World News

Interesting questions but I believe the answers are relatively simple. The more that nutters bang on about tolerance ,the more intolerant they actually are. The more that nutters talk about freedom ,the more they mean only the freedom to follow the nutter's way.

Arch nutter Bush has lied to the world, killed and maimed thousands without just cause, all in the name of a freedom to follow the American way. And this so called freedom doesn't even extend to allowing his own people the responsibility to choose their own adult entertainment.

From News Day

What's the matter, America? Worried about Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, North Korea, terrorists at home and abroad, power blackouts, the sanctity of Alaskan wilderness, oil money, air quality at Ground Zero and the world, historic national deficits, unemployment, medicine for the elderly, AIDS in Africa and down the block, nukes, education, world trade, more hanging chads and the vagaries of the odd hurricane?

Hey, relax. Despite the distraction of such pesky irritations, you may rest assured that the government has not lost sight of the real threat to our country and our way of life.

I am speaking, of course, about the scourge of pornography.

No kidding. Although TV gets racier by the week and skin flicks can be rented in the best hotels, the Bush administration is launching a massive crackdown on porn. Late last month, John Ashcroft's Justice Department brought the nation's first case against pornographers under federal obscenity laws in a decade. Two movie producers from the porn capital, California's San Fernando Valley, were arrested Aug. 27 on 10 counts of producing and distributing obscene movies. Each man faces 50 years in prison and a $2.5-million fine. Feel safe yet? Sinners, pay attention. This is just the beginning.

Although reasonable citizens might believe that the Justice Department, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service are stretched a bit thin in these high-alert days, last Monday's New York Sun reported otherwise in what struck me as surprising front-page news.

As if we don't have enough warfare on the table, our attorney general has taken a moment from defending his Patriot Act from what he considers civil-libertarian "hysteria" and begun a major culture-war battle in his politically useful morality crusade. At least 49 filmmakers and distributors are under investigation, with indictments expected in the coming months. Now, I forgive you for not remembering that Ashcroft promised when he came into office in 2001 that porn would be a priority. Despite the urgencies after 9/11, it seems that social conservatives and the religious right have not forgotten or let reality cloud their anti-porn - sorry, they prefer "pro-decency" - mission for America.

So how schizoid is this country about sex? I cannot remember a time when pornography seemed less controversial or more mainstream. On the runways at last week's fashion shows, designers endorsed micro-minis for women who should know better. Larry Flynt and a porn star are running for governor of California and nobody seems to care.

Meanwhile, back at our ever-vigilant Justice Department, a by Andrew Oosterbaan of the obscenity unit, reassuring social conservatives and other supporters that the Department once against considered obscenity enforcement to be an important priority and is once again vigorously enforcing federal obscenity laws. Since the legal definition of obscenity relies on an average person applying community standards, the case against the California filmmakers has been filed in Pittsburgh.

The first targets are makers of extreme hardcore material - pretty icky stuff. But the Chicago Tribune reported Aug. 23 that the letter promises that Several investigations are well under way against large-scale, nationwide distribution enterprises. Most of the investigations target producers and distributors offering material of egregious content as well as more 'mainstream' content.

According to the Tribune, the letter to the outside indicated that by focusing first on the most extreme material, the department can build a record of successful prosecutions, emboldening prosecutors and setting precedent for additional cases. The New York Sun reports Oosterbaan's chilling references to states that pander 'mainstream' videos and tremendous and historical progress in combating the scourge of obscenity

Scared yet? Wait until next month, when our overextended government funds the Justice Department's second Obscenity Training Seminar for U.S. attorneys. It seems we are also staffing a High Tech Investigative Unit with what the Sun calls "computer forensic experts" to investigate morals offenses on the Internet.

Oh, and leaders of 100 anti-porn groups have asked President George W. Bush to make a presidential proclamation, setting aside Oct. 26-Nov. 1 as Pornography Awareness Week. Bush did that sort of stuff when he was governor of Texas.

While you aren't laughing, remember that soon after Ashcroft took office he spent $8,000 of our money for curtains to drape the Justice Department's bare-breasted statue, Spirit of Justice, and her male counterpart, Majesty of Law. Oh, and one more incredulity. Ashcroft's office blames the pornography boom on lax enforcement by former President Bill Clinton, whose attorney general, Janet Reno, focused instead on combating child pornography and online predators. Guess we were getting enough porn from the Starr Report on the news.

Limey, if a fictional video game can do so much harm then what must be the result from having a crazed madman for a role model and president who clearly takes so much delight in killing people who cannot effectively fight back. Perhaps someone could sue him for an 18 figure sum.

From The BBC

Claims by teenage boys in Tennessee that they were acting out the Grand Theft Auto game when they shot at vehicles are threatening to put the US entertainment industry back on trial. One man was killed and a woman was badly hurt when William Buckner, 16, and his step-brother Joshua, 14, decided to relieve their boredom by opening fire on traffic on Interstate 40 with a .22-calibre rifle.

Lawyer Jack Thompson has taken up the case and plans to sue the makers of Grand Theft Auto, claiming they should bear some responsibility for the death of Aaron Hamel, a 45-year-old nurse and the injuries caused. Thompson said if manufacturers wanted to keep selling violent games to children, they should be prepared for the consequences he believes repeated playing can have on young and impressionable minds.

