Shame On Paul Cambria And Larry Walters
 

Read this article first, then my comments. This thread requires more than 30 seconds so if you're just looking for $PostCount++; move on.

"Porn Sites Might Not Comply With Law"
http://news.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBYDDYJDUE.html

My Opinion:

What bothers me most about this article isn't the fact that the Tampa based newspaper decided to write it the in first place. It's an excuse for them to announce to the world that HEY, executive director of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority is a fag and sells porn! It's a story about sex, which of course sells newspapers. No big shocker there.

What bothers me the most are the comments coming from Cambria and Walters. What in the HELL are 2 of our industry's most well known DEFENSE attorneys doing publicly speculating about whether or not an adult site is violating federal law?!?!

Fine, be a media whore and all, good for them, but at the public expense of someone in the industry? I think not.

What Walters and Cambria SHOULD have said is something like "I can't speculate on whether any particular company may or may not be breaking the complex 2257 laws. What I can say, is that the way the law was written, it's virtually impossible for ANYONE to follow it to the letter, which is why the Free Speech Coalition has filed suit against the federal government seeking to have the law thrown out."

And then maybe went on to talk a little bit about the ASACP and our industry's efforts to battle the real enemy, CP.

This just outrages me.

Sure, everyone should know that you can't use a PO Box by now, it's been widely discussed. But let's not ignore the fact that there are many parts of the 2257 law which are virtually impossible to comply with (such as archiving every live cam show ever done in its entirety and storing it for 7 years. so burdensome that a judge has a temporary injunction in place against the prevision).

Cambria and Walters missed a golden opportunity to do our industry a great service by educating a segment of the lay public about the challenges our industry faces to protect our nation's right to freedom of speech. Instead, they chose to daemonize a member of our industry that was obviously being targeted by the press (and being targeted probably for being gay). All because they wanted some free publicity for themselves?

Would YOU like Cambria or Walters telling the news media that they think YOUR company is violating federal law?

I've always been a big fan of Walters and Cambria, but this is a HUGE lapse in judgment on their part IMHO. Disgusting.

Good post, great commentary :thumbsup

Have you ever watched Court TV?

Maybe you should go back and read closer.


"That could be a problem," said Lawrence G. Walters, an Altamonte Springs lawyer who represents the owners of several adult Web sites.

The address must be a real place, Walters said. "The government wants to know where to go to look at these records." They want to be able to see performers' pictures, legal names, stage names and dates of birth.

"You can't have a P.O. Box," said Paul Cambria, a criminal defense lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif., and a leading expert on Section 2257. His clients include Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt and the Adult Video News.

A postal box "totally frustrates the whole system because there's no place to go," Cambria said. "The whole idea is to be able to actually look at records. You can't do that if you walk up to a P.O. Box."

"Without a doubt," a company would be in violation, Cambria said, if they listed a postal box as the address where records are kept.

I fail to see where there was any speculation of guilt.

Im sorry I only agree with parts of what you said. i.e. the story is about sex and saying someone produces young gay porn.

As for what the attornies said, well the part the dude broke is indeed very clear. Well aside from the naming of someone else as custodian. People should know that PO boxes and the like never were allowed.

I also know first hand reporters get a lot more quotes and info from sources like the attornies and then only use a tiny little chunk that fit their desired angle.

I do however think they gay dude umm modrell is a assmunch. The raise the age dude.

Dude, go back and read the article, then pay attention to where the quotation marks are.

What I think those of us need to do who are not straight and/or whose porn represents the kind of gender identities and sexual preferences that have made us targets for hate crimes is to focus on WHY we would list a PO Box instead of a place where stalkers and hatemongers could find us. This is a government that refuses to give queer people, transgendered people, etc. equal rights and thinks it's asking for "special" rights to treat hate crimes with the severity they deserve; forcing us to mapquest our homes/places of business leaves us incredibly vulnerable to violent crimes that are far more problematic than adult pornography. Instead of protecting people, the feds are making us more vulnerable.

Less than half of the reported rapes in our country lead to an ARREST, let alone a conviction. That alone horrifies me as a woman, but the notion that I should invite strangers to my home or wherever I do my villified and stigmatized work is doubly horrifying.

Anyway, awesome point from a perspective that few people in this industry seem to grasp.

Looks to me like they were answering questions re: Custodian of Records addresses, and nothing more.

who the fuck cares... my 2257 are located in south america... if you want to see my records, go down there....

btw, having a p.o. box as a 2257 addy is dumb....

being involved in porn and living is tampa/hillsfucko county is even dumber...

I can easily grasp what your fears are. The thing is the no pobox requirement has been in effect since nearly all of us started anyways. We happened to choose porn as an occupation, we were not forced into it or whatnot. The rules were there and we were supposed to follow them all along. Many just never did, and or they were off the hook because they were just secondary producers (just advertisers).

The issues do not stop at gay, transgendered, etc. We get hate email and actual letters to our offices all of the fucking time. Mostly aimed at our interracial stuff. Everything from run of the mill hate mail to straight out death threats. These people of course know our office address and could just as easily visit as they sent those letters. We just deal with it and put them all in their own little area. Again we choose porn.

