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From AVN

Perhaps Senator Orrin Hatch's (R-Utah) new bill, S. 2140 – the "Protecting Children from Sexual Exploitation Act of 2005" – will teach Hollywood that it doesn't score any points in Congress by being timid on sexual free speech issues.

Mainstream movie producers failed to support Free Speech Coalition's successful lawsuit against portions of the Child Pornography Protection Act, and in what may be thought of as karmic repayment, Sen. Hatch's bill would require 2257 records and labeling on any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, or other matter that (1) contains one or more visual depictions of simulated sexually explicit matter; and (2) is produced in whole or in part with materials which have been mailed or shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, or is shipped or transported or is intended for shipment or transportation in interstate or foreign commerce.

Hatch's bill proposes creating an entirely new section of the law: 18 U.S.C. §2257A, "Recordkeeping requirements for simulated sexual conduct."

Hollywood's 2257A requirements would be pretty much the same as the adult industry's 2257 duties: Ascertain, by examination of an identification document containing such information, the performer's name and date of birth, and require the performer to provide such other indicia of his or her identity as may be prescribed by regulations (Will the front page of the National Inquirer do?); and ascertain any name, other than the performer's present and correct name, ever used by the performer including maiden name, alias, nickname, stage or professional name.

A mainstream performer simulating sex could be prosecuted under this section for either failing to provide correct identity information or for obscenity.

Finally, the Hatch bill creates punishments for failing to comply with every detail of the 2257 and 2257A laws: One year in prison and/or an undetermined fine. Second offenses are significantly worse.

From CNET News

A federal judge has blocked enforcement of a California law restricting violent video games, saying it violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte ruled late Wednesday that the state law, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October, unconstitutionally restricts minors' rights to information and granted the video game industry's request for a preliminary injunction.

Serious questions are raised concerning (California's) ability to restrict minors' First Amendment rights in connection with exposure to violent video games, including the question of whether there is a causal connection between access to such games and psychological or other harm to children, Whyte said in a written opinion.

California is one of a string of states that recently have enacted similar laws restricting violent and sexually explicit video games, legislation that has been uniformly rejected by the courts. Laws in Illinois and Michigan were blocked by federal judges on First Amendment grounds in the last few weeks, and earlier laws in Indianapolis and Missouri's St. Louis County have also been shot down. The U.S. Supreme Court has not squarely addressed this topic, but it has said in other contexts that even minors have free-expression rights.

The California law said minors must be restricted from buying a "violent video game." That was defined as a game in which the player has the option of "killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being" in offensive ways.

The Entertainment Software Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that filed many of the lawsuits, applauded the California decision. For the sixth time in five years, federal courts have now blocked or struck down these state and local laws seeking to regulate the sale of games to minors based on their content, and none have upheld such statutes, ESA president Douglas Lowenstein said in a statement.

Because Judge Whyte's decision is only preliminary, the final outcome could change after a full trial takes place. Attorneys for California are expected to cite research that claims to demonstrate a causal link between violent video games and harm to children.

From Australian IT

Hillary Clinton and US Senate colleagues have now introduced laws banning the sale of violent or sexually explicit games to minors, saying the industry's self-rating system is not being enforced.

The proposed measure is the latest development in an increasingly strident battle over the content of video games, which represent a $US10 billion industry in the United States, rivaling the box office revenue of Hollywood movies.

Some states have already passed laws regulating the sales, although the video game industry has won some early court battles against them.

At a recent news conference on Capitol Hill, Democrat Senator Clinton said legal restraints should be imposed to keep inappropriate video games from children, in the same way laws protect children from tobacco, alcohol and pornography.

In some video games, characters routinely spray each other with machine gun fire, drive over pedestrians and kill police officers, Senator Clinton said, saying it was all too easy for minors to buy such games:These video games are stealing the innocence of our children. Our bill puts teeth into the standards set by the industry.

The former first lady introduced the bill along with Democratic senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Evan Bayh of Indiana. They did not discuss prospects for advancing the legislation, but said they expected to attract some Republican sponsors.
 

The bill would prohibit any business from selling or renting a video game rated "Mature", "Adults-Only" or "Ratings Pending" to anyone younger than 17. Violation would be a federal misdemeanour. On-site managers of stores that made the prohibited sales would be subject to a fine of $US1000 or 100 hours of community service for the first offence; and $US5000 or 500 hours of community service for each subsequent offence.

Video game ratings are set by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, an independent non-profit group established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association. The president of that association, Douglas Lowenstein, said the proposed measure was unconstitutional and infringed on the industry's creative rights: We place our trust in parents, not Congress, to decide what's right for their families he said in a statement.

But Senator Lieberman said he was confident the law was constitutional, because it did not impinge on freedom of expression, only restricted sales to minors. There has been no ruling on the matter from the US Supreme Court, he said. Courts in America have not been hesitant to uphold laws that limit children's access to pornography. It's very ironic that courts have now struck down attempts to limit children's access to violent materials, he said.

From The Ledger

Over the past few months, the cable industry has been faced with a double-barreled onslaught. Congress – specifically Sen. Ted Stevens, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, has been making noises about requiring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to hold cable and satellite programming to the same "decency" standards as broadcast media.

