Porn Squad...In Color!

This article was pointed out by astute Crushed by Inertia reader Jenifer D. on her equally astute blog, The Wrecking Machine. It's quite possibly the best newspaper article I have read all week. You can tell just by the headline:

Recruits Sought for Porn Squad

Um...where do I sign up?

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Oh...War on Porn...Never mind.

So Gonzales and Mueller really feel that fighting the spread of pornography is a "top priority" for the FBI? We caught up with all those pesky serial rapists and murderers? Oh, cool, okay...I was just checking.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Of course, the exasperated and anonymous FBI guy wants to spend that time fighting terror instead of porn. Here's my idea...why not forget about terror and porn and start worrying about the very real crimes that happen every day? Like serial rape and murder. And arson. And kidnapping. And embezzlement. And double-parking. Cause, seriously, sometimes you just want to hop out of your car and run to the ATM when some jackhole has pulled his Escalade across three spots on Pico and you just want to get out of your car, carefully remove the jack from the spare tire kit in the trunk, so as not to disturb the box of plates and books you have in there from your last move, and insert it directly into his ear canal.

No, I'm not saying we shouldn't spend any resources fighting "terror," but it's just one priority out of many. I also think preventative measures, like securing our ports more efficiently, does a lot more than crime-fighting investigative FBI kind of work.

Applicants for the porn squad should therefore have a stomach for the kind of material that tends to be most offensive to local juries. Community standards -- along with a prurient purpose and absence of artistic merit -- define criminal obscenity under current Supreme Court doctrine.

"Based on a review of past successful cases in a variety of jurisdictions," the memo said, the best odds of conviction come with pornography that "includes bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior."

Now, seriously, what's wrong with a little consensual urination between loving partners? I mean, really...We need to actually make a federal case out of it? I mean, I'm not saying I would delight in having a lover urinate on me, but I'm not the kind of person who stars in pornography. So it doesn't matter. If that's what people want to see, and there's a girl out there willing to go for it if the dough is right, I don't see the need for government intervention.

Plenty of soap, towels, air freshener and gum on hand? Yes. Those are essentials. But government intervention? No.

Popular acceptance of hard-core pornography has come a long way, with some of its stars becoming mainstream celebrities and their products -- once confined to seedy shops and theaters -- being "purveyed" by upscale hotels and most home cable and satellite television systems.

What utter tripe! Porno is way less acceptable now than it was even when I was growing up. Porn stars have been "famous" for years, not just recently. I mean, yeah, there's a Hustler store on Sunset, but that's a tourist attraction. It's taking porn and making it into mainstream camp. If you want an actual porno store, you still have to go to a "seedy" shop. Hell, seediness is half the fun in the first place.

And let's not forget, in the 70's, porn played in public movie houses all over the country. People went to see it with friends, with dates. Professional writers and columnists would openly consider its overlying themes and messages. There's a documentary out on DVD now about Deep Throat that features Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer. Now that's acceptance of hardcore porn. Let's see a contemporary critic openly discuss the imagery and subtext evident in Jenna Jameson's The Masseuse some time. Try that sometime, Dick Roeper, and see how long ABC keeps your lame ass around!

So, yeah, people still consume pornography, but they do so on the Internet, in their home, with total anonymity and totally closed off from the rest of the world. That's not exactly a sign of greater acceptability, is it?

Sadly, Gonzales' Porn Squad is just the latest iteration of this stupid ongoing "culture war," which isn't a war at all so much as it is the Last Stand of the Uptight Prude Douchebags. They're the only ones fighting a "war." The rest of us just want to be left the fuck alone to enjoy our marijuana, gambling, prostitution and golden shower-themed pornography in peace.

But Gonzales endorses the rationale of predecessor Meese: that adult pornography is a threat to families and children. Christian conservatives, long skeptical of Gonzales, greeted the pornography initiative with what the Family Research Council called "a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general."

Oh, that ridiculous "think of the children" claptrap.

Won't someone please think of the children!To borrow a phrase from Bill Maher - "New Rule: Politicians are no longer allowed to use rhetoric made fun of on "The Simpsons" more than 10 years ago."

And Gonzales isn't just saying "children," he's saying "families." Families are threatened by porn? How so? Dad can't afford to pay the electric bill because he's wasted all his money on a plastic vibrating vagina molded to resemble Tera Patrick's? Mom comes home at night and abuses Little Johnny because she got fired from her job at the string cheese factory and has turned, in desperation, to MILF gangbang websites for supplemental income? Isn't it possible that these people just think pornography is gross and so they want to get rid of it because it offends their delicate sensibilities?

But if you really want to get angry, check this next paragraph out:

Public corruption, officially, is fourth on the FBI's priority list, after protecting the United States from terrorist attack, foreign espionage and cyber-based attacks. Just below those priorities are civil rights, organized crime, white-collar crime and "significant violent crime." The guidance from headquarters does not mention where pornography fits in.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Below civil rights, organized crime, white-collar crime and violent crime? VIOLENT CRIME? That's FBI priority #1 right there, as far as I'm concerned. Look at that list, seriously...What do you see? I see a list of priorities determined by the interests of major corporations and organizations, not individual rights. Corporations don't care if someone kicks your ass. They don't care if the Mafia breaks people's knee caps or extorts them for all they have in the world. They don't care if racist demagogues threaten the safety, security and well-being of minorities. And they certainly don't want a large law-enforcement agency looking for criminals within their own corporate ranks.

No, they're worried about hackers getting into their systems, about foreign conglomerates spying on their technology and future developments, and of course, about the economy being jolted by more terrorist activity. And, why not distract the goobers with a little pornography witchhunt, just for old time's sake?

At the FBI's field office, spokeswoman Debra Weierman expressed disappointment that some of her colleagues find grist for humor in the new campaign. "The adult obscenity squad . . . stems from an attorney general mandate, funded by Congress," she said. "The personnel assigned to this initiative take the responsibility of this assignment very seriously and are dedicated to the success of this program."

That quote is going to be appear on a title card before the opening credits of the new show I'm co-producing with Jerry Bruckheimer. Check out the season premiere in a few weeks on the Fox Network. It's called "Porn Squad."

Each week, we'll follow the hard-working and dedicated members of Washington's elite Porn Squad. There's Chief Investigator Alex Hardy, the embittered and recently divorced detective who has seen every kind of perversity. Then, his second-in-command, hungry young Lieutenant Toby Garrett, who joined Porn Squad to avenge his younger brother, killed five years before in a tragic Sybian machine accident. Finally, there's the beautiful Annabelle Jones, the sassy rookie upset to have her first assignment out of the Academy with the Porn Squad, instead of getting drugs off the streets of her beloved hometown of Baltimore.

Each week, they'll have to work together (and against the clock!) to stop pornography from getting into the hands of children and the impressionable. And I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's favorite anti-porn crusader and Worst Person Alive Rick Santorum showed up in a surprise cameo as a creepy loner busted by the Porn Squad for his prized collection of used tampons dating back to the Eisenhower Administration!

Or have I revealed too much?