He told BBC News Online that parents and the individuals involved also bore responsibility, but argued that without the games there might be fewer murders.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which represents the video game industry, points to research showing that parents overwhelmingly know what games are coming into their homes and being played by their children. It also says violent games are played elsewhere in the world where incidences of violent crime remain lower than in the US, suggesting the causes are not the games.

Douglas Lowenstein, ESA president, described the killing of Aaron Hamel as an "unspeakable tragedy". In a statement, he said it was understandable that bereaved people would look anywhere for answers. But he cited the Surgeon General of the United States, the Washington State Department of Health and the Government of Australia as all finding no credible evidence that violent games led to violent behaviour.

Grand Theft Auto is one of the best-selling games of all time. In the US, it carries a mature rating, for aged 17 and over.

Thompson has fought this battle before - and lost. He was involved in a case where the families of three students shot by a 14-year-old schoolmate tried to sue video game manufacturers among others for responsibility in the deaths at their school in Paducah, Kentucky.

Thompson said the different laws and system in Tennessee may give him the chance to make his case to a jury rather than just to a judge which could help. Thompson said he will file his petition in Tennessee soon, and that he hopes to have a result by this time next year. He said he hoped that punitive damages "in eight figures" would be ordered.

Worrying times indeed. Can't our Hong Kong actions heroes blow away the censorial scourge. There's only a few billion of them.

From The South China Morning Post:

Ghosts, nudity, homosexuality and extramarital affairs may be cut from the scripts of local films as movie producers sacrifice Hong Kong audiences to get into the mainland market. One of the first victims of film industry self-censorship is the sequel to vampire action movie Twins Effect. According to the film's writer and producer, Bey Logan, the sequel will not have any vampires because mainland officials do not like superstition. Twins Effect 2 will become a period film and will not focus on vampires. Mainland officials had an issue with the vampire theme in part one, he said.

The producers made the decision even though international distributors have snatched up the rights to show the original summer blockbuster across the world. Derek Yee Tung-shing, chairman of the Hong Kong Directors' Guild, said moviemakers had begun to exercise a degree of self-censorship on many subjects in the past year. When the free-trade agreement between Hong Kong and the mainland comes into effect next year, things are expected to get worse. Eighty per cent of films nowadays are made with hopes of showing them in mainland cinemas. As a result, moviemakers are censoring themselves. We now need to consider the political messages in films, he said.

In the past, only a few Hong Kong movies, which were classified as foreign films, could be shown in the mainland each year. Under Cepa, however, Chinese-language movies produced by Hong Kong companies can be imported for distribution on the mainland and exempted from the mainland's quota. In addition, co-productions are treated as mainland movies.

Yee said local filmmakers were willing to censor themselves so their films could pass the mainland's strict regulations. "You have to give up some things [to survive]. Ghost stories, adult films, films where the bad guy wins in the end and love stories about extramarital affairs or homosexuals are usually rejected, he said.

From CNET

The Church of Scientology has lost a courtroom battle to compel a Dutch writer and her Internet service provider to remove postings from a Web site, in a ruling that keeps hyperlinks to copyrighted material legal.

On Friday, the Dutch Court of Appeal in The Hague, Netherlands, denied the Scientologists' latest appeal in an online copyright dispute that dates back to 1995. The Church of Scientology has repeatedly pursued legal action in the Netherlands against the writer, Karin Spaink, and her local ISP, Xs4all, over documents first posted in 1995 on the Web site of another customer of the company.

In denying the appeal, the court also overturned two previous rulings that lower courts had handed down. One of these decided that ISPs should be held accountable for any illegal or copyrighted materials posted by their subscribers and that ISPs should take down hyperlinks to such materials. An Xs4all representative cited the overruling of that decision as the larger of the two victories.

I think this establishes an important freedom of speech precedence for the Internet and ISPs in particular, said Edith Mastenbroek, an Xs4all spokeswoman. Any laws set to control how ISPs interact with copyright laws must be made crystal clear.

Representatives for the Church of Scientology could not immediately be reached for comment.

The disagreement began in 1995, when, according to Xs4all, a representative for the Church of Scientology showed up at its office with a legal official and attempted to take possession of the company's servers. The quasi-religious group took issue with the publication of some of its church documents on a Web site hosted by the ISP.

Spaink subsequently became involved, when she heard of the dispute and posted the same documents to her own site hosted by Xs4all.

The Church of Scientology then filed a copyright lawsuit, demanding that the published materials be removed from the sites in question. The church also contended that the ISP should be held accountable for its subscribers' activities in regards to copyrights.

But a District Court of Amsterdam judge ruled in favour of Xs4all and its 1996 subscribers, saying the posted documents were legal, based on individuals' rights to quote from copyrighted material.

In a second lawsuit decided in 1999, the Amsterdam courts again ruled in favour of the ISP, citing the right to freedom of speech. However, in that ruling, the judge said that ISPs should be held accountable for posted materials that might violate existing laws and copyrights.

That 1999 decision also made reference to hyperlinks to materials that might infringe on copyrights. The ruling said that if a provider was made aware of illegal publishing of copyrighted materials, or hyperlinks to copyrighted information, it should take action and remove the Web site or links.

Friday's appellate ruling quashed that decision as well.

Xs4all representatives said they were particularly happy with the ruling, as it relates to hyperlinks.

After all, a hyperlink is merely a road marker on the Internet, and it can therefore never be unlawful, the company said in a statement.

