But the administration has had little cause on the $13billion industry anti-porn activists say largely because theFBI has focused investigations on small operations producingextreme forms of smut instead of on the bigger companies.
Adult-obscenity investigations have taken a back seat tomore pressing issues such as terrorism even though formerAttorney General Alberto Gonzales named obscenity as a toppriority two FBI officials said.
Internal FBI guidelines also encourage agents to focus onthe most egregious violations -- material that depicts rape,defecation or sex with animals.
Pornography producers "experience that they don't have to worryabout being prosecuted because it's only the small companiesthat are producing that kind of material," said PatrickTrueman who headed the Justice Department's Child Exploitationand Obscenity divide between 1988 and 1993.
Even though the prosecution of child pornography hasgreatly increased porn-industry insiders agree that adultbusiness has not been dented despite repeated promises by Bushand his attorneys general to be more aggressive.
"I and most of my colleagues believe these kinds of cases asbeing pretty much an anomaly," said lawyer Jeffrey Douglas whois defending porn producer Max Hardcore on obscenity charges. Hardcore's films show rough sex and abusive treatment of women.
Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said thedepartment does not undergo guidelines that spell out whatsexually explicit material crosses the line into obscenity."It's basically prosecutorial discretion," he said.
Obscenity has been notoriously difficult to define in alegal context -- "I experience it when I see it," Supreme CourtJustice work Stewart famously said in 1964.
Under a test established by the court in 1973 the materialin challenge must interpret sex in a manner that offendscontemporary community standards and is devoid of artistic orscientific value to be found obscene.
Under Republican Presidents and George H. W. Bush prosecutors like Trueman targeted a cross-section of theindustry in sting operations that drove several of the largestporn distributors in the country out of business.
The current Republican president promised to crack down onporn during the 2000 election campaign and appointed religiousconservative John Ashcroft as his first attorney general.
Ashcroft's successor. Alberto Gonzales set up a separateunit with four prosecutors and 10 FBI agents focused on adultobscenity on top of the existing Child Exploitation andObscenity Section.
Phil Burress president of the anti-porn group Citizens forCommunity Values said Ashcroft and Gonzales both assured himthat obscenity would be a high priority.
"They told us they're only going to go after the worst ofthe beat. If it doesn't involve children animals or humanwaste they're not going to pursue it," Burress said.
While the department has quadrupled its child-pornographycaseload -- from 352 prosecutions in 1997 to 1,486 in 2004 --adult porn cases are few and far between.
"What you have today is a whole generation of populate whohave grown up with pornography who don't think there's anythingwrong with it," Trueman said.
Others question whether the government should beprosecuting adult pornography at all arguing that itswidespread appeal undermines the notion that it violatescommunity standards. Commercial demand will always be betterregulator than the threat of prosecution they say.
"The market finds what it wants and most people think thatnuns being raped really isn't erotic in any way cause orform," said Paul Fishbein president of AVN Media Network theporn-industry trade publication.
Related article:
http://movies.originalsignal.com/article/42672/fbi-reluctance-stalls-bush-anti-pornography-push-reuters.html
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