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Time of India
3 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Porn ban in US? GOP senator pushes bill to make all porn illegal nationwide, and it's moving forward
Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee is making headlines in Washington with his latest legislative proposal, a nationwide pornography ban. His Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA) has now made it to the committee stage, paving the way for a heated political and cultural debate over internet content and free expression. The proposal has sparked heated debate, with supporters hailing it as a moral safeguard and critics warning that it could criminalize mainstream media and disrupt adult entertainment careers. Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 4 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Artificial Intelligence AI For Business Professionals Batch 2 By Ansh Mehra View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 3 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Artificial Intelligence AI For Business Professionals By Vaibhav Sisinity View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 2 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass Batch-1 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program The bill, which is currently in committee, redefines "obscenity" for the digital age. Critics argue that its broad language threatens free expression and may have an impact on mainstream shows, while adult industry workers are concerned about the devastating economic consequences. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Undo What does the bill want to change? Senator Mike Lee's Interstate Obscenity Definition Act updates the 1934 Communications Act to make the definition of obscenity broader. The proposal says that any picture, video, or other visual content that shows or pretends to show sexual acts "with the intent to arouse" and doesn't have "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" could be a crime. The "intent" safeguard is no longer there, which is a big change. Under current law, it is often necessary to prove malicious distribution in order to bring a case. Lee's plan said that even sharing this kind of material by accident could lead to punishments. Live Events Why is it getting so much hate? People who support free speech say that the bill's language is too vague and could be dangerous. Robert Corn-Revere, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's chief counsel, doesn't think it could pass a constitutional review because it could easily include popular shows like Game of Thrones. People who work in the adult industry have also spoken out strongly against it. Alana Evans, president of the Adult Performance Artists Guild, said that the bill is "a real problem" for sex workers and content creators, especially those who make money through sites like OnlyFans. The law could apply to "softcore" content, which could hurt a lot of creators. ALSO READ: iPhone 17 set to break records, and your wallet, in shocking US price hike What are the bigger political effects? The bill is very similar to the policy ideas in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which is a conservative plan for changing how the U.S. government works. Lee sees the measure as an attempt to change American internet standards when it comes to morality, especially when it comes to keeping kids safe from explicit content. Supporters say that the law would finally give police the clear guidelines they need to crack down on online obscenity in the digital age. Opponents say it's too much and could stifle LGBTQ+ voices, limit artistic expression, and force everyone in the country to follow the same moral code. ALSO READ: Who was Danielle Spencer, child star of the '70s sitcom, who passed away at 60? Is it possible for this bill to pass? The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation now has the bill. Its future depends on whether lawmakers can find a way to balance constitutional protections with calls for stricter content regulation. Even though it is still unclear if it will pass in a divided Congress, the proposal has already started a national conversation about where to draw the line between free speech and morality. FAQs What does Senator Mike Lee's bill aim to accomplish? It seeks to criminalize all pornography in the United States by redefining "obscenity" in federal law. What makes the bill controversial? Critics argue that its broad definition could jeopardize free speech and impact mainstream entertainment.
New York Times
06-08-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says He Is Doubling Tariffs on India
The lawsuit on behalf of the student newspaper at Stanford University argues that several of its staff members have been forced to self-censor or quit the paper out of fear that the government could retaliate for what it publishes. A new lawsuit filed on Wednesday by a free speech watchdog takes aim at the key legal foundations that the Trump administration has relied on to arrest and attempt to deport foreign students over their criticism of the Israeli government. The challenge, filed in California, goes further than other lawsuits that have targeted the student arrests. The new suit focuses on a section of immigration law that allows the secretary of state to determine that a noncitizen poses a threat to the country's foreign policy and can be removed from the country for that reason. It argues that it is unconstitutional to invoke the provisions for speech and other activities protected by the First Amendment. Lawyers from the free speech group, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, brought the lawsuit on behalf of the student newspaper at Stanford University, The Stanford Daily, arguing that several of its staff members have been forced to self-censor or quit the paper out of fear that the government could retaliate for what it publishes. The lawsuit says that the newspaper, which is open to all students and has more than 150 members, according to the complaint, has weathered resignations and withdrawn stories by noncitizens who were concerned that publishing content about Israel or the conditions in Gaza could leave them vulnerable to deportation. The climate of fear the lawsuit cites at Stanford follows a spate of arrests earlier this year, when the Trump administration began targeting prominent student activists in March, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, over their activism in speaking out against the Israeli government and the mounting death toll in Gaza. 