Scientologists have taken a vigorous approach to bullying critical Web sites, pressuring site operators, ISPs and even Internet heavyweights such as Google into removing links to Web pages. In 1999, Amazon.com removed but later restored links to a book critical of Scientology.

From The Observer

The Irish Government is in the dock this weekend over its plans to jail police officers who pass on information to journalists. Minister of Justice Michael McDowell could find himself facing a battle with the European Court of Human Rights over his proposals to imprison and fine gardai whistleblowers.

Under the Garda Siochana Act (2003) any member of the force who unofficially passes on information to the press or media can be jailed for up to five years and/or fined €30,000.

Two leading human rights organisations that campaign internationally against censorship condemned McDowell's Act last night as a 'blanket ban on free speech'. Index on Censorship said the proposed law flew in the face of the Irish government's record on signing up to European Human Rights law and its endorsement of freedom of information legislation. This weekend a number of Irish journalists will attach an addendum to their stories explaining that under the Garda Act they and their sources could be prosecuted, imprisoned or fined.

Andrew Puddephat, chairman of Article 19, said McDowell's legislation would breach the European Convention on Human Rights and was out of all proportion to any law-breaking by gardai. Police officers should have the right to be whistle blowers like any other civil or public servant. But even if a police officer committed an offence by giving information to a journalist, the penalties proposed in this Act are far out of proportion to the offence. I would imagine that if this law was enacted it could be successfully challenged in the European Court of Human Rights. It is without doubt a violation of the convention.

Judith Vidal-Hall, editor of the London-based Index on Censorship group, described McDowell's law as draconian. The Irish government ... was one of the first signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights and the first EU state to sign up to Freedom of Information laws. Yet this will impose a blanket ban on police officers speaking to journalists. The government ought to think twice about this dangerous piece of legislation,

The Dublin government claims the legislation in fact deals with corrupt gardai who take payments from reporters for information. Reports in a number of Dublin newspapers suggest that at least six correspondents in the Irish capital are paying gardai for information. A number of reporters have since taken legal action against the papers concerned.

The upshot of the McDowell legislation is that detectives and uniformed officers will become extremely reluctant to offer journalists information on crime, corruption, terrorist ceasefires and other social issues. Off-the-record briefings have been the basis of ground-breaking stories that have shaken the establishment, such as the Haughey exposé.

It looks like Singapore will soon be treating adults as braindead, potential rapists in need of protection from sex and violence. I suppose this must be considered a step up from treating them as 2 year old children.

From The Straits Times

Singapore currently has a video censorship system where only those videos with PG (Parental Guidance) and G (General) ratings can be sold over the counter.

The Censorship Review Committee has proposed changes so that video distributors will also be able to offer titles to viewers 15 and older (NC15), and 18 and older (M18).

This means that many films must be snipped to suit these ratings for home video formats. The futuristic hit film Matrix Reloaded is one title due for release soon that may disappoint fans. One sexy scene was cut out before it made it to the cinema. Now some violent scenes may also be snipped, to make it acceptable for homes.

Distributors like Alliance Entertainment, one of the biggest in the business here, also hope that such changes may help them win back some of the customers lost to competition from Internet or bootleg sales. Many people are ordering their DVDs on the Net, or buying pirated VCDs and DVDs from across the Causeway, said Alliance Entertainment chief executive Tan Poh Lam.

But even before the report was made public, representatives from the nutters in the Hindu, Christian and Muslim communities were already worried that current curbs on television, film, publications and other media might be relaxed too much.

The National Council of Churches of Singapore's associate general secretary, Lim Kay Tham, said: We are not against the CRC giving people more choice, flexibility and freedom. [BUT...] We hope, however, that the CRC will be able to safeguard the moral and core values of society even as it eases the rules. Those pushing for the relaxation of censorship rules must recognise that they are part of a wider society, and should do so with a sense of social responsibility.

Tamil Murasu's editor, Dr Chitra Rajaram, a panel member, said of the discussions: Some parents felt that, as far as movies and TV shows are concerned, the rules are already quite liberal. They cited the sitcom Friends, with its cohabiting characters. This is not what we want to teach our children.

But for many in the arts community, the proposals released on Thursday made 'assumptions that are not valid' and were no more than 'cosmetic changes'.

A group of mainly theatre practitioners and arts centre directors said their main concern was that the CRC had not distinguished between censorship and regulation. Lee Weng Choy of The Substation, who spoke for the group, said that censorship should be done away with and replaced by regulation. [You what! You cannot be serious!]

Possible hype warning!

From The Mercury News

Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci is worried that his sexually explicit new film The Dreamers might be cut in the United States out of concern it is too graphic for American audiences. Bertolucci said his U.S. distributor, Fox Searchlight, is concerned the film may get the dreaded NC-17 rating, which is the equivalent of an X-rating and typically reduces audiences considerably.

The film risks coming out in the United States amputated and mutilated, the Italian director said. Perhaps someone thinks that the U.S. public is too immature to see this.

The American co-star, Michael Pitt, said explicit shots - including his full-frontal nudity - shouldn't be an issue. He argued that U.S. viewers would not be offended by the movie.

Youth is at the centre of The Dreamers  which tells the story of a young American student (Pitt) who moves in with a Parisian brother and sister whose wild lifestyle changes him. The love triangle is framed by their obsession with movies - but is initially untouched by the social uprising that shook Europe in 1968.