In addition, FCC head Kevin Martin, at Stevens' hearings on "Indecency in the Media" announced a revamping of a recent FCC study that, this time, allegedly would show that "a la carte" cable programming would be cheaper than program packagesa.

Now comes the news that National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow has outlined plans for a number of cable operators voluntarily to start selling "family tier" programming; in other words, packages of channels with offerings such as Nickelodeon, FOX Family, ABC Family, Disney and others that, operators hope, will be so inoffensive to indecency-obsessed adults that the organizations that cater to these prudes, such as Parents Television Council, will get off the cable companies' backs and stop pressing the FCC to make indecency regulations apply to paid-access channels.

According to McSlarrow, Comcast and Time-Warner, the nation's top two cable operators, will start offering "family choice" tiers in spring 2006, and several other operators are expected to do so as well. However, the tiers will be available only on digital cable systems, not analog – but with the congressional mandate for all broadcasters to go digital by 2007, that caveat should not be considered much of a problem.

Stevens has scheduled a further hearing on media indecency for Jan. 19, though with the cable operators' cave-in, it's unclear whether that hearings will actually be held. In the meantime, both broadcast media owners and cable operators, clearly worried about possible congressional action, will be scurrying to come up with new proposals they hope will fly with the pro-censorship crowd.

From The Ledger

The American Civil Liberties Union sued Polk County on Friday, saying the county's policy to use the free speech zone set up outside the county administration building (like a speakers corner) is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Tampa, alleges several elements of the policy violate First Amendment rights, including a rule that requires users of the site to have a $500,000 insurance policy.

The lawsuit comes a week after the county officials denied the ACLU use of the site because it did not provide the insurance.

The real problem here is that (the county) has set a policy in place that purports to create a free speech zone, but it's only a free speech zone for those who can afford to cough up the funds to take advantage of it, said Rebecca H. Steele, director of the Tampa chapter of the ACLU.

The organization is also challenging a portion of the policy that requires interested parties to apply 21 days in advance and a rule that bars displays from including pornography, obscenities or commercial speech.

From The Guardian

A documentary which investigates America's notoriously secretive film ratings board has itself fallen foul of the organisation's restrictive NC-17 classification.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated aims to blow the lid off the Motion Picture Association of America, which is charged with classifying films from the perspective of "the average American parent" but has itself been criticised for failing to outline its criteria to film-makers.

Ironically, This Film was handed the NC-17, the badge of shame, because it includes segments from previous films whose chances were damaged by the board's decision.

It is important that this film be seen by as many people as possible as it deals with an insidious form of censorship resulting from a ratings process that has been kept secret for more than 30 years, said director Kirby Dick.

The NC-17 rating, which replaced the X rating in 1990, denies admission to anyone aged 17 and under. It has proved the commercial death of many a film because it restricts the number of cinemas where it can be shown and video stores where it will be stocked on DVD.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated looks in-depth at issues such as whether films with a homosexual theme fare worse than those with heterosexual content in the ratings process, and asks why movies with violent themes are deemed more suitable for viewing by young people than those which contain sex scenes.

It also attempts to reveal exactly who sits on the board, which has existed since 1922 and includes chairmen and presidents of the seven major producers and distributors of motion pictures and television programmes in the United States - Sony, Warner Bros, Paramount, MGM, Fox, Disney and Universal.

Independent film-makers often complain that they are not party to information provided by the MPAA to directors at the major studios on how to avoid the NC-17 rating.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated is set to premiere at the Sundance film festival in 2006.

See AVN for a more complete analysis of the case

In a unanimous opinion released today, a three-judge panel of the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling of District Court judge Gary Lancaster and reinstated all charges against Extreme Associates, Rob Black and Lizzy Borden.

Extreme's attorneys, H. Louis Sirkin and Jennifer Kinsley, were undeterred.  I haven't yet read the opinion, but I got the gist of it from Reed Lee. So everybody understands, they didn't blow away our argument, and most importantly, they didn't blow us away on standing. They said we had the right to bring the issue, and that puts us way ahead of the game. The important thing is having won it in the district court, because we can now go forward with our appeals ... without having exposed our client to the danger of what potentially could happen in a trial.

In January of this year, obscenity charges against Black and Borden were thrown out in the first federal obscenity prosecution in over a decade. The two were charged in August 2003 with distributing obscene videos to Pittsburgh addresses through the mail and transmitting obscene images over the Internet.

From AVN

A federal judge recently sentenced a Florida man to five years in prison for conspiring to distribute obscene videotapes.

Sanford Wasserman maintained his innocence and told the judge that he resented being made a “poster child” for a Bush administration “crusade” against pornography

Wasserman pleaded guilty earlier this year under an agreement that allows him some appeal rights. He later tried to withdraw the plea but was turned down by the judge, according to the story.

Prosecutors said Wasserman conspired with Thomas Lambert of Montana to distribute obscene videos. In court records, prosecutors characterized some of the tapes, which were available through mail-order catalogues, as depicting bestiality and violent sex, the story said.

