U.S. Anti-Porn Effort Is Found Wanting

Three years ago, the anti-porn activist was looking to Ashcroft and the Justice Department to wage an aggressive crackdown on smut. Federal obscenity prosecutions had flagged during the Clinton administration.

The new attorney general, with his fervent Christian credentials, looked to be the ideal warrior to take on the nation's burgeoning and multibillion-dollar pornography industry.

"We thought, 'It is not going to take a long time to get this back up to speed,' " said Burress, who heads the Cincinnati group Citizens for Community Values, which started in the heyday of federal obscenity suits in the 1980s.

Today, the odds of a major federal revival in prosecuting porn appear to be fading. The Justice Department has picked up the pace and is filing more suits, but it has been mainly targeting smaller distributors that deal in the most radical fare. One exhibit: A North Hollywood adult-film maker called Extreme Associates that produces movies depicting fictional rapes and murders of women was indicted in August.

Critics said the strategy ignores the explosion of graphic sexual content that has become readily available over the Internet and elsewhere and that has become the porn industry's bread and butter.

Justice Department officials said they must pick their targets carefully because of scarce resources and the agency's all-consuming war on terrorism. But they also strongly defend their record to date and say more prosecutions are in the works.

Civil liberties groups have declared Ashcroft's tenure a disaster, primarily because of his department's response to the Sept. 11 attacks, including the detention and deportation of hundreds of illegal immigrants.

But it has also turned out to be a mixed blessing for the Christian right and other conservatives, who have long supported Ashcroft and whom Bush was looking to mollify when he named Ashcroft attorney general in December 2000.

In Ashcroft, "conservatives celebrated what they thought marked the end of hard-core's unchecked reign" says an article in the December issue of Citizen, the monthly magazine published by Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs, Colo., evangelical ministry. "But now, almost three years into Ashcroft's tenure, those celebrations have given way to disappointment."The debate over the pace of obscenity suits shows the crucial role of career Justice Department employees and how they respond to political pressure. The department's top obscenity cop, while hand-picked by Ashcroft, is also a Justice Department veteran who has resisted much of the political heat.