National commission on obscenity and pornography

Hudson, would not discuss its sweeping recommendations until he has read them. But the proposals were immediately denounced by the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics as censorship that threatens to violate First Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of the press. The commission proposed a wide-ranging crackdown, outlined in 92 recommendations, which called for federal, state, local and private actions aimed at curbing pornography. The recommendations varied from making it a felony to knowingly possess child pornography to ordering immediate obscenity investigations and prosecutions by U. The panel would also outlaw obscene cable television programming and holes in peep show booths that permit sexual contact between patrons.

President Richard Nixon criticized the report realeased in by the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, rejecting its "morally bankrupt conclusions and major recommendations. The Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, established in , recommended that Congress concentrate its efforts on restricting access to pornographic materials to juveniles and to adults wanting to avoid exposure to them rather than targeting consenting adults. The commission is perhaps best known for having its findings repudiated by the president during whose term it was released, President Richard M. Lockhart, consisted of eighteen original members appointed by President Lyndon B.

The emergence of crime as a national issue in America dates back to the early s. The Volstead Act, providing for federal enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment which prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors , went into effect in January This was followed by the rapid growth of organized crime in the form of large-scale smuggling, manufacture, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The open and well-publicized violence and lawlessness involved inspired a widely held belief that the nation was undergoing a crime wave. This perception led President Calvin Coolidge in November to appoint the first national crime commission to investigate what steps could be taken to reduce crime.

The center will have a six-member staff consisting of attorneys and others who will keep files on pornography laws and provide statistical and reference information to state and county agencies and the public. The center also will keep sample indictments, legal briefs and sentencing memorandums to assist in obscenity prosecutions. The Meese Commission found that obscenity was rarely prosecuted. With the crackdown, however, a primary responsibility of more than federal attorneys will be pornography prosecution, Meese said, detailing a strategy he first outlined in October. All 93 U.