The War On Illegal Pornography

CONTACT OBAMA & ROMNEY CAMPAIGNS

dawn — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:27:22 +0000

CALL THE CAMPAIGNS DIRECTLY AT 1-877-354-2951 OR SEND AN EMAIL BELOW.

Please let us know how they respond – email us at grassroots@pornharms.com

Why must porn be an issue this election?

Under both the Reagan and Bush I Administrations, vigorous prosecutions of the nation’s top pornographers not only led to a dramatic decrease of pornography, but also a significant change in the nature of pornography. The porn industry stopped producing violent-themed pornography such as rape films, as well as themes involving children. In recent years, however, all prosecution of the existing obscenity laws has stopped, essentially giving pornographers a free pass to produce as much of the hardest types of pornography possible. As a result of not enforcing the law, hardcore pornography has now become the majority of available porn and individuals are suffering from a plethora of harms.

According to peer-reviewed research and many, many personal accounts, harm from adult pornography is at pandemic levels. Exposure to pornography is leading to addiction among many children and adults, and is a significant cause of broken marriages and the sexual exploitation of children and women. Pornography is linked to increased demand of sexual trafficking and its role as a gateway to child pornography is a major reason why child pornographers are increasing at unprecedented levels, according to new studies.

There is good news though! Already existing federal laws, upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court, prohibit distribution of hard-core obscene pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops, through the mail, and by common carrier. The law is on our side. We simply need a President who is willing to demand that it be enforced.

So far, the Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to the harm from pornography and has not initiated a single new federal obscenity prosecution since President Obama was inaugurated. In fact, they disbanded the task force organized to investigate and prosecute. We need presidential leadership on this issue. Please contact the candidates by email or by phone to make sure they know just how damaging it is to Americans if they allow these laws to remain uninforced.

Petition President Obama to Demand his A.G. Enforce Laws!

dawn — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 15:38:53 +0000

We are petitioning to urge President Obama to demand his Attorney General enforce existing federal hardcore adult (obscenity) laws!

It is a violation of U.S. law for pornographers to distribute obscene (hardcore) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops, through the mail, and by common carrier such as FedEx of UPS. (Learn more about the laws here.) Imagine what a different country this would be if those laws were vigorously enforced as they once were!

Yet, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has refused to initiate any new obscenity prosecutions under these laws since President Obama took office.

Petition Text

Dear Mr. President,

Please stop the attacks on women and children by the criminals in the pornography industry. You have the ability to help millions of women and children by ordering that U.S. laws prohibiting distribution of hardcore, obscene pornography be vigorously enforced. Pornography harms women and children, as well as men, in many ways and that is why the U.S. Congress passed laws to prevent the distribution of hardcore adult pornography.

It is a violation of U.S. law for pornographers to distribute obscene (hardcore) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops, through the mail, and by common carrier such as FedEx of UPS. Imagine what a different country this would be if those laws were vigorously enforced as they once were!

Yet, Mr. President, your Attorney General, Eric Holder has refused to initiate any new obscenity prosecutions under these laws since you took office.

America is suffering an untreated pandemic of harm caused by pornography. A wealth of peer-reviewed research studies on this harm is catalogued on www.PornHarmsResearch.com. According to studies, children and adults are developing life-long addictions to pornography; on average American children are seeing hardcore pornography at age 11 and four out of five 16 year-olds now regularly access pornography online; 56% of divorces cite Internet pornography as a major factor in the breakup of the marriage; girls consuming pornography are several times more likely to engage in group sex than those who do not; significant and growing numbers of men in their twenties are developing “porn-induced sexual dysfunction;” and there is a very substantial increase in demand for child pornography because many adult-porn users are finding that they are no longer excited by adult images.

The images in today’s pornography frequently depict violence against women for the pleasure of the men involved, and these misogynistic images have a profound and lasting effect on those who regularly consume them. Pornography has become the leading sex-educator to many children and young adults. There is also growing evidence that pornography is causing a burgeoning demand for trafficked women and children.

Mr. President, we respectfully request that you order Mr. Holder to immediately begin enforcing adult obscenity laws. If he refuses, we respectfully request that you relieve him of his office for his continued dereliction of duty to enforce these laws. This failure has given preferential treatment to the criminals in the porn industry over the lives and safety of women and children everywhere.

Signed:

ACTION: Oppose .porn, .sex and .adult domains!

dawn — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:42:52 +0000

OPPOSE CREATION OF NEW PORN DOMAINS – .PORN, .SEX AND .ADULT:

1. Sign this petition to the governing board of the Internet (ICANN) who is now reviewing the applications for the new porn domains. Goal: 10,000 signatures

2. File an official comment/complaint to the Evaluation Boards with the governing board of the Internet regarding the applications for .sex, .porn and .adult.