From the Register

Big news from France today where EMI has landed in the soup for selling 'defective' copyright protected CDs.

A Nanterre court has ordered the music label to refund  a woman who could not play her new Alain Souchon CD on her car CD player. Alternatively, EMI is to provide a full-working copy. The ruling applies to all people who have bought CDs which they cannot play on some CD players, computers and Walkmans.

But EMI was not forbidden by the court to sell copyright protected CDs per se, merely that it must not sell defective CDs. So it appears like it could be back to the drawing board for the anti-piracy measures it uses.

Also in the Nanterre dock was Auchon, the giant department store chain, which sold the offending (and to non-French ears, offensive CD. It escaped punishment for its offence of failing to inform the Alain Souchon fan that the CD was copy protected.

The unnamed woman who struck a blow for French shoppers was supported by UFC, the French consumer rights group. It is to appeal the Nanterre court's decision against banning copyright protection.

UFC is also sueing Warner for selling a copy protected Phil Collins CD in Macintosh and a Universal executive for the protection on the DVD of Mulholland Drive.

According to a repor, some French retailers are trying to ward off legal action by issuing warning notices about copyright protection at point of purchase.

Of course: EMI sells its defective product all around the world. In Australia last month the firm escaped sanction for selling CDs that refused to work on some CD players. The Age has an instructive account of the consumer complaint and its decidedly consumer-unfriendly rejection.

From the Mirror

Those who visit Amsterdam this summer, watching tourists patrolling the infamous Red Light district in search of sex and drugs, might not notice how the vaunted Dutch tolerance is wearing thin. The Dutch, complaining that their culture of "looking the other way" has created a free-for-all, want to turn the clock back.

The toughest stance has been taken by Rotterdam, traditionally regarded as the working man's city as opposed to Amsterdam, home of the cultural elite.

And behind the calls for more law and order is a growing tendency to blame crime on ethnic minorities. Just a few years ago, the police refused to register the ethnic origins of criminal suspects. But after a series of attacks in which black youths killed white people the mayors of several Dutch cities have started to single out specific groups from North Africa and the Caribbean. This has fuelled tensions with immigrant groups. Moroccans rioted in Amsterdam this month when police shot dead a youth who had a knife.

The Dutch have been noted for their tolerance in Europe for centuries, adopting a policy which allowed illegal if non-obtrusive behaviour. In recent decades they added the sale of cannabis, drug usage and prostitution to the long list misdemeanours to which they turned a blind eye. Some were even legalised.

Now, the municipal authorities, many of which came to power during the 1960s and 1970s when they replaced their older and stricter predecessors, realise they may have overdone it.

In a bid to reverse the trend Rotterdam mayor Ivo Opstelten, nicknamed "Giuliani on the (River) Maas" in a reference to New York's former hard-line mayor, has vowed to lock up or cure the city's 700 hard-core drug addicts. The new city council has slashed the number of "coffee shops" which sell soft drugs from 300 to 60 and aims to reduce the number further.

Amsterdam, one of the first European cities to adopt a relaxed attitude to homosexuals, is working to shut erotic bars and clubs. This place is getting worse than Tehran, joked Siep de Haan who organises the annual Gay Pride parade. City Hall is terrified about Amsterdam's image of sex and drugs and rock and roll.

Until last year, police officers were allowed to frisk only the people they arrested. Now, following a pilot scheme in Rotterdam, anyone walking the Dutch streets can be searched at any time. Begging, which ceased to be an offence many years ago, has been reinstated as a punishable felony by authorities in bigger cities. Beggars were becoming aggressive, and we were powerless. Something needed to be done, explained an Amsterdam police spokesman. Urinating in the canals or against Amsterdam's elegant 17th-century facades, once ignored by passing policemen, will be punished by a hefty fine. Stricter law enforcement is welcomed by voters who have expressed their exasperation at what they see as a decline in Dutch society by electing new rightist parties to run town halls.

The promise to restore law and order has been keenly embraced by established parties in an attempt to stem their own decline.

Having already restricted the sale of postcards showing explicit nudity, Amsterdam's mayor Job Cohen is aiming to limit all-night opening hours for brothels. He hopes it will reduce harassment from brawling Britons who drink through the night before heading home on cheap flights, said Marjan Jonker of the prostitute interest group De Rode Draad (The Red Thread/String). It's all aimed to limit nuisance. The measures are aimed to make the streets safer for Amsterdammers, but not for prostitutes whom police are checking for illegal immigrants much more aggressively these days, she added.

In another sign of the turning tide, commercial television broadcaster SBS -- which operates three Dutch channels -- said in June that it would stop showing explicit sex, the feature which defined its launch a decade ago. It was getting out of hand, said SBS manager Fons van Westerloo. Erotic shows crept towards porn and overshadowed our image. Viewer ratings were also going down. Is the mood in the country shifting to become more puritanical? Yes, I think so. We've decided to take our responsibility.

Some schools have overturned the practice of calling teachers by their first names and reverted to "sir" and "madam". Soon to be introduced is a compulsory identity card, frowned upon after World War Two when careful registration helped the Nazis hunt down Dutch Jews. The card is now seen as an inevitable aid to keep on top of crime.

Based on an article from RedNova

The Bush mis-administration has appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate a law that punishes Web site operators who expose children to supposedly inappropriate material.

