WASHINGTON, DC — In a scathing evaluation of the performance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice with respect to the enforcement of federal obscenity laws, chief counsel of the Concerned Women for America (CWA) Jan LaRue asserts that the FBI and DOJ are not following through on the calls from President George W. Bush and U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to make obscenity enforcement a high priority.In the report, LaRue states that in June of 2006 she directed a legal intern at CWA to call around to various FBI field offices, identify herself as a “free-lance writer,” and ask a series of questions designed to determine what level of priority the FBI had actually assigned to enforcement of federal obscenity laws.
“The responses we received from various FBI field offices across the country and the DOJ stats we’ve seen indicate to us that these agencies aren’t taking seriously the directives of President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales to enforce federal obscenity laws,” LaRue writes in the report, which was issued earlier this week. “And somebody needs to explain why the section at DOJ primarily responsible for prosecuting obscenity refers citizens who want to file a complaint to a private organization.”
In the CWA report, LaRue rejects the notion that the FBI and DOJ can’t devote more resources to obscenity enforcement due to more pressing issues, like counter-terrorism, or investigation into political corruption and “white collar” crime.
“We think that the DOJ and FBI have many very talented people, and they don’t have to compromise the war on terror in order to enforce obscenity laws,” LaRue said. “That’s why we expected to see considerable numbers of major hard-core pornographers cooling their heels in federal prison by now, instead of laughing all the way to the bank.”
LaRue also isn’t happy about the federal agencies ostensibly tasked with combating obscenity passing their responsibilities off to private sector groups.
Noting that the website for the DOJ’s Child Exploitation Obscenity Section (CEOS) has a section which lists “what citizens can do about obscenity,” LaRue observes that the CEOS website provides there a link to the site obscenitycrimes.org, which is run by the group Morality In Media.
“Let me repeat, CEOS, the DOJ office in charge of obscenity enforcement, directs you to a private organization to file an obscenity complaint,” LaRue wrote in the CWA report. “In other words, ‘Don’t bother us!’”
In LaRue’s analysis, the problem is that the DOJ and FBI simply are abrogating their responsibility, attempting to get out of an enforcement campaign by diminishing the scope of the problem.
Referring to a FAQ question on the FBI website – “My child has received an e-mail advertising for a pornographic website, what should I do?” – LaRue takes strong exception to the FBI response, which reads in part “Generally, advertising for an adult, pornographic website that is sent to an e-mail address does not violate federal law or the current laws of most states.”
“The FBI answer leaves laymen with the impression that all ‘adult’ porn is legal,” LaRue states in the report. “There’s also no mention of 18 U.S.C. § 1470, which provides an enhanced penalty for knowingly sending obscene matter to a minor under the age of 16.”
The CWA report was warmly received by the organization’s ideological allies from the American political right wing.
“Jan LaRue, one of the nation’s top legal experts on obscenity law, takes off the gloves in this important piece and goes right at the Department of Justice for its failure to enforce obscenity laws,” said Pat Trueman of the Family Research Council, and former head of the CEOS. “She takes a bold and necessary step, and many people will follow her leadership.”
Phil Burress, president of the Citizens for Community Values, and self-proclaimed former “pornography addict,” echoed Trueman’s sentiment.
“This article exposes a cancer that is eating away at the souls of our children and men and is devastating families,” Burress said. “As the article describes in detail, failing to enforce federal obscenity laws allows the harms of pornography to proliferate and destroy lives.”
Burress added that the “responsibility for that lays squarely at the feet of the [Bush] Administration for not vigorously pursuing enforcement. I urge everyone, especially national policy leaders, to study this document and demand action.”
