| tony286 |
02-14-2004 09:24 AM |
If your thinking of voting republician
The first part you probably know but the last paragraph really hits home.
Officials said the appointment of Bruce A. Taylor, who worked in the department during the heyday of its anti-porn efforts in the late 1980s and early '90s, shows that Justice is serious about cracking down on porn after what critics called lax enforcement by the Clinton administration.
In his resume, the 53-year-old Taylor, who got his start as a Cleveland city attorney in the 1970s, lists his involvement in more than 600 obscenity cases as a prosecutor or a legal advisor.
The defendants in those cases constitute a who's-who of adult-entertainment industry tycoons, including Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt and Reuben Sturman, a onetime comic-book salesman turned porn magnate.
In a survey two years ago, Adult Video News, a trade publication based in Chatsworth, identified Taylor as one of the top "enemies" of the industry. The story was titled: "These Are the Folks Who Want to Put You Out of Business."
Taylor, who in recent years has headed a conservative advocacy group fighting for tougher regulation of the Internet, has been given the title of "senior counsel" within the criminal division at Justice, with a focus principally on federal adult obscenity issues.
The department's obscenity chief, Andrew Oosterbaan, who has been drawing much of the flak from conservatives, will retain his position. But instead of reporting to him, Taylor will answer to a more senior-level assistant attorney general.
Bryan Sierra, a Justice spokesman, said that by hiring Taylor ? which the department didn't publicize but confirmed when asked by The Times ? the department was simply marshaling additional resources rather than undercutting anyone's authority or submitting to political pressure.
"Bruce has vast experience, both at the federal and state level, prosecuting those kinds of cases," Sierra said. "It is all part of our overall effort to kick-start obscenity prosecutions after a long absence." Sierra said Taylor was unavailable for comment.
The department has made other moves recently to shore up its anti-porn effort, including assigning for the first time in years a team of FBI agents to focus exclusively on adult-obscenity cases. In his fiscal 2005 budget proposal released this month, President Bush sought increased spending to fight obscenity; it was one of the few spending increases ? besides for anti-terrorist efforts ? in the otherwise austere proposal.
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