Free Speech Coalition



Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Free Speech X-Press
Delivering Weekly Censorship Updates to the Adult Industry

Vol. IX, No. 3, November 17, 2006 -- A Member Service of the Free Speech Coalition
__________________________________________________________
Free Speech X-press is researched and edited by Layne Winklebleck.
Copyright 2006 Free Speech Coalition. Permission to reprint granted to FSC members; please give credit.
__________________________________________________________
VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR FSC MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
http://www.freespeechcoalition.com
__________________________________________________________

COPA TRIAL UPDATE
PHILADELPHIA, PA -- The ACLU recently wrapped up its case as plaintiff in ACLU v. Gonzales -- originally ACLU v. Reno, then ACLU v. Ashcroft in the seven-year litigation over the "Child Online Protection Act" (COPA). (See X-Press report, “Copa Trial Begins -- Opening Arguments heard,” 10/27/06) Now the government has, for several days, been presenting their side to U.S. District Court Judge Lowell A. Reed, Jr. in the non-jury trial.
    A key witness for the government defense of the COPA law this week was Philip B. Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California-Berkeley, whose testimony drew headlines because numbers were cited from his research that were lower than the conventional wisdom in terms of the total adult websites on the Internet. The study found that, based on a random sample of sites cataloged by Google and Microsoft’s MSN, only about 1.1 percent of the sites in both search engines' indexes contained sexually explicit material.
    Stark is a statistician with impressive credentials who includes the Internet as a specialty, and who has been paid several hundred thousand dollars (at least) by the government for his high profile research and expert testimony in the COPA trials. In order to provide the good professor with the database he needed to get ready for Judge Lowell’s courtroom, the government undertook to subpoena records of millions of Internet URLs and a random sampling of millions of search queries from Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and Google as well as other ISPs. Most chose to comply with the subpoenas rather than fight the request in court. (See X-Press report, “Google Fights the Feds on Records Subpoena,” 1/20/06) Google mounted a vigorous fight and eventually, in a compromise settlement, had to comply with the DOJ demands, to some extent, by turning over 50,000 random copies of Web pages from its index. However, it did not have to produce search-engine queries.
    So it was with some interest that the public and, no doubt, the COPA courtroom, awaited Professor Stark’s testimony to see just what justified all the brouhau. I must confess enough interest that I waded through the transcript of Stark’s testimony, which is available on the ACLU website, a side-trip which actually wasn’t that bad. In fact, I found it quite interesting, if you can imagine that of courtroom testimony about statistics. Stark sprinkled his testimony with analogies that clarified the subtleties of statistical analysis of Internet filtering, displaying a teaching style undoubtedly honed in years of classroom lectures. Not only did Stark do well from the lecturn, er, witness stand, responding to the friendly questions from the government attorney Joel McElvain, he also somewhat snidely ripped apart the scientific reliability of various studies done by ACLU expert witnesses who had not had access to his huge, subpoena-based database -- until cross-examination time, that is -- at which point ACLU attorney Christopher Hansen dissected more than a few lies, damned lies and statistics underlying the professorial spin.
    The importance of the COPA trial for First Amendment rights on the Internet can hardly be overstated, and it hinges very much on issues of the effectiveness of filters. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, writing for a narrow (5-4) majority in its 2004 COPA decision, said the government must show why the voluntary use of filters to screen out material unsuitable for children would not work as well as COPA. Therefore, it is up to the government, using statistical testimony from their highly paid expert(s), to show that filters don’t work.
    The problem for the DOJ is that filters do work. During cross-examination, ACLU attorney Christopher Hansen hammered a nail in the COPA coffin when he pointed out, despite Stark’s efforts to worm out of it, that Stark’s own stats said there were only 1.1 percent of sexually explicit pages in the Google index database, of which only 44.2 percent were domestic rather than foreign-based (COPA will only apply to domestic sites). Do the math, Professor, insisted Hansen. Multiply 44.2 by 1.1. Then factor in the percentage of sites that are successfully filtered – even by Stark’s perhaps overly-conservative measures, he admits that some filters block as much as 60% of sexually active sites. The result? Statistically, filters work to prevent the vast majority of accidental exposures to explicit sites. Under cross-examination Professor Stark’s smooth presentation turned bumbling. At one point he even was forced to recant deposition testimony by saying lamely that he must not have been thinking as clearly during the deposition. People in the courtroom audience must have been whispering to each other: “Stick a fork in him. He’s done.” A Perry Mason moment.
    “One of the things we think came out of the government's study is that the chance of running into graphic content on the Web when filters are on is extremely low,'' said ACLU attorney Catherine Crump in a statement, not sounding unpleased with the impact Stark’s testimony has had on the trial.
For a history of the earlier COPA litigation, see Epic.org. 6/04
Stark’s Testimony starts on page 72 of the PDF for November 8, the 11th day of the trial.
__________________________________________________________

