Rusty Benson
AFA Journal associate editor
April 2002 – Imagine that your local pharmacist began selling illegal recreational drugs – pot, cocaine, ecstacy, LSD – not out of the back door, but across the front counter. The company advertised in newspapers and TV, and even offered home delivery.
Business boomed. The little company grew into a regional chain, then went national. The owners made millions. Soon all that cash caught the attention of a major communications conglomerate that swallowed up the pharmacy chain. The big corporation’s investors never knew that the line item “recreational products” in the company’s annual report was really illegal drugs.
Remarkably, law enforcement ignored the whole enterprise. After all, they said, there is no scientific evidence that recreational drug use is harmful.
Only fuddy-duddy moralists dared to claim that all those junkies and their ruined families had any connection with the boom in the recreational drug industry.
That’s a fairly accurate picture of the illegal pornography industry in America – an enterprise of unknown enormity that in a decade has emerged from sleazy big city back alleys to main street America.
“The size of the illegal porn industry is difficult to quantify,” says Patrick Trueman, former prosecutor in the Reagan and first Bush Justice Departments, “because over the past nine years law enforcement hasn’t seriously looked at it and their figures are the only ones that are reliable.”
Trueman recently appeared in American Porn, a documentary that aired in February on PBS television. The 60-minute presentation was a production of the long-running Frontlines series. The investigative report focused on the explosion of what the producers called “one of the hottest industries in America. Easier to order at home than a pizza, bigger than rock music…and arguably the most profitable enterprise in cyberspace.”
In addition to Trueman and former federal prosecutor Bruce Taylor, American Porn includes interviews with porn industry executives, lawyers, and stars. A central theme of the report is the business connection between the porn industry and well-known American corporations such as Yahoo!, AT&T, and General Motors.
“Parts of the script sounded like we had written it,” Trueman said, referring to AFA’s long-standing confrontation with companies that profit from pornography. Until recently Trueman was AFA’s director of governmental affairs. During his tenure at the Justice Department he was Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section where he directed the prosecution of obscenity cases.
AFAJ: What is the difference in pornography and obscenity?
Trueman: Obscenity is illegal pornography and is determined by a three-part test as set out in the Supreme Court case Miller v. California in 1969. But basically, obscenity is nudity that focuses on genitals or pubic area, or sex acts that are either actual or simulated.
AFAJ: Why do the courts and society have an interest in regulating pornography?
Trueman: The Supreme Court has addressed the issue of allowing state legislatures to outlaw obscenity. Although the American Civil Liberties Union and others claim that obscenity is a victimless crime, the Supreme Court has said that you can outlaw it to maintain a “standard of decency” in society. That’s a good statement because as our standard of decency declines, the way we treat women and children deteriorates. Marriages break down and sexual molestations go up.
AFAJ: With the increase of illegal pornography in the past decade, is there any evidence that women are being treated worse and that child sexual molestations are up?
Trueman: The evidence is mostly anecdotal. Common sense indicators include the establishment of a national center for missing and exploited children and the growing number of reports of molestations connected to the Internet. And reports of the way men and women treat each other on some college campuses today indicates that they frequently see each other as pleasure-fixes rather than looking for long-term commitments.
AFAJ: And society certainly has a vested interested in promoting long-term commitments, particularly for the sake of children.
Trueman: Absolutely.
AFAJ: Describe the dynamics involved in the explosion of the illegal porn industry in the past decade.
Trueman: One is the lack of prosecution in the Clinton administration and now in the first year of the Bush administration. That lack of prosecution has created a public mentality that says “it must not be wrong because nobody is prosecuting it.” And, of course, this encourages users to demand more and harder pornography because it creates a sense of security from prosecution.
Secondly, the growth of the Internet and related technologies. Look at all the entrepreneurs who have started and built porn companies around specific technologies like the Internet or satellite TV.
Thirdly, people feel a sense of security and righteousness about the fact that their use of illegal pornography must be fine because General Motors or AT&T own the companies that produce it and their local cable company delivers it. Big business legitimatizes the whole thing.
AFAJ: Who are some of the more visible corporations that are involved?
Trueman: AT&T and General Motors are probably the largest, but also there is Yahoo! the popular Internet search site, Marriott Hotels, and many others.
AFAJ: How much do the profits from porn impact these companies’ bottom line?
Trueman: Illegal pornography is a major profit center for these companies, because in many cases it’s pure profit. It used to be that Marriott would not do business with pornographers because they were sleazy people, but now the pornographer is pretty slick. They supply to Marriott the televisions and all the necessary electronics to deliver illegal porn to the hotel rooms. Marriott has virtually no investment and no overhead. As the PBS documentary claimed, these companies say they can’t afford not to offer it.
AFAJ: The porn business is now such a sprawling industry, is there any hope of stopping it?
Trueman: Absolutely. You saw in American Porn that there are a number of companies out there producing extreme hardcore illegal pornography. With aggressive prosecution, the Justice Department could put those companies out of business one right after the other. That would certainly put a fear in the whole industry.
But we must understand that the porn industry is more than that sleazy guy directing the video. It is the chairmen and presidents of Yahoo!, Marriott, GM,
AT&T and others. That’s the porn industry today.
If the Justice Department targeted some of the mainstream companies, the case probably wouldn’t even get to the point of going to trial. For example, if a grand jury began to investigate Marriott’s supplier of illegal porn and Marriott received a subpoena for all their records on this, Marriott would likely come in and want to know how to get out of a potential prosecution. I believe a settlement could be reached quickly that would result in Marriott removing pornography.
AFAJ: So that’s what an effective assault on the porn industry would look like?
Trueman: Right. It would target both that sleazy producer of the obscenity and the visible, well-known company that makes it available to the public.
AFAJ: Is the Bush Justice Department really interested in obscenity prosecution?
Trueman: We hear from Attorney General Ashcroft that he is really interested, but we’ve heard nothing from the staff. I believe the Attorney General is overwhelmed with the terrorism issue and not watching the staff. We have to keep calling to his attention the fact that despite his promises, nothing is being done.
The reality is that although they may be short of federal agents because so many are involved in the war on terrorism, there are some agents available. In addition, they could do what we did when I was at the Justice Department. We deputized as U. S. marshals many local sheriffs and police departments.
AFAJ: So the war against illegal pornography is not a lost cause.
Trueman: Absolutely not. We can still do a lot. 
Action Index
• Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft
U.S. Dept. of Justice
950 Pennsylvania
Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
E-mail: [email protected].
• Chrm. John F. Smith, Jr.
General Motors
Code 482-A24-C36
Detroit, MI 48265
• Chrm. Terry Semel
Yahoo!
3420 Central Expressway
Santa Clara, CA 95051
E-mail: investor_relations
@yahoo-inc.com
• Chrm. J. W. Marriott, Jr.
Marriott International
One Marriott Drive
Washington, DC 20058
• Chrm. C. Michael Armstrong
AT&T
780 Third Avenue
Sixth Floor
New York, NY 10017
