Despite John Ashcroft’s lament that his prosecutors lack the resources to wage war against suspected terrorists and child pornography, the U.S. Department of Justice has launched an attack on adult pornography.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft promised his conservative constituents a war on pornography, and the DOJ is now pursuing at least 40 obscenity prosecutions. The focus of Ashcroft’s war is on sexually violent pornography.

During the Clinton years, the Justice Department kept the focus on child pornography because, with scarce resources, Janet Reno believed the focus should be on saving child victims of pornography by severely punishing producers and users.

Now, with the advent of the Internet, pornographers cannot control who receives pornography. Thus, if someone in a conservative community receives pornography, it is possible that a jury in that locale could return a conviction for distribution of pornography. For erotic film producers, the word is out that the Justice Department may be indicting them shortly. Makers of sadomasochistic films are the most vulnerable.

Obscenity law is strange in that, assuming a work depicts “sexual conduct,” and it has no other scientific or artistic value, it’s left to a local federal jury to determine whether the work violates community standards.

And therein lies the problem. Prosecutors can charge erotic film producers with obscenity and take the case before a jury and possibly win a conviction. Even if the prosecution loses, the cost to producers is enormous. These cases cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend because filmmakers have to hire attorneys who specialize in First Amendment law, as well as expert witnesses to testify as to the value of the film and community standards.

The upsurge in prosecutions can be tied to President Bush’s re-election efforts. When the President appointed Ashcroft, Christian conservatives hailed his appointment. In fact, they thought Ashcroft’s appointment marked the end of hard core porn’s unchecked reign, according to an issue of Citizen, the monthly magazine published by the conservative Focus on the Family evangelical ministry.

According to the Los Angeles Times, soon after Ashcroft took office, he did have a meeting with a dozen anti-porn activists, including Morality in Media and the American Family Association. The conservatives demanded the hiring of an anti-porn legal team. The problem that the Department faced is that it’s been well over a decade since there was an aggressive effort to curb adult pornography.

John Malcolm is the deputy assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s child exploitation and obscenity section. Its unit only has 18 lawyers whose job is to save kids from enslavement in the child porn business. But Phil Buress of Citizens for Community Values in Cincinnati — and a former porn addict — has pressured the White House to shift the DOJ’s focus from child porn makers to going after producers of adult porn. And not only the producers, but also the Internet service providers that facilitate the transfer of porn, as well as hotels that operate X-rated pay-per-view channels. Consumers of adult porn are next.

Morality in Media has created a website where citizens have already reported 34,000 examples of porn found on the Internet. These complaints are forwarded to the Justice Department for review.

Since the summer, federal authorities have begun to respond to calls for action. The DOJ indicted members of a Texas family on racketeering and obscenity charges for operating a chain of adult bookstores and arcades in seven states. Since 2001, the Department reports it has 20 convictions and about 50 ongoing investigations.

The history of obscenity law in the United States has always generated heated controversy on both sides. First Amendment lawyers argue that obscenity laws are antiquated and stifle creative efforts. Citizens should be able to voluntarily view what they want. Traditionalists would even include child pornography, though they would severely punish the producers. Social conservatives believe the government has a duty to enforce moral codes in expression. In short, films and literature should not deal with sexuality.

Largely because of the Internet, it’s more than time for the Supreme Court to revisit its 1973 ruling on obscenity. Following the logic of Lawrence v. Texas, the court should hold that the First Amendment allows consenting adults to perform and produce any type of activity on film, sans killing and mayhem, and that adults have the right to purchase and possess any such matter.