'They are going after lawfully present noncitizens for bedrock speech, like authoring an op-ed and going to protest,' said Conor Fitzpatrick, the supervising senior attorney at the foundation. 'And unless you have a blue passport with an eagle on it that says United States of America, they think they can throw you out of the country for it.' In those and other cases, immigration agents arrested the students after Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked the provision, deeming the students a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. In each case, Mr. Rubio personally signed off on the decision to revoke a student visa or render a lawful permanent resident deportable after determining that those interests were at stake. 'Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration are trying to turn the inalienable human right of free speech into a privilege contingent upon the whims of a federal bureaucrat, triggering deportation proceedings against noncitizens residing lawfully in this country for their protected political speech regarding American and Israeli foreign policy,' the lawsuit says. The new lawsuit mirrored many elements of a case brought by another group, the American Association of University Professors, which is seeking to block the Trump administration from pursuing what it describes as a policy of 'ideological deportations' — using the law to target activists based on their shared criticism of Israel and its conduct in the war. That case was argued before a federal judge during a two-week trial in Boston in July, and he is expected to decide this month whether to block the deportations on First Amendment grounds. The case raised similar concerns about chilled speech on college campuses, with testimony from faculty at several universities about how dramatically noncitizen academics had withdrawn from public life. But lawyers in that case explicitly stopped short of arguing that using the foreign policy provision to target student demonstrators was unconstitutional, sidestepping a risky gambit in court over whether Mr. Rubio had abused the authority. That caution came as William G. Young, the judge in the case, expressed skepticism throughout the trial about whether he could rule against Mr. Rubio or others in the Trump administration given that they were exercising powers given to them by Congress. 'It seems to me we have a new administration who has, you know, absolutely the primary authority over the foreign policy of the United States,' Judge Young said during closing arguments last month. But other judges have already contemplated the same questions the new lawsuit raises, concluding that using the foreign policy provision in the student activist cases was vague and probably violated the First Amendment. In the case involving Mr. Khalil, Judge Michael E. Farbiarz of the Federal District Court in New Jersey wrote that using the foreign policy provision to detain him was probably unconstitutional, even though that did not factor into his decisions to order Mr. Khalil's release in June. Since the Supreme Court limited federal judges' ability to issue nationwide injunctions in June, any ruling in the case would likely apply only to the plaintiffs at Stanford. But the lawsuit aims to set a legal precedent that the organization hopes could be used more broadly. Mr. Fitzpatrick, the foundation lawyer, said there were narrow but conceivable situations in which the use of the foreign policy law would be appropriate, such as if pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politicians who fled the country after Russia's invasion sought refuge in the United States and continued to work to undermine Kyiv from abroad. 'That has an arguable constitutional basis,' he said. 'What does not have an arguable constitutional basis is someone going up to a podium, whether it's at a city council meeting or a local park, at a protest, voicing an opinion that would be completely protected if you or I said it, and the secretary of state saying, 'We don't like the ideas you're spreading — get out.' 'That's un-American,' he said.
The Hill
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump refiles lawsuit against Iowa pollster in state court
Attorneys for President Trump refiled a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer in state court Monday after moving to drop their complaint in federal court. The complaint filed in Polk County is nearly identical to the one Trump attorneys first brought against Selzer and the newspaper in December, alleging they had violated Iowa's consumer fraud laws by releasing a poll days before the November election that showed former Vice President Harris winning Iowa by 3 percentage points. Trump ended up carrying the Hawkeye State by 14 points. Bob Corn-Revere, the chief counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which is representing Selzer, called the move to state court 'procedural gamemanship.' 'This maneuver was not in response to any settlement and is a transparent attempt to avoid federal court review of the president's transparently frivolous claims,' Corn-Revere said in a statement. The Monday move came a day before a new Iowa law was set to take effect to curb lawsuits intended to chill public speech by burdening respondents with legal fees, commonly known as a SLAPP suit. Attorneys for Selzer, the Des Moines Register, and Gannett, the Iowa newspaper's parent company, are now attempting to keep the suit in federal court. 