Justice Department waging war against porn

[ringmastery]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.obscenity06apr06,0,3004361.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

Administration wages war on pornography
Obscenity: For the first time in 10 years, the U.S. government is spending millions to file charges across the country.

WASHINGTON - Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography. This job, which Nguyen does earnestly from 9 to 5, surrounded by a half-dozen other "computer forensic specialists" like him, has become the focal point of the Justice Department's operation to rid the world of porn.

In this field office in Washington, 32 prosecutors, investigators and a handful of FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Nothing is off limits, they warn, even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in guestrooms of major hotel chains.

Department officials say they will send "ripples" through an industry that has proliferated on the Internet and grown into an estimated $10 billion-a-year colossus profiting Fortune 500 corporations such as Comcast, which offers hard-core movies on a pay-per-view channel.

The Justice Department recently hired Bruce Taylor, who was instrumental in a handful of convictions obtained over the past year and unsuccessfully represented the state in a 1981 case, Larry Flynt vs. Ohio.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Let's get our priorities straight

Pornography is far more dangerous to this country than, say, terrorism. Read yesterday that Bush cut 32 IRS jobs related to tracking down terrorist funding sources. Now I find that Ashcroft is diverting agents to check out pictures of private parts and sex acts. Is this maladministration interested in the war on terrorism at all?

[drfemoe]

2. He wants something...

From your link:
... "Any move against mainstream pornography could affect large telephone companies offering broadband Internet service or the dozens of national credit card companies providing payment services to pornographic Web sites.

Cable television, meanwhile, which has found late-night lineups with "adult programming" highly profitable, is unlikely to budge, and such companies have powerful friends.

Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, which offers "hard-core" porn on the Hot Network channel (at $11.99 per film in Baltimore), was co-chair of Philadelphia 2000, the host committee that brought the Republican National Convention to Philadelphia. In February, the Bush campaign honored Comcast President Stephen Burke with "Ranger" status, for agreeing to raise at least $200,000 for the president's re-election effort. Comcast's executive vice president, David Cohen, has close ties to Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Tim Fitzpatrick, the spokesman for Comcast at its corporate headquarters in Philadelphia, declined to comment on the cable network's adult programming. But officials at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which Roberts used to chair, said adult programming is legal, relies on subscription services for access and has been upheld by the courts for years.

"Good luck turning back that clock," said Paul Rodriguez, a spokesman for the association. " ...

Saber rattling perhaps. *Blackmail*. Maybe a Comcast exec forgot to say "Mr. President". You can bet there is some form of *manipulation* *cough* *fraud* involved.

[ozymandius]

3. BAD = two people on video having sex

JUST FINE = movies (and video games) in which people are shot, blown into pieces, immolated, assaulted, crushed (all while issuing gouts of blood and gore)

Where is our sense of decency as a country?