GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING NEXT WEEK
The next FSC General Membership Meeting will be held at the Warner Center Marriott at 21850 Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills, California, on Thursday, March 17, at 5:30pm. The staff and Board of Directors will meet and greet the members over hors d’oeuvres and drinks.
        FSC invites members to participate in a strategic planning session, which will be facilitated by Michelle L. Freridge, FSC’s Executive Director. Joan Irvine, Executive Director of Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection, will give a presentation on how the adult entertainment industry can help end child pornography. Clyde DeWitt, First Amendment Attorney from Weston, Garrou, & DeWitt in Los Angeles, will talk about US 18 Section 2257 the Federal Labeling & Recordkeeping Law. New and continuing supporters will have the opportunity to pay their dues, make a donation, and pick up recent FSC publications and products.
        The meeting will end in a St. Patrick’s Day networking party with a no-host bar. Please RSVP with Neva Chevalier at (818) 348-9373 or by email at
Free_speech@sbcglobal.net
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LEGISLATORS CAUGHT WITH THEIR PANTS DOWN
WASHINGTON, DC -- The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released a report called “Addicted to Porn.” The report will no doubt prove embarrassing to certain members of congress by pointing out the hypocrisy of condemning adult entertainment while at the same time accepting large political contributions from American corporations that sell and profit from adult entertainment.
        Companies as diverse as Comcast and Marriott International, for example, contribute heavily to political campaigns and also make enormous profits from adult entertainment, although they do not advertise it.
        So maybe the legislative members didn’t notice the connection -- do you suppose? – although, big political contributing media companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communication, Cablevision, Echostar, and DirecTV obviously benefit financially from the adult programming they offer.
        Less apparent to some is the extent to which hotel chains benefit from adult entertainment. An estimated 40 percent of the nation’s hotels offer adult movie options, according to the CREW report, accounting for about 90 percent of pay-per-view revenue. Based on estimates provided by the hotel industry, at least half of all guests at hotels such as Marriott and Holiday Inn pay to view adult movies. These orders result in approximately $190 million a year in sales.
        In any event, some of that XXX money went to finance the campaigns of politicians who have sworn enmity to the adult industry, including, we note with amusement, Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), John McCain (R-AZ) and Representatives Tom Delay (R-TX) and Fred Upton (R-MI).
        After noting which legislators have taken money and how much they have taken from American corporations that profit from adult entertainment, CREW’s report goes on to include a number of quotes from the exposed Members that highlight their public rhetoric on pornography. Fun read.
From the CREW report, 3/10/05 http://www.citizensforethics.org/filelibrary/2005310_addicted_to_porn.pdf
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BILL INVITES CHURCHES TO SUE ADULT BUSINESSES
TALLAHASSEE, FL -- A State Senate bill called the Florida Commercial Anti-Pornography Act (SB 1876) has been introduced here by Senator Siplin. SB 1879 provides civil penalties against persons who distribute “pornography” for commercial purposes. The bill allows “any person, including a church or religious organization, or other representative group or organization” to bring action under the act. If civil penalties are assessed in the litigation, the plaintiff -- individual or group -- is entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. However, the actual civil penalties are deposited into Florida’s General Revenue Fund.
       “Pornography,” in this proposal, is defined in language similar to the definition of obscenity laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Miller v California; although the language is somewhat abbreviated, leaving out entirely the “patently offensive” criterion that is essential to the Miller test. Setting aside the confusion over language, and setting aside the various constitutional issues of civil actions and the First Amendment, what is perhaps scariest about this bill is the flagrant recruitment of churches to assist state purposes.
        “Extending the remedies provided under this act to any church or religious organization, or other representative group or organization within this state, will further the purposes of this act and result in a general benefit to the health and welfare of the people of the state,” says the bill, blatantly, in a preamble.
From Florida Senate reports forwarded by Angelina Spencer, National ACE Executive Director
URL not available
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UPDATE: INDECENT-EXPOSURE ON CABLE CASE
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- The ACLU has taken on the appeal of Timothy Bruce Huffman’s conviction for indecent exposure, in a case which could have far-ranging consequences for free speech on cable TV.
