Long-time readers may recall a report from way back in 2005 about Bush’s Justice Department taking pornography prosecutions seriously. After several far-right groups complained that the administration failed to take on porn aggressively in its first term, Alberto Gonzales announced that the DoJ would devote considerable resources to a war on smut, described at the time as “one of the top priorities” of Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
The crackdown was separate and independent from child pornography, and was intended to specifically target materials for consenting adults.
Whatever happened to this initiative? The Salt Lake Tribune fills us in with a profile on Brent Ward, the “nation’s porn prosecutor.”
Anti-pornography crusaders are glad to have Ward on the job.
“He’s one of my heroes,” said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values. “I wish the Department of Justice was full of Brent Wards.” […]
The way Ward sees it, American culture is saturated with pornography, and it has profound consequences, eroding families, increasing violence against women, warping perceptions of sex and helping child predators groom victims.
“We’re not going to prosecute it away, but it’s important, I think, that Americans see their government trying to do something about it,” he said.
In other words, federal agents can’t use the power of the government to interfere with what adults want to watch — but they can try.
And to help in this endeavor, Ward heads a federal task force with four prosecutors, 10 FBI agents, and a postal inspector, which is an even bigger squad than the Republican Congress initially asked the administration to put together.
As one exasperated FBI agent noted when the task force was being put together, “I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror. We must not need any more resources for espionage.”Two other quick thoughts. One, Ward seems intent on not just prosecuting obscenity violations, but actually eliminating adult materials from the marketplace.
2 comments:
This is a big problem with letting children on the internet, they have to be watched all the time because of this. Yes, it would be nice if they could clean this junk up.
There was ISPs where a parent can monitor their child on the internet and emails. But, I see no endorsement on T.V. for that. Pron is a billion dollar business. If the porn business is eliminated, then there goes the companies, GOP, WH, and other that benefit from porn.
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