Lambert pleaded guilty and was sentenced in June to two-and-a-half years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Bill Mercer called Wasserman the “king pin” in a distribution business and argued for a longer sentence than Lambert’s to act as a deterrent. He said Wasserman’s five-year sentence may be one of the stiffest imposed in a recent obscenity case.

From the Sentinel and Enterprise
From Enid News

City officials expressed significant concern that a T-shirt vilified Thursday by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino is sold in two downtown clothing stores, saying the apparel subverts the Fitchburg Police Department's work to reduce violence and drug dealing in the city.

The "Stop Snitching" shirt, a motto first popularized earlier this year in an underground DVD featuring Baltimore drug dealers, is sold in JJ & E Fashion and Manhattan Fashion, which are both located on Main Street.

Anyone that supports that type of mentality is either ignorant or their intent is malicious, Police Chief Edward F. Cronin said of the shirt. I strongly discourage that type of advertising with such a negative message, especially to young people, because they are the people who get affected the most by it and are the most vulnerable.

The shirt was displayed Friday in two varieties at JJ & E Fashion: One featured the slogan emblazoned on a stop sign and the other had a smiling face's mouth zippered.

The store also had several T-shirts on one wall featuring a simply drawn, snowman, a mildly subtle reference to cocaine, popularized by the rapper Young Jeezy on his debut compact disc, "Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101."

I would hope the merchants selling it should know it's not good for the city, not good for them and not good for the people who wear it, Mayor Dan H. Mylott said.

Luis Cruz, a salesperson at JJ & E Fashion, said the shirt is one of the store's more popular items, but does not believe its message is any worse than sexually explicit images or pirated CDs. I sell the T-shirts like any other item. If that was illegal, how come the police don't go to the people who made them?"

The T-shirt's slogan has come to symbolize the tension between police officers seeking insider information in order to penetrate crime circles, and tight-knit gangs punishing their looser-lipped cohorts --

The Boston mayor said Thursday at a news conference the city's Inspectional Services Division will go into every retail store that sells the shirts and remove them.

I would be ashamed of our society if they did something (that drastic) about it, Ward 2 Councilor Norman L. Boisvert said. I believe it is against the Constitution to stop them from selling those T-shirts. You can't dictate to society what (people) wear.

Police Chief Cronin expressed wonder at how Menino could enforce his comments. I have no idea how that could be done in a legal way.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts agrees with Cronin's assessment. Its lawyers today sent a letter to Menino and Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole urging them to stop the announced plan. To have uniformed Boston police officers visit retail stores to 'strongly recommend' that merchants should not sell these T-shirts is a form of official censorship, which is fundamentally inconsistent with the constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, John Reinstein, the ACLU of Massachusetts' legal director, said in a statement.

One clothing store owner agreed Saturday to stop selling the "Stop Snitching" T-shirts amid concerns the message was intimidating murder witnesses during a surge in violent crime. Store owner Antonio Ennis, after meeting with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and outraged community leaders, said he would stop selling the shirts in his store and over the Internet.

Antonio Ansaldi Clothing has stocked the shirts since 1999 and sold 300 to 400 a month, he said.

From AVN which carries a more detailed version of the story

A 1977 Indiana statute which makes it a crime for anyone to sell or display for sale sexually explicit materials within 500 feet of a church or school has been barred from being enforced against Video-Home-One, Inc., an Indianapolis video store doing business as V-H-One, whose stock of adult titles comprised less than 10 percent of its floor space.

This is not an ordinance; it's a criminal statute, noted attorney J. Michael Murray, whose partner Steven Shafron successfully argued the motion for temporary restraining order before U.S. District Court judge David F. Hamilton. What was at stake here was a felony offense. This poor entrepreneur had been in business for 15 years, and there happens to be a church nearby, and one day, he got a letter from the county prosecutor's office telling him that if he doesn't remove all of his adult merchandise, he will be criminally prosecuted and charged with a felony carrying a potential prison term, and so he was given 30 days within which to either comply with the prosecutor's demand or face criminal prosecution.

Indiana Code Sec. 35-49-3-3(a) provides, in pertinent part, that, Except as provided in subsection (b), a person who knowingly or intentionally... (3) sells or displays for sale to any person matter that is harmful to minors within five hundred (500) feet of the nearest propertyline of a school or church ... commits a Class D felony.

I've never seen a statute like this before, Murray said: I don't know whether any other state has this kind of a criminal statute, but I haven't seen it. And to my knowledge, our client is the first one ever to have been prosecuted under it. We weren't able to find any history of any prior prosecutions.

Although Indianapolis does have an adult zoning ordinance, V-H-One, with its small adult selection, was not in violation of it. The use of the state statute was apparently an attempt to maneuver around the local zoning authority, whose code does not define V-H-One as an adult business.

The statutory restriction on the location of sales of sexually explicit materials could survive First Amendment scrutiny only on the theory that the restriction is likely to reduce the so-called secondary effects of legal sexually-oriented businesses, wrote Judge Hamilton in his opinion. The court has before it no evidence that a business like plaintiff's generates the types of secondary effects that can justify location restrictions as in the Alameda Books line of cases. The court therefore found that plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the statute and was otherwise entitled to a temporary restraining order.

