minated the sale of that material which has never been declared obscene anywhere because that letter identified them as sellers of pornography and they were going to be placed on a list. So that is how you can chill things down really quickly. Other accounts, retail outlets, have removed magazines dealing with music. Whether they are right or wrong is their opinion. But that is the type chilling effect that things can have that are well intended that go to the far extreme, either way. Mr. HUGHES. Well, I don't think I have any more questions at this time. But I would like to, perhaps, submit some questions for the record. We are about to go back into session, so we are going to adjourn at this point. But you have been very helpful to us, and we appreciate your testimony. I think you have expressed some legitimate concerns and we certainly are going to be very careful drafting any legislation, in a thoughtful fashion, that is well balanced, can pass constitutional muster, but at the same time strengthening some of the enforcement tools in areas such as, in particular, child pornography, but other areas, perhaps. OK. Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony. [Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.] CHILD PROTECTION AND OBSCENITY ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1988 THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1988 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., in room 2226, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William J. Hughes (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Hughes, Mazzoli, Smith of Florida, Staggers, McCollum, Smith of Texas, Shaw, and Gekas. Staff present: Hayden W. Gregory, counsel; Eric E. Sterling, assistant counsel; Paul J. McNulty, associate counsel; Phyllis N. Henderson, clerical staff; Amanda S. Heist and Robert Pierce, interns. Mr. HUGHES. The Subcommittee on Crime will come to order. This committee has been requested to permit the broadcasting of this hearing by print media, photography, and also by video television. According to committee rule 5(a), that request will be granted, unless there's objection. Is there objection? [No response.] Mr. HUGHES. Hearing none, so granted. This morning the Subcommittee on Crime is continuing its examination of Federal obscenity laws and their enforcement. A few weeks ago we heard testimony on the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988. That bill is probably the most ambitious assault on obscenity introduced in the past decade. However, there are many issues that it does not address. Today we are expanding the scope of our examination to include issues raised by some of our distinguished colleagues who are committed to protecting our children and the public from the vile practices of the pornographers. In particular we will consider the victimization of the persons depicted in pornography, a matter addressed by Representative Bill Green of New York; the availability of pornographic videotapes to children, a matter raised by Representative Joseph DioGuardi of New York; the use of mails to ship and advertise pornography, a matter raised by Representatives Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Barbara Boxer from California; a bill introduced by Representative Bob Dornan of California based on the Attorney General's Pornography Commission's recommendations; and the bill introduced by Bill McCollum and myself, H.R. 3889, which was developed by the Justice Department upon review ing the recommendations of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. We are also going to examine the current Federal enforcement effort. It was observed at the beginning of these hearings in April that this subcommittee has a record in this area that demonstrates a total commitment to protect children from sexual exploitation. This committee's 1984 amendments eliminated the burden of having to prove that child pornography was obscene. We eliminated the previous requirement of proving that the production or distribution of child pornography was for the purpose of sale. We raised the age of the children protected from 16 to 18. We raised the fines which could be imposed on those convicted of child pornography and enabled the Government to seize the equipment used to produce the pornography and the profits of the pornographers. Our 1986 amendments-developed in this committee-prohibited advertising in connection with child pornography; no longer could someone advertise that they have child pornography for sale, or that they wanted to buy child pornography. No longer could someone advertise that they had children available to participate in producing child pornography. The amendment also prohibited advertising to offer to participate in sex acts with children for such purposes. We will hear today in detail how our legislation has enabled the Federal Government to increase its prosecutions in this area more than 600 percent over those brought under the 1978 Act, and additional ways in which we can strengthen the existing law. I think we can do more to protect our children and families from obscenity while remaining totally consistent with constitutional principles and to build upon the achievements of the prior Congresses. We have four outstanding panels of witnesses today and I am looking forward to their testimony as we continue our examination of this most important issue. Later in this session-and, in fact, hopefully within the next couple of weeks-we will hear from many other witnesses who have requested the opportunity to testify. It is my hope that once this committee gets our part of the drug package that we are working on out of this committee-hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week if we hold the present schedule that we can go back to hearings on child pornography. It is one of the highest priorities of this committee. I hope that we can convene a hearing within 2 weeks to hear testimony that we have not been able to reach today. We have invited constitutional scholars and others who have asked to testify. We also want to hear from a number of other witnesses who want to testify about their concerns relative to the bill. A number of constitutional concerns have been raised which we want to address. Then it is my hope that we can move to a mark-up this year if we can in fact reach that; that is, if I can dig out from the volumes of mail that has flooded my office from those that believe the committee is not working on the bill. If we can put our staff back to developing legislation and not opening mail, we can get on with the business So I look forward to the testimony today. I think the witnesses will add a great deal to the insight of this committee into this most important area of endeavor. