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Originally Posted by Greenguy
Aren't they already doing that with the Extreme Associates thing?
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Yep. I think the whole new 2257 flap is about the fact that the feds are very very scared to bring content-based obscenity prosecutions now, since, as the Extreme case showed, even a "conservative" district may find certain content "not obscene" thereby creating a bad precedent (from the feds viewpoint) for future prosecutions.
Whereas, the 2257 scheme is a "regulation," not a law, and therefore will be civil prosecution, not criminal. Under civil prosecution, the criterion is merely "preponderance of the evidence" so one cannot use the 1st amendment as a defense - the only question a lawyer can defend on or a jury can rule on is "was the webmaster in compliance with the written rules or not?" It's a much easier prosecution from the government's point of view, since ambiguous and flexible definitions like "what is obscenity" don't have to enter into the case. If your records aren't in order or you aren't home when the feds knock, you are automatically guilty without a judge or jury having to judge the content as obscene or not.