Porn - The DOJ's highest priority ???

[sarettah]

Huh ??


http://www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=11440


DOJ Coming After Porn


to detriment of other high priority issues

WWW- When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month [pictured], they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it's obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

Acosta's stated goal of prosecuting distributors of adult porn has angered federal and local law enforcement officials, as well as prosecutors in his own office. They say there are far more important issues in a high-crime area like South Florida, which is an international hub at risk for terrorism, money laundering and other dangerous activities.

His own prosecutors have warned Acosta that prioritizing adult porn would reduce resources for prosecuting other crimes, including porn involving children. According to high-level sources who did not want to be identified, Acosta has assigned prosecutors porn cases over their objections.

Acosta, who told the Daily Business Review last month that prosecuting obscenity was a priority for Gonzales, did not return calls for comment.

"Compared to terrorism, public corruption and narcotics, [pornography] is no worse than dropping gum on the sidewalk," said Stephen Bronis, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder in Miami and chair of the white-collar crime division of the American Bar Association. "With so many other problems in this area, this is absolutely ridiculous."

But not everyone agrees. With the rapid growth of Internet pornography, stamping out obscene material has become a major concern for the Bush administration's powerful Christian conservative supporters. The Mississippi-based American Family Association and other Christian conservative groups have pressured the Justice Department to take action against pornography. The family association has sent weekly letters to U.S. attorneys around the country to pressure them to pursue the makers and distributors of pornography.

...........................................

Sources say Acosta was told by the FBI officials during last month's meeting that obscenity prosecution would have to be handled by the crimes against children unit. But that unit is already overworked and would have to take agents off cases of child endangerment to work on adult porn cases. Acosta replied that this was Attorney General Gonzales' mandate.

Acosta's meetings with other law enforcement agencies also were not particularly fruitful, sources said.

...................

But not Sharp of the Family Association. He said any prosecutors who object to prosecuting obscenity don't understand the law. "Most attorneys have been led to believe that what is illegal is not illegal in terms of obscenity," Sharp said. "They have a misconception of what should be prosecuted. They think because it's consenting adults, it's not illegal."

Sharp said the initiative is necessary because local law enforcement and city attorneys get "crushed" by high-powered lawyers hired by adult book stores or video stores when there are efforts to shut those establishments down.

....................


But should porn be a priority in a place like Miami, where serious crime is rampant? "It's all part of the same thing, of the organized crime syndicate," Sharp said. "It has an effect on children."



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As always, it's for the children

[Nickatilynx]

I'm glad.

I think porn is disgusting

[JR]

my prediction is that this whole issue of fighting porn will backfire politically. its not a real fight that can be justified in any way - i.e. child porn has nothing to do with the adult business. there are constitutional issues. 2257 is being torn apart in court and i think the vast majority of americans will agree that the little issues like terrorism and not seeing their kids blown up while sitting in their second grade classroom is slightly higher on the list of "threats" than whether or not an established company may or may not have a complete list of URL's where they placed an image of a consenting, naked 85 year old woman, and prosecuting them for that under the guise of fighting CP.

i can be wrong... but it has occured to me recently, that the timing could not be any better.... all while we have high gas prices, bushs popularity plummeting, iraq, iran, floundering economy, lousianna and mississippi completely destroyed etc etc etc.

the best time to launch a crusade against porn would be when everything is going great for Bush... not when there are so many lingering issues and more important problems. i think this is an issue that is going to be increasingly used against bush and the religious right.

the only way the timing could be better for the adult business is if it came right after the first strike of a nuclear war.

[Rolo]

Agreed that their priorities are fucked, and it will backfire - however I´m sure that will not stop them from trying again with other schemes. Part of their strategy is to make it unattractive to be in the adult industry, so we can expect harassment on several levels, and in sectors working close with the adult industry (targeting the supply chain).