The court went into a fair amount of detail as to how it came to its conclusion, which relied heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 decision in City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books.

Updated 18th December

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Updated 30th December

See Fighting Obscene Police Action for the story so far

Based on an article from The Ledger

Prosecutors are asking a judge to revoke bail for Christoper Wilson because his adult pornography Web site continues to operate. Wilson is required to "refrain from criminal activity" while out on bail and his Web site is illegal, the State Attorney's Office alleges in court documents filed this week.

Prosecutor Brad Copley is asking Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance to send Wilson back to jail, and a hearing has been set for Dec. 16.

After Wilson's Oct. 7 arrest on 301 trumped up obscenity charges, Wilson moved out of Polk County, according to his lawyer, Lawrence Walters. Wilson's parents paid $30,000 to a bail bondsman and agreed to be liable for his $151,000 bail to get Wilson out of jail Oct. 12.

His Web site, hosted by a server in Amsterdam, has remained in operation since then and was still operating Tuesday night. Copley maintains that by continuing to operate the Web site and by allowing new images to be downloaded, Wilson is breaking the law.

Since the defendant's release from jail on pre-trial release on Oct. 12, 2005, he has committed new crimes involving Wholesale Promotion of Obscene Materials and Distribution or Transmission of Obscene materials, utilizing new and different photographs, When Wilson was arrested Oct. 7, Copley said that even though the Web site was hosted outside the United States, the fact that Wilson lived in Polk County while running the Web site meant that he is subject to Polk County's interpretation of obscenity laws.

Although Wilson no longer lives in Polk County, the State Attorney's Office thinks that running that Web site is illegal and therefore Wilson is violating his bail conditions, according to Chip Thulberry, the state attorney's spokesman in Polk County.

But Wilson's lawyer said there has been no legal determination that the Web site is illegal. We're putting the cart before the horse here by trying to revoke his bond for continuing to do something that hasn't been proved to be illegal. Adult materials are presumed to be protected by the First Amendment until a jury determines that they're obscene. Asking that his bond be revoked for activity that's occurring when he doesn't live in Polk County any more is somewhat unusual. My law office has never seen anything like it in an obscenity case.

Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, said his organization might get involved in the case: I must have missed where they (Brad Copley and Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd) were elected to be worldwide censors.

Simon said that Polk County has no right to prosecute what someone in another county does, and what people all over the world view on the Internet: What right do they have to decide what people who live in Berlin and London and Hong Kong and New York access in the privacy of their own homes?

If Wilson's bail is revoked, he said, That would trigger the concern and involvement of us and everyone else who has worked to keep the Internet open and available as a system of free expression.

Wilson's Web site features nude pictures and video clips sent in by Web site members. For the past eight or nine months it has offered soldiers serving overseas free access in exchange for pictures proving they were serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Many of the pictures were gory, and featured sarcastic comments underneath. The site has generated worldwide controversy.

Based on an article from the Orlando Sentinel

Christopher Wilson, the operator of a graphic Web site who was arrested in October after material on his site was deemed obscene, is back in the Polk County Jail.

A prosecutor successfully argued in court Friday that Wilson, whose Web site featured sexual and war-dead photographs, violated conditions of his pretrial release by allowing new sexually explicit pictures to be placed on the site, said Chip Thullbery, administrative assistant state attorney.

Wilson removed the sexual photos and videos from his Web site several weeks ago, but that wasn't enough to keep him out of jail. As soon as he was put on notice that there was a problem, he made every effort to remove them [the sexual items], said Larry Walters, Wilson's lawyer. Apparently that wasn't good enough for the state or sufficient for the judge.

Wilson was arrested Oct. 7 on a trumped up 300 misdemeanor counts of possessing and distributing obscene materials and one felony count of wholesale promotion of obscene materials. The charges against Wilson stem from 20 videos and 80 photographs. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has said the charges are not related to the war-dead pictures. [yeah yeah...]

Wilson posted bail several days after his arrest and was released from jail. Walters said Wilson has since moved from Polk to Orange County.

Thullbery said it doesn't matter that Wilson removed the items from his site. He violated the law while he was out on bond, Thullbery said.

Wilson gained national attention for his Web site, which the Sentinel is not naming because it contains an expletive ie www.nowthatsfuckedup.com

Because American soldiers had trouble using their credit cards to pay and access the pornography, Wilson allowed them free access if they submitted a photograph proving they were serving in the war. What resulted were gory war photos.

Walters has said Wilson is exercising his First Amendment rights by operating the Web site. He said no one ever told Wilson to take the site down. Also, Walters said, the underlying obscenity case hasn't been proved. Speech is presumed to be protected, he said, until a jury speaks.

After Friday's hearing, Walters called the case "unprecedented." It's a very disturbing decision, Walters said.

Wilson is being held without bail. A pretrial conference is scheduled for Feb. 7.

Based on an article from The Ledger

Former Lakeland resident Christopher Wilson was still in jail Christmas Eve on obscenity charges relating to his internet pornography Web site.

But late Saturday, he received a note of good news: The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether Wilson should be granted bail.