The court has already sided with the government once this year in its war against online porn, ruling that Congress can require public libraries that receive federal funding to equip computers with anti-pornography filters.

In an appeal filed Monday, Solicitor General Theodore Olson said the filter technology alone is not enough. Children are unprotected from the harmful effects of the enormous amount of pornography on the World Wide Web, he told justices.

The broader law at issue now requires that operators of commercial Internet sites use credit cards or some form of adults-only screening system to ensure children cannot see material deemed harmful to them. Operators could face fines and jail time for not complying. Olson said the main target was commercial pornographers who use sexually explicit "teasers" to lure customers.

Critics contend the law violates the rights of adults to see or buy what they want on the Internet. A Philadelphia-based appeals court has twice ruled that the 1998 law, known as the Child Online Protection Act, unconstitutionally restricts speech. The law has been on hold since it was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of artists, book stores and others who put information on the Web.

The Supreme Court has reviewed the law once. The justices were split in a 2002 ruling that sent the case back to the court in Philadelphia for more consideration of the First Amendment implications. Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in Internet law, said Tuesday that the high court will likely struggle again with what to do. From the government's view, it can't hurt to appeal because it's essentially a roulette wheel, he said. Zittrain predicted that the government will have a tougher time than it did persuading the high court to uphold the library filter law. The government argued in its filing that the cases are similar.

ACLU associate legal director Ann Beeson said the laws are very different because the 1998 statute involves criminal penalties for people who exercise free speech rights. I would have thought the Justice Department would have better things to do with its time than to defend what is clearly an unconstitutional law, she said.

Extreme Associates are certainly making a robust defence against the recent police raids. They are also still selling the seized videos with the idea that proceeds go towards their fighting fund.

From www.extremeassociates.com/federal5.html

Alright everybody, Now I will clear the air and tell you exactly what happened so all the bullshit sites can get the facts straight for the first time.

   At approximately 9:10 AM Pacific Time Tuesday morning, roughly 47 uniformed federal marshals and postal inspectors from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with assistance from the LAPD, served a search and seizure warrant for 4 Extreme Associates and 1 Armageddon Entertainment movie. The movies were:
1. Extreme Teen #24
2. Cocktails #2 - Director's Cut
3. Ass Clowns #3 - Director's Cut
4. 1001 Ways to Eat My Jizz
and last but certainly not least PBS' favorite:
5. Forced Entry

  Along with seizing copies of these movies, they seized "sales records, distribution records, invoices, transaction records, records of payments and deposits, profit/loss and financial statements, records of accounts payable and accounts receivable, expense records, customer lists, employee records, notes, correspondence and other business papers which reflect or relate to the production, advertisement, distribution, and the sale of the films. . ."

  There were no arrest warrants. Nobody was arrested. And, Extreme Associates doors are now and will remain open for business selling the fine quality Extreme product that you have grown to love. This will INCLUDE all of the videos which are part of this obscenity investigation as we stand by our product and feel that nothing we have ever produced is obscene. The only thing we may be guilty of is bad taste.

  As this is a preliminary investigation, there was nothing more and nothing less. So everyone can cool their jets. And for the record, the complaint which led to this investigation came out of Pittsburgh, PA and not out of Kentucky and not because of anything any former actress may have said or not said. This had to do with mailing a customer - a private individual - videos which they requested, paid for, and accepted! Now this is where we stand as we know it and I will expand on more as our attorneys fill me in on the case of;

I don't quite understand, I thought Forced Entry: The Directors Cut was a hardcore film about the rape of Baghdad. I thought the Americans would glory in a tale of unprovoked and unjustified murder and violence.

Based on an article from the LA Times

The Justice Department on Thursday charged a North Hollywood wholesaler of adult films with violating federal obscenity laws, launching the first of what it threatened would be a wave of criminal cases against sellers of pornography.

The 10-count federal grand jury indictment against Extreme Associates and its executives, Robert Zicari and Janet Romano of Northridge, raising alarm among adult entertainment companies in the San Fernando Valley, which is considered the capital of the nation's multibillion-dollar pornography industry.

Attorney General, Nutter John Ashcroft promised upon taking office that he would crack down on the distributors of adult entertainment material such as movies, magazines and Web sites, much as his Reagan administration predecessor Edwin Meese III did in the 1980s.

Today's indictment marks an important step in the Department of Justice's strategy for attacking the proliferation of adult obscenity. The department will continue to focus our efforts on targeted obscenity prosecutions that will deter others from producing and distributing obscene material.

Executives at Extreme Associates did not return calls Thursday, but one industry official said adult entertainment businesses were preparing for a fight. This is just another form of harassment by the government, said William Lyon, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a trade group for the adult entertainment industry. The government will try to get convictions on the edges of this industry, and we will fight them all the way.

Thursday's indictment came after investigators with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service set up a sting operation in Pennsylvania. From September 2002 through July 2003, the indictment says, the defendants sold allegedly obscene material over the Internet and distributed videotapes and DVDs across state lines through the postal system. US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said If a company is wanting to take advantage of the Internet for marketing and distribution purposes, it's their responsibility to make sure they're not violating local laws.

Extreme Associates produces movies such as Extreme Teen #24 and Forced Entry: Directors Cut, which depict the fictional rapes and murders of several women, according to court documents.