They have an official period in which the public can make comments. This public comment period closes August 12. They have made it somewhat complicated to file a complaint, but is IMPORTANT.

Create an account here: https://gtldcomment.icann.org/comments-feedback/applicationcomment/login
Confirm your account by checking email they send immediately
Submit at least three complaints, one against each: ICM Registry AD LLC, ICM Registry PN LLC, ICM Registry SX LLC. We suggest you submit it to the “String Similarity – Evaluation Panel
Type your comment

About The Issue

I want to alert you to a major new threat today and ask your help to stop it – we can win this!

Morality in Media fought the establishment .XXX Domain for years but, unfortunately, we lost that battle. The .XXX domain was proposed as a place that all Internet porn sites would relocate, making the rest of the Internet porn free. As we predicted from the beginning however, that did not happen. Porn companies did not relocate to .XXX, but instead, the kept their .COM sites and opened additional porn sites on .XXX.

Now, the company behind .XXX is seeking permission to open up three more porn domains, .Porn, .sex, and .adult.

We know that this just means the Internet porn companies will expand to those domains as well and thousands of new porn sites will appear. We are pressing the U. S. Government and Congress as well as the governing agency of the Internet called, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to stop this expansion of Internet porn.

The public does not want more Internet porn!

TRUTH ABOUT .XXX DOMAIN:

- Now, 6 months after the launch of .XXX domain, none of the major pornography websites switched from their .com to a .xxx site. In fact, many porn companies just launched more websites on the .xxx domain. THERE IS MORE PORNOGRAPHY!
- The filters available today do not have problems blocking most of the pornographic websites on popular domains. Switching to .XXX doesn’t make it easier to block (and anyway, no one is switching) because they can block .com sites just fine. The problem is that less that 12% of American homes actually have blocking software.
- Thousands of universities, businesses, politicians and famous individuals have been forced to pay protection money to ICM Registry in order to protect their brand from being associated with pornography. Many of these have had to pay thousands of dollars to ICM Registry, which has made ICM Registry millions of dollars. Now, these brands will have to fork over millions more in order to protect themselves on .sex, .porn and .adult domains.
- One common argument is that Congress can just pass a law to force porn companies to switch to .XXX. Well – 1) it would take a lot of effort to get that law passed and the porn industry, with unlimited financial resources, would work very hard to make sure that didn’t happen. 2) If a law was passed, it would most likely be found unconstitutional for a myriad of reasons. 3.) If the law was passed and was upheld by the High Court, that would mean the US Justice Department would have to enforce it. They would have to go one-by-one and prosecute each porn site on .com in order to force them to move to .XXX and these would likely only have small penalties. The US Justice Department won’t even enforce the existing federal obscenity laws. Plus, if they were going to go after porn companies, they should go after them for breaking Federal Obscenity Laws, not just asking them to move their illegal content to another neighborhood on the web.

What Are The Laws?

dawn — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:59:24 +0000

Federal obscenity laws, which are not being enforced, prohibit distribution of hardcore, obscene pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite or hotel/motel TV and in sexually oriented businesses and other retail shops. The role of the Federal Government should be, as it has been in the past, to prosecute the major producers and distributors of obscene pornography. However, rather than aggressively enforcing federal obscenity laws against large-scale distributors of obscene pornography, for several years the Department of Justice has targeted primarily small operations that traðcked in the most extreme hardcore pornography and prosecuted very few of them. Thus, illegal, obscene pornography is flooding our nation and the harm is great. Much can be done based on the following:

What Is Pornography?

The term “pornography” is a generic, not a legal term. As noted by the Supreme Court in the landmark 1973 obscenity case, Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 20, n.2, the term:

“Pornography” derives from the Greek (harlot, and graphos, writing). The word now means “1: a description of prostitutes or prostitution 2. a depiction (as in a writing or painting) of licentiousness or lewdness: a portrayal of erotic behavior designed to cause sexual excitement.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary [Unabridged 1969]…

What Is Obscenity?

The term “obscenity” is a legal term, and in Miller v. California, supra the Supreme Court established a three-pronged test for determining whether a “work” (i.e., material or a performance) is obscene and therefore unprotected by the First Amendment. To be obscene, a judge and/or a jury must determine:

First, that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; AND second, that the work depicts or describes in a patently oðensive way, as measured by contemporary community standards, “hardcore” sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable law; AND third, that a reasonable person would find that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value.
SIDE NOTE: Typical “hardcore pornography” (e.g., a website, DVD or magazine) consists of little if anything more than one depiction of hardcore sex after the other (i.e., it’s “wall-to-wall” sex).

