Censorship Bill Takes Aim at the American Public

[benburch]

A press release from my friends at http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/ reproduced in its entirety by permission.

If I understand this correctly, then the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated would fall under this law, as would underwear ads, ads for Caribbean vacations that routinely show people in revealing swimsuits, and etc.

My question here; We clearly want to criminalize the production of child pornography, but should the classic Coppertone ad with the little girl and the dog pulling on her swimsuit to reveal her tan line be classified as “explicit sexual activity”?

This bill, if as here represented, goes far beyond pornography and into realms that only a Puritan could object to.

This bill if as represented, also criminalizes WRITTEN works. Nabokov's "Lolita" or the novelization of the 70s film "Summer of '42" both of which deal with an underage person having sex.

And its implications for the classic artist's nude studies are chilling as it also can criminalize illustrations.

FSC, despite its focus on the Adult Film industry, often is the one group which points out the wider implications of such legislation.

----

New Anti-Porn Bill Takes Aim at the Adult Industry,
Hollywood and the American Public
Posted: September 15, 2005

Canoga Park, Ca. – In an attempt to exert control over the sexual practices of American citizens under the guise of protecting children, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) introduced bill H.R. 3726 this week, also called The Child Pornography Protection Act of 2005. Among other provisions, the bill targets adult citizens who record visual images of consensual sexual activity in the privacy of their own homes, adds nudity and clothed images of pubic areas to the definition of “explicit sexual activity” as defined in U.S.C. 18 §2256, and criminalizes the production and distribution of R-rated mainstream motion pictures that fail to comply with the record creation and notice provisions of 2257, and possibly for violation of obscenity laws.

H.R. 3726 was introduced by Mr. Pence on Monday, and attached Wednesday afternoon to another bill, The Child Safety Act of 2005 (H.R. 3132), with the blessing of that bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), but without any debate on its merits. The Sensenbrenner bill was passed by the full House the same afternoon, with a vote of 371-52, and now moves to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration.

The stated intent of H.R. 3726 is to crack down on what Mr. Pence refers to as “home pornographers,” defined as people who create child pornography using their home computers. A close reading of the bill, however, reveals far more ambitious legislative objectives, including altering the federal labeling and record keeping law (U.S.C. 18 §2257) to include simulated, written and illustrated content, which directly implicates many if not most Hollywood films, expanding the reach of federal forfeiture laws to include 2257 violations and obscenity convictions, and enhancing administrative subpoena power to cover obscenity cases, making it easier for the government to compel a person to appearance or to obtain records in a legal proceeding without having to demonstrate probable cause before a judge.

Regarding any potential impact H.R. 3726 might have on The Free Speech Coalition et al v. Alberto Gonzales, the Free Speech Coalition’s current legal challenge to 2257, Board Chair Jeffrey Douglas said, “This action by the House of Representatives does not have any direct impact on the pending FSC lawsuit challenging 18 U.S.C. § 2257. If this horrific bill were to become law in its current form, it would change some of our arguments, indeed strengthening several. For the purposes of the awaited ruling on our preliminary injunction request, it should have no effect whatsoever.”

FSC attorneys and Legislative Affairs Director Kat Sunlove are preparing a complete analysis of H.R. 3726, which will be posted on our website as soon as it is completed.


Free Speech Coalition is the trade organization of the adult entertainment industry. Its mission is to safeguard the industry from oppressive governmental regulation and to promote good business practices within the industry.

[DBoon]

1. Why not? They tried to ban Gunter Grass "Tin Drum" as kiddie porn

See:

http://okiefunk.com/index.php/2004/07/27/okies_and_ligthe_tin_druml_ig

[louis-t]

2. American Taliban in action.

Burkas coming soon.

[benburch]

3. Go read Margaret Atwoods "The Handmaid's Tale"

I think we are heading there. Almost as if they had used it as a script.

[Double T]

4. MidWest Repubs are attempting to revisit previous SCOTUS decisions....

with THEIR new More conservative SCOTUS judges. I hope this bill ultimately focuses on 'The Child Pornography Act of 2005' and leaves 'The Adult Pornography' alone. Again we have another republican trojan horse piece of legislation that has a title everyone wants with content that is everything else but the title. Will these conservative bastards ever let people live their own lives without mandating how we should do it.

[mongo]

5. There has never been a law

with the words "child porn" or "child protection" that DOESN'T go after adult pornography.

It is all a ruse - you don't hate children, do you?

[benburch]

6. But I'm betting we could draft such a law.

I think that careful drafting would allow "kiddieporn" to be criminalized without treading on the rights of Adults.

[mongo]

7. There are already very good laws

on the federal level and in all 50 states criminalizing the creation, dissemination and possesion of any child porn.

The DOJ under Clinton used these laws to successfully prosecute the scum who make child porn.

[benburch]

8. Yes, but even those laws have a chilling effect.

And have created an industry for keeping records on everybody who has ever worked in adult film, a database which I see as an invasion of the privacy of the actors and actresses.

[mongo]

10. I'm not against 2257 in theory

and it seems like the way the rules were worked out in '95 were acceptable to the industry - you can't really say there has been much of a chilling effect.

Of course, when they change the rules after the fact, and make up totally new rules along the way, that I have a problem with.

But the goal of keeping underage performers out of the business is not unworthy, and it doesn't have to be unworkable either. If the industry could just go back to the standards created in '95, I think that would be fine.

[newswolf56]

9. To our dire peril, it's not just the Christofascists...

who support such measures, but a large faction of the feminist movement too -- which is why enactment of this viciously oppressive legislation is a virtual certainty.

What the ACLU labeled the most draconian censorship law ever enacted in the United States was an initiative sold to the voters of Bellingham, Washington by a feminist/Christofascist coalition organized by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon in 1988. It was similar to the present-day Pence bill in that it would have extended the punitively tyrannical reach of censorship into private libraries and art collections. Applying the Dworkin/MacKinnon argument that for a male to so much as look upon a nude female is incipient rape, the law would have even banned males from participating in college art classes that employed nude female models.

Predictably, the Bellingham initiative was written by MacKinnon, an avowed enemy of the First Amendment and thus a probable contributor to Pence's effort. After the Bellingham measure's passage -- by a substantial majority of the voters -- it was immediately thrown out by the Washington State Supreme Court as illegal under the Washington State Constitution.

(Perhaps significantly, the entire Bellingham episode has recently been swept down the Orwellean memory hole, so that information about the initiative and the violent campaign that preceded its enactment -- all formerly available on line -- can no longer be found by Googling: at least not by Googling any of the dozen or so word combinations I tried. I know about it because as an ACLU member I was one of the proposal's more outspoken opponents.)

[mongo]

11. Yep.

I don't dare make any more comment on this except to agree with you...

[benburch]

12. I'll dare.

The rabid followers of Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon have set back the cause of feminism, properly understood as a form of humanism, by DECADES. Siding with the Christofacists only brings us closer to "The Handmaid's Tale", not to any conception of equality. Their sex-negative tirades only confirm to me that they hate women more than the men they attack.

[mongo]

13. I was going to bring up the mission statement

of a certain group on a particular website we all know and love...