FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is obscenity. Not pornography involving ********, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.
Acosta's stated goal of prosecuting distributors of adult porn has angered federal and local *************** officials, as well as prosecutors in his own office.
With the rapid growth of Internet pornography, stamping out obscene material has become a major concern for the Bush administration's powerful Christian conservative supporters. The Mississippi-based American ****** Association and other Christian conservative groups have pressured the Justice Department to take action against pornography. The ****** association has sent weekly letters to U.S. attorneys around the country to pressure them to pursue the makers and distributors of pornography.
"While there are crimes like ***** and public corruption in Miami, this is also a form of corruption and should be a priority," said Anthony Verdugo, director of the Christian ****** Coalition in Miami. "Pornography is a poison and it's addictive. It's not a victimless crime. Women are the victims."
(Luckily quite a few of these folk still ***** hard ******, so that poisonous addictive victim maker is still on the books. *******'s a **** my friends...)
The social conservatives have gained traction with new Attorney General Gonzales, a close associate of President Bush who is considered a strong contender for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination. In May, Gonzales established an Obscenity Prosecution Task ***** under the office's criminal division.
The task *****, headed by Deputy Chief for Obscenity Richard Green, will work closely with Bruce Taylor, senior counsel to the criminal division's assistant attorney general.
Taylor is one of the founding members of the Justice Department's National Obscenity Enforcement Unit back in the 1980s. He reportedly has prosecuted more than 100 state and federal obscenity cases and is the prosecutor who went after Hustler publisher Larry Flynt in the early 1980s. He won that case and Flynt spent six days in jail, but the case was overturned on appeal.
The task *****, according to a Justice Department news release on May 5, will be "dedicated to the investigation and prosecution of the distributors of hard-core pornography that meets the test for obscenity, as defined by the United States Supreme Court."
In its 1973 landmark ruling on the subject, Miller v. California, the Supreme Court laid out a three-pronged test to separate obscenity from protected First Amendment speech. What the ruling said, essentially, was that if the material is offensive and prurient and has no artistic value, it is obscenity. The court left it up to local juries and communities to make the determination.
The Obscenity Prosecution Task ***** will pull together prosecutors from sections covering organized crime and racketeering, asset forfeiture, money laundering, computer crime and intellectual property. They will be joined by prosecutors from the High-Tech Investigative Unit, which has computer and forensic experts. The focus will be on Internet crimes as well as on "peer-to-peer" distribution of pornography, according to the news release.
Fuck.
Criminal defense attorneys and an American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman say they are appalled at the Justice Department's plan to prioritize the prosecution of obscenity when narcotics trafficking, public corruption, and fraud are rampant in South Florida.
Rodriguez-Taseff said she doubted that Acosta's anti-porn initiative would get off the ground, in part because it could end up discriminating by targeting South Florida's large gay community. "We are far too diverse a community for any such prosecution effort," she said.
Previous efforts by South Florida *************** to prosecute sexually explicit artists have fallen flat. Fort Lauderdale attorney Bruce Rogow successfully defended 2 Live Crew, the racy rap group that was charged with obscenity by former Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro in the 1990s.
"I'm not surprised that this is happening, because these things go in cycles and this is a conservative environment," Rogow said. "But I think *************** has lost its enthusiasm for these types of cases."
But not Sharp of the ****** Association. He said any prosecutors who object to prosecuting obscenity don't understand the law. "Most attorneys have been led to believe that what is ******* is not ******* in terms of obscenity," Sharp said. "They have a misconception of what should be prosecuted. They think because it's consenting adults, it's not *******."
Sharp said the initiative is necessary because local *************** and city attorneys get "crushed" by high-powered lawyers hired by adult book stores or video stores when there are efforts to shut those establishments down.
"You need the federal government to assist," said Sharp, who takes credit for closing six adult bookstores in his hometown in Mississippi.
But should porn be a priority in a place like Miami, where serious crime is rampant? "It's all part of the same thing, of the organized crime syndicate," Sharp said. "It has an effect on ********."
