FBI official: Sweeps of adult entertainment industry off to ‘good start’

A series of FBI sweeps aimed at the adult entertainment industry's compliance with federal record-keeping laws are off to a good start, an agency official told reporters Tuesday.

Pornographers "expected guns and battering rams, and we came in with suits and pencils," said Chip Burrus, assistant director of criminal investigations at the FBI.

Since 1998, porn publishers and video producers have been required to obey Section 2257 of the U.S. code, which requires them to maintain consent forms and proof of ages for performers.

The statute gained greater visibility when former Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that the Internet would be included. He extended the regulation's reach by trying to make webmasters, who are largely secondary producers having no contact with porn talent, comply with the law, an adult trade group said.

Ashcroft's successor, Alberto Gonzales, has had investigators pull paperwork on business owners and conduct on-site examinations. Only two inspections have been completed to date, and audit results "are still preliminary," Burrus said. He refused to provide details but said producers have been compliant so far.

Adult content creator J.J. Ruch, who was the target of one audit, said in an e-mail that he plans to sell his business. It is "absolutely ridiculous that the government is focusing on this industry ... rather than murders, wars, crimes [and] deaths," Ruch said.

A child-protection bill signed into law last month could make the statute's impact on the industry "even more devastating," according to the Free Speech Coalition. The measure, H.R. 4472, governs "lascivious exhibition of the genitals."

The coalition, which sued the Bush administration in June 2005, said required records on simulated sex now will be covered. Legislative Affairs Director Kat Sunlove warned that the language could cover images of a clothed body or a bikini-clad woman.

The change might mobilize opponents of Section 2257 who fear that they will be put at risk for federal sentences and fines even though images and videos they create are made by and for adults, the coalition said.

People who create their own home movies and share them through amateur Web sites also could fall into the category of producers who need to keep records, Sunlove said.

The group said on its Web site that U.S. District Judge Walker Miller likely will be asked by the government to modify an injunction against enforcement of certain provisions of Section 2257 that have insulated coalition members from possible prosecution. The coalition argues that the section and its new components are unconstitutional on many fronts, and said Miller should toss out "the whole section and all of the administrative regulations."

"We're not protecting children from abusers; we're just burdening legal speech -- and in some pretty obvious ways," Sunlove said.