This newsletter is sent free of charge to FSC members and supporters. For personal contact, call 1-800-476-7813.

Free Speech X-Press
Delivering Weekly Censorship Updates to the Adult Industry

Vol. VI, No. 28, June 4,, 2004 -- A Member Service of the Free Speech Coalition
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Free Speech X-press is researched and edited by Kat Sunlove and Layne Winklebleck.
Copyright 2004 Free Speech Coalition. Permission to reprint granted to FSC members; please give credit.
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VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR FSC MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
http://www.freespeechcoalition.com
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SAVE THE DATE! NIGHT OF THE STARS - JULY 24

Hurry to place your ad in The Night Of The Stars event program. The deadline for artwork is less than two weeks away! E-mail us at FSC@freespeechcoalition.com or call 866-FSC-9373 and we will rush you a sponsor pledge form and artwork specifications.

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EROTICA LA JUNE 18-20, LOS ANGELES, CA
Since Erotica LA generously donates a portion of its proceeds to FSC, we urge you to attend. Erotica LA has been the leading erotic and sensual entertainment show in the country. With over 150,000 square feet of space, this annual consumer exposition showcases over 220 companies in the romantic and erotic entertainment marketplaces. Shop for erotic novelties, movies, clothing, romantic items, artwork, and much more! The variety of merchants, live stage and fashion shows, educational seminars and a erotic museum make the Erotica Los Angeles show the premier erotic event of the year! To exhibit or attend Erotica Los Angeles visit www.Erotica-LA.com!

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DANCE CLUB SCORES PARTIAL VICTORY
SAN BERNARDINO, CA Last week we reported that exotic dance club owner Randy Welty’s lawsuit, asking for $2.6 million in damages because his club was closed by the city for four years, had gone to the jury (see “Dance Club Damages Case Goes To Jury," X-Press, 5/28/04). Now, after deliberating for six days over a two-week period, the jury has announced its verdict, awarding Welty $1.4 million for profits lost during the four years.

The legal definition of prostitution played a key role in the case. In 2001, undercover police officers secretly videotaped dancers performing sex acts on one another, with customers paying extra to watch the show. The city used the videotapes to file misdemeanor prostitution charges against the dancers. The clubs managers were charged with felony pimping and pandering for knowing of the dancers' activities and failing to stop them. As prosecutors geared up to try the criminal charges, however, in a separate case the 4th District Court of Appeal set precedent by finding that prostitution requires contact between dancers and customers. As a result, the district attorney’s office dropped the charges against the dancers and the managers.

Nonetheless, Joseph Arias, who served as co-counsel for San Bernardino in the case, told jurors in his closing arguments in the damages trial that the Flesh Club is a “house of prostitution," a status that he said should bar it from getting damages.
From Jason W. Armstrong, The Daily Journal, 6/3/04
URL not available.

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INTERNET PROVIDERS HIRE COPS TO FIGHT SPAM
EDMONDS, WA Armed with new legal penalties in the Can-Spam Act, the FBI is ramping up its investigations of spammers. And so is the private sector. In an unusual arrangement, the Direct Marketing Association has paid $500,000 to hire 15 investigators who work alongside agents from the FBI and other government agencies in a program known as Project Slam-Spam. Using information provided by Internet providers along with their own decoy computers and e-mail accounts, these investigators have built a database of more than 100 spammers. Increasingly they are actually purchasing pills and responding to offers of get-rich-quick schemes to track down the spammers.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is building what is probably the biggest operation in the world devoted to investigating and suing spammers, hiring many former law enforcement officers and prosecutors. For example, former U.S. Marshall Sterling McBride, now an investigator for Microsoft’s two-year-old “digital integrity unit," watches carefully for tidbits of data that link some of the two billion pieces of junk e-mail that Microsoft’s Hotmail service receives each day with the people who send them. Once he finds an electronic key to the spammer’s identity -- a real name, address or phone number -- McBride uses all the tools of a regular detective: trailing suspects, subpoenaing their bank records and looking for disgruntled former associates to become informers.
From Saul Hansell, The New York Times, 5/31/04
http://nytimes.com/2004/05/31/technology/31spam.html

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BILLBOARD ADS RILE VEGAS RESIDENTS
LAS VEGAS, NV -- The issue of sexually suggestive billboard ads has heated up here recently, with the ACLU representing the First Amendment and anti-Sin-City activists promoting “decency in advertising’’ with more child-friendly billboards.

"We want to take the kids to school or go to the mall without having these images forced on us," said Michael Wixom, a lawyer and a founder of the Main Street Billboard Committee. “I can turn off the TV. I can turn off the radio. But I can’t turn off a 40-foot billboard the size of a semi-truck."

A community lobbying campaign to restrict suggestive billboards was fueled late last year by outrage over a Hard Rock Hotel and Casino billboard for a rodeo that showed a woman’s legs with underwear near her ankles and the phrase “Get Ready to Buck All Night."