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania. Mr. GEKAS. I thank the Chairman. Back in Pennsylvania a long time ago, we came to a moment such as this when the constitutional safeguards that we thought had surrounded the area of pornography were no longer; so the Pennsylvania legislature tried to develop different kinds of attacks within the constitutional parameters. A large symposium was held in several communities across the Commonwealth in order to determine the best ways to do it. One individual, I will never forget, got up and said, why are we wasting time on pornography when there are so many other more important things that we should be discussing, like rape, robbery, and murder, and other kinds of things. The obvious answer that came almost unanimously from the remainder of the group there was that not only is this a subject in its own importance relative to what is occurring across the Nation, but this kind of activity, if unbridled, breeds the other kinds of offenses, particularly sexual offenses, child abuse kinds of horrors, and other kinds of ills in the community. So when we deal with pornography, we are dealing with a whole range of ills that beset the community and, therefore, I am eager to proceed with the hearings. I thank the Chair. Mr. HUGHES. Does the gentleman from Texas have any opening statement? Mr. LAMAR SMITH. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HUGHES. All right, thank you. Our first panel this morning consists of four distinguished colleagues who have introduced the bills we are considering today. The first member is Mr. Robert K. Dornan. He was elected in 1984 to the 99th Congress and has been reelected to the 100th to represent the Thirty-ninth District of California. He formerly represented the Twenty-seventh District of California from the 95th Congress through the 97th Congress. Congressman Dornan served with distinction in the United States Air Force. He serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Bob Dornan is also on the Committee on Veterans Affairs and the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. Welcome, Bob, to the committee this morning. Our next panelist is the distinguished Representative from New York's Sixteenth District, Representative Bill Green. Congressman Green is a member of the Appropriations Committee. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School. He served in the United States Army. He was elected in 1978 to the 95th Congress and has been reelected to each succeeding Congress. Welcome. Mr. GREEN. Thank you. Mr. HUGHES. Next we have Representative Tom Ridge from the Dickinson School of Law. He was first elected in the 98th Congress in 1982, and has been elected to each Congress since. Our final panelist is Representative Joe DioGuardi. Mr. DioGuardi has for the past 4 years represented the Twenty-first District of New York. Prior to his service in Congress, Mr. DioGuardi was a distinguished Certified Public Accountant. I understand that he will be along very shortly. Gentlemen, we are pleased to have you with us this morning. We have received your statements, which I might say are excellent. They will be made a part of the record, without objection, and we hope that you can proceed as you see fit. Welcome, Bob, why don't we start with you? TESTIMONY OF HON. ROBERT K. DORNAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA Mr. DORNAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to commend you, first of all, and the committee members and the staff, on the work you have done in bringing this Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act to this point. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. The debauchery in the historical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah-which archeologists more and more claim actually existed somewhere around the south end of the Dead Sea-their historical debauchery certainly couldn't have surpassed some of the darker side of the pornography industry that we see in American life. It certainly is an industry in which billions and billions of dollars are invested. I am not a newcomer to this issue, Mr. Chairman. During my entire professional career-and particularly when my five children were very small-I felt that pornography was a cancer in our society. General pornography was just coming into the consciousness of responsible citizens in this country in the middle 1960s. By the early 1970s, it was a subject that, although people didn't want to even think about, let alone discuss it, we realized the thousands and thousands of young people that were involved in this large country of ours. I have been active in promoting family values and combating the entire smut industry-as it came to be called in the 1970s-during my television career, while I was on the air for 7 years and would regularly unfortunately have to come back to this subject and constantly keep discussing the growth of the industry. On the very day of the landmark Miller decision back in June 1973. On that night, just by sheer coincidence, I bumped into a very prominent American, Charlie Keating of Ohio-he happened to be in my neck of the woods in Los Angeles. I went over to talk to him and he said, did you see what happened at the Supreme Court today? On the spot, he asked me if I would become the national spokesman for the renowned and the largest anti-pornography organization in the country-Citizens for Decency through Law. I said, I will do it for 6 months. That 6 months turned into 31⁄2 years. I travelled through 49 States. It is like lifting up a rock and looking under it at the slimy crime side of America that just stag |