'President Trump's present Notice of Voluntary Removal would effectively escape the jurisdiction of the federal courts in time to restate his claims in Iowa's state court without being subject to Iowa's anti-SLAPP law,' they wrote in a motion to strike Trump's dismissal in federal court. Trump had sought several times to move the suit to state court. That was where the suit was initially filed, before attorneys for Gannett successfully moved it to have it heard in federal court instead. Trump then attempted to have the case returned to a state venue, filing an amended complaint that added two Iowa plaintiffs, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and former Iowa state Sen. Brad Zaun (R). A judge denied the motion on May 23 and dismissed Zaun and Miller-Meeks as plaintiffs. Trump's lawyers first appealed that ruling on May 30. Then, on Monday, they voluntarily dismissed the federal suit altogether. The complaint filed in Iowa state court the same day includes Zaun and Miller-Meeks as plaintiffs.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New obscenity bill could trigger boldest anti-porn prosecution wave in US history
U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA) this week, a bill designed to create a national legal standard for obscenity and ease federal prosecution of pornographic content distributed across state lines. Representative Mary Miller (R-Illinois) is backing the measure in the House. 'Obscenity isn't protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children,' Lee said in a press release. 'Our bill updates the legal definition of obscenity for the internet age so this content can be taken down and its peddlers prosecuted.' The legislation has triggered a wave of concern among civil liberties groups and First Amendment advocates, who argue that its broad language could criminalize a vast range of consensual adult content. IODA proposes changes to the Communications Act of 1934, removing the existing 'intent' clause that limits federal obscenity enforcement to cases involving harassment or abuse. Instead, it introduces a three-part definition of obscene content that, according to lawmakers, reflects the digital age and eliminates confusion caused by varying state-level definitions. Under the bill, content would be considered obscene if it appeals to prurient interests in nudity, sex, or excretion; depicts or describes sexual acts intended to arouse or gratify; and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value when viewed as a whole. 'The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act equips law enforcement with the tools they need to target and remove obscene material from the internet,' said Miller. 'I'm proud to lead this effort in the House with Senator Lee to safeguard American families and ensure this dangerous material is kept out of our homes and off our screens.' Free speech watchdogs and legal scholars say the bill stretches the limits of constitutionality. Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Reason magazine, 'It really struck me that there's nothing about that definition that I think would survive constitutional review.' Ricci Joy Levy, president of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, added that the definition is 'so broad' that even mainstream entertainment like Game of Thrones could be deemed obscene. 'The point is to loosen the definition of obscenity so it's more broad and the government is removed of the obligation to prove patent offensiveness,' she told Reason. Lee's proposal closely aligns with the aims of Project 2025, a policy initiative by the conservative Heritage Foundation. The group's Mandate for Leadership seeks to criminalize all pornography and hold technology firms accountable for facilitating its distribution. It characterizes porn as a tool for spreading 'transgender ideology and sexualization of children,' advocating for prison time for content creators and the closure of complicit platforms. Current U.S. obscenity law relies on the Supreme Court's 1973 Miller v. California ruling, which uses a three-prong test that includes 'contemporary community standards' and a 'reasonable person' perspective. Critics of IODA argue that the bill scraps these constitutional guardrails by excluding community input and instead creating a rigid national definition that grants broad enforcement powers to the government. While possession of obscene material is not federally criminalized unless minors are involved, distribution or production can trigger prosecution. Lee and Miller's bill aims to expand the reach of those laws, potentially reshaping online content regulation in the U.S.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Republicans Want To Redefine Obscenity
Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) wants to redefine obscenity in a way that could render all sorts of legal sexual content illegal. His proposal would make the definition of obscenity so broad that it could ban even the most mild pornography, and possibly even more. Lee and Rep. Mary Miller (R–Ill.), who introduced a companion bill in the House, have made no secret of the fact that the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA) is intended to get porn off the internet. "Our bill updates the legal definition of obscenity for the internet age so this content can be taken down and its peddlers prosecuted," Lee said as he introduced the legislation. But his proposed definition of obscenity is "so broad" that the TV show Game of Thrones could fall under its purview, suggests Ricci Joy Levy, president and CEO of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. The bill makes a mockery of the First Amendment. "It really struck me that there's nothing about that definition that I think would survive constitutional review," says Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Obscenity is one of a few categories of exceptions to First Amendment–protected speech. While federal law doesn't ban the mere possession of obscene materials, unless they involve minors, it does ban possessing or producing obscene material with the intent to sell or distribute it, along with selling, sending, shipping, receiving, importing, or transporting obscene material, or engaging in a business that does. There is no federal law that strictly defines what is considered