Extreme Associates, a relatively small player in triple X-rated entertainment, has garnered both financial success and public attention in the last several years for its line of hyper-aggressive adult films. The privately held company employs 15 people and has annual sales of $20 million to $49.9 million, according to the U.S. Business Directory.

Extreme's offices were searched in April under a federal search warrant. The unsealed warrant shows that federal and postal investigators seized copies of five different movies as well as sales records, distribution invoices and an array of other business documents.

On the company's Web site, which Thursday featured an American flag waving in the breeze, Zicari posted a statement that said no one had been arrested and that the company remained in business. He vowed to fight the government. He went on to name the five allegedly obscene films and, in an act of defiance, announced that the company was selling "The Federal Five" tapes at a discount on its Web site.

Zicari and Romano are scheduled to be arraigned in Pittsburgh on Aug. 27. If convicted, Zicari, also known as Rob Black, and Romano, also known as Lizzie Borden, each could face as much as 50 years in prison and a fine of $2.5 million. The company could pay a fine of as much as $5 million.

Every time we get a Republican administration, these kinds of cases seem to perk up, said lawyer Elliot Abelson, who defended the industry in obscenity cases from the late 1970s to the mid-'80s.

The adult entertainment industry has grown dramatically since then. Annual rentals and sales of adult videos and DVDs top $4 billion, and the industry churns out about 11,000 titles each year ; more than 20 times as many as Hollywood, according to Adult Video News, a trade magazine.

Singapore's nightclubs and bars were preparing special parties and offering cheap drinks on Thursday evening to welcome in the legalisation of bar-top dancing.

Club owners have spent thousands of dollars to usher in what is being regarded in this heavily regulated city-state as a major social change.

Singapore's major English-language daily newspaper, The Straits Times, flagged the new law on its front page on Thursday, as well as devoting three of its broadsheet pages to the issue.

I've been waiting for this day for 14 months, the paper quoted a local club owner as saying, while reporting on other bars that were going to stage parties and promotions on Thursday to celebrate the event.

Bar-top dancing had been prohibited under Singapore's Public Entertainment Act, with "offenders" facing a fine of S$750 (US$430).

Owners could also have lost their licences if caught twice allowing patrons to dance on their bars.

But police announced this month they would lift the ban upon the recommendations of a government appointed panel, with the move to take effect from Friday morning.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong last year hinted that Singapore, famed for censorship of racy films and magazines, would relax some social restrictions as a part a drive to encourage creativity.

Aside from bar-top dancing, the government has said it would allow bungee jumping and bars in non-residential areas to stay open around the clock.

And no doubt the Islam spin doctors will continue to insist on Islam being a tolerant religion.

From The Index for Free Expression

Munawar Mohsin, a former subeditor of the Pakistan national daily Frontier Post, has been sentenced to life on charges of blasphemy.

On July 8 in Peshawar, Mohsin was convicted and sentenced for publishing a letter to the editor entitled
'Why Muslims Hate Jews,' which included derogatory references to the Prophet Mohammed.

In testimony given before a magistrate soon after his arrest, Mohsin admitted that he had published
the letter by mistake, without reading the full text carefully. The day after the letter was published,
the Post placed advertisements in the major Urdu and English-language dailies, apologising for 'the publication...of highly blasphemous material masquerading as a letter to the editor.'

Despite the paper's unequivocal public apology, religious groups staged violent demonstrations, with protestors calling for the journalists to be executed.

Frontier Post managing editor Mahmood Shah Afridi, was also charged and has gone into hiding. Two other former Frontier Post staffers, news editor Aftab Ahmad and computer operator Wajihul Hassan, were acquitted.

From The Herald Sun

Australian sex shop king John Lark recently lost his latest battle to free censorship laws after a court imposed Queensland's largest fine for selling pornography.

Lark, who founded the Australian version of Hustler magazine, said Queensland legislation was "archaic" and unconstitutional. He has vowed to continue the fight by launching an appeal.

Last year, a magistrates court threw out a case brought by the Office of Fair Trading against Lark's company for selling pornographic magazines and videos. Brisbane District Court Judge Anthony Healy upheld an appeal, brought by Queensland chief censor David Cannavan against the magistrate's decision. Lark's company Lettvale Pty Ltd, trading as Good Vibrations, was today convicted and fined $24,750 and had $2100 in costs awarded against it.

Good Vibrations had been prosecuted in the Holland Park Magistrates Court on Brisbane's southside on one count of selling pornographic videos and another of selling pornographic magazines from the Adult World shop in the southside Brisbane suburb of Mt Gravatt.

Outside the District Court, Lark said he was disappointed at today's judgment. The fines are the largest ever for the state and thank goodness for the courts, we have the right to appeal.

Lark said he had been fighting for freer censorship laws around Australia since 1984 and Queensland laws were the most archaic. We want a level platform where we are the same as Canberra and right around the country.

From Yahoo News

A Polish artist who exhibited an image of a man's penis attached to a cross broke the Roman Catholic country's law on blasphemy, a court has ruled. the conviction of artist Danuta Nieznalska in the Baltic port of Gdansk was the first known instance in Poland of anyone being convicted of offending religious sensibilities.

The cross is a symbol of suffering, because on it Christ died. There is no doubt that this cross has been desecrated, according to Judge Tomasz Zielinski.

