WASHINGTON, September 23, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On July 29, the FBI sent out recruitment information via an internal memo for agents and support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography. The Washington Post responded with a piece ridiculing the idea as an absurd throw-back to an earlier uptight era.
In the current cultural climate in which sexual promiscuity is the norm, “Gay Pride” events are led by Prime Ministers and paid for out of the public purse, courts rule on the artistic merit of child pornography and government excuses its own complicity in human trafficking, it is unsurprising that the FBI would be publicly ridiculed for establishing its new anti-obscenity squad.
Barton Gellman staff writer for the Washington Post, was careful to remind readers that the enlightened modern mores widely accept pornography that depicts and is marketed to “consenting adults.” Gellman found a number of FBI agents and public officials willing to mock the initiative. One unnamed national security analyst called it a “running joke.”
The FBI’s interest however is in line with the concerns of many human rights groups that the multi-billion dollar pornography industry is tied to organized crime, the trafficking of women, forced prostitution and exploitation and abuse of children. Add to that the almost universal addiction to porn by serial sex crime killers and others who commit sex related crimes. The FBI lists as its priorities combating public corruption, white collar crime, transnational and national organized crime and the protection of civil rights all of which are involved in the nefarious pornography industry.
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women links the pornography industry to the importation of women from poor countries for sexual exploitation and prostitution. Video pornography focuses on the graphic depiction of sex acts, and the woman depicted are often found to have been coerced into producing such material. A recent analysis of Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler, the three “mainstream” print pornographers, revealed close to 4,000 images of children in sexual and violent situations.
The internet remains a serious problem for pornography opponents. In 1997, New York investigators revealed 200,000 images of children, including babies being raped, sodomized, or otherwise sexually abused. Though the FBI squad will not focus on child pornography, the general acceptance of the so-called ‘legal’ versions leads to a greater acceptance of child exploitation.
The Adult Obscenity squad was called “one of the top priorities” of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. The FBI may have an uphill climb fighting purveyors of obscenity however. Gellman points out that pornography has, since the “sexual revolution” achieved a level of acceptability that many find alarming. Gellman lists General Motors Corp., Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Time Warner and the Sheraton, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt hotel chains as having significant “profit centers” in pornography.
Read the Washington Post story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901570.html
Read column by Ben Shapiro blasting the Washington Post:
https://www.townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/bs20050921.shtml
For numerous other LifeSiteNews.com news stories on aspects of pornography type “pornography porn” (without the quotes) in the the LifeSiteNews.com Search window at https://www.lifesitenews.com/.
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