Do The Good People Of Florida Think Your Website Is Obscene? You Better Hope Not.
Jury-shopping -- trying to try your case in a town where the locals are likely to be in your favor -- is a time-honored tradition in the U.S. legal system. But the Web opens up a whole new world of possiblities for aggressive prosectors. In this case, says the St. Petersburg Times: "Defense attorneys said Little never knew his site was housed in Tampa, and that prosecutors never produced any evidence that he did." Presumably he'll bring that up before a Federal judge, who has the ability to sentence him to a 100 years in prison -- 5 years for each count.
How did we get here? Start back in the 70s, when the U.S. Supreme Court had to grapple with how to define "obscenity." (Legal geeks: We're talking Miller v. California.) The Court's Solomonic "cut the baby in half" response was to say local "community standards" dictate what's over the line. At the time that made sense: In the 70s porn was mainly distributed through local stores, and the decision allowed conservative rural farm towns to set a different standard than Greenwich Village.
But whose community standards apply to content on the Internet? Prosecutors can -- and do -- argue since Internet material is available everywhere, an obscenity trial can be brought anywhere. Employing physical webservers based in a socially conservative jurisdiction makes any defense all the harder.
Little's lawyers have already vowed appeal, but until and unless the courts re-visit the old "community standards" provisions, hosting blue content on webservers located in a less-than-liberal town has just become a very dicey proposition.
So, where are your servers?
Photo: St. Petersburg Times
Are you also a vegetarian that eats meat or a heterosexual that has sex with men? Think Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, David Dreier, Jim West, Glenn Murphy,Joe McCarthy...etc. Maybe your just a guy who is in denial or doesn't think too clearly, or maybe you suffer from Cognitive dissonance like so many on the right. Maybe, just maybe you're not a righty at all, maybe you just think you are because your blinded by a guns, gays or god issue.
Andrew
Oh, nad Jack, if you have watched enough of Little's work to be able to describe exactly what's in it, how come it hasn't caused terrible effects on you as you assume it will in others? Just asking.
If only we had an impartial Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, the whole government is in somebody's pocket... read more here!
www.republicanswar.com
Tell your friends!
If we apply individual community standards to porn legality, we should do the same with all laws, I suppose.
As for the female "actresses" involved, if they had much of a problem, they would be taking his ass to court, and they haven't. The thespian spirit lives on!
Soooo... this case gets the mark of bogus on all counts.
It is unpopular speech (or expressions of it like movies / pornography).
It is / isn't a function of good or bad judges. The problem is that the Supreme Court has not kept up with the times in the area of pornograpy. The standard cited - local community - may have had some meaning back in the days when one of them said "I can't define it but I sure know it when I see it" (which wasn't a very helpful standard either) and that backwater bumfu#k town in Mississippi was accessible by at most mail, magazines in their grocery store and possibly the local movie house.
The world wide reach of the Internet has rendered that standard obsolete and useless (except to prudish prosecutors who choose to enforce it in this ridiculous manner).
So if you pay someone for sex, it is prostitution and you go to jail.
If you pay someone for sex and someone films it, it is making a pornographic movie, so that is OK.
If you make a violent movie, which would probably be rated PG-13 or R, that is OK.
If you make a pornographic movie which also contains violence, then that is obscene, so you go to jail.
Let me out of this country. I can't stand the insanity of it all.
Let's hope that when Bush leaves his culture of fear goes with it.
What in God's name can prosecutors in Florida do about oil skyrocketing, people not affording to drive to work, food prices soaring, inflation, and joblessness? Do these sound like issues addressed in the Florida Penal Code? Obscenity, on the other hand, I can assure you, is a prohibited conduct under that Code. So you're making no legal sense at all.
Dude, no disrespect but you need to figure this out and start voting in your own best interest and fasism only works for the very few.
I'm just saying.
Slogans like a small government usually mean small enough to get into your bedroom or it's small like a big fat guy named tiny.
It's not what they say it's what they do and if what they do looks like fasism then stop listning to reich-wing radio, watching Fox news and voting Republican.
So if the prosecutors believe that they can prosecute anywhere a server is located, perhaps the porn industry should locate all servers in New York City?
I called an obscenity expert while reporting this story, a lawyer who fought a similar case. (I assume here you're smart enough not to take anything I say as legal advice.) I think a lot of it ultimately comes to prosecutorial discretion. But my guy says yes, legal precedent is such that contracting a company to do webhosting for you indicates an active interest in engaging a community, and thus placing yourself at the mercy of local community standards vis a vis obscenity.
There is a plausible case to be made if Little used a hosting company in NYC or San Fran, he'd still be a free man.
If you are ever in Tampa Fl, now home to the worlds largest confederate flag, you need to visit this Mons Venus strip club. For the women to strip, they have to put clothes, on since they all walk around the club butt naked all the time.
The most common comment when someone first enters the club: "Is this place Legal"
The owner of this establishment has come close to winning elected office in Tampa several times and is expected, if he runs this fall, to finally become a public servant.
Fl is a Fucked up place
There is a funny little thing called "Freedom". At it's basic level; Freedom means letting other people do things you don't like... and they let you do things they don't like.