obscenity. To make a judgement, courts rely on what's become known as the Miller test. Its three prongs were established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1973 case Miller v. California (and clarified further in 1987's Pope v. Illinois). Under the Miller test, something obscene must appeal to "prurient interests," depict or describe sexual acts in a "patently offensive" way, and, when taken as a whole, lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." If it fails to meet any of these prongs, it's not obscene. Moreover, determining whether something lacks value requires applying a "reasonable person" standard, and determining if something appeals to prurient interests and is offensive requires asking "whether the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards," would think so. This is supposed to ensure that we're not declaring things criminally obscene just because some vocal minority of people might think they are, or because of standards that are no longer in touch with the times. "It is neither realistic nor constitutionally sound to read the First Amendment as requiring that the people of Maine or Mississippi accept public depiction of conduct found tolerable in Las Vegas, or New York City," wrote Chief Justice Warren E. Burger for the majority in Miller, explicitly rejecting the idea that there should be one national standard for obscenity law. Lee wants to change this. Lee's Interstate Obscenity Definition Act would "clarify the legal definition of 'obscenity' for all states," a press release from Lee's office states. It would also do away with a definition of obscenity that relies on what Lee's office's calls "ever-changing and elusive public opinion." Basically, Lee wants to replace the average person's opinion with his own. And his own opinion seems to be that virtually any depiction of human sexuality is obscene. Under Lee's proposal, obscenity would include any picture, graphic image file, film, videotape, or other visual depiction that satisfies three conditions. Two of these are similar to the prongs of the Miller test, albeit without including a community standards or average person caveats: Obscenity would have to appeal "to the prurient interest" in nudity, sex, or excretion, and it would have to lack literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. But rather than requiring that something depict or describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way in order to be considered obscene, Lee thinks basically all depictions of sexual conduct or erotic nudity could count as obscenity. The other prong of his definition of "obscenity" ropes in anything that "depicts, describes, or represents an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact" or "lewd exhibition of the genitals" in a way meant to "arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desire of a person." "The point is to loosen the definition of obscenity so it's more broad and the government is removed of the obligation to prove patent offensiveness," says Levy. In that way, it would give the government more leeway to target porn producers and distributors with criminal sanctions. This is, indeed, what Lee and Miller are saying. When they unveiled IODA, Miller declared that the law would give law enforcement "the tools they need to target and remove obscene material from the internet" and to "ensure this dangerous material is kept out of our homes and off our screens." This isn't about age-gating online porn or otherwise ensuring that it's not easily accessible to minors. It's about ensuring that no one can to see content that that might "arouse" or "titillate." Aside from defining obscenity, Lee's bill has one other component—and it's a bit of a head-scratcher. It concerns the federal crime of "obscene or harassing" telecommunications. Currently, "obscene" communications transmitted "by means of a telephonic device" must be done with an "intent to abuse, threaten, or harass" in order for them to be considered a crime. Lee's bill would remove the "intent to abuse, threaten, or harass" bit, so any telecommunications considered "obscene" would be criminalized even when no ill intent was present. It's unclear why. Levy thinks the target is probably webcam videos, which are a very popular medium for personalized erotic shows and chat. All sorts of sex work that relies on video calls—whether via a dedicated webcamming platform or some other service—could potentially be banned by removing the requirement that "obscene" calls be harassing or abusive in order to be criminal. The proposed change would possibly allow for targeting phone sex operators and dirty phone calls, too. While Lee's revised definition of obscenity concerns visual depictions, not words, it still seems to allow for obscenity to exist in other contexts. In short, it defines all pornographic images as illegal obscenity, but it does not limit illegal obscenity to pornographic images. That leaves room for phone calls that include sex talk to be labeled obscene even when everyone involved is a consenting adult. It's even possible that this change could be used to go after porn and nude images sent from one telephone to another in various capacities. The Federal Communications Commission has held that text messages are "information services," not telecommunications, but the commission could change that in the future. "There aren't a great number of pure obscenity prosecutions these days," notes Corn-Revere. Prosecutors may still bring obscenity charges in conjunction with charges for things like child abuse or child porn, "but a pure bust for dirty magazines or dirty books or dirty movies is very rare." If IODA passes, that could change. And even if its new definition of obscenity eventually failed constitutional muster in court, it could cause a lot of damage as the cases played out. "So, we take it to court, we go through six years of challenges, and in the mean time, information vanishes," says Levy, who thinks the bill would be used to target speech by and about LGBTQ activity and, especially, about transgender people. While Lee has tried to impose a national definition of