Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Now Hiring: THE PORN SQUAD!

Rawkin’. I guess since all threats to national security have been identified and eliminated, it's time the DoJ got around to prosecuting people for making conscious decisions to do things that bring them pleasure and don't hurt anybody, like they were "free" or had "rights" or something. From the Post

Recruits Sought for Porn Squad
By Barton Gellman

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, "it's a running joke for us."

A few of the printable samples:

"Things I Don't Want On My Résumé, Volume Four."

"I already gave at home."

"Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves."

Federal obscenity prosecutions, which have been out of style since Attorney General Edwin Meese III in the Reagan administration made pornography a signature issue in the 1980s, do "encounter many legal issues, including First Amendment claims," the FBI headquarters memo noted.

Applicants for the porn squad should therefore have a stomach for the kind of material that tends to be most offensive to local juries. Community standards -- along with a prurient purpose and absence of artistic merit -- define criminal obscenity under current Supreme Court doctrine.

"Based on a review of past successful cases in a variety of jurisdictions," the memo said, the best odds of conviction come with pornography that "includes bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior." No word on the universe of other kinks that helps make porn a multibillion-dollar industry.

Posted by crimnos @ 8:25 AM

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damn it...leave my porn alone President Bush! Can nothing be left sacred and to my choosing?

bah!

Posted by Blogger Jes @ 9:35 AM #
 

Sure seems that way. Wonder what's next?

Posted by Blogger crimnos @ 9:38 AM #
 

It is, and, as I just read, it's quite possible that someone has worked out how long it would take for these cases to reach an "all-new, all-different" Supreme Court.

Posted by Blogger crimnos @ 2:18 PM #
 
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