WASHINGTON – Controversial Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was recently appointed to the position of America’s lead prosecutor by President Bush, declared today that he will make obscenity enforcement a top priority during his time at the Justice Department.“I am strongly committed to ensuring the right of free speech; the right of ordinary citizens and of the press to speak out and to express their views and ideas is one of the greatest strengths of our form of government, but obscene materials are not protected by the First Amendment,” Gonzales said in a speech Monday at the Hoover Institution in Washington.

In what may have been a symbolic gesture, Gonzales was introduced Monday by former Attorney General Edwin Meese, who himself launched a high-profile and aggressive censorship campaign against adult video companies during the Reagan administration.

Gonzales said that he would prosecute adult obscenity to promote “the cause of justice and human dignity,” and that “aggressive prosecution” of obscenity cases would be a top priority at the Justice Department in 2005 and beyond.

The Justice Department recently appealed a decision by a federal judge in Pennsylvania that found obscenity laws as used against adult film company Extreme Associates to be unconstitutional.