By Patrick Trueman, AFA Director of Governmental Affairs
July 1998 – Seven years ago as a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, I went to Manhattan as part of a team investigating child prostitution. Suspects included porn shop owners in Times Square who were alleged to be selling sex with kids in upper rooms of their shops. As deeply disturbing as this report was initially, the shock soon left me after I had arrived in Times Square. I had been there years earlier to attend an acclaimed Broadway play. Things had changed dramatically since then because of years of law enforcement neglect. On this trip there were more porn shops than theaters. Prostitution thrived, even in broad daylight. X-rated movie houses with marquees screaming sex had replaced legitimate movie houses. There were rows of strip joints. Drug dealers owned the streets. They twice approached our team within eyesight of several unconcerned policemen congregating nearby. In this anything goes atmosphere, child prostitution seemed inevitable. We found several kids, age 14 to 16, engaged in prostitution, inside and outside porn shops. Yes, Times Square had changed and decent people felt uncomfortable there.
I think of Times Square when I think of the Internet. Years of law enforcement neglect have taken its toll on this promising resource. Pornography is for sale and for free. It is plentiful, easily available, and hard to avoid. It comes in every foul variety imaginable and many unimaginable. There are directories for brothels, forums for voyeurs, S&M clubs offering pictures and manuals, live sex shows, and unsolicited pornographic E-mail. The Internet is fast becoming a place where decent people feel uncomfortable.
The Clinton Administration is responsible for the way the Internet has developed. It has a “hands off the Net” attitude. Indeed, no Internet obscenity cases have been prosecuted by the Clinton Justice Department since Congress more than two years ago passed a law clarifying that Internet obscenity is outlawed – punishable with a five-year jail sentence and a fine of $250,000. Trafficking in illegal obscenity on the Internet is profitable and, in the eyes of the Clinton Administration, a protected enterprise. This fact was a major reason that a meeting was held a few weeks ago between the officials in the Clinton Justice Department and representatives of major national pro-family groups, including Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, and others. I was there representing AFA.
The tenor of the meeting was respectful, but we knew where we stood before it began. Dr. James Dobson had sought the meeting for the group with Attorney General Janet Reno. She refused the request, but allowed us to meet with her deputy. Having served in the Justice Department during the administrations of Presidents Reagan and Bush, I know that pro-family leaders regularly met with their Attorneys General. It would have been considered a major insult to shuffle the likes of James Dobson and Don Wildmon off to staff.
Nevertheless, we left the meeting with Reno’s deputy feeling that we had accomplished something important. He seemed moved by our plea for action and spoke to us as a concerned parent – one who knows little of the Internet but understood its danger to children and society. His staff had prepared him with facts and figures intended to persuade us that the Clinton Administration was vigorously battling obscenity. To his credit, he quickly realized he had inadequate ammunition to fight the truth, which was on our side and quite the opposite of what was written on his briefing papers. The meeting ended with no promises made by our host other than to get back to us with a response within weeks. Our promise to him was that we would wait, but only for a few weeks. Then, unless the Clinton Administration would begin enforcing the law, we would act as we have in the past against this Administration.
Just after President Clinton was sworn into office his Justice Department tried to change the working definition of child pornography in a case called U.S. v. Knox. Their definition would have prevented prosecution of half the cases we brought during the Reagan and Bush administrations. AFA led a nationwide effort to force the Justice Department to stop this unwise and hurtful effort. All the major pro-family groups – the same ones in the meeting with the deputy a few weeks ago – joined us in that effort. Dr. Dobson devoted two of his nationwide radio shows to the Knox case and gave out numbers to telephones throughout the Justice Department, including the Attorney General and several in the Criminal Division. Other groups also released the numbers and encouraged calls.The result was that phones throughout the department were shutdown. Outgoing calls were impossible form any key department officials. It was reported that the department received more phone calls on the Knox case than on any other matter. It wasn’t pleasant for those on the receiving end, but it worked. Attorney General Reno abandoned her effort to change the child pornography law.
Pro-family groups are prepared to do the same again and we won’t stop until this administration ends. That’s a long time to be without a phone. We will let you know of the deputy’s response soon after we receive it. Time is running out so stay by your phone. You may need it soon and often for long distance calls to Washington! 
