August 31, 2005 | Sex & Society

Terrorism takes back seat to porn

More ominous rumblings from the leadership in the U.S. Department of Justice confirm that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is determined to refocus federal law enforcement resources from areas such as terrorism, corruption and organized crime to obscenity prosecutions.

This is not a war on child porn, but rather "adult obscenity" - the depiction of  consenting adults having sex in a way that violates the standards of a particular geographic community.

Last month, Gonzales' Miami lieutenant U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta told a meeting of Federal Bureau of Investigation supervisors that his mandate to pursue adult pornography cases even more aggressively than those against child pornographers was delivered  by the U.S. Attorney General himself.

The FBI and other law enforcement groups have been hesitant to move resources away from national security issues; even Acosta's own staff have resisted but he has reportedly assigned them porn cases despite their objections.

When  Gonzales was appointed to his post earlier this year, one of the first acts was to establish the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force under the Dept. of Justice's Criminal Division. Though the DOJ initiative has little support within the rank-and-file of the department, it does have tremendous support from the Republican's political allies in the religious right.

• Number One with a Bullet: DOJ 'Mandated' to Prosecute Obscenity [AVN Online]
• U.S. Attorney's porn fight gets bad reviews [law.com]