Obscenity Is Not Protected By the First Amendment

Enforcement of obscenity laws does not raise any Constitutional problem - In Chaplinksy v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-572 (1942), the Supreme Court said: “There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene…It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.
Obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press - In Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), Justice Brennan observed that “this Court has always assumed that obscenity is not protected by the freedoms of speech and press” (at 481). In Roth, the Supreme Court went on to hold that obscenity is “not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press” (at 485).
First Amendment was intended to protect ideas and debate, not obscene material - In Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 34 (1973), the Supreme Court said: “[T]o equate the free and robust exchange of ideas and political debate with commercial exploitation of obscene material demeans the grand conception of the First Amendment and its high purposes in the historic struggle for freedom. It is a ‘misuse of the great guarantees of free speech and…press.’”

More recently, in Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564!(2002), the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to application of obscenity laws to the Internet. See also, United States v. Extreme Associates, 431 F.3d 150 (3rd Cir. 2005), cert. den., 547 U.S. 1143 (2006).

Governmental Justifications for Obscenity Laws
In Paris Adult Theater I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 57 (1973), the Supreme Court identified “legitimate governmental interests” that justify a prohibition on obscene materials “even if it is feasible to enforce eðective safeguards against exposure to juveniles.” These include protecting the community environment, public safety, morality and family life. The Court also said there is a “right of the Nation and of the states to maintain a decent society” (at 59).
The display of pornography is also a frequent factor in workplace sexual harassment cases, and time wasted viewing pornography reduces worker productivity. Our nation’s role in polluting the world with pornography is also making the war against terrorism more diðcult. Common sense should also inform us that when children are exposed to graphic depictions of hardcore adult pornography their attitudes about sex, sexual desires and sexual behavior can be influenced for the worst. And especially on the Internet, large numbers of children are being exposed to hardcore adult pornography.
Federal Obscenity Laws

To obtain texts of the obscenity laws listed below, go to http://www.moralityinmedia.org/nolc/index.htm. The 93 U.S. Attorneys (each state has at least one) enforce the Federal obscenity laws. FBI Agents, Postal Inspectors and Customs Oðcers investigate violations of Federal obscenity laws.

18 U.S.C. 1461 Mailing obscene matter
18 U.S.C. 1462 Importation or use of a common carrier to transport obscene matter
18 U.S.C. 1464 Broadcasting obscene language
18 U.S.C. 1465 Interstate transportation of obscene matter
18 U.S.C. 1466 Wholesale and retail sale of obscene matter which has been transported in interstate commerce
18 U.S.C. 1468 Distribution of obscene matter by cable or satellite TV
47 U.S.C. 223 Making an obscene communication by means of telephone

Sections 1462 and 1465 cited above also prohibit distribution of obscenity on the Internet.
To report websites that may be traðcking in obscene materials, go to www.obscenitycrimes.org.

Public Opinion

According to the results of a national opinion poll commissioned by Morality in Media and conducted by Harris Interactive in April 2008: 75% of adult Americans said they would support the next President were he to do all in his or constitutional power to ensure that federal obscenity laws are enforced vigorously.
Useful Resources:

Pornography Harms Briefing Available at: http://www.youtube.com/user/PornHarms
Porn Harms: www.pornharms.com
The Witherspoon Institute’s Consultation on The Social Costs of Pornography: www.SocialCostsofPornography.org

Ask Newsweek To Explain The WHOLE Story!

dawn — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:48:39 +0000

Newsweek and The Daily Beast, are considered reliable news sources. They have recently published articles, (one is the cover story this week) where they address a few of the more sexually deviant cultural trends, yet they fail to even hint at the reason for these trends. Pornography. Their current cover story asserts that a growing number of women, especially successful business women, have a desire to be abused. Why is this? There is a plethora of research explaining the impact of pornography on our culture and how it is contributing to more and more violence against women. We are urging Newsmax and The Daily Beast to serve its viewers better by writing an article detailing this research – that PORN HARMS.

WE NEED YOUR TO:

Send an email to the editors of Newsmax and The Daily Beast below.

