WASHINGTON, DC – In a press release issued Monday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales details some of President George W. Bush’s fiscal year 2008 budget proposal for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and asserts that the budget request is “aligned with the Department’s major priorities.”The press release cites seven areas that comprise the DOJ’s “major priorities,” along with the amount of the spending increase requested for each of those areas. That list, as provided in the press release, is as follows:

• “Preventing and Combating Terrorism” ($227 million budget allocation increase)
• “Preventing Violent Crime” ($214 million)
• “Drugs and Border Security” ($89 million)
• “Crimes Against Children and Obscenity” ($25 million)
• “Judicial System Support and Incarceration” ($152 million)
• “Enforcing Federal Laws in the Courts” ($33 million)
• “Management and Information Technology” ($75 million)

“For those of us at the Department of Justice, every day is September 12th, and every day requires a sustained commitment to combating terrorism and protecting our homeland,” Gonzales stated in the release, his emphasis on terrorism and “homeland” security mirroring the budgetary priorities detailed elsewhere in press release.

“We have made important strides in identifying and prosecuting suspected terrorists, safeguarding children against Internet predators, and protecting communities from the havoc of drugs and gun crime,” Gonzales added. “This budget will robustly support our most efficient, effective and essential programs and functions.”

Each of the priorities highlighted in the release’s bullet-point summary is expounded upon a bit further in subsequent sections of the statement, along with a brief explanation of how each relevant “section” of the DOJ will benefit from the proposed budget increase for that department.

As is typical of DOJ press releases, the crimes of “child exploitation” and “obscenity” are linked, both rhetorically and explicitly, but there is very little mention of “obscenity” beyond inclusion of the term itself.

Within the DOJ, the same division charged with prosecuting cases involving child pornography and other forms of child exploitation is tasked with overseeing obscenity prosecutions that involve purely “adult” obscenity. The sub-department of the DOJ in question is the “Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section” (CEOS).

Under the heading “Crimes Against Children and Obscenity,” Monday’s DOJ press release cites arrest and conviction statistics under the general heading of “criminal cases involving predation against children,” and provides a few other details concerning the DOJ’s efforts to combat child pornography and other forms of child exploitation, but the release provides no detail whatsoever about the DOJ’s efforts with respect to combating “obscenity.”

“DOJ is committed to fighting child pornography and obscenity, protecting children from trafficking, and preventing all forms of child exploitation,” the release states. “The Department works with other law enforcement agencies to target, apprehend and prosecute child molesters and those who traffic in child pornography.”

The release does specify that the FY 2008 budget “provides program increases totaling $12.5 million for Attorney General Gonzales’ Project Safe Childhood initiative, which targets purveyors of child pornography and obscenity.” The release does not, however, specify what form such “targeting” that “purveyors” of “obscenity” may take.

The release further specifies that the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 “directs the Department to collaborate with the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children to target and take into custody the approximately 100,000 non-compliant sex offenders who are believed to be living in the United States,” and notes that the new budget request provides $12.8 million in “program increases” for the United States Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons to “implement sex offender tracking and management initiatives that comply with the Walsh Act.”

The release does not specify the amount or percentage of the DOJ’s budget that will be devoted to obscenity prosecutions targeting adult obscenity, nor does the release give any indication of the budget available to the DOJ to prosecute record-keeping violations that might be uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s recently-initiated 2257 inspections.

For the full press release outlining the DOJ’s budget request, refer to the following URL:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/February/07_ag_072.html