WASHINGTON, DC – In comments delivered to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Wednesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez delineated the Department of Justice’s “six major priorities for the coming year.” Among the half-dozen areas of concern Gonzalez focused on was the goal of making the Internet “a safe, crime-free place for all Americans, especially our children.”While most of Gonzalez’s comments with regards to making the ‘Net safer revolved around the protection of children, including a plug for a new government initiative called “Project Safe Childhood,” Gonzalez also slipped in mention of the need to combat “the proliferation of obscenity.”
The “proliferation of obscenity” is a phrase which has been used repeatedly by representatives of the federal government in recent years and appears to be the Bush Administration’s favored manner of characterizing the increasing popularity of adult pornography in general and the growth of the online pornography sector in particular.
What follows is the relevant paragraph from Gonzalez’s prepared remarks to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. Note the last sentence (with emphasis added by the author), wherein Gonzalez slides “the proliferation of obscenity” into a justification that otherwise focuses on child protection.
“The Internet should be a safe, crime-free place for all Americans, especially our children. Our new Project Safe Childhood initiative is designed to complement our other efforts to secure for every child the most important gift that we can give – a safe environment in which to live, grow, and learn. Through this initiative we will identify, prosecute and lock up those who victimize our children through the possession, production and distribution of child pornography, and those who use the shadow of the Internet to lure minors into sexual activity. In this budget, we seek more than $186 million to help end the sexual exploitation of children and the proliferation of obscenity.”
YNOT asked several prominent adult internet attorneys for their reaction to Gonzalez’s statements, and whether such statements represent an attempt to equate the distribution of legal adult pornography with the nefarious work of child pornographers.
“There’s no question that this is a blatant attempt to connect legal adult pornography with child porn,” said Jeffrey Douglas, chairman of the Free Speech Coalition. “It’s typical of pro-censorship factions generally that they seek to muddle the distinction between child porn and lawful adult pornography.”
“It’s more than aggravating,” added Douglas, “but it is completely typical.”
Douglas said that the response from the adult entertainment industry should be “an effort to educate people, through every means possible, as to the difference and distinction” between legal adult pornography and patently illegal child pornography.
“We need to continue to impress upon the public that there is no connection whatsoever between the legitimate adult entertainment industry and the creators of child pornography,” Douglas said.
Douglas also noted that this week’s arrest of Brian Doyle, a deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security should “demonstrate how invalid the stereotypes associated with this issue are.”
Attorney Larry Walters was similarly unsurprised at the approach taken by Gonzalez and noted that the attempt to connect child pornographers with producers of legal adult entertainment is “constant with these people.”
“Citizens for Decency and all these other ‘family groups’ know they can rally all the Senators, even those who are advocates of free speech, to their cause through this technique,” said Walters. “After all, who is not going to support an effort to ‘protect children?’”
Walters also noted that by referencing obscenity, even obliquely, Gonzalez was “preventing the possibility of someone saying later ‘You never told us this money we allocated was going to be used to go after pornographers.’”
“He can point back to his statements and say ‘see – right there, I said we wanted to ‘end the proliferation of obscenity,’” Walters said.
“It’s no surprise that Gonzalez would focus on child porn and then kind of throw in ‘obscenity’ at the end,” Walters added. “It’s deceptive at its very core, but not at all shocking.”
For attorney Rob Apgood of CarpeLaw, the false correlation that Gonzalez is attempting to create is even more fundamental than that suggested by his industry peers.
“What this executive branch is doing, through such representatives as AG Gonzalez, is an attempt to conflate the terms ‘pornography’ and ‘obscenity,’” said Apgood. “The two are quite simply not synonymous.”
“As an industry, we do neither child pornography nor obscenity,” Apgood added. “‘Obscenity’ is defined by the Supreme Court as patently illegal, whereas pornography is legitimate, Constitutionally-protected speech.”
Apgood notes that, taken at face value, Gonzalez’s statement “comports with the ideals of people in the adult industry.”
“As an industry, we created the ASACP because we oppose child pornography,” Apgood noted, adding that there is a need for the industry to create its own “bright line as to what is acceptable” since the obscenity laws themselves do not provide such clarity.
