Ex-Attorney General Calls for Porn Commission

MARINA DEL RAY, Calif. — Edward Meese, former Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, helped organize the U.S Government’s first in-depth study into pornography back in 1985. Twenty years, later he’s calling for another study to assess porn’s imminent “dangers.”

According to Meese, who was interviewed by the public affairs program Full Disclosure Network on Dec. 24, the original “Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography” worked for more than a year to produce an exhaustive study on the effects of sexual content in the 1980s.

It’s findings, according to Meese, were anything but sexy.

“The Commission showed three things,” Meese said. “First, it provided a much more extensive analysis of the harm of pornography than ever before. Secondly, it revealed the close relationship between pornography and organized crime. And third, it revealed the pervasiveness of porn in our society.”

During the interview, which was conducted by Emmy Award winning host Leslie Dutton, Meese said it was time for the government to conduct another study of pornography, one that would take into account the power of the Internet.

“We need a commission or some other body to do a comprehensive look at Internet pornography in the same way the commission looked at it as it was then being distributed [in the 1980s],” Meese said.

Such a study, according to Meese, would point out the harm perpetuated by “special interest groups” in this country who support pornography.

“Today you have special interest groups like librarians who seem to be opposed to having protections for children in libraries,” Meese said, adding that without new restrictions libraries could “become the principal ways in which Internet porn is distributed.”

Meese called for a new comprehensive look at pornography.

“We need to have a commission or some similar body make recommendations for legislation and regulations that would protect children primarily and also prevent illegal porn, both adult and child, from being widely distributed, particularly through public sources.”

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