McCullagh’s speech, titled “Politicians and Porn: Threat or Menace?” was peppered throughout with amusing anecdotes and observations, chiefly ones that pointed out the many foibles and shortcomings of American politicians on the national level.
“It’s really hard to exaggerate how much Washington doesn’t get,” McCullagh said. “D.C. is not a place that you can trust with your liberty.”
Much of the problem with the Bush administration from the perspective of the adult industry, McCullagh said, stems from the people the administration has chosen to put into some key positions.
Highlighting that point, McCullagh displayed a slide with a photo of Chairman of the Congressional Internet Caucus Bob Goodlette along with a line of text that asked the simple question “Why?”
“Goodlette thinks that banning Internet gambling and pornography is doing ‘God’s work,’” McCullagh said, adding that Goodlette has no real tech savvy, and appears to be almost hostile to the very idea of the Internet itself.
McCullagh spent a few minutes discussing former Congressman Mark Foley, the disgraced member of the House from Florida who resigned following a scandal in which it was revealed that Foley had been engaging in sexually explicit email and instant message exchanges with underage boys.
“I don’t mean to pick on Foley but he’s a perfect example of two issues; hypocrisy in Washington and laws attacking the porn industry,” McCullagh said.
McCullagh noted that Foley had been one of the champions of the Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act, legislation that included prohibitions of the exact sort of behavior Foley was secretly engaging in at the time.
“He would have gone to prison under his own law,” McCullagh said.
Noting that it was former President Bill Clinton who signed the CDA, McCullagh asserted that there has not been that much difference between the way Democrats and Republicans approach the issue of regulating adult entertainment, and Internet-based adult entertainment in particular. McCullagh said that under the Bush administration, things simply have gone from bad to worse.
“What we’re seeing under [Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales is more and more prosecution of website operators, and more and more legislation from people like Foley,” McCullagh said.
Part of the reason, McCullagh said, is that politicians are not interested in exploring truth, but are keenly interested in gathering votes and forwarding the narrow agendas of their electoral base.
“For a politician with an agenda, facts and logic are not that important,” McCullagh said, adding that the Federal Communications Commission in particular is eager to see its authority to police "indecency" extended into areas like cable TV, satellite TV and the Internet.
“The FCC loves this stuff,” McCullagh said. “There’s nothing that a bureaucrat hates more than not being able to regulate something.”
Although there is much bad news for the adult entertainment industry in light of the current climate in Washington, McCullagh closed his address by noting that there are some reasons for optimism, as well.
The good news about the anti-adult entertainment forces in Washington is that “they aren’t succeeding,” McCullagh said.
“While in the short term things might be getting worse, in the long run things are getting better,” McCullagh said. “It wasn’t that long ago that the work of [author] Henry Miller was indicted for obscenity — nobody would even think of trying that now.”
