MIAMI, FL – While conservative Christian and “family” organizations have been enthusiastically praising Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and the Department of Justice for a recent stepping up of pornography-related prosecutions, some within the legal and law enforcement community are not pleased with the focus on obscenity.According to Florida media reports, when FBI agents met with interim US Attorney Alex Acosta in Miami last month, they were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority for their region was “obscenity”; not child pornography, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.
Acosta’s focus on prosecuting producers and distributors of adult pornography has irked both federal and local level law enforcement officials, and even some prosecutors within his own office. Critics point out that there are far more pressing issues afoot in high-crime areas like South Florida, which is a major hub for the international drug trade, a common point of entry for large numbers of illegal immigrants and an area with significant potential as a terrorist target. (It is interesting to note that during the lead up to the September 11th terrorist attacks, many of the eventual hijackers resided and attended flight school in South Florida, including the Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood areas).
“Compared to terrorism, public corruption and narcotics, [pornography] is no worse than dropping gum on the sidewalk,” Stephen Bronis, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder in Miami and chair of the white-collar crime division of the American Bar Association, said in an interview with The Daily Business Review. “With so many other problems in this area, this is absolutely ridiculous.”
It comes as no surprise that Florida area conservative groups do not concur with Bronis’ assessment. Groups like the Mississippi-based American Family Association (AFA) and the Family Research Council (FRC), troubled by the tremendous growth of the internet pornography market over the last 10 years, are running aggressive campaigns in order to influence the federal government to take action against pornographers. The AFA sends out letters every week to U.S. attorneys around the country, pressuring them to pursue obscenity charges against makers and distributors of pornography.
“While there are crimes like drugs and public corruption in Miami, this is also a form of corruption and should be a priority,” Anthony Verdugo, director of the Christian Family Coalition in Miami, told The Daily Business Review. “Pornography is a poison and it’s addictive. It’s not a victimless crime. Women are the victims.”
During the Clinton administration, obscenity prosecutions were virtually nonexistent, as the DOJ limited their enforcement efforts to tackling child pornography, and essentially left the adult pornography industry alone. Even the ultra-conservative John Ashcroft disappointed the far right, as the much anticipated “campaign for decency” never materialized under his auspices. With the actions of the Gonzalez DOJ thus far, particularly last week’s indictments of 3 individuals for alleged CAN-SPAM, obscenity and 2257 violations, the Christian Right sees momentum for their cause finally picking up steam.
In May, Gonzales established an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force under the AG office’s criminal division, headed by Deputy Chief for Obscenity Richard Green. Green will work closely with Bruce Taylor, senior counsel to the criminal division’s assistant attorney general, and a founding member of the DOJ’s National Obscenity Enforcement Unit in the 1980’s. Taylor is a true veteran in the field of obscenity, having prosecuted more than 100 state and federal obscenity cases.
According to a May 5 news release from the DOJ, the task force is “dedicated to the investigation and prosecution of the distributors of hard-core pornography that meets the test for obscenity, as defined by the United States Supreme Court.”
Fort Lauderdale attorney Bruce Rogow, who successfully defended 2 Live Crew against obscenity charges in the 1990’s, said that he’s “not surprised” by the renewed focus on obscenity at the DOJ. “These things go in cycles, and this is a conservative environment,” Rogow said. “But I think law enforcement has lost its enthusiasm for these types of cases.”
Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the American Family Association, asserts that any prosecutor who objects to prosecuting obscenity doesn’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.”
Adult entertainment, however, cannot be determined illegal obscenity unless a jury declares it to be illegal obscenity.
Critics of the prospective obscenity crackdown say that a focus on obscenity is giving precedence to the wrong priority.
“It’s amazing that we’re wasting our resources on the morality police instead of battling organized crime, illegal drugs, corruption and undocumented immigration,” said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union and a partner at Duane Morris in Miami. “I can’t even believe this.”