In addition to a 2,000 zloty ($500) fine, the judge imposed on Nieznalska a six-month foreign travel ban, saying her legal notoriety would likely increase her demand in international art circles.

Nieznalska sad: I am shocked by such a severe sentence. The court was totally biased. The judge admitted he was no art expert.

Thanks to Andrew: From the Western Australian

If Balmain's town hall had a chandelier, the ghost of Voltaire would have been swinging from it the night a group calling themselves Free Cinema tried to screen the banned film Ken Park there. Voltaire was the French philosopher who penned the famous quote I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. And it was in that spirit that film critic and SBS Movie Show presenter Margaret Pomeranz, ABC broadcaster Julie Rigg, filmmaker Christina Andreef and academic Jane Mills pressed the button to start a DVD-copy of the controversial film.

Pomeranz later told a talkback caller to Sky News across Australia: I don't want to make people see this film, but I don;t want people like you to stop me seeing it.

Film buffs who had followed US director Larry Clarke's career would not have been surprised by Ken Park. He also made Kids, an equally sad and bleak story depicting teen life in lower-class New York.
Many thought Ken Park, set in California, was a sequel. But Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) was so disturbed by scenes which included incest and auto-erotic asphyxiation that it banned it.

Ken Park is one of only five films - along with Baise Moi, I Spit on Your Grave, Salo and In A Glass Cage - to be banned by the OFLC since 1995.

Already seen at many overseas film festivals where critics rated it from awful to four-star material, Ken Park was withdrawn from the Sydney Film Festival last month after the OFLC's ban was upheld on appeal.
The showdown at Balmain was preceded by an underground screening, attended by only 40 people, at a community arts warehouse in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Brunswick. Victorian police made no attempt to stop the screening.

At Balmain some 500 people crowded into the town hall, with more queued up put outside, to see the film. Speeches were made and the decision to go ahead with the screening was taken. But soon after the opening credits, six police officers walked on stage, seized the DVD and took names of four people who admitted to pressing the play button.

At the time of writing, there have been no arrests. Peomeranz, however, understands that she and the others risked 12 months jail and/or an $11,000 fine by doing what they did and says she still could be charged.
It's not a little rap across the kunckles, Pomeranz told Sky News. It's a very severe penalty and I knew what I was doing, we all did. But I felt strongly because I had actually seen Ken Park at an international festival where it had been given a great deal of respect and sold in many countries across the world, and I just saw Australia falling a long way behind world cinema.

Larry Clarke says his characters are based on fact and Pomeranz says, like it or not, the aspects of life depicted happen in Australia. She concedes the auto-erotic asphyxiation scene is "very graphic", but says when viewed in context, it gives an insight into the lives of troubled young people.

The furore has focused attention squarely on the role of the OFLC. Pomeranz says Free Cinema will not be making another attempt to show Ken Park in Sydney. I think we've made our point,"she says. And , even though every 15 year old is downloading it from the internet and she adds quickly that she doesn't think that is good - she is still expecting the police to knock on her door.

[Just some footnotes to this report. I Spit On Your Grave, although officially banned in Australia in 1995 is widely available uncut at most video rental outlets in the form of the old Palace Explosive Video release from the early 1980]

Based on an article from the The Independent

Banzai, Channel 4's spoof Japanese game show, is being hassled by nutters in America over claims that it demeans Asian people.

Media workers protested in Hollywood after the first American showing of the programme, which invited audiences to guess the outcome of a series of silly stunts.

Guy Aoki, co-founder of the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans, said: This is like an Asian minstrel show. Can you imagine the black version of Banzai? About 20 members of the group carried placards and protested as Fox television showed the programme to television critics.

Earlier this month, Fox pulled a season of Charlie Chan mystery movies. The films were showing on the Fox Movie Channel on cable TV but a notice on the Fox website said they had been stopped after the "sensitive" nature of the films was pointed out by viewers.

Fox has defended Banzai and said it had received comments praising it. Scott Grogin, a spokesman for Fox, said: It's a satire, a parody of Japanese game shows. It's very tongue-in-cheek and should not be viewed as anything but.

The stars of Banzai are Mr Cheeky Chappie (Peter Chong), Mr Banzai Man (Masashi Fujimoto) and Mr Shakey Hands Man (Tadao Tomomatsu). Channel 4 said there had not been any objections in Britain, where it is on its third series. It pointed out that the Fox version would have been formatted for an American audience.

Mr Aoki maintained that it "demeans and stereotypes" Asian-American people. He said his group had held two meetings with the Fox network about Banzai, asking for it not to be broadcast. Fox had indicated that if Banzai returned for another series, a disclaimer could be shown at the beginning of the show - but Mr Aoki said this would not be enough to meet his group's concerns.

(Of course the Melon Farmers would never stereotype and demean any nation particularly not the United States of War Criminals).

From the The Age

More than 200 people defied Australia's censors by turning out for an underground screening of the controversially banned film, Ken Park.

A copy of the film, which was downloaded from the internet, was screened at a secret inner city location without police action to close it down.

The crowd of more than 200 had been told of the screening by email and word of mouth over the past 24 hours in a bid to avoid publicity and police scrutiny.

The independent film was refused classification in May because of its depictions of teenage sex, incest and auto-erotic asphyxiation.

In a 6-1 decision, the board said Ken Park dealt with sexual matters in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults

From the Charlotte Observer

A district judge recently called North Carolina's sodomy law unconstitutional, as he threw out two charges against a man accused of soliciting sodomy last May in a public park.

