David Wasserman \nMIAMI BEACH, FL - ia2000 seminars began with a somewhat ominous bang Friday morning, as a prominent First Amendment attorney warned viewers not to be surprised if there's another anti-adult entertainment witch-hunt in the offing following next year's presidential elections.
Winter Park, FL attorney David Wasserman said that if Republican front-runner George W. Bush goes all the way to the White House, likely the federal government will step up attempts to prosecute adult materials on and offline, following a considerable drop in such prosecutions under the Clinton Administration.
Wasserman reminded his audience of the Reagan Administration's anti-adult materials stance, and the anti-porn commission of Attorney General Edwin Meese, which Wasserman says was predisposed to believe porn the root of numerous social evils. "Shortly after that report was issued, the Justice Department…raided adult video manufacturer after manufacturer, all kinds of people were arrested, many charged with racketeering," he says. "Under President Clinton, that all ended."
The seminar was called "First Amendment: Your Rights, Your Responsibility." Fellow panelist Bob Sarno wasn't quite as pessimistic as Wasserman on the coming political picture, but neither was he entirely optimistic.
"The Clinton Administration has been comparatively favorable to the adult business," he said, "while Bush is an unknown quantity" - so far. And Sarno cautioned that even Vice President Al Gore, should he go all the way to the White House next year, remains a question mark despite his position in the Clinton Administration, largely because of his wife, Tipper's, previous crusades against "obscene" music.
And Sarno raised an issue which could well prove to be a linchpin in future government moves against the adult industry: The Internet, he said, is and has been going "far beyond vanilla hardcore" and into such extremes as certain fetishes, fisting, and other acts which some might consider somewhat over the edge of standard sexuality as depicted in words and pictures.
Both Sarno and Wasserman urged their listeners to take a somewhat more active part in both observing and acting during the coming Presidential campaign, particularly since the next President is likely to make at least one new Supreme Court nomination.
Sarno also suggested the adult business often misses a grand opportunity when called upon to defend itself in the courts: the "social value" clause of the Supreme Court's Miller v. California decision.
"Obscenity is ultimately in the eye of the juror," he said. He said that an adult publisher, online or in print, should move to display the entire publication or Web site in question and not allow either the judge or the jury to consider the case based entirely upon one image or page.
And Wasserman advised that simply including disclaimers on Web sites may not be enough to protect an adult site owner from a battle with the law, vague as obscenity laws often are. "Just because (a court has ruled) nothing in New York City is obscene, it doesn't mean you're off the hook" regarding the Internet, he said, because Web material isn't seen in New York alone.
The bottom line, say both attorneys, is the adult business taking a slightly more vigilant stance in protecting itself and defending its First Amendment rights in the broadest and most context-oriented manner possible.
Wasserman's own firm is involved right now in one of the more intriguing Internet cases of the year: the case of George and Tracy Miller, represented by his partner Lawrence Walters, who lost their jobs as intensive care nurses in Arizona over an adult Web site they created and posted, on their own time with their own equipment, to raise money for their children's education.
The hospital accused the Millers of trying to recruit fellow staffers to take part in the site, charging them with sexual harassment. The Millers have denied the charge and plan to appeal the firing in court.
