One historical note regarding my story this weekend on Attorney General Eric Holder's disbanding of a Bush-era Justice Department task force aimed at prosecuting hard-core adult pornography: Back in 1998, Holder actually encouraged U.S. Attorneys to bring such cases.
At the time, Holder was the No. 2 to Attorney General Janet Reno. He penned a memo on the subject that, for some reason (transparency kudos!), is still posted on the Justice Department website:
[P]riority should be given to cases involving large-scale distributors who realize substantial income from multistate operations and cases in which there is evidence of organized crime involvement. However, prosecution of cases involving relatively small distributors can have a deterrent effect and would dispel any notion that obscenity distributors are insulated from prosecution if their operations fail to exceed a predetermined size or if they fragment their business into small-scale operations. Therefore, prosecution of such distributors also may be appropriate on a case-by-case basis.
Holder's 1998 memo was cited by senators in a letter they sent him this month pressing for more adult obscenity prosecutions.
It's difficult to say whether the task force was following Holder's 1998 advice or not. It did bring some cases against large distributors, such as Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild and John Stagliano. (Francis pled guilty to failing to maintain age records and tax evasion. Stagliano was acquitted by a judge) But a couple of the most recent cases the task force brought, against Barry Goldman of New Jersey and Ira Isaacs of Los Angeles, targeted solo operators working at the extreme fringe of the business. (Goldman pled to an obscenity charge and got six months home confinement. Isaacs is awaiting trial.)
Source: http://feeds.politico.com/click.phdo?i=22a9861ed8c0f0ae1396e0e373ec1c27
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