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Current mood:  awake Category: News and Politics
WWW.CEDARSFOUNDATION.ORG
Dear friends,
The sexualization of
America is leading to greater problems for the youth and the American culture in
general. Pornography is an element that contributes to the disintegration of
the culture and sexualization of the society.
I recently received the
article below by Jane LaRue and comment by Pat Truman concerning President
Obama's upcoming appointees for the U.S. Department of Justice. I suggest you
read this with great interest.
Thanks,
Tony
Nassif
President
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There
will be no further hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee on David Ogden's
nomination to be Deputy Attorney General. The committee may vote this Thursday
and then the full Senate will vote within days. You may find the members of
the Judiciary Committee here: http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/members.cfm.
The Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121. Pat Trueman
http://townhall.com/Columnists/JanetMLaRue/2009/02/09/pornography_advocate_at_doj?page=full&comments=true
Pornography
Advocate at DOJ?Janet M. LaRue
Monday, February 09,
2009
It's been a taxing two
weeks for President Obama and his nominees. And there's another nominee with
bigger disqualifiers than unpaid taxes.
Imagine. A veteran pornography
defense attorney takes a top spot at the agency charged with enforcing the
nation's child pornography and obscenity laws.
And that's what will
happen if David W. Ogden is confirmed as Deputy Attorney General, the second in
command at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the nation's top law
enforcement agency.
Who's next?
Jack Kevorkian as Surgeon
General?
Jane Fonda as Deputy Secretary of Veteran's
Affairs?
Sandy Berger, custodian of classified documents at the National
Archives?
Pat Trueman, former chief of the Child Exploitation and
Obscenity Section at DOJ says, "We've seen both on adult pornography and on
child pornography, [Ogden] is not with us. … Certainly, he reflects
President Obama on Obama's positions on pornography, homosexuality and
abortion."
"For the adult
entertainment industry, the pick could constitute a strong one, considering
Ogden's record in representing companies over First Amendment rights and
obscenity cases," according to Rhett Pardon of XBIZ.com.
Brian Burch,
president of Fidelis, has issued an outstanding memo documenting Ogden's
porn advocacy, which includes:
Opposed the Children's Internet Protection Act,
which required federally-funded libraries to utilize Internet
filters.
Challenged the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of
1988 and the Child Protection Restoration and Penalties Enhancement Act of 1990.
Ogden argued that requiring porn producers to personally verify that
their models were over age 18 would "burden too heavily and infringe too deeply
on the right to produce First Amendment-protected material."
Playboy Enterprises:
1988: a
challenge to Puerto Rico's decision to ban obscene content from cable
1986:
sought an order forcing the Library of Congress to use taxpayer funds to print
Playboy Magazine's articles in Braille against the express wishes of Congress
1990: sought an injunction against the inclusion of Playboy in a list of
adult magazines that would potentially be included in the Meese Commission
report
PHE, Inc. & Adam & Eve (1990): represented one of the
biggest producers of hard-core videos against a multidistrict prosecution
strategy by the DOJ.
Amicus (friend-of-the court) briefs in support of
obscenity and child porn cases:
Fort Wayne Books Inc. v. Indiana
(1989) (on behalf of PHE against charging federal RICO laws in a state obscenity
case).
Virginia v. American Booksellers Association (1988) (on behalf of
Freedom to Read Foundation against a "Harmful to Minors" law)..
Pope v.
Illinois (1987): (on behalf of the ACLU and PHE Inc. in an obscenity case).
Knox v. U.S. (1993) videos titled, "Little Girl Bottoms (Underside)" and
"Little Blondes": Ogden argued that the videos weren't child porn unless "the
genitals or pubic area exhibited" were "somewhat visible or discernible through
the child's clothing."
Ed
Whelan, president of Ethics in Public Policy, has this post about Ogden's
involvement in the Knox case on NRO's Bench Memos:
In that case, the Department of Justice under
President George H.W. Bush had successfully prosecuted Stephen A. Knox for
violating a federal anti-pornography law. But when Knox sought Supreme Court
review of the federal appellate decision upholding his conviction,
Clinton's Solicitor General Drew Days surprised the Court by reversing
the government's position and refusing to defend the conviction. After the
Senate condemned Days' action by a 100-0 vote and the House did so by a 425-3
vote, Clinton publicly chastised Days and Attorney General Reno eventually
overturned his position.
On behalf of
the ACLU and other clients, Ogden submitted a Supreme Court brief that
advocated the same statutory and constitutional positions that Days has taken.
The National Law Center for
Children and Families, where I was senior counsel at the time, was preparing an
amicus brief in support of Knox's conviction. We were stunned when we read
Days's brief. Thankfully, the Court rejected the Days/Ogden argument, which
would have wrapped constitutional protection around child sex exploitation.
Ogden isn't just a
lawyer who's had a few unsavory clients. He's devoted a substantial part of his
career in defense of pornography for more than 20 years.
The last thing the Department of Justice needs is
a deputy attorney general with a track record on behalf of those who've deluged
America with pornography and against the federal laws he would be sworn
to enforce.
1:34 AM
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