In the “Wait, what?” category, David Barton claimed on his radio show that the Justice Department is not prosecuting pornography cases. Right Wing Watch has Barton’s claim:
Barton: We’ve got laws against illegal pornography, and you can’t stop all pornography but even the liberals recognize that some pornography is over the top.
Green: I mean an easy one is child pornography.
Barton: Simple. And you’ve had this Administration in three years has not prosecuted a single what’s called ‘obscenity,’ which is hardcore pornography. Not a single case. Now what’s that tell all the pornographers and all the movie guys and all the internet guys what they can do?
Green: Do whatever you want now
Barton: Man, we can push the limits, we can get over the top, we can use underage kids on these movies, we can do snuff movies because they’re not prosecuting nothing. So what we got today is—
Green: They’ve basically given a license for licentiousness—
Barton: Exactly. They’ve encouraged it, and that’s what happened with the Justice Department.
However, as RWW points out, the Justice Department under Obama has actually stepped up enforcement of child porn.
But earlier this year the Associated Press reported that prosecutions for child pornography are rapidly increasing, and just since the beginning of this year the Justice Department announced convictions in at least 19 cases involving child pornography.
What is Barton talking about? Regular readers of this blog know how Mr. Barton handles history, so perhaps this is not a big surprise.
I personally know a guy (well, we’re “Web friends”, anyway, though I’ve never met him IRL and don’t even know his last name) who co-owns and operates a small
Mom-and-PopPop-and-Pop “gay amateur exhibitionists” site. Registered adult users can post naked self-photos and X-rated home movies, and the site also includes a BBS forum where people can post and discuss written sexual fantasies. (Probably 95+% of the visual-pr0n content on the site is men masturbating by themselves, since any photos or videos found to be lifted from copyrighted “commercial porn” are removed by moderators in short order.)Anyway, from what he’s told me, he and the other owners/moderators have to be aggressively diligent about removing BBS posts that even sorta/kinda appear to hint at suggesting the vaguest coded references to pedophilia, and banning users who make such posts.
And the reason they have to be so “censorious” is that although textual descriptions of pedophilic fantasies are protected by the First Amendment even if they’re disgustingly detailed and “prurient,” the presence of such written material on a site may raise the suspicions of law enforcement that the site is facilitating the online distribution of visual kiddie pr0n, which of course has no Constitutional protection.
In the worst case scenario, the site could be shut down and the owners might even be legally liable for creating a “safe harbor” for the online distribution of child pornography; but what more often happens is the owners have to deal with lots of phone calls and/or visits from FBI investigators. Which, obviously, tends to be ulcer-inducing although the FBI agents are generally polite and professional about the whole thing, and even apologetic when it turns out they were following a false lead.
Just offering this as a concrete “data point” that even in our godless ObamaNation where homosexual pre-verts are free to wave their dingdongs around on Webcams, law enforcement remains quite vigilant about investigating child pornography.
Oh, brother. Snopes.com has an entire page explaining why the very existence of “snuff” movies is regarded by law enforcement officials as little more than an Urban Legend.
Next Barton will be telling us about the growing epidemic of microwaved poodles…
Ken – Oh, that makes it all better 🙂
Obviously Obama should prosecute the minor cases and let the more serious ones go. Doh!
What you are missing Warren is the fact that child pornography is a distinct charge from obscenity (which is not simply “pornography” and I’m pretty sure is a misdemeanor). so it can be true that the Justice Dept. hasn’t prosecuted a single obscenity case, while still increasing the number of child pornography convictions.
Further, despite what Barton would have you think, adult pornography is not illegal.
I’m sure Barton is just preparing us all for the Rapture (an idea that didn’t surface until almost 2,000 years after Jesus)
Well, given that we are talking about David Barton on this blog, I would say he’s talking about the highly satisfying gay sexual videography. Because it is surely pornography to Barton, who has asked why the government does not regulate homosexuality.
BTW…. type in his name and pornography and your David Baron tag page comes up first in Google, followed by this page, and then then the front page of your blog. You must be doing something right.
I’m sure Barton is just preparing us all for the Rapture (an idea that didn’t surface until almost 2,000 years after Jesus)
I personally know a guy (well, we’re “Web friends”, anyway, though I’ve never met him IRL and don’t even know his last name) who co-owns and operates a small
Mom-and-PopPop-and-Pop “gay amateur exhibitionists” site. Registered adult users can post naked self-photos and X-rated home movies, and the site also includes a BBS forum where people can post and discuss written sexual fantasies. (Probably 95+% of the visual-pr0n content on the site is men masturbating by themselves, since any photos or videos found to be lifted from copyrighted “commercial porn” are removed by moderators in short order.)Anyway, from what he’s told me, he and the other owners/moderators have to be aggressively diligent about removing BBS posts that even sorta/kinda appear to hint at suggesting the vaguest coded references to pedophilia, and banning users who make such posts.
And the reason they have to be so “censorious” is that although textual descriptions of pedophilic fantasies are protected by the First Amendment even if they’re disgustingly detailed and “prurient,” the presence of such written material on a site may raise the suspicions of law enforcement that the site is facilitating the online distribution of visual kiddie pr0n, which of course has no Constitutional protection.
In the worst case scenario, the site could be shut down and the owners might even be legally liable for creating a “safe harbor” for the online distribution of child pornography; but what more often happens is the owners have to deal with lots of phone calls and/or visits from FBI investigators. Which, obviously, tends to be ulcer-inducing although the FBI agents are generally polite and professional about the whole thing, and even apologetic when it turns out they were following a false lead.
Just offering this as a concrete “data point” that even in our godless ObamaNation where homosexual pre-verts are free to wave their dingdongs around on Webcams, law enforcement remains quite vigilant about investigating child pornography.
Oh, brother. Snopes.com has an entire page explaining why the very existence of “snuff” movies is regarded by law enforcement officials as little more than an Urban Legend.
Next Barton will be telling us about the growing epidemic of microwaved poodles…
Well, given that we are talking about David Barton on this blog, I would say he’s talking about the highly satisfying gay sexual videography. Because it is surely pornography to Barton, who has asked why the government does not regulate homosexuality.
BTW…. type in his name and pornography and your David Baron tag page comes up first in Google, followed by this page, and then then the front page of your blog. You must be doing something right.
Ken – Oh, that makes it all better 🙂
Obviously Obama should prosecute the minor cases and let the more serious ones go. Doh!
What you are missing Warren is the fact that child pornography is a distinct charge from obscenity (which is not simply “pornography” and I’m pretty sure is a misdemeanor). so it can be true that the Justice Dept. hasn’t prosecuted a single obscenity case, while still increasing the number of child pornography convictions.
Further, despite what Barton would have you think, adult pornography is not illegal.