April 23, 2006 | Sex & Society

Gonzales wants porn labelled

It's common knowledge that the Bush administration is anti-porn. But just in case you have doubts, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has offered up fresh proof in the form of new legislation that would require adult website operators to place government warning labels on their pages or risk criminal penalties.

As usual with the Bush war against adult sexuality, the measures were lumped in with new proposed rules to combat child pornography. Speaking Thursday at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Gonzales announced the Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006, which are designed primarily to curb the distribution of child porn, but which also contain a slew of rules designed to "prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet," according to YNOT.com.

Gonzales' proposed legislation includes language requiring all adult-oriented websites that are “operated primarily for commercial purposes” to include warning labels on every page that contains sexually explicit material, which according to CNET News is defined broadly as depictions of everything from sexual intercourse and masturbation to "sadistic abuse" and close-ups of fully clothed genital regions.

In addition, the legislation would prohibit websites from displaying sexually explicit material without first requiring an additional click by the viewer -- something many websites already require voluntarily -- and from embedding suggestive terms in their site's meta tags and coding in order to inject their site into searches for non-adult material.

Gonzales also proposed heavier criminal penalties for those who break laws regulating Internet porn. Operators, for instance, who fail to report the presence of child pornography would face fines of up to $150,000 for an initial violation and $300,000 for each subsequent violation while those who mislead Internet browsers with deceptive "words or digital images" in their source code could face imprisonment.

To aid in future criminal prosecutions, Gonzales said that Internet service providers should be prepared to retain more extensive records of their customers' activities.

In other words, website operators, Internet Service Providers, and Web surfers like you will be expected to give up some of their freedom in the Bush/Gonzales war against adult porn. 

• Gonzales calls for mandatory Web labelling law [CNET News]
• AG Gonzales announces new legislative initiative [YNOT Masters]