FC: Free speech advocates fret about NAS Net-porn commission

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[A look back at the Meese Commission might be instructive. In 1985, 
President Reagan ordered his Justice Department to create that porn 
commission. Reagan likened the effort to closing hazardous waste sites, and 
in all seriousness said "it was about time we did the same with the worst 
sources of pornography." Prof. de Grazia in "Girls Lean Back Everywhere" 
writes that 160 of 208 commission witnesses were anti-porn. Linda Lovelace 
of Deep Throat fame showed up to make the dubious claim that she was "a 
victim of pornography," and some commissioners spent their time quizzing 
witnesses about their vibrator collections. The commission staff, joined by 
Donald Wildmon and Jerry Falwell, even pressured 7-11 to stop selling 
Penthouse and Playboy magazines. More recently, when defending the CDA, the 
Justice Department used the Meese commission report as a defense in court. 
The combination of sex and the Net makes politicos terribly twitchy. See 
GOP complaints that Clinton administration hasn't done enough in the area: 
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01186.html --Declan]

**********

From: Christopher Hunter <chunter () asc upenn edu>
To: "'Declan McCullagh '" <declan () well com>
Cc: Larry Gross <lgross () asc upenn edu>, "'horowitz () mediacoalition org 
'"  <horowitz () mediacoalition org>
Subject: RE: National Academy of Sciences online porn hearing Dec 13 in DC
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 18:12:00 -0500

Declan,

This panel has some lofty academics talking about the "harms" of porn to
children.  One prof in particular, Ed Donnerstein has a rather colorful
record testifying to this issue.  He was one of the folks who testified
before Meese and some of his results were used by Dworkin and MacKinnon in
favor of their anti-porn ordinance.  After he took a good deal of heat for
this, all of a sudden he changed his mind and said it wasn't so much porn as
violent porn that was the real problem because of "desensitization."

Sadly I don't see anyone on the NAS panel who will question the porn effects
literature, which in my opinion is extremely weak (see my review on this,
http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/chunter/porn_effects.html). Nor do I think
we'll see anyone discussing the positive aspects of pornography.  For
example the fact that countries which allow porn also have the best records
when it comes to womens rights.  Or the fact that Japan which allows soft
core porn in newspapers and broadcast tv has one of the lowest rape rates in
the world.

The problem with this entire panel is that it is premised on the argument
that porn must be harmful to children and we therefore must protect kids
from it.  There are good moral grounds for this argument, but there is
little or at best ambigous supporting social science evidence.

When a few social scientists embewed with "legitimacy" present their effects
experiments as evidence of real world causal effects, social policy and
civil liberties almost always suffer.  Note the current Indianapolis arcade
game case where the supposid link between violent games and violent behavior
was used as justification for the ordinance.  Thank god for the work of the
Meida Coalition (http://www.mediacoalition.org/) which put together a brief
including the honest assesments of several academics who were willing to
admit that effects research is ideologically driven and seriously flawed.

The NAS panel may have the cachet of being serious social science but is
based on a extremely narrow and flawed assumptions about what constitutes
harm.  The sad outcome of all of this will be a new round of Republican lead
witch hunt-like obscenity prosecutions.  And then we'll all be better off
right!?

Chris

**********

Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 18:30:25 -0500
To: Christopher Hunter <chunter () asc upenn edu>, "'Declan McCullagh '" 
<declan () well com>
From: david horowitz <horowitz () mediacoalition org>
Subject: RE: National Academy of Sciences online porn hearing Dec 13 in DC
Cc: Larry Gross <lgross () asc upenn edu>

Chris,

Thanks for the plug.

As for the NAS panel, there is growing concern about where this panel is
going.  One thing you should know, you can submit material (research,
critiques etc) to the panel for the record.  We are encouraging people who
to do so.  Material should be sent to Herb Lin, his info was in Declan's
original email.  Also, he is very accessible and I would urge you to call
him and express your concerns.  He is just beginning to hear from the First
Amendment crowd about our concerns with the direction the panel is going.
But, he needs to be educated on some of the issues the panel is covering.

Let me know if you need any help with submitting material.

Also, please pass this along to others who share your views on the research.

Dave Horowitz

**********

> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 14:30:45 -0800
> From: lizard <lizard () mrlizard com>
> To: declan () well com
> CC: politech () politechbot com
> Subject: Re: FC: National Academy of Sciences online porn hearing Dec 13 in DC
>
> Please note the implicit and unquestioned premise:That children must be
> 'protected' from ideas, not taught how to tell good ideas from bad
> ideas.

*********




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