Comment on the cover article this week at this website: http://bit.ly/JdTeLS

Groupon Boycott SUCCESSFUL!

dawn — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:58:31 +0000

UPDATE: Over the last month, 20,000+ people joined our boycott of coupon giant, Groupon because the company was selling coupons to visit a porn studio. We know of at least three businesses that stopped their deals because of Groupon’s decision to run ads for a torture porn company. In addition, 7 other national organizations joined the boycott too. GROUPON CONFIRMED THAT THEY WILL NO LONGER DO BUSINESS WITH PORN COMPANIES! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ACTION!

TAKE ACTION BELOW!

Groupon promoting the torture porn company, Kink and the worlds top sexual exploiter, Playboy.

On April 18th Morality In Media called public attention to Groupon’s promotion of torture pornographer Kink. Groupon responded to customer concerns about selling coupons for the torture porn company by defending the company as an “active, good community citizen.” We responded with a national boycott. More than 15,000 people have taken action against Groupon, and now 7 other organizations have joined enlisting their networks too. Yet Groupon continued to defend the company and have now doubled down on porn, supporting an event at the mansion of the world’s top sexual exploiter, Playboy.

It is clear that Groupon’s motto is right in line with the pornographers they promote and defend. Playboy’s “it’s a man’s world” philosophy amounts to “use them, abuse them, and discard them.” Kink carries the Playboy philosophy a few steps further by specializing in the live filming of “young sexy teens who are overwhelmed and outnumbered…who need to learn a lesson by multiple men;” of women being “bound, whipped, objectified and humilated. They are immobolized, caged and humiliated as objects;” of women “suspended and tied in rope bondage…tormented beyond all reason;” and of women “naked, tied up, bound, punished, exposed in public…who are taken to public bars for public sex and public humiliation…” (The material in quotations are descriptions written by the porn site Groupon defends and promotes.)

1. Pledge To Boycott Groupon

2. Cancel Your Subscription Here

Or email support@groupon.com or call 1-877-788-7858 (press 0)

3. Contact Executives

Feel free to write your own email below or use the one we’ve already written.

CONTACT INFO IF YOU PREFER NOT TO USE OUR SITE:

Matt Keeler – Director of Business Operations – 312.334.1562
Jim Sofranko – Vice President of Business Development – 312.676.5773
Nick Cloffi – Vice President of Sales and Operations Strategy – 312.783.2366
Support – 1-877-788-7858

Some Top Groupon Execs:
zac@groupon.com, brian@groupon.com, jeff@groupon.com, lee@groupon.com, Jason@groupon.com, yishai@groupon.com, jeffrey@groupon.com, aaron@groupon.com, rich@groupon.com, eric@groupon.com, jpeck@groupon.com, ryan@groupon.com, szivitz@groupon.com, kheniff@groupon.com, mkeeler@groupon.com, matt@groupon.com, smeghani@groupon.com, sumir@groupon.com, alison@groupon.com, aallgor@groupon.com, rsalow@groupon.com, srinivas@groupon.com, rmiller@groupon.com, jhill@groupon.com, support@groupon.com

BACKGROUND:

Groupon’s ads for torture porn company Kink: http://www.groupon.com/deals/sf-armory-2?c=dnb&p=1 AND http://www.groupon.com/deals/sf-armory

Just days after more than 10,000 people took action to contact Groupon leadership and to boycott them until they stopped doing business with pornography companies, Groupon featured a coupon to attend a concert at the Playboy Mansion, the world’s top sexual exploiter.

Groupons ads for Playboy Mansion: http://www.groupon.com/deals/gl-rock-n-roll-fantasy

On April 4, Groupon removed all traces of the ads from their website, but continue to send emails to concerned customers defending the torture porn company. (See screenshots of the ads here: Rock n’ Roll Fantasy Camp and Playboy and Torture Porn Studio Tours) The boycott will not end until they publicly announce that they will no longer do business with such companies. Interestingly, we found that they have refused to do business with a number of “religious” businesses because they find them to controversial. See details about one here: http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2010/05/18/is-groupon-anti-christian/

Kink’s description of the type of pornography they offer:

GROUPON’S RESPONSE TO CUSTOMER CONCERNS ABOUT ADVERTISING FOR TORTURE PORN COMPANY:

They also responded with this:

Hi Mitzi,

Thank you very much for your feedback, we do take it very seriously and use customer feedback to determine which deals we run.

For what it’s worth, Kink.com‘s owner is actually a fixture in the local community and regularly donates to local youth charities. We feel that because the business is an active good community citizen and the tour is historical and informational in nature (not to mention consensual) it’s worth the experiment to run it. We have also run this deal before without any negative response from subscribers, and like a lot of decisions we make around here, customer feedback weighs heavily on the decision to work with them again.