Recently, Clark County commissioners unanimously passed a law banning new billboards in the ever-expanding unincorporated areas.
From Sarah Kershaw, The New York Times, 6/2/04
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/02/national/02sex.html

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GOOD GRIEF, LIGHTEN-UP DEPARTMENT
DUBLIN, IRELAND -- Michael Soden -- the CEO of Bank of Ireland, previously a high level executive of National Australia Bank in Melbourne, and a man who has held a number of senior positions in international banking, including chief executive of Citicorp Investment Bank in Canada, and Security Pacific Hoare Govett in London has resigned after admitting looking at Internet Web Sites containing “adult material" on his personal computer.

"I wish to announce that I have tendered my resignation as group chief executive at Bank of Ireland with immediate effect," said Soden in a personal statement released by the company.

"This arises from access by me on my PC to Internet sites that contain content that infringed the group’s policies on these matters. The content accessed was not illegal, but did contain links to material of an adult nature."
From Reuters, 5/29/04
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=5293780

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AND FOR A MORE ENLIGHTENED APPROACH
LONDON, GB -- LL Media, a Danish information technology company, has given all its workers free subscriptions to adult entertainment sites on the web. The idea is to stop the staff from accessing adult sites at work.

"We know that 80 per cent of all hits on the Internet are on porn sites. And we can see that people also surf porn pages during work," said the company’s director, Levi Nielsen. Nielsen is hopeful that this move will make his staff more relaxed and efficient on the job.
From Ananova, 5/30/04
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/709026.cms

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MEAN STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO
SAN FRANCISCO, CA Lori Haigh, 39, who runs an art gallery, has been under siege since she decided to show Guy Colwell’s painting of Iraqi prisoners being abused. The painting depicts three hooded and naked men undergoing electric shock torture by American soldiers. Two days after the painting went up, Haigh arrived at her gallery to find broken glass, eggs and trash strewn outside her storefront. She began receiving the first of about 200 angry voicemails, e-mails and death threats.

Then a man walked into the gallery and spit in her face. A couple days later, adding injury to insult, another man punched Haigh in the face, knocking her out, breaking her nose and causing a concussion. Dozens of art lovers and First Amendment defenders have rallied to her support and are trying to persuade her to to reconsider her decision to close the Capobianco Gallery. But despite the support, Haigh is not certain what she will do.

"I’m disheartened and disappointed," said Haigh. “I don’t want to have a gallery if I can’t show artists like Guy Colwell. Their art reflects the world around them and if I have to resort to showing Thomas Kinkade the rest of my life, I’m not interested in doing that."
From Ryan Kim, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/30/04
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/30/GALLERY.TMPA

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JUDGE SAYS CITY CAN ENFORCE ORDINANCE
DAYTONA BEACH, FL -- Officials here are claiming victory in their campaign against all-nude dance clubs after U.S. District Judge John Antoon ruled recently that revised city zoning rules for exotic dance clubs are now constitutional. The city had been barred by Antoon from enforcing previous zoning regulations since 2001, which, in effect, dropped the legal barrier to all nude entertainment during the life of the injunction. Prior to 2001 the two clubs involved in the lawsuit, the Pink Pony and Molly Brown’s, had operated as bikini bars, but after the judge’s injunction, they opened separate all-nude clubs adjacent to their original bikini bars. The city is now free to enforce its anti-nudity regulations except in areas specifically zoned for nude dancing, apparently leaving some clubs the option of moving or making their dancers put on bikinis.

However, attorney Gary S. Edinger, who represents Molly Brown’s, says there may be a loophole that will allow the club to still be all-nude. Because Molly Brown’s II opened at a time when the city had an unconstitutional regulation, and before the city made the rules constitutional, the nude bar could be “grandfathered" in. An appeal of Judge Antoon’s recent ruling is also likely.
From Ludmilla Lelis, Orlando Sentinel, 6/4/04
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/
orl-loclawsuit04060404jun04,1,7443675.story?coll=orl-home-headlines\

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UpComing Events

JUN 9-12 Cybernet Expo, San Diego, CA www.cybernetexpo.com

JUN 17 -- FOXE 1/3 (Fans of X-Rated Entertainment Awards) Inglewood, CA (818) 501-6139

JUN 18-20 Erotica L.A.,Los Angeles, CA http://www.erotica-la.com/

JUL 7-11 -- Lifestyles West, Stardust Hotel, Las Vegas, http://lifestyles-convention.com/

JUL 24 Night of the Stars Sheraton Universal Hotel Los Angeles, CA - 866-FSC-9373

JUL 25 FSC’s Bob Tremont Memorial Golf Tournament, Sylmar, CA, 818-348-9373

JUL 26-28 ANME, Sheraton Universal Hotel, Los Angeles, CA - 818-772-0100

AUG 8, 2004 - Fit For a King, John C. Holmes 60th Birthday -- Hollywood, CA (818) 501-6139

AUG 13-15, 2004 Internext -- Westin Diplomat, Hollywood, Florida www.Internext-expo.com

AUG 29-SEPT 4, 2004 -- Gentlemen’s Club Owners Expo and Exotic Dancer Fan Fair, Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV - www.ExoticDancer.com.

Subscriptions to Free Speech X-Press are FREE to FSC members. Contact us at Sunlove@direcway.com or 800-476-7813