Porn's Child Exploiters Face New Regs

Those poor, poor pornographers.

(That's a hint that this post will NOT be illustrated.)

J.A. Gillmartin at Sheep's Crib tracks down a WSJ feature, Web sites fight proof-of-age rules for porn performers, that lets us know that the Justice Dept. has issued new regs updating a pretty much pre-Internet (1988) law to make Internet site operators subject to the same restrictions and reporting requirements regarding their models' age as film and magazine producers.

Appropriately, the regs are tough:

The rules apply whether the Web site owner produced the content or merely republished it. And they were made retroactive, so site operators must maintain records for all content filmed or photographed in the past 10 years. First-time violators face prison sentences of up to five years.

Boo hoo, says attorney Lawrence Walters:

"They're trying to shut down the adult-entertainment industry with over-regulation."

That's not how I read it. It sounds to me like they're trying to shut down the child exploitation business. And I like Gilmartin's suggestion:

Wonderful! In fact, build a prison in ANWAR and send all the child perps there for the rest of their lifes.

... thereby dramatically increasing America's known greaseball reserves ...