Wilson's lawyer, Lawrence Walters, said that the Supreme Court has made arrangements to receive a filing by e-mail and immediately start considering it. His firm planned to submit the filing Saturday night, Walters said. The filing will ask that Wilson be released from the Polk County Jail immediately. We are hopeful that the court will act quickly in order to give Chris Wilson some time with his family this Christmas, Walters said.

Walters' law firm has been communicating with the clerk of the United States Supreme Court all day Saturday, he said. The Supreme Court tends to take First Amendment matters very seriously. This is an emergency matter, and they've agreed to consider it over the Christmas weekend, Walters said.

On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency motion that Walters filed last week. The Florida Supreme Court said it did not have jurisdiction, Walters said.

Wilson's Web site generated international controversy earlier this year when he began allowing soldiers serving in the military to send in pictures of alleged dead Iraqi insurgents, which he posted to his site. Wilson was arrested by the Polk County Sheriff's Office on Oct. 7 on 301 charges of obscenity, one of them a felony charge. After he posted bail, he moved out of the county and continued running his Web site. Then, on Dec. 16, his bail was revoked because he allegedly had allowed new, obscene pictures and video clips to be posted to his Web site. This violated the law, which meant that his bail needed to be revoked, prosecutors argued.

His lawyer argued that until a jury legally determines that pictures are obscene, they are protected by the First Amendment. But Judge J. Dale Durrance reviewed the pictures and said there was probable cause to think they were obscene.

Wilson is being held in solitary confinement because he is a former police officer, and there are fears for his safety from the general inmate population, according to his lawyer.

Based on an article from the North County Gazette

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant Christopher Wilson's emergency request for bail that would have released him from the Polk County Jail where he is being held on 301 trumped up obscenity charges relating to his operation of a website.

Wilson, a former police officer, claims he has a First Amendment right to allow alleged pornographic materials to be posted on his site.

Wilson was arrested in October by Polk County officials for alleged sexual conduct on his website. He had been free on $151,000 bail since his arrest Oct. 7 but trial court judge J. Dale Durrance revoked his bail and sent him to jail, ruling that Wilson had violated his pretrial release by allowing new sexually explicit photographs to be posted to the site.

Wilson's attorney, Larry Walters, said that Wilson had removed the sexual photos and videos from his website several weeks ago but the judge wasn't swayed. The judge ordered that Wilson would remain jailed until his next court appearance which is scheduled for Feb. 7.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, the Free Speech Coalition and the First Amendment Lawyers Association late last week asked the 2nd District Court of Appeals via emergency petition to release Wilson but the DCA refused pending a full hearing.

On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court rejected an emergency motion that Walters filed seeking bail for Wilson, saying that it did not have jurisdiction.

Late Saturday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider if Wilson should be granted bail, agreeing to receive a filing by email for immediate consideration. However on Sunday, Christmas Day, the Supreme Court rejected Wilson's attempt to reverse the decision of the 10th Judicial Circuit Court and Judge Durrance to revoke Wilson's bail. No reason was given for the denial.

Walters will be filing another motion with the 2nd District Court of Appeals for Wilson's release.

Sexual expression in cyberspace is protected by the First Amendment, said Gainesville attorney Gary Edinger, who submitted the amicus brief to the DCA last week on behalf of the three organizations. It's unprecedented for government officials to use imprisonment to prevent the distribution of material over the Internet.

This case is typical of how obscenity law can be misused to censor unpopular speech, said Michelle L. Freridge, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition. We are proud to stand with the ACLU and FALA in support of Chris Wilson, and we look forward to an expeditious and positive decision by the Second District Court of Appeal in this matter.

According to the Polk sheriff, 20 films and 80 photos are involved in the charges against Wilson but none involve photographs of war dead. The controversial website has obtained international attention and the sheriff said that sheriff's investigators had spoken with officials from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division regarding Wilson.

Based on an article from The Ledger

A Lakeland-based appellate court ordered Thursday that alleged Internet pornographer Christopher Wilson be immediately released from jail.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal did not state in its brief order why Wilson should be released, but did say that a written opinion would follow on the matter. The three-judge panel ruled unanimously.

As of 4 p.m. Thursday, Wilson had not yet been released.

Wilson is known for operating a controversial Web site from his Lakeland apartment, which garnered national attention for giving soldiers free access to pornography in exchange for posting pictures from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The former Eagle Lake police officer was arrested Oct. 7 on 301 trumped up obscenity-related charges.

In November, prosecutors requested that Wilson's $151,000 bail be revoked because his Web site continued to operate.

Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance revoked Wilson's bond on Dec. 16, finding there was probable cause to think the pictures were obscene.

Based on an article from CNET News

A new front in the political wars over sex and violence in video games opened Tuesday when Senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman called for a new crackdown on the industry by the federal government.

The two Democratic senators claimed sex and violence in video games has spiraled out of control, pointing to a recent flap over whether Rockstar Games embedded a sex-themed scene in its popular Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game.

Parents should be able to make sure their kids can't walk into a store and buy a video game that has graphic, violent and pornographic content, Clinton said in a statement saying the actual bill will be introduced when the Senate returns from vacation on Dec. 12.

