New 2257 stuff again

lassiter · 2004-07-21, 12:13 PM

Has anyone thought through the implications of the new rule that an employee must be present at the "principal place of business" of any adult website during normal business hours, Monday thru Friday for DoJ snap inspections?

Aside from eliminating virtually all part-time webmasters such as myself (no matter how responsible and unflaky - and I consider myself to be a very mature unflaky and responsible webmaster), it also means essentially no one-person operations can function at all!

The obvious purpose of most of the new 2257 rules are based on webmaster harrassment - Ashcroft needs to show enforcment of the rules, and there need to be Examples made of people to shore up the Christian right before the election. Nothing sexy about showing up for a 2257 inspection and finding everything in order, so they're gonna target people who, for example, go to a webmaster convention. If you are the sole employee, and you go to Internext, and DoJ knows about it, then they knock on your door while you're gone for a 2257 inspection. No one home? Boom! Five years in jail just for attending Internext, boyo! "Pornographer charged with ignoring Child Porn regulations" will be the totally accurate, if totally misleading, headline in yer local paper.

Think it can't happen? I'd suggest that's exactly the type of thing Ashcroft's boys intend to do. The question is, what are we gonna do about it, if anything?

|skull|

2004-07-21, 12:13 PM	#1
lassiter I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman! Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 473	New 2257 stuff again Has anyone thought through the implications of the new rule that an employee must be present at the "principal place of business" of any adult website during normal business hours, Monday thru Friday for DoJ snap inspections? Aside from eliminating virtually all part-time webmasters such as myself (no matter how responsible and unflaky - and I consider myself to be a very mature unflaky and responsible webmaster), it also means essentially no one-person operations can function at all! The obvious purpose of most of the new 2257 rules are based on webmaster harrassment - Ashcroft needs to show enforcment of the rules, and there need to be Examples made of people to shore up the Christian right before the election. Nothing sexy about showing up for a 2257 inspection and finding everything in order, so they're gonna target people who, for example, go to a webmaster convention. If you are the sole employee, and you go to Internext, and DoJ knows about it, then they knock on your door while you're gone for a 2257 inspection. No one home? Boom! Five years in jail just for attending Internext, boyo! "Pornographer charged with ignoring Child Porn regulations" will be the totally accurate, if totally misleading, headline in yer local paper. Think it can't happen? I'd suggest that's exactly the type of thing Ashcroft's boys intend to do. The question is, what are we gonna do about it, if anything? \|skull\|