I just can not get bent out of shape because they want ma and pa porn companies that sprung up all over the US out of their homes to have to list their custodial address which can not be a post office. That was never one of the 2257 issues I had.

I guess I don't see what the problem is with what they said. They were asked questions, and they answered them truthfully. Unless they are being hired by the individual, I don't see why they should have to step around the issue.

This goes back to my original question to BA re: Court TV.

I don't think he understood.

He wasnt arrested he had a high profile job, which made him a target. Tampa is actually a pretty safe place to do adult. Now Im no fan of Larry.xxx Walters but I didnt see them saying anything wrong, also you dont know the whole conversation they had with the reporters. I bet 70% of websites are not in compliance. When we started our first site the custodian was our home addy, never had anyone come to our door.

ANUS is spelled A N U S. :2 cents:

It was in effect when I started too, but there was no history of any inspections being done, very few people were even pretending to comply with the regs, and it seemed like a dead issue and worth the risk which was much smaller than it seems to be today. Also (I know this is a trifle off-topic) there was none of this bullshit about secondary producers being handed models id's -- somehow I doubt that most models go into this knowing the full risks to their privacy in terms of their real names, social security numbers, and addresses being provided to hundreds and thousands of strangers.

Do you honestly think your vulnerability level and risk of being the victim of a violent hate crime, stalking, or rape is the same as a woman's or a tranny's? But seriously -- my point here is not to *complain* about the risks, but say that this issue should be a bigger talking point in terms of fighting regulations that are supposed to make people safer but in fact put many people in danger, and also expose what could arguably be a way (or be perceived as a way) to punish sex workers (models, indie pornographers, etc.) and queer people (the people our society refuses to protect against hate crimes and essentially condones violence against) by putting them in danger totally unnecessarily when they could instead subpoena our addresses from billing companies and have to provide a valid reason to inspect our records. Looking at it this way makes the govt regs and inspections seem much more nefarious than arguing, "oh poor me I don't have time to maintain a database of all the people I exploit" which isn't the kind of argument that will ever generate much sympathy.

That's what I'm saying; most primary producers have never had this issue. I'm not saying you should get bent out of shape on behalf of indies like myself, I'm just saying that people could at least PRETEND to because using real people who are actually endangered by the regs could generate a lot better and more persuasive arguments against those regulations than just representing straight white guys making millions off the pussies of a bunch of anonymous girls. Also, it would be nice to have the mom and pop people represented more to appeal to the old-school real Republicans of people trying to make an honest living running small businesses and being unduly punished and regulated to the point where they cannot even BE in the business because they'd have to raise the cost of renting an office and secretary to sit in it so they can protect their families from knocks on the door from stangers.

It's just an underrepresented perspective, that's all. I hear what you're saying, my intention isn't to whine, but to point out that these types of arguments are way more compelling, I think, than the ones getting/that got the most press.

Trixie, I do feel your plight and understand the issues that effect such site owners. I am not going to single out which group is in more danger or whatnot. I already stated that our offices have gotten actual real letters real idiots took actual time to write out and send via the postal service to the address listed for the custodian of records. Which is well beyond some schmuck slamming out some stupid email and pressing send while hiding in cyberspace. So yes I do know and understand what the dangers are and could be, for you, for anyone regardless of gender, preference, or race. There are more than enough crazy idiots to go around.

When I first got started in all of this as some silly ass nobody in some nondescript small town one of the very first things I did was find any and every law, case history, and relevant issue that could effect me. I learned as much as I could, spent some money having people explain it to me yet again in case I interpreted it wrong and so forth. My small lawyer who I had spoken to advised me against it and clearly explained to me that this is one of the very few areas he has seen where you do not know if you broke the law until a jury says so.

I used to talk 2257 and other stuff on assorted boards a bit more than a half decade ago until I was blue in the face. I would warn people, attempt to rally support and unification, and even post assorted actions I saw coming down the pipe. Nearly always I was laughed at and got the constant mocking of "the sky is falling chicken little" bullshit. People just acted to gung ho, to greedy, and felt they were untouchable behind some constitutional shield.

Our only hope then as well as now was unification on a single front without petty politics and insider deals getting in the way. A solid group of site owners big and small representing everyone from producers to advertisers. This has and I really feel will never come to fruition in any acceptable form. We have no solid base to fight from and to many are to concerned with their own fiefdoms, the pockets in front of them, and the hands in their own rear pockets.

The only way I see it is that we have allowed them to plant the seeds, we have ignored them and even gone so far as to keep them well fertilized and watered. We can not act all shocked and dismayed now that it has taken root and its branches are reaching all of us now, can we?

We agree on something.

It seems some want to ignore the law so they can stay in business. I can't be bothered, can't afford and don't understand why the regulations mean me so I will just ignore them.

Anyone here want to buy condemmed meat?

*Turn off sarcasm*

If for any reason you can't comply with the law your options are clear, get out of the business and leave it to those who can and will comply.