The announcement coincides with Tuesday's release of a report by the National Institute on Media and the Family, which called the industry-operated rating system for video games "beyond repair."

Pressure on the video game industry also came from a third political front: Ted Stevens, an Alaskan nutter, who convened a full-day hearing Tuesday on the topic of "decency" in TV and radio broadcasts and through computer games. America lacks the kind of moral compass the country should have for our young people, Stevens warned.

The political net effect was to put the industry, already reeling from a series of state laws targeting video games, on the defensive. (It had hoped to defuse criticism with an announcement a day earlier that Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will include parental controls in their next-generation consoles.)

Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association who testified before the Senate hearing, said in a statement sent to CNET News.com that the Clinton-Lieberman bill was unconstitutional and unnecessary: If enacted, the bill will be struck down as have similar bills passed in several states. So while this bill is positioned as a pro-family measure, in truth it will leave parents no better off.

Details on the measure, tentatively titled the Family Entertainment Protection Act, remains scarce. Lieberman's office refused to provide details, a sign that the proposed legislation may not been finalized.

But a summary that the two senators distributed says that the bill will prohibit the sale of "mature" video games to anyone younger than 18 years old; order the Federal Trade Commission to "investigate misleading ratings" on video games; solicit public complaints about video games; and require an "annual, independent analysis of game ratings" separate from the one currently created by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

The ESRB already rates games based on categories including alcohol, blood, violence, sex and nudity. In addition to a detailed description typically found on the back of a video game box, the board also creates a general seven-level rating indicating the game is appropriate for ages including "early childhood," "teen," or "adults only."

Clinton has been a critic of video games even before the sex-scandal involving Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas erupted in July. Clinton said in March, for instance: Probably one of the biggest complaints I've heard is about some of the video games, particularly 'Grand Theft Auto,' which has so many demeaning messages about women and so encourages violent imagination and activities and it scares parents.

Criticism of the video game industry has been a bipartisan phenomenon. The House of Representatives voted 355 to 21 for a resolution calling for an investigation of Grand Theft Auto, and a similar resolution was introduced in the Senate.

From Anchorage Daily News
From AVN

Senator Ted Stevens (Republican) held a public forum on "Indecency in the Media". The hearing began about 9:30 a.m. and was scheduled to last the entire day, but in fact concluded just before 4 p.m., with the afternoon session devoted to confrontations between the morning's speakers and members of the general public

The morning, however, brought  some 20 speakers that included several senators, plenty of religio-reactionaries, several broadcast and cable/satellite industry executives – but no one from a recognized free speech group. It was an attempt to censor broadcast and cable/satellite speech even more than it already is, as well as an attempt to browbeat cable companies into allowing consumers to pick and choose just which cable channels they will pay for, rather than requiring them to buy packages of channels, some of which several of the speakers seemed to find offensive.

We're not involved in this to bring about censorship, Stevens claimed in his opening remarks. BUT...We're here to give an opportunity for those who represent the families of America to listen to those of you run the media, that they currently believe does not fulfill their wishes to have the kind of moral compass that our country should have for our young people.

Stevens wants to craft a bill that doesn't just increase the penalties on broadcasters who use the public airwaves. He said he wants a bill that also addresses the TV programming that arrives in the home via cable, satellite and, eventually, the phone line. A few conservative critics have grumbled that Stevens and other political leaders aren‘t moving fast enough.

Since the vast, overwhelming majority of the public is outraged by this, why can‘t we get something done? pondered Brent Bozell. He is president of the Parents Television Council and one of the fiercest critics of raunchy and God-mocking material he says has "polluted" the airwaves.

Stevens and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, one of the invited speakers, criticized cable and satellite pricing bundles that require parents to pay for channels they find objectionable to get kid-oriented channels they want. Martin, like Stevens, suggested customers should be able to select a tier of family-oriented channels. Martin also suggested "a la carte" pricing - allowing to consumers to buy only the channels they want.

If cable and satellite operators continue to refuse to offer parents more tools such as family-friendly programming packages, basic indecency and profanity restrictions may be a viable alternative that should be considered, Martin said.

CBS executive Martin Franks said his network tried showing a family-friendly lineup of wholesome shows like Touched by an Angel. And we got killed in the marketplace, he said.

Parents already have the tools to ensure that their kids see only suitable TV, he and other industry executives said. The V-Chip is installed in most TVs purchased since 1999. It is a device that allows parents to block shows that are rated for mature audiences or "parental guidance suggested." I think we can make the V-Chip work, Franks said. It is not that complicated, Mr. Chairman, and it exists today.

Bozell predictably compared the V-Chip and TV ratings to erecting road signs warning of a pothole ahead rather than fixing the pothole. The V-Chip, he said, has made the problem worse. As soon as we got the V-Chip what we also got, almost immediately, was some of the most offensive and some of the most indecent programming on television, he said. He cited Comedy Central's South Park, often criticized for its crudeness, as an example.

From Washington Blade

The Virginia Court of Appeals upheld the convictions of two men who were convicted of "solicitation to commit sodomy" earlier this month.

The solicitation charge, which carries a three-year maximum jail sentence, is based on Virginia's "Crimes Against Nature" law, which states: If a person carnally knows in any manner any male or female person by the anus or by the mouth, or voluntarily submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony.

