BUSH PORN LAW PUSH Reinstate Obscenity Case against Extreme
 

Gonzales Seeks to Reinstate Obscenity Case

1 hour, 59 minutes ago White House - AP Cabinet & State


By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Wednesday it would seek to reinstate an indictment against a California pornography company that was charged with violating federal obscenity laws. It was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' first public decision on a legal matter.

Billed as the government's first big obscenity case in a decade, the 10-count indictment against Extreme Associates Inc. and its owners, Robert Zicari, and his wife, Janet Romano, both of Northridge, Calif., was dismissed last month by U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster of Pittsburgh.

Lancaster ruled prosecutors overstepped their bounds while trying to block the company's hard-core movies from children and from adults who did not want to see such material.

The Justice Department (news - web sites) said it will appeal the ruling to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) in Philadelphia. While acknowledging the importance of the constitutional guarantee of free speech, Gonzales said selling or distributing obscene materials does not fall within First Amendment protections.

"The Department of Justice (news - web sites) remains strongly committed to the investigation and prosecution of adult obscenity cases," said Gonzales, who pledged during his confirmation hearing to pursue obscenity cases.

If allowed to stand, Lancaster's ruling would undermine obscenity laws as well as other statutes based on shared views of public morality, including laws against prostitution, bestiality and bigamy, the department said in a statement.

Zicari said he was not surprised by the decision to appeal. "They touted my case for almost a year and a half about this being an important step in kind of stamping out the adult product as we know it," he said in a telephone interview. "You'd think our government has a lot more things to worry about with the war in Iraq (news - web sites)."

Prosecutors charged Zacari and Romano and their company with distributing videos to Pittsburgh through the mail and over the Internet. Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, has said the case was not about banning all sexually explicit materials, just reining in obscenity. Extreme Associates' productions depict rape and murder, Buchanan said.

When she announced the indictment in August 2003, Buchanan said the lack of enforcement of obscenity laws during the mid- to late-1990s "led to a proliferation of obscenity throughout the United States."

In his opinion, Lancaster said the company can market and distribute its materials because people have a right to view them in the privacy of their own homes.

Lancaster relied in part on the Supreme Court's June 2003 ruling that struck down Texas' ban on gay sex, which it called an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...enity_appeal_3
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if people thought a s h c r o f t was an enemy of porn gonzalas is its anti christ.

I will say it first...

Extreme will walk and Robert Black will be a free man.

Some fucked shit! double jeapardy! they go after them all over again! :pimp

After how many spent $$$$ ????

Do you think stores are eager to carry his product.???

rob black is a fucking moron, you can all thank him when the shit hits the fan

It is not double jeopardy...as it is still the same unfinished case and will not be finished until it reaches the US Supreme Court...assuming it does.

this is the beginning of the end for gonzo companies
don't believe me?

just watch what happens this year....

The FEDS are coming after a lot of people this year- they have to send a strong message that the "religious right" is prevalent in every city , every town across the country-

Now Bush owes them BIG TIME since Ashcroft never did anything he said he would to enforce pronography.

It's payback time- Gonzalez will not fuck around.

Hopefully the brainwashed Bush supporting adult webmasters will be the first thrown in jail.

Anyone who supported Republicans anti-free speech bullshit might just get what they asked for - jail time. :1orglaugh

it really depends on what kind of videos these guys pushed, maybe they went a bit overboard and is their fault?

you are correct. this is the most fuxxed up country in the world now. its worse and worse each year. free speech is dying a horrible death more rapidly than ever. i don't even want to get into it, its a great possibility that i will move from this hole. all i want is the dollar, they can have the rest.

p.s. my comments are more based on the media in mainstream and the ridiculousness of everything that has been going on there. adult is still fucked to s certain extent, but the are corraling the sheep pretty good. control the mind, control the money. way to go gw. sad.

:2 cents:

Well yeah! It was apealed! by the Justice Dept "I'm thinking Civil law" :upsidedow

Why the dollar? Euro is worth more now that Bush is boss!

cool. european affiliate programs spam me at djairek at gmail.com

hooker reporters = okay

adult content 4 adults = not okay

okay :upsidedow

If someone looks at the red and blue states on a map. Community standards start to look pretty damn bleak so to speak. Not to mention some heavy IOU's to the religious right.
Also since this is a wartime term, it would not hurt to have a distractor war such as on pornography or moral indeceny.

this is very very bad

And don't forget, it's a great way to deflect attention from that whole hooker/reporter thing :pimp

Interesting read. :)

very informative.