly defensive. I'm happlily married with a bunch of kids and don't have any obsession with porn that needs to be defended.
Porn to me is a small piece of reality torn out of context. Refined beyond benefit. It is like drugs, refined sugars, white flour. People try it and say "I like it. And it didn't kill me. Everyone is full of crap when they said this is bad for me."
Those that keep that attitude and show no restraint end up OD'd, too fat to get through the bedroom door or dying of a myriad of complications and diseases. They also often greive everyone that cares about them.
Sex is a perfectly good thing and so is the human body. I teach my kids that. I don't have any problem with real art that portrays the form of the body for what it is. I don't have any problem with my kids seeing the naked indian tribes on National Geo channel. I don't have a problem with my wife nursing in public. I don't have a problem with "lady justice" statues.
I do have a problem with the sex based purpose of dating in movies and tv, sex in commercials, and in general, the huge obsession that our society puts on sex. It is ONLY a good part of a full life.
People who sit in at a computer for hours (days, months, decades) at a time browsing porn really need to get out and meet real people, contribute to society and get involved. There is alot more out there. Every relationship that I have ever seen that lasted was based on a broad spectrum of things that sex was only a part.
Many relationships that I have seen fail ended with "he/she cheated on me", "the sex was great but there was nothing else", "we just weren't in love anymore".
The whole obsession with romance and sex is crap. marriages last longer in countries where they are arranged. They understand choosing to love instead of "falling" in love.
When my kids are forming their ideas about relationships, I don't want them pushed into a fictional, fractional view of what will be. I don't want them to think that porn is what life is about.
I also don't want them living in the kind of world that I see now where the 6 year old kid down the street gets mollested by the neighbor kid because the neighbor kid saw something "really cool" that his father had videos of.
This is my view. Flame away.
Without any God, there is no right or wrong.
Okay, say I admit I believe in God. And He is Eros.
Clearly, without a doubt, the pornographers are "right". The DOJ is "wrong". Ashcroft has condemned himself to an eternal life without any happiness. In fact, he's already started. ("Ashcroft, a religious man who does not drink alcohol or caffeine, smoke, gamble or dance ...") Maybe he has already crossed over.
Do you mean to tell me I am "wrong" about God? How can that be? You said God defines "right" and "wrong". If your view of "right" and "wrong" does not match "mine", then obviously you are the one mistaken about God!
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
I did some heavy-duty searching, and I was able to find several similar speeches from a variety of high-ranking government officials who feel the same way as Ashcroft. I was going to provide some links, until I watched a few and realized that most of the /. crowd would complain about the quality, given they were rips of talkie reels from the 30's, and even fewer would be able to understand them, given that they were subtitled in German.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I am supposing that the consequence of this realisation you seemed to muse on the possibility of there being a God, but expressed the belief that which view of Him is accurate cannot be known, so it is better that we do not worry and apply our own rationale.
To answer this question - yes, I believe the reason that you, atheists, and members of other religions can determine somewhat accurately right from wrong is because there is a God. And I find a deeper understanding of this innate knowledge from the Christian God, who through His prophet Moses said:
"Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die"..."Behold the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil.". This was the legendary forbidden fruit.
Now your question is a worthwhile one. The argument of morality I used has a formal name - the axiological argument. Once you accept this argument and realise there must be a God, then the question of what He is like, and what He requires (if anything) is an important one. Probably too much detail to go into here. For now I will just offer a suggestion: it has been said by others wiser than me that Christianity is the best place to start. It is simultaneously the most likely to be true, and the easiest to disprove if not true. Unlike most other religions, Christianity opens itself up to be tested and attack by it's skeptics - because we believe our religion is rational. We believe our God is rational, and for that reason He made us rational beings. The world makes sense, and our religion should not have internal contradictions, or even historical ones. This is a summary of my view anyway. Not all Christians share it, as some have lost the belief that Christianity is rational, but believe it anyway.
The other question is, why should you try to find out which religion is true? Consider it this way - if we were created, then we must have been created for a purpose. If we know the difference between good and evil, we know that we ought to do good, and ought not to do evil. We can also conclude that the Creator is good and not evil. It is also a fact that despite our knowledge, we disagree on some points of what is good and what is evil. Therefore, humans, being evil, have corrupted their view of what is good and evil. There is still a shadow of our ability to understand, but not perfectly. Therefore, our Creator being good would be the ultimate standard for knowing:
a. Our purpose in life and meaning
b. What is required of our lives, what is good and what is evil
After all, if there is an intelligent Creator who is wiser than any other man in history, wouldn't you want to know Him? Or at least, wouldn't you want to know if He wants you to know Him? Or any of the other thousands of questions that spring to life over the meaning of our lives.