FAMILY VALUES CITY LOVES ADULT
SALT LAKE CITY, UT -- Professor Stark’s research (see above report) came back to bite this very conservative Utah city in the butt during a presentation to mostly law enforcement agents by FBI Special Agent Jeff Ross during a recent Child Abuse and Family Violence Conference. According to a report by Ken Knox on the AVN Online website, Ross noted that Google statistics -- no doubt those collected for the COPA trial -- showed that searches for terms like “naked girls,” “nudity,” “strip tease,” and “pornography” are especially high among Salt Lake City residents. The city ranks number 2 for searches for “hot sex” and “naughty.”
    Additionally, the state ranks fifth in the nation for searches for “incest”; seventh for searches on “child pornography”; eighth for searches on “sex”; and 10th for searches on “pedo” (pedophilia). Those results are in striking contrast to the state’s other top-ranking Google search: “family values,” for which Salt Lake also is number 2.
    This is not the first time Utah’s conservative values claims have been caught with their pants down. In a mid-1990s court case, Randy Spencer, a court-appointed attorney, defended a Utah County video store whose owner had been charged with 15 counts of obscenity for renting adult tapes. The prosecutors claimed the store was violating the community standards of suburban Provo.
    Spencer subpoenaed records that showed the following: Utah County cable subscribers had ordered at least 20,000 explicit movies in the previous two years; a local video store was deriving 20 percent of its rental sales from adult movies, even though adult movies only made up 2 percent of the store’s inventory; a nearby adult store was racking up on average $111,000 dollars per year selling sex toys and other adult fare; and the Provo Marriott, literally across the street from the courthouse, had sold 3,448 adult pay-per-view movie rentals in 1998 alone. Spencer won the case.
The Randy Spencer victory is from FSC’s “State of the Industry” report, 2006.
__________________________________________________________

FSC TESTIFIES ON SPANISH-LANGUAGE NETWORK
CHATSWORTH, CA -- Scott Lowther, FSC’s bilingual Membership Director, appeared recently on Univision’s "60 Minutes" style on-air news magazine, "Aqui y Ahora" ("Here & Now"). From early reports, the over-all nature of the show was reasonably balanced and not overly sensationalized, although this is sweeps week for ratings so "Aqui y Ahora" no doubt hoped to stir controversy and draw viewers with the show. This is not the first special on adult entertainment the show has produced.
    Lowther’s comments were edited to two main points, both well worth making: that everyone has rights and privileges under the Constitution of the U.S. to view whatever we want; and that we also have the right and privilege to do whatever we want as consenting adults within the privacy of our own bedrooms in any city in the country.
    In addition to a “porn addict,” who appeared in shadows and likened his “addiction” to a cocaine addiction, and a religious person who shared the usual fears of all the inherent evils of adult entertainment, the show also featured a couple and a younger female actress who talked about the industry and work in it in a fairly positive way.
From an FSC Press Release, 11/15/06
And from subsequent reports by FSC staffers who watched the show.
__________________________________________________________

ANOTHER VIOLENT VIDEO GAME BILL PROPOSED
SALT LAKE CITY, UT -- Another bill treating violent games as “harmful matter” apparently has legs in the legislature here after being approved by the House Judiciary Interim Committee; this despite warnings from Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff that the bill would likely be declared unconstitutional if the video games industry were to challenge it in court. The industry would undoubtedly fight such a law in court, of course, having already successfully challenged similar laws in the 7th and 8th circuit courts of appeal, as well as winning challenges in federal courts in Michigan, Washington, Illinois and California. (See, for example, the X-Press report on the Michigan decision, “Violent Video Games Law Struck Down,” 4/7/06)
    Shurtleff’s concerns were brushed aside by committee member Representative David Hogue (R-Riverside) who seemed to say, in essence, what the courts say is your problem, Attorney General Shurtleff, not mine.
    "Somewhere we have to stand up as citizens and parents and legislators and say, 'That's enough,'" Hogue was quoted as saying. "I very seriously think that we need to push this forward and find if we're going to have a challenge or not and have the attorney general fight those battles."
    In January, Hogue introduced a bill that would have amended the state’s “Material Harmful to Minors” law across the board by adding “inappropriate violence” to the list of items illegal to provide to minors. (See X-Press report, “Bill Adds Violence to Harm to Minors Law,” 1/27/06) That version, which would have applied to movies, music and other media, failed to pass the state House. An amended version of HB 257 applied only to video games (See X-Press report, “Violent Video Games Law Moves Forward,” 2/17/06) but failed to make it into a flurry of last-minute laws approved in the state legislature's 2006 general session. Now it is back in a bill sponsored by Representative Scott Wyatt, but this time in a revised form. HB 257 had language classifying a game as having inappropriate violence if the violence was "the thread holding the plot" together, if it used "brutal weapons designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain and damage," if it depicted protagonists "who resort to violence freely," among other criteria. In Wyatt’s bill, the HB 257 language is replaced with a single line saying that a game is inappropriately violent if it "appeals to the morbid interest of minors in violence."
    Wyatt said he thinks the bill has a fair chance of withstanding a legal challenge, but indicated he would pull the measure if additional research suggests otherwise.
Recent information is from Brendan Sinclair, Gamespot, 11/16/06.
__________________________________________________________

UpComing Events

NOV 16-19 -- Erotica U.K., Olympia, London

NOV 17-19 -- Taboo: The Naughty But Nice Sex Show, Edmonton

NOV 17-19 -- Sex and So Much More Show, Minneapolis

DEC 1-3 -- Black Rose 2006, Washington, DC

JAN 10-13, -- Adult Entertainment Expo, Sands Expo, Las Vegas

JAN 10-13 -- GayVN Expo, Sands Expo, Las Vegas

JAN 11-14 -- Taboo: The Naughty But Nice Sex Show, Vancouver

JAN 15-17 -- Internext , Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas

FEB 7-8 -- XBIZ Awards and Industry Conference, Hollywood

FEB 23-25 -- Sex and So Much More Show, Denver

MAR 23-25 -- Taboo: The Naughty But Nice Sex Show, Red Deer, CN

APR 16-18 -- International Lingerie Show, Las Vegas

MAY 11-13 -- Sex and So Much More Show, Phoenix

JUNE 22-24 -- Erotica L.A., Los Angeles Convention Center
__________________________________________________________

Subscriptions to Free Speech X-Press are FREE to FSC members. Contact us at Layne@inreach.com or 800-476-7813.

_______________________________________________
freespeechxpress mailing list
freespeechxpress@lists.inreach.com
http://lists.inreach.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freespeechxpress