The issue is one of aesthetics. That's all. You may find his movies repugnant (I do) but frankly if you don't like them - don't watch them.
Nobody is forcing anybody to view anything. What part of "don't watch it" doesn't make sense?
The idea that a prosecutor can shop a charge around is the real obscenity! What that signifies is that some Federal lawyer got a bug up his ass and had a personal agenda. That's not right.
Welcome to the "Brave New World".
Papers please,
Erik
Or, of course, we could simply agree that the First Amendment shouldn't be edited based on where you live!
Yes, Max Hardcore is probably a pig and I will choose NOT to watch his videos, but that doesn't mean I won't defend his right to not be unduly harassed by politicians looking to pander to small minds.
A threat to one person's freedom of speech is a threat to everyone's freedom of speech. Why do you think the prosecutors went after a guy as extreme as Max Hardcore? They're trying to get their foot in the door so they can eventually go after all of us who practice anything "alternative." Today Max Hardcore, tomorrow the rest of us.
They must be bored down in Florida. No, prosecutors don't have anything to do with, nor can they help us out of the fuel crisis we are presently in, but it sure boggles my mind that they have time to worry about much else.
I remember the old days, we had a Candy Store, that also had a lunch counter and magazine section, in our small town. They made the best homemade candies there. Anyway, I remember seeing racks of magazines with their front covers turned so that young people or people who were not interested in pornography wouldn't have to look at them. The owner of that store watched us kids like a hawk when we were in there. The comic books, and any other books children even MIGHT be interested in were clear across the store where the candy was located.
Today, I walk into stores and see porn mags out like Good Housekeeping.
This is the most ridiculous case I have ever heard, and scumbag or not, I hope he nails them on appeal. Because if he doesn't, people, the land of the free and the home of the brave is going to turn into the land of the shackled and the home of cowards who will be too frightened to even TRY to stand up for their rights.
I don't like pornography of any kind. I have experience in this area, enough to see and know the damage and havoc it can create in a person's life, the same type of havoc caused by drug addiction. If I had my way it would be GONE, never to rear it's ugly head again. But America isn't about having things "my way". As long as he wasn't FORCING anyone to look at his material, I believe he had every right to do what he was doing. As long as no one underage was involved as far as models, and no one was forced to be/act in the movies, then as far as I'm concerned he broke no laws.
We should all be scared right now...very scared.
2) @thku4grace
the great thing about our founding fathers is that they WOULD have fought for this guys rights to produce what he does, regardless of the man's moral standing. no one is forced to participate in any way, shape or form in his movies. your personal opinions about the man or what he does are irrelevant. nothing he does has been deemed illegal in this country, only unwanted by a small minority who would rather go on a witch hunt than be adults and just not look.
3)@steve s
apparently your world is purely black and white and if you say youre part of a group you have to go along with absolutley everything they think? youre allowed to disagree with some aspects of the political party you choose. these people are the extreme right wing of the rupulican party and have skewed it.
John F(reakboy with the women) kennedy!
why should money and time be wasted on something that is disgusting to most people. he now has lots of free press coverage to make lots of future sells from the really freaky people who are crying most about this but secretly live for the worst and most vulger porn they can get without anybody else knowing about it. just say no to having real crimes investigated and let the world run wild and thugs and such have the rights not to be prosecuted or arrested and they can rob, molest and murder innocent citizens without worrying about jail and if caught being taken care of better then a lot of people are able to do now who are honest people working but unable to get aid because fed. money is all spent on prisoners and druggies for such stupid programs. just go after someone who made a film that everyone volunteered to be in and no one being forced or even begged to pirchase or watch. this way we can chase someone minor that makes headlines and a few minority groups can brag about its disgusting content and how they saved the world for us by denying us a right to make our own decisions and we can be totally controlled by these groups much as the russians dreamed that they could have done so successfully as is being done in the united states, and let the real criminals like murders go free on technicalities or politicians getting them freed on some bull program they want to get rich from and let the victims families be totally distraught from their loss and knowing that person who did it is living a great life now and they are having it rubbed in their face a movie maker is more dangerous then the one who stole their family from them.
sorry for ranting but stupidity rubs off and infected me too just from hearing this story while victims of real crime wish they had this much effort going after their attackers but only get a nod and someone saying tough luck for you!
Max was most likely the most extreme and it was just like a speeder on a hywy, they pulled him over rather than going after the rest of the cars going ten or more miles over the limit.
That said,
I knew there was a line in the sand with child porn. Now the line also includes consenting adults who do not have the same public standards of sexualty as the people in Florida publicly declare they do in a taped court room. I don't get it.
That said,
Porn is good/bad for two things,
1. wasting ones time in life
2. Giving a computer a virus: The new STD
Norton would be out of business and not making billions of dollars a year if it weren't for porn sites.
How 'bout a community of atheists order a Bible, get it mailed and insist the that the folks at the church that sent it stand trial for breaking the community standards of obscenity in their local.
Good luck to all of you... I married an EU citizen and I'm moving on out to live free in Germany (and taking the almost six figure amount I pay in taxes with me).
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