Attorney General Ashcroft: 'The Department of Justice is committed unequivocally to the task of prosecuting obscenity.'

Remarks of Attorney General John Ashcroft
Federal Prosecutors' Symposium on Obscenity
National Advocacy Center, Columbia, SC
June 6, 2002

Good afternoon. It is a privilege to be here today with my friends and colleagues from United States Attorneys' Offices around the country, with law enforcement officials, and with other distinguished guests.

I would like to thank Todd Graves, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, along with Drew Oosterbaan, Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section at the Justice Department. Todd and Drew have joined forces as co-chairs of the Attorney General Advisory Committee's working group on child exploitation and obscenity, and have worked hard to put together this Symposium. Thank you, Todd and Drew, for your dedication.

I also want to thank the U.S. Attorneys and their representatives who are here today. In the last year and a half, I have had the opportunity to visit quite a few of our U.S. Attorneys' Offices around the country. I have been impressed consistently by the dedication and commitment shown by the prosecutors and their staff, especially in the months following September 11.

I would also like to thank those from outside the Justice Department who have agreed graciously to share their vast knowledge and experience with us at this Symposium:

Steve Takeshita, from the Organized Crime and Vice Division of the Los Angeles Police Department;

Ray Smith, Postal Inspector;

Jay Sekulow, the Chief Counsel for The American Center for Law and Justice, a good friend and a skilled advocate for families and communities;

Bruce Taylor, President and Chief Counsel for the National Law Center for Children and Families; and

Donna Rice Hughes, who is author of Kids Online: Protecting Your Children In Cyberspace, a recipient of a congressional appointment to the Child Online Protection Commission, and a strong and effective advocate for children's online safety.

All of these individuals have been tireless in their efforts to support the Justice Department's mission to combat the proliferation of obscenity in our society.

Obscenity invades our homes persistently through the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV, and now the Internet. This multi-million dollar industry with links to organized crime has strewn its victims from coast-to-coast. Never before has so much obscene material been so easily accessible to minors.

The Internet is perhaps the most pernicious medium for obscenity. The Internet is a double edged sword: on one hand, it is an amazing tool that provides children a wealth of educational resources and gives them access to cultures and ideas that are beyond their everyday experiences. On the other hand, it also serves as a conduit for child exploitation and obscenity that respects no boundaries and recognizes no jurisdictional lines.

It is estimated that nine out of ten children between the ages of eight and sixteen have been exposed to obscene material on the Internet. In most of these cases, this exposure is accidental and occurs when a child - often in the process of doing homework - uses a seemingly innocent sounding word to search for information or pictures.

In addition to harming children directly, obscenity has tremendous consequences for our broader society. For instance, clinical and experimental evidence show a correlation between exposure to sexually violent materials and an increase in aggressive behavior directed towards women.

Child molesters often use obscene material to seduce their prey, to lower the inhibitions of the victim, and to serve as an instruction manual. Pedophiles and sexual predators have perverted the intent of the Internet: they use it to distribute obscenity, engage in sexually explicit conversations with children, and seek potential victims in chat rooms.

Most Americans do not want their homes besieged by an avalanche of obscenity and they support overwhelmingly vigorous enforcement of federal laws against Internet obscenity. The Supreme Court has agreed that obscenity is an appropriate subject for law enforcement.

In the 1973 case Paris Adult Theater I v. Slaton, for example, the Supreme Court rejected categorically the theory that obscene films deserve constitutional immunity from criminal prosecution simply because they are exhibited solely for consenting adults. The Court made it clear that the rights of obscenity advocates are not the only ones to be considered. The interest of the public in the quality of life, the total community environment, and public safety must also be taken into account.

The Court remarked that, "Apart from sex crimes . . . there is a 'right of the Nation and of the States to maintain a decent society.' The sum of experience . . . affords an ample basis . . . to conclude that a sensitive, key relationship of human existence, central to family life, community welfare, and the development of human personality, can be debased and distorted by crass commercial exploitation of sex."

To prevent such debasement, the Department of Justice is committed unequivocally to the task of prosecuting obscenity. This commitment is demonstrated in a number of ways. First, the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) received recently nearly one million dollars in additional resources. CEOS is targeting its resources on a bold initiative to hire five information technology specialists and two additional prosecutors. These individuals will be devoted full-time to making prosecutions against child pornography and obscenity offenders using the Internet. This initiative will allow CEOS to wage an aggressive battle to protect children and families from individuals who use computers to abuse, exploit and assault them.

Also, to bring the full weight of the Department of Justice to the fight against child pornography and obscenity, the Attorney General's Advisory Committee revised recently the U.S. Attorneys' manual. Since 1998, the manual has required that CEOS seek the prior approval of the local U.S. Attorney before commencing any investigation in any specific district. But this lockout provision impeded the Department's efforts to prosecute child pornography and obscenity cases. At the recommendation of the Committee, I therefore authorized the change in the manual. Now, CEOS can pursue cases after simply notifying the U.S. Attorney of the need to do so. This change is an important step that will strengthen greatly our ability to take action against offenders.

The elimination of the lockout provision should not be interpreted, however, as an indication that CEOS will alone prosecute obscenity cases. In order to combat successfully this assault on society, we need the kind of cooperation between CEOS and the U.S. Attorneys' Offices that brought about this Symposium.

Vigorous enforcement of the federal statutes criminalizing the distribution of adult obscenity by U.S. Attorneys is critical - and so I encourage further collaborative efforts between the U.S. Attorneys and CEOS. By joining forces, we will be able to replicate the success the U.S. Attorneys have had in the area of child pornography enforcement. This collaboration will foster the atmosphere for ongoing, systemic and aggressive obscenity investigations and prosecutions that we need in order to crack down on purveyors of obscenity.

Any plan to combat obscenity must begin with the realization that the primary goal is deterrence, born from a well-coordinated and well-executed strategy. We may not be able to eradicate completely the criminal behavior associated with obscenity, but we can and we will change the pattern of behavior by aggressive law enforcement.

In that regard, while I am conscious of the cherished protections accorded by the First Amendment, I am also aware that at this very moment hundreds of thousands of families across the country are the recipients of spam email messages containing links to the most vile obscenity imaginable. Children are clicking their mouses on those links and inadvertently viewing images that may forever change them. Panderers of obscenity are amassing their fortunes at the expense of our children's health and innocence.

The First Amendment provides no haven for these criminals. We must be determined. The people we serve demand that from us.

The overriding objective of this Symposium is to establish a national framework for obscenity investigations and prosecutions based on consensus, coordination and cooperation. While we can never guarantee the success of a prosecution - particularly regarding the thorny issue of obscenity - we can give ourselves the best chance of success by proceeding together.

We have a full, ambitious and vitally important agenda. The obstacles we face from a thriving obscenity industry and its defenders are considerable, but not insurmountable. Let us ready ourselves, then, to do what we do best: to uphold the rights and interests of the citizens of the United States in the enforcement of our criminal laws. Let us organize and prepare our strategy - and then let us go to work.

We have already made tremendous progress - but we must not lose momentum. By working together, I have every confidence that we will continue to make great strides towards ridding our society of the pernicious influence of obscenity.

Thank you for your commitment to protecting our children and our citizens, and to creating a stronger, safer America.