Brownback: Time to Crack Down on Porn Distributors
by Bill Fancher and Jody Brown
October 10, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Senator Sam Brownback thinks the time has come to bear down on those who are distributing pornography throughout America, so he's calling for an investigative commission. Back in March, the Department of Justice (DOJ) saw its case against one of the nation's largest distributors of porn come to a successful conclusion when Edward J. Wedelstedt of Colorado was sentenced to 13 months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release and 120 hours of community service. Wedelstedt was convicted on charges of transporting obscene material for sale or distribution, and engaging in tax fraud. He was ordered to terminate all of his sexually oriented businesses in Texas and forfeit all business property within the state.
Later that same month, 13 individuals in the U.S. were named in indictments and criminal complaints charging them with possession, receipt, distribution, and manufacture of child pornography in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security's infiltration of a private "chat room" on the Internet used to trading images of child pornography. Fourteen others in Canada, Australia, and Great Britain were also charged in connection with the chat room activity. U.S. Attorney General said at the time that the undercover investigation revealed "an insidious network" that engaged in worldwide trafficking of child porn, including streaming video of live child molestations.
Then just last month, the DOJ announced it had arrested a Brazilian man who they say operated websites (hosted on web servers in Texas) that offered obscene videos for download or delivery in the United States. The videos offered by Danilo Simoes Croce and his company, Lex Multimedia, depicted perverse activities in conjunction with sex acts and were available for delivery from a location in Orlando.
Senator Sam Brownback | |
Not discounting these recent prosecutions and indictments, Senator Brownback believes it is time to ratchet-up the efforts to nail purveyors of porn. "We are seeing some prosecutions of pornography in the country in some areas, particularly on child pornography," says the Republican lawmaker. "But there has been an explosion of pornography across this nation." Brownback says the prosecutions are not keeping up with the growth of pornography, so he is calling for a new investigative commission, similar to the Meece Commission of the 1980s, which examined the negative influences of porn. He wants an examination of how those influences are affecting society today.
"I think we need to update and look at that again, because there's been an explosion since that period of time [in the 1980s]," the senator says. "And [we need to] look at its addictive impact, its negative impact on families, [and] its coarsening of the culture, and to provide more information to local communities about that as well."
Brownback believes the best way to fight porn is at the local level. He says he wants to see communities "bow their backs" and go after pornographers.