FUCKERS!
Acosta's stated goal of prosecuting distributors of adult porn has angered federal and local *************** officials, as well as prosecutors in his own office.
With the rapid growth of Internet pornography, stamping out obscene material has become a major concern for the Bush administration's powerful Christian conservative supporters. The Mississippi-based American ****** Association and other Christian conservative groups have pressured the Justice Department to take action against pornography. The ****** association has sent weekly letters to U.S. attorneys around the country to pressure them to pursue the makers and distributors of pornography.
"While there are crimes like ***** and public corruption in Miami, this is also a form of corruption and should be a priority," said Anthony Verdugo, director of the Christian ****** Coalition in Miami. "Pornography is a poison and it's addictive. It's not a victimless crime. Women are the victims."
(Luckily quite a few of these folk still ***** hard ******, so that poisonous addictive victim maker is still on the books. *******'s a **** my friends...)
The social conservatives have gained traction with new Attorney General Gonzales, a close associate of President Bush who is considered a strong contender for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination. In May, Gonzales established an Obscenity Prosecution Task ***** under the office's criminal division.
The task *****, headed by Deputy Chief for Obscenity Richard Green, will work closely with Bruce Taylor, senior counsel to the criminal division's assistant attorney general.
Taylor is one of the founding members of the Justice Department's National Obscenity Enforcement Unit back in the 1980s. He reportedly has prosecuted more than 100 state and federal obscenity cases and is the prosecutor who went after Hustler publisher Larry Flynt in the early 1980s. He won that case and Flynt spent six days in jail, but the case was overturned on appeal.
The task *****, according to a Justice Department news release on May 5, will be "dedicated to the investigation and prosecution of the distributors of hard-core pornography that meets the test for obscenity, as defined by the United States Supreme Court."
In its 1973 landmark ruling on the subject, Miller v. California, the Supreme Court laid out a three-pronged test to separate obscenity from protected First Amendment speech. What the ruling said, essentially, was that if the material is offensive and prurient and has no artistic value, it is obscenity. The court left it up to local juries and communities to make the determination.
The Obscenity Prosecution Task ***** will pull together prosecutors from sections covering organized crime and racketeering, asset forfeiture, money laundering, computer crime and intellectual property. They will be joined by prosecutors from the High-Tech Investigative Unit, which has computer and forensic experts. The focus will be on Internet crimes as well as on "peer-to-peer" distribution of pornography, according to the news release.
Fuck.
Criminal defense attorneys and an American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman say they are appalled at the Justice Department's plan to prioritize the prosecution of obscenity when narcotics trafficking, public corruption, and fraud are rampant in South Florida.
Rodriguez-Taseff said she doubted that Acosta's anti-porn initiative would get off the ground, in part because it could end up discriminating by targeting South Florida's large gay community. "We are far too diverse a community for any such prosecution effort," she said.
Previous efforts by South Florida *************** to prosecute sexually explicit artists have fallen flat. Fort Lauderdale attorney Bruce Rogow successfully defended 2 Live Crew, the racy rap group that was charged with obscenity by former Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro in the 1990s.
"I'm not surprised that this is happening, because these things go in cycles and this is a conservative environment," Rogow said. "But I think *************** has lost its enthusiasm for these types of cases."
But not Sharp of the ****** Association. He said any prosecutors who object to prosecuting obscenity don't understand the law. "Most attorneys have been led to believe that what is ******* is not ******* in terms of obscenity," Sharp said. "They have a misconception of what should be prosecuted. They think because it's consenting adults, it's not *******."
Sharp said the initiative is necessary because local *************** and city attorneys get "crushed" by high-powered lawyers hired by adult book stores or video stores when there are efforts to shut those establishments down.
"You need the federal government to assist," said Sharp, who takes credit for closing six adult bookstores in his hometown in Mississippi.
But should porn be a priority in a place like Miami, where serious crime is rampant? "It's all part of the same thing, of the organized crime syndicate," Sharp said. "It has an effect on ********."
FUCKERS!