The judge threw out two cases against the defendant, saying the state's law barring anal or oral sex for anyone except married couples was invalidated by a Supreme Court ruling last month that overturned the Texas sodomy law.

The ruling ruling is not binding. It will be up to higher courts to decide whether the N.C. crime-against-nature law should stand after the Supreme Court ruling. The judge though, called it "dead in its face," and said the act of soliciting sodomy is an issue of free speech and personal expression.

Assistant District Attorney Brian Prewitt said the case likely will be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

This is the first time any court in this state has found this unconstitutional, said Warren, a former Superior Court judge who publicly revealed his homosexuality while still a judge. I think it's just exactly what a lot of legal minds already felt.

The Supreme Court ruling made it clear police can't arrest people for performing sodomy in a private home, but it didn't directly address public solicitation.

So courts and police are left to decide how to handle the law. Last week, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police slightly revised the guidelines they use when arresting people for soliciting sodomy in public places.

The new guidelines say police no longer can arrest those they suspect are meeting in public and agreeing to have anal or oral sex in a home or other private place. They say they still will cite those wanting to perform sodomy in a public or unspecified place.

From the BBC

Pakistan is to develop software to block pornographic websites as part of a drive against obscenity on the net. The computer program will be offered for free to surfers later this year so that they can set up internet filters on their machines.

As a conservative Muslim nation, Pakistan is keen to shield its citizens from the copious amount of explicit material on the web. It could face an uphill struggle, with more than 60% of the country's internet users visiting porn sites, according to telecoms officials. Many of the Pakistanis looking at adult material on the web are said to be youngsters.

Internet access is readily and cheaply available in thousands of net cafes across the country. An hours surfing can cost as little as 15 rupees (15 pence) an hour. An estimated one million people use the internet in Pakistan.

Pakistan has already tried to stem the flow of pornography over the net. Earlier this year, the authorities blocked more than 1,800 websites, which were described as a "corrupt and evil influence". (Exactly as the Melon Farmers would describe the authorities)

This is a continuing process and we will keep on blocking such sites, Zahir Mohammad Khan, a senior official at state-run Pakistan Telecommunication told the Reuters news agency. He said people would be able to download the filtering software for free from the site of the Ministry of Information Technology.

Thanks to Andrew

Tonight in Sydney the film Ken Park was confiscated prior to being viewed at a film festival.

Last night police raided a 'private'screening of Ken Park in the Sydney suburb of Balmain. Just as the film was starting they entered the hall and tried to intervene. One guy in the front row swung the projector around so the image could be seen on the side wall as the police were blocking the image from the front. We got to see the opening credits and some early footage before the cops turned off the power. This caused the problem of jamming the DVD player from which the film was being shown. They couldn't get the disc out. The organiser, a well know film critic from Sydney was asked to go to the police station. She agreed, they left, she shouted things out about how the film was a legitimate work etc etc... Night over!!!

David Irving's controversial film about the holocaust (or apparent lack of!!!) has also run into trouble in Sydney tonight.

The mind boggles at the concept of a respectability certificate

From Ananova

A mayor in Romania says he wants to see two brothels open up in his town - one for the rich and one for the poor. Ion Rotaru, mayor of Piatra Neamt in eastern Romania, says he wants to open the brothels if and when new legislation to legalise prostitution, currently being debated in parliament, is passed into law.

But he says he wants two brothels - a luxury one in the city's residential area and one for people living in the poorest district called Speranta. He told the Curierul National newspaper: I was the first mayor to say two years ago that I wanted a brothel in my town. But now I want two because I realise most of the people living in Piatra Neamt will not be able to afford the payments.

Only weeks ago an MP in Romania admitted to spending five months visiting brothels as part of research into the legislation. Vasile Duta said after he spent months travelling the country visiting brothels and hotels as part of an information gathering mission any woman who wanted to work legally as a prostitute should be at least 35-years-old. He said: And they would need to get a respectability certificate from the police as well.

As the United States of War Criminals have kicked arse in Iraq it is interesting to see how their local press gloat about new found freedoms in Iraq. The only new found freedoms in America seem to be the freedom to torture prisoners and to maim and kill thousands without justification.

From The Kansas City Star

Under throbbing red lights, a strapping, shirtless Othello pulls the lithe waist of a swooning Desdemona into his grinding hips. Her head falls back in a moment of ecstasy, her long brown hair undone, free. He bends to kiss her lips, her neck, her chest....

In director Ali Talib's re-imagining of Shakespeare's Othello, a modern dance performance called Obey the Devil set to New Age music worthy of Enya, the bodice-ripping choreography isn't merely designed for titillation. It's Talib's comment on the liberties of post-Saddam theater in Iraq.

Obey the Devil has been in rehearsals for 15 months, yet it's only in the last few weeks that Talib has been able to stage the simulated sex and partial nudity that is part of his artistic vision. We need to show the sex, to show moments of Othello and Desdemona making love, so when he kills her later out of jealousy, the audience feels the loss, said Talib, 28, who hopes his production will define the newly revived Iraqi theater scene. Under Saddam, everything was prohibited, he added. The censors would never let us do this.

One by one, the long-held taboos of the old regime are falling away: the limits on political satire, on pro-Western and pro-Socialist poetry, on simulated sex for the stage.