        The original charges against Huffman came as a result of a three-minute segment on a public access TV channel here, in which a penis with a face painted on it told jokes. Instead of invoking TV obscenity prohibitions, Kent County prosecutors went after Huffman for violation of the state’s indecent-exposure law.
        Both the trial judge and circuit court agreed with the state that the cable-access channel was a “public place” and that the exposure was conduct, not speech, and thus not protected by the First Amendment.
        In oral arguments before a three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals, ACLU Attorney Peter Armstrong joined the defense team in arguing that the conviction was a violation of the First Amendment as well as of Fourteenth Amendment “due process” protections against overly broad statutes. There was no reasonable expectation that the local statute would or could be used to trump First Amendment protections on cable speech, the ACLU argued.
        If the Kent County ploy is ultimately successful, the precedent for using exposure laws as a means of regulating cable TV content could spread to other jurisdictions.
From John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable, 3/7/2005
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA509186.html?
display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP
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LEGISLATURE PASSES FLAWED INTERNET LAW
SALT LAKE CITY, UT -- Legislators here, not wanting to appear soft on adult entertainment, have passed a constitutionally flawed Internet bill (HB 260) by a vote of 71-0. If the bill is signed into law by the Governor, anyone creating or hosting Internet content in Utah will be required to rate their own content for its suitability for minors, and Internet service providers in Utah will be required to block registered content to Utah customers upon request. Criminal penalties will result for anyone failing to rate their own content. The result will be a Utah registry of “adult content providers.” (Adult content is defined in the bill as any material deemed “harmful to minors.”)
        In addition, HB 260 would automatically punish Internet sites refusing to rate their content by throwing them into the adult registry, even if they don’t serve up anything remotely resembling adult entertainment.
        As the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) points out, the technical mechanisms for blocking adult entertainment will almost invariably lead to the blockage of innocent web sites that are wholly unrelated to the web sites targeted by the bill. Similar blocking orders in Pennsylvania were declared unconstitutional in CDT v. Pappert after the court determined that the orders led to the blocking of more than one million innocent web sites.
        Furthermore, says the CDT in a lengthy position paper, requiring content providers to label their content will be found to be unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Speakers cannot constitutionally be required to self-evaluate their speech and declare it to be “harmful to minors.”
From The Daily Herald, 2/25/05
http://devel.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=48680
And from a CDT analysis, 3/7/05
http://www.cdt.org/speech/20050307cdtanalysis.pdf
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HOW TO RAISE REVENUES… AND CHANGE HOLLYWOOD AT THE SAME TIME
NASHVILLE, TN -- State Representative Larry Miller (D-Memphis) has an idea for an exotic dance club $2 “cover charge” (i.e. tax). The new funds gathered in this way would be used to provide incentives to lure Hollywood producers to the state to make their blockbuster hits. The Tennessee Film Commission understandably loves the win/win idea.
        “This could be an amazing incentive,” said David Bennett, the executive director of the state Film, Entertainment & Music Commission. Jeff Troiano, the manager of Ken’s Gold Club, an exotic dance club in Nashville, does not agree. Troiano said such a charge on customers seems unfair – discriminatory -- if it’s just applied to dance clubs.
         But Representative Miller doesn’t stop there in his creative social engineering. He takes it a bit further by suggesting that Tennessee, with its newfound “sin-tax” millions, could put some strings on the deals with Hollywood. The Hollywood films shot in Tennessee must show the “best side of woman” and show Tennessee in a favorable light.
        Let’s say it’s a movie about strippers,” said Miller. “That’s not something we would want to support.”
        Miller added that that he wanted to make sure the state played no role in censorship.
From Trent Seibert, Tennessean.com, 3/6/05
http://tinyurl.com/4daxg

UpComing Events

MAR 31-APR 2 – The Phoenix Forum, Tempe, AZ http://www.thephoenixforum.com/

APR 11-13 International Lingerie Show, Las Vegas, NV www.spectrade.com

APR 18-19 – Celebrate Free Speech Lobbying Days, Sacramento, CA, 800-476-7813

MAY 1 – Adult Con 8, Los Angeles Convention Center, www.adultcon.com

MAY 19-21 --  Erotic Expo., Hotel Pennsylvania, N.Y., NY www.Eroticexpony.com

JUNE 6-10 -- Lifestyles 2005, Las Vegas, NV, www.lifestyles-conventions.com

JUNE 10-12 -- Erotica L.A., www.adultconx.com

JULY 11-13 – ANME, Mandalay Bay, Vas Vegas, NV

JULY 18-20 – AVN Adult Novelty Expo, Pasadena, CA. www.adultnoveltyexpo.com

JULY 26-28, -- VSDA's Home Entertainment 2005, Bellagio Resort, Las Vegas, NV, http://show.vsdahomeentertainment.com

AUG 5-6 – Internext, Hollywood, FL., www.Internext-expo.com