AVN Write Up On Senate Hearings

WASHINGTON - Whether the adult Internet industry wants to believe it or not, Congress very well may have mandating dot-XXX URLs for all adult websites on its mind.

During Thursday afternoon’s hearing about pornography and the Internet before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, committee member Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) brought up the sponsored Top-Level Domain now pending before the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers as one potential way to reign in the proliferation of pornography on the Web.

“I think it would be good, in the sense that you could require [emphasis added] all adult sites to locate there,” he told the gathering.

Later in the hearing, he warned noted adult industry attorney Paul Cambria, who was testifying before the committee on behalf of the Adult Freedom Foundation, “Clean up your act, or we’ll do it for you.”

Pryor quickly explained that his remark was intended as a “shot across the bow” of the industry and not a direct threat.

Cambria’s reply: “I think we might welcome a shot across the bow rather than one between the eyes.”

Pryor was not the only committee member to suggest Congress is more than willing to start mandating some severe guidelines for online smut. Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Ak.) was among the most forceful and obviously anti-porn voices in the room. He compared the adult entertainment industry unfavorably with the broadcast industries, which have rated their content voluntarily (with a bit of help from the Federal Communications Commission) for years.

“Why don’t you just rate [the websites] yourselves?” he asked Cambria testily.

Cambria began to reply by saying, “There has been a lack of dialogue with authorities and Congress…,” but Stevens shut him down.

“My advice to you is to tell your clients to do it soon,” he warned sharply. “If they don’t, it’s going to be mandated.”

Early in the hearing, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), who seemed the most tech-savvy among the committee’s members, said it’s widely known that he thinks “the Internet is the greatest invention since the Guttenberg press.” Still, he noted, “offensive” content popping up on screen unexpectedly “ruins the whole computer.” Allen said technology must be employed to “stop pornography that is unwanted, and particularly unwanted to children.”

Dr. James Weaver, a professor of communication and psychology at Virginia Tech, while acknowledging that “we must accept the fact that no single solution for protecting children will be sufficient,” implored the committee to embark upon three courses of action: legislate means of empowering parents and children to take control of their online experiences, dispense with the notion that commercial pornography is free speech, and put some sort of official kibosh on the distribution of porn on portable, mobile, and wireless devices.

Calling pornography a medium that warps the judgment of the young, Weaver said, “We need to treat this as a public health crisis.”

Tim Lordan, executive director of the Internet Education Foundation, agreed that finding strategies to empower parents in their efforts to keep children away from porn is important. The difficulty, he said, is “whatever a parent thinks is objectionable, that’s pornography to them.”

Perhaps the most chilling recommendation offered to the committee came from Laura Parksy, the deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. In response to a question from Stevens about what Congress could do to facilitate the prosecution of child pornography and obscenity – both of which are major focuses for her division – Parsky gave several answers: strengthen the official recognition of the nexus between child pornography and commerce; strengthen the records-keeping requirements of 18 U.S.C. 2257, especially as it applies to secondary producers, and encourage the administration and all U.S. allies to back the Council of Europe Treaty Against Cybercrime. As Parsky explained it, the treaty would bring all foreign countries’ laws “up to speed with U.S. laws”, thereby facilitating the DoJ’s enforcement of U.S. child pornography and obscenity laws worldwide

http://www.avnonline.com/index.php?P...tent_ID=255402

Again, it seems im not the only person thinking that voluntary website ratings are in order.

Interesting that this was mentioned in the AVN write-up if it isnt such a big issue $0.02

Regards,

Lee