Jasin

What it means is that 2257 is not like a law you are normally expecting, like say the law that provides a penalty for driving while intoxicated, or that you must file your income taxes by April 15.

The regulation is long, complex, contradictory in parts and has been taken to court.

I watched The People vs. Larry Flynt on HBO recently, and enjoyed watching him be told that he could not print a Beaver Shot in Hustler, so he went ahead and did so routinely.

Not being a lawyer either, I'll wager that some federal attorney can decide to arrest a website operator for not having 2257 records. And then another Federal attorney can go ahead and arrest a website operator for not keeping them correctly, even though he had them. It doesn't matter that he tried to comply or not.... they can still choose to go after someone.

Look at what Attorney General Elliot Spitzer does in New York - he looks at people with targets on them first and foremost, not really whether they are doing something criminal. Legal prosecutors can throw darts towards you as the center the dartboard. Maybe a prosecutor somewhere wants to run for Governor. All business carries risk, and the adult business is riskier then most.

Look - the government will probably say that websites with explicit pics are supposed to have 2257 information properly indexed. But that does not mean you cannot argue in court that is an improper application of the law. The feds said that you couldn't burn an American flag in public for decades until the Rehnquist Supreme Court in the early 1990s decided otherwise.

Steve