The cases of Joel Singson and Andy Joe Tijan were combined by the Court of Appeals in its Nov. 8 ruling. In both cases, the men were convicted after they discussed their desire to perform oral sex with undercover police officers while in public bathrooms.

Gregory Nevins, of Lambda Legal argued that the ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence vs. Texas case nullified all state sodomy laws, and it violates freedom of speech for Virginia to prosecute Singson and Tijan for soliciting, even in public, conduct that the Supreme Court has said is constitutionally protected.

In its decision, the court said that Lawrence only addressed adult consensual intimacy in the home and explicitly noted that the case did not involve public conduct or prostitution leaving Virginia free to prohibit sexual activity that occurs in public. The court also said that it found the freedom of speech argument "unpersuasive."

Virginia's Crimes Against Nature law has been used to target gay man around the state, and to justify discrimination against gays in general, according to Dyana Mason, executive director of Equality Virginia.

Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, has been involved in arguing gay rights cases before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has spoken very clearly in the Lawrence case, and said that laws that interfere with Americans' personal choices regarding sex must meet the constitutional standard. What is going on here is not the enforcement of some public boundary, what is going on here is gay baiting and then trying to avoid Lawrence's prohibition on that.

Wolfson argued that although the Lawrence decision dealt with private sexual conduct, people should be free to discuss in public whether to engage in acts the Supreme Court has found are constitutionally protected. If every heterosexual who talked about sex in public was arrested, we'd be living in a very different country.

Nevins said that he intends to appeal the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court.

See Multiple Counts of Perversion of Justice for the rather dubious story so far. Sounds more like political censorship than a simple case of obscenity

From AVN

In a move to have an obscenity case against a client dismissed, First Amendment attorney Lawrence G. Walters has filed with a Polk County circuit court a series of motions that claim Florida’s obscenity statute is unconstitutional.

Walters represents Christopher Wilson, a Florida man, who was arrested in October and charged with 301 obscenity violations based on videos and still photographs displayed on his website, NowThatsFuckedUp.com. The member-participation adult entertainment site became infamous after it was reported that Wilson granted U.S. GIs free access to its for-pay members area in exchange for photos from Iraq and Afghanistan. Wilson, a former police officer, said American soldiers serving overseas could not access online porn because credit-card companies would not authorize charges originating from that region.

The prosecution is problematic on a number of levels, says Walters. First and foremost, Florida’s law is vague because it fails to define “community,” a key aspect of obscenity law. Walters has given the court several options for the definition, including the confines of Polk County (the most restrictive), the state of Florida, the U.S. as a whole, and the “cyber-community” encompassed by the Internet (the most lenient).

We don’t believe Polk County community standards should be allowed to determine what materials are available on the Internet, Walters says, echoing a theme becoming more common in cases involving adult content in the Internet age.

In addition, Walters says, the word “prurient” contained in Florida’s statute is no longer relevant in today’s society. That word is no longer in general use today, and juries don’t know what it means. We believe the law should be struck down on that alone. He cites a similar Florida case from several years ago in which the prosecution of a “house of ill fame” was thrown out based on antiquated terminology.

If the terminology arguments don’t sway the court, Walters hopes a “federal pre-emption” one will. In certain situations, only the feds can regulate activities without violating the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, Walters says. In previous cases in seven other states, ‘harmful to minors’ cases were struck down on Commerce Clause grounds.

According to §230 of the Communications Decency Act, the embattled law that continues to govern obscenity prosecutions at the federal level, all state obscenity laws that are inconsistent with federal law automatically are pre-empted.

Between those two arguments, which are in many ways related, we hope to convince the court that only the federal government can regulate obscenity, as opposed to the states, Walters avers.

There’s also a Fourth Amendment issue involved, and if precedent is any indication, it’s a lulu. Brought to light by the ruling in U.S. vs. Extreme Associates, the argument it’s not illegal for Americans to possess ‘obscene’ materials in the privacy of their own homes or to buy them, so how can a governmental body insist that it’s illegal to offer them for sale? also carries considerable weight, based on previous federal district court rulings in Pennsylvania and Texas.

Walters also filed a motion asking the court to suppress all materials seized as evidence in the case on the grounds that the warrant was overly broad. By failing to specify the materials of interest – essentially allowing the investigating officers to seize anything that might be obscene in their own opinions – the warrant violated special conditions attached to First Amendment prosecutions, Walters says. That speaks to the issue of probable cause, he notes, because the investigators selected images and videos individually instead of considering the website as a whole.

In this case in particular, that denied the court the opportunity to consider the extreme political value Walters and Wilson believe is embodied in the website: combatant-taken and -posted photographs from within a war zone make a powerful political statement.

It’s the political value of the website that Walters and Wilson believe made it a target for “retaliatory prosecution.” We’re still investigating any potential tie between the federal government and this local prosecution, Walters says.

In the meantime, in case the court does not dismiss the charges against Wilson, Walters and his team are “investigating a comparable evidence issue,” he says. If the matter goes to trial, the defense will need to show what types of adult materials are acceptable in Polk County. To that end, Walters is soliciting input from other adult webmasters whose server logs might provide insight about Polk County traffic to adult entertainment destinations online. Members of the online adult entertainment community who can shed light on the issue may contact Walters at larry@lawrencewalters.com.

From Kansas.com

A special panel of Kansas lawmakers agreed Wednesday to introduce a bill in January that would impose a 10% excise tax on X-rated adult entertainment businesses. It would be applied to strip clubs and escort services as well as X-rated video products and books sold in adult book stores.

Rep. Kenny Wilk, a Lansing Republican and vice chairman of the Special Committee on Assessment and Taxation, said he expected a lot of legislative interest in the measure. Rep. Shari Weber, a Herington Republican and the bill's main supporter, went even further. I imagine that out of 165 legislators, there would only be a handful that would not support it, she said.

One possible problem, however, might be legislators who have signed a pledge to vote against any tax increase and might perceive the 10% tax -- even though it wouldn't be paid by everyone -- as breaking that oath. Every legislator has their own idea of what that pledge applies to, she said. Will it impact this bill? Absolutely. Once they have the opportunity to study the issue, however, I don't think there will be much opposition.

Even if the Legislature approved the bill and it was signed into law by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, it likely would face a court challenge from sex-oriented businesses. John Ivan, a Merriam lawyer representing three adult video and book stores in Wichita, told the committee last month that such a law would violate the right of free speech and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Obviously, litigation would follow passage of such a law, he said.

The Kansas proposal is modeled after a law passed last year in Utah and a proposal introduced earlier this year in Oklahoma. A lawsuit has been filed challenging the constitutionality of the Utah law.

One legal hurdle such a law might have to get over is whether the state could show a compelling reason to tax these businesses differently than others. Wilk said he thinks there is a clear link between the availability of pornography and sex crimes. That was disputed by Ivan, who said last month that no reliable study had proven a link. Critics of the measure have pointed out that not everyone who buys pornographic material, for example, commits sex offenses.

Sen. Pat Apple, a Louisburg Republican, told the committee that not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic but that alcoholic products are taxed differently because of the harm alcoholics cause society.

Under Wilk's proposal, money collected from the tax would be used for the prosecution and treatment of sex offenders. Wilk admitted that there are several parts of the bill that haven't been worked out. For example, it is unclear from Wilk's proposal whether the tax would be applied to regular video stores that keep X-rated videos in a back room. There also is the question of whether the tax would be applied to X-rated movies ordered over cable television systems or from hotel rooms.

It appears that the US will also need to build high density prison accommodation to house all the victims of this legislation.

From CNET News

The Bush administration announced on Thursday that it is lobbying for new laws that would bump up criminal penalties for pirates, expand criminal prosecutors' powers and punish anyone who "attempts" to infringe a copyright.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, speaking at an antipiracy summit here hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the Department of Justice recently submitted to Congress a "legislative package" aimed at toughening up intellectual-property enforcement amid evolving technology.  According to the proposal  being circulated by the department, the measure would create a new crime called "attempting to infringe a copyright" and subject it to the same penalties as more serious infringement offenses.

The proposal would also permit authorities to seize and destroy pirated and counterfeit goods--with a special nod to music, movies and digitally obtained materials. Also on that list are any goods used to produce pirated or counterfeit material, as well as property obtained with proceeds from the sale of pirated or counterfeit material.

In addition to possibly serving prison time, those convicted of infringements would, under the new law, have to pay the copyright holder "and any other victim of the offense" a sum to compensate for out-of-pocket losses resulting from the crime.

The Justice Department is also seeking in its proposal greater latitude for prosecutors. Right now it's only possible to enforce against copyrights that are registered with the government. The new proposal would make that true only in civil cases, allowing prosecutors to go after pirates regardless of whether the copyright is registered.

The Business Software Alliance--whose president lamented at Thursday's event the $33 billion annual toll from piracy on the software industry--applauded the move, saying the group looked forward to reviewing the proposed legislation. The Recording Industry Association of America also issued a statement of support.

That sentiment was not shared by the digital rights group Public Knowledge, which said in a statement that it wished the department: had devoted some analysis as well to protecting the fair use rights of consumers. We are concerned that the Justice Department's proposal attempts to enforce copyright law in ways it has never before been enforced.

From Silicon

The major US carriers on Tuesday unveiled guidelines aimed at limiting children's access to adult content and services.

Those under the age of 18 would need parental or a guardian's permission to receive content that carriers offer that may be sexually explicit, excessively violent, or involve gambling, according to voluntary guidelines issued by the wireless industry's biggest trade group, CTIA.

Carriers also plan to make filters and other tools available to restrict internet access on wireless devices.

Steve Largent, CTIA president and chief executive officer, said: Parents must ultimately decide what materials are most suitable for their children, and wireless carriers participating in this important measure are committed to providing parents with the necessary tools to do so.

The top three wireless carriers are among the participants: Cingular Wireless, a joint venture of BellSouth and SBC Communications, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group.

About 21 million five- to 19-year-olds had wireless phones by the end of 2004, according to the technology research firm IDC. The Federal Communications Commission in February urged the industry to act on the issue of adult content.