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Will Mainstreaming Porn Lead to Mainstreaming Crack? 2/16/2005 It’s time to get serious about a war against obscenity.
Illicit drugs are available on street corners in every major city. Would it be correct to conclude that the availability of illicit drugs means there are no applicable federal and state laws? That juries won’t convict those prosecuted? That most Americans use illicit drugs? That most Americans don’t care about drug enforcement? That those who don’t like drugs don’t have to use them but they shouldn’t try to stop adults who shoot up in the privacy of their own home? That it’s the parents’ responsibility if they don’t want their children exposed to drug dealers?
Imagine that the CEOs of major drug store chains decide the correct answer to these questions is “Yes.” Furthermore, they decide to start cashing in on lucrative street drugs.
Pretty soon there are news accounts and radio and TV ads inviting customers to make their heroin or marijuana purchase the next time they pop in for toothpaste. Better yet, place an order by visiting the store Web site, using your credit card, and they’ll ship your cocaine order right into the privacy of your home. Why go into that sleazy and dangerous part of town? This is a respectable “Gentleman’s Dope Distribution Club.”
“Nonsense,” you say. “That’s illegal. They’d end up in prison. They’d lose their licenses. The public would be outraged. They’d be boycotted. Shareholders wouldn’t tolerate it. They’d all be fired.”
True. But consider the following.
Adelphia cable company, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and up for sale, has just announced plans to offer “hard-core—XXX porn” to cable subscribers in certain locations, such as southern California. If Adelphia’s new management believed it was safe to do so, they’d offer it in all venues. They apparently think there are locations where federal laws are less likely to be enforced and where juries are less likely to convict.
Why then do the CEOs of mainstream corporations, who wouldn’t think of trafficking in illicit drugs, think it’s perfectly fine to traffic in illicit pornography? Some claim the First Amendment—illicit drug distribution isn’t protected by the Constitution. Neither is adult obscenity, otherwise known as “hard-core” pornography.
There are federal laws against distributing, selling, taking or receiving obscene materials through the U.S. mail, a facility of Interstate Commerce, radio, TV, the Internet, on federal land and buildings and in the federal maritime jurisdiction. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1460-1470. It violates federal law to use your own computer to send obscenity to yourself on another computer. It’s illegal to transport it in your own car on a federally funded highway or mail or ship it to yourself at another location.
Even so, hard-core pornography, which the Supreme Court has held is prosecutable under the obscenity statutes, is advertised and distributed by major hotel chains, cable and satellite TV companies and video rental chains, and major credit card companies finance the purchases. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1460-1470 notwithstanding. For more information, see The Porn Ring Around Corporate White Collars: Getting Filthy Rich.
And one more consideration. It’s unlikely that any politician ever accepted a campaign donation from any known head of a drug cartel, but contributions from corporate leaders who traffic in hard-core pornography are commonplace. A white collar has access beyond the reach of the defiled and disrespected.
It’s time to let the new U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales know that you want the laws against obscenity enforced as vigorously as any other. Martha Stewart went to federal prison for lying to the FBI about a stock sale, not because she was cooking for al Qaeda. Corporate heads aren’t exempt from obscenity or any other laws.
Some will counter that the “War on Drugs” hasn’t succeeded because drugs are still available on street corners in major cities. True. But it’s also true that the drug war and public education have made a significant difference. Illicit drug use continues a gradual decline, including drug use by minors, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 2004. The private sector educates the public about the harms of pornography, but it can’t do law enforcement’s part.
A Wirthlin Worldwide poll taken in March 2004 indicates that 82 percent of adult Americans surveyed said that the federal laws against Internet obscenity should be vigorously enforced. If the federal drug laws were enforced the way the federal obscenity laws are enforced, how long would Americans tolerate it? How many more adult and child addicts, rapes, molestations, sexual murders and broken marriages before we demand serious change and hold public officials responsible? For more information on the harms of pornography see Hard-Core Harm: Why You Can’t be Soft on Porn.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights announced on February 14 that it will hold a hearing February 16 to “discuss the compelling state interest in regulating obscenity. Constitutional scholars will demonstrate how obscenity regulations do not interfere with First Amendment protections. The Supreme Court has ruled that obscene material is not protected through the First Amendment on several occasions.”
What is needed is a hearing to ask the Department of Justice why there has been so little obscenity enforcement in the past four years and what they’re going to do about it.
Take action: Urge the new Attorney General to increase enforcement of obscenity laws:
The Honorable Alberto Gonzalez |
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Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
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