Porn prosecutions will be difficult to bring nationally. Obscenity is measured by "contemporary community standards," a test that makes little sense in the age of the internet. Naughty pictures may be viewed as tame in San Francisco but scandalous in Topeka, yet they're originating from the same server. And a good bit of porn is made in the valleys near Los Angeles where community standards are more forgiving than they are in the Bible Belt.
Obscenity (as opposed to child porn) prosecutions have fallen into disfavor as more and more households partake of titillating movies that are easily accessible via satellite tv and video stores. Jurors in some jurisdictions may still be unwilling to admit they've viewed porn, but in much of the country jurors think that your personal viewing pleasure is your own business, not the government's.
Obscenity prosecutions also run into constitutional barriers as courts become more willing to conclude that what consenting adults do (or look at, or photograph) in the privacy of their own homes (or studios) is protected conduct. Is crowding the courts with difficult constitutional questions the best use of the Justice Department's resources?
The Bush administration usually dances to the tune of corporate supporters, but porn is big (and legitimate) business.
Explicit sexual entertainment is a profit center for companies including General Motors Corp. and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (the two major owners of DirecTV), Time Warner Inc. and the Sheraton, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt hotel chains.
Will Gonzales take on Rupert Murdoch for distributing obscene materials? Not likely.
Gonzales surely knows that obscenity prosecutions are a waste of time. Could he be pandering to religious extremists, hoping they'll view him as a favorable Supreme Court nominee?
(As a tangentially related aside, this article explains why naughty words are here to stay. Don't tell Alberto. He might set up an anti-cursing squad.)
