WASHINGTON, DC — Although the U.S. Department of Justice insists that its latest proposed amendments to 2257 record-keeping requirements is part of the government’s fight to protect children from sexual exploitation, Free Speech Coalition director Diane Duke and board chairman Jeffrey Douglas think there’s more – and less – to the picture than the feds are willing to admit.Attorney Douglas is especially clear in his evaluation of the latest compromises and continuations associated with the law, pointing out that part of their ability to gain support and sympathy stems from their being passed off as weapons in the fight against child sexual harm. “Tragically, in spite of living in the era of Orwell’s big lie and Big Brother, people still are operating under the just appallingly naïve notion that this statute and regulatory scheme have anything to do with child pornography.”
Such is not the case, according to both Duke and Douglas, with the latter stating that “The people behind this don’t give a rat’s ass about deterring and detecting child pornography. Their sole interest is in raising the cost and deterring people from the creation and distribution of sexually oriented material for and by consenting adults.”
Proof of this, as Douglas explains it, can be found in the government’s expansion of previous 2257 regulation to include “lascivious exhibition and simulated sex,” which mainstream Hollywood indulges in with minors on a regular basis, but can escape from burdensome paperwork regulations by merely sending an annual letter to the Department of Justice promising that everybody involved is of legal age and has had their ID checked and birth date recorded.
Thanks to changes brought about by the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, things are a little bit more complicated for those working and playing in the adult entertainment industry.
Although the new regulations for 2257 affected simulated sex have not been revealed yet – other than Hollywood’s continued exemption – the latest proposals stubbornly affirm the Department of Justice’s contention that Congress originally intended secondary producers to be covered and co-equal with primary producers. Toward that end, it has proposed that the 1995 regulation documents are equally applicable to each kind of producer, something that Duke considers to be “just impossible, literally impossible to comply with” for many secondary producers.
The FSC director sees the latest salvo in the ongoing battle for speech rights as “an attack on the industry,” meant to “eliminate or hurt” it instead of pursue the stated goal of protecting minors from sexual predation.
While both Duke and Douglas caution industry members to remember that what the DoJ handed over in the seven page document soon to be added to the FreeSpeechCoalition.com website is nothing more nor less than proposed regulations, both are emphatic about how important it is that small and large content producers alike become involved during the 60-day comment period.
Not all legal council agrees, but Douglas encourages secondary producers to continue to work with primary producers as they have been. Although the latest proposals would make July 27th, 2006 the earliest date for which secondary producers would be required to have 2257 compliant documentation, he cautions that the final regulations will doubtless be different and therefore impossible to anticipate. “These regs are pretty much what people expected and pretty much as bad as people expected. While they certainly could be worse, there’s nothing in there that’s totally bizarre, unpredictable, bad, or totally out of left field, like several things were the last time around.”
According to Douglas, secondary producers should create contractual agreements with their primary sources, stating that if and when the proposals become law, they primary will provide appropriate documentation to the secondary.
In order to assist industry professionals in providing the government with the best possible feedback during the 60-day public comment period, the FSC will provide guides designed to highlight areas of special importance. Perhaps chief among those topics is the financial impact that coming into compliance with 2257 regulations would impose upon businesses and individuals.
Duke hopes that the FSC will be able to “really activate the entire base of the adult entertainment industry” as happened with .xxx issues. Adding a 2257 component to the upcoming Adult Novelty Expo during the FSC membership meeting will be part of the strategy to rally interest and awareness.
Because those behind 2257 regulations have repeatedly revealed a profound ignorance about the reality of doing business in the adult industry – including FBI agents trained to conduct inspections being unaware of the existence of compilation tapes – Douglas is emphatic about the urgency of producers becoming involved in the comment process. “It is critical that we get as much data back as possible,” he insists. “We are in a position to severely restrict the Department of Justice if we are able to accumulate the data, because there’s no question that this secondary producer component alone would cost a vast amount of money. We need to be able to document that, and in order to do that, we need as many people from as many walks of life in the industry as possible.”
Free Speech Coalition members should look for requests from information on the subject in the near future.
Additional changes that the proposed regulations would bring about include allowing domestic production companies shooting outside of the states to rely upon foreign government issued identification for foreign talent, less Draconian live feed recording requirements, and the right of producers to protect performer addresses during the identification duplication period, thus minimally reducing their risk of identify theft, stalking, or invasion of privacy. Adding to web design complexity is a change to the statute itself that would require a 2257 compliance statement on every page containing 2257 affected content.
Where individuals were reluctant to comment previously, Douglas believes they can feel more confident during this challenge. “We’ve seen what the inspections are actually like and can see that the businesses and individuals that did step forward have not been subject to harm, but we can not afford to have both segments of the industry silent regarding the impact of 2257; we’re going to need people to step forward to draft declarations and say ‘this is how it all impacts me,’” he explains.
The importance of getting involved is hard for Douglas to emphasize enough. “This has nothing to do with deterring child pornography or detecting child pornography,” he insists. “It’s deterring legitimate adults from creating, distributing, and purchasing sexual materials involving consensual adults – and developing a data base that the government can use to find and review every piece of sexually explicit material. They want to know what it is we’re looking at, we’re fantasizing about, so they can control our minds. As paranoid as that sounds, that is exactly what 2257 represents.”