We appreciate you taking the time to write in with your concerns,

Regards,

Jai H.
Groupon Customer Support

Romney addresses porn on Leno show. Dismisses it as important issue.

dawn — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:12:18 +0000

We have an ongoing effort to contact the 2012 Presidential Candidates about the issue of pornography and obscenity to seek a statement about their views on the subject. Last night Former Governor Mitt Romney went on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show and the issue of pornography was mentioned. See the video clip below:

More information about our efforts to contact all 2012 Presidential Candidates can be found here: http://www.waronillegalpornography.com/candidates/

Porn Free Planes Project

dawn — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:57:20 +0000

People are watching pornography on airplanes. Right there, where anyone sitting next to or behind or just walking by will be exposed to it, not by choice. Just last year a man was arrested for viewing child pornography in-flight and then a few weeks ago, our very own Executive Director sat behind a man viewing violent, pseudo child-pornography on iPad. The flight attendant refused to do anything about it.

Upon further investigation, we realized many airlines do not yet have policies in place regarding the viewing of obscene and pornographic material in the small, confined space of their aircraft. This makes it uncomfortable for everyone, especially for the kids who are forced to see porn because an adult wants to watch it in public.

Petition to all Commercial U.S. Airlines for Porn Free Planes!

The use of pornography by airline passengers on commercial flights is not simply a moral outrage, although it is certainly that. It also constitutes endangerment of those who are exposed to it. Science has now proven that the use of pornography adversely affects the brain and can lead quickly to serious addiction. We know from the sad experience of many that pornography debilitates relationships and damages marriages and families. For an airline to place its passengers in harm’s way by allowing the use of pornography during flights is unconscionable. This cannot be a “private” issue, because there is no escape from the confined area of a jetliner cabin. We strongly urge you to establish a firm, airtight policy barring the use of pornography in any form during flights.

Here is a news segment about a University of Utah professor who was arrested in Massachussetts after watching child pornography during his flight. Click here to see the video.

Here is an account from Morality In Media Executive Director about her experience on a Delta flight to TX.

Porn Free Planes Project

dawn — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:20:16 +0000

Petition to all Commercial U.S. Airlines for Porn Free Planes!

Here is a news segment about a University of Utah professor who was arrested in Massachussetts after watching child pornography during his flight. Click here to see the video.

Here is an account from Morality In Media Executive Director from her flight to TX.

Mitt Romney Asked To Enforce Federal Pornography Laws

dawn — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:20:48 +0000

Pornography Issue Now Part of Presidential Campaign

WASHINGTON, DC (March 20, 2012) – On the heels of former Senator Rick Santorum publicly pledging to ‘vigorously enforce the nation’s adult obscenity laws,’ and with last year’s Congressional bipartisan support to do the same, Governor Romney is being asked to outline his plan to enforce federal laws.

Thirteen national leaders from the War on Illegal Pornography Coalition sent a letter to Gov. Mitt Romney today seeking a meeting to discuss his position on enforcement of federal laws prohibiting distribution of obscene adult pornography.

Patrick Trueman, President of Morality In Media and spokesman for the group, said that 42 United States Senators and 75 Members of the U. S. House last year signed letters to U. S. Attorney General Holder urging him to “vigorously enforce federal obscenity laws” noting that, “illegal adult obscenity contributes to violence against women, addiction, harm to children, and sex trafficking.”

“This is not a partisan issue,” Trueman said. “Signing the letters to Attorney General Holder were many conservatives and liberals, including Senators, Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Orin Hatch (R-UT). The letters may be found at: http://bit.ly/GBa1az

Governor Romney previously indicated in a statement that he supports “strict enforcement of our nation’s obscenity laws.”

“Our group believes a meeting with Gov. Romney is wise at this point in the campaign to nail down this commitment,” Trueman said.

“Both former Senator Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have explicitly promised to vigorously enforce the nation’s adult obscenity laws and to appoint an attorney general who will do so.”

The letter to Romney, which may be found at http://bit.ly/GCM2ed, notes that, “The U.S. Department of Justice has stopped all enforcement of obscenity laws at a time when our nation is suffering an untreated pandemic of harm from pornography.”

Trueman noted that current federal laws prohibit distribution of obscene (hardcore) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, in hotels/motels, in retail shops, by mail and by common carrier.

About Morality in Media

Founded in 1962, Morality in Media, Inc. is the leading organization focused on opposing pornography and indecency through public education and the application of the law. MIM is leading The War on Illegal Pornography, a coalition of more than 125 groups whose goal is to stop the distribution of illegal pornography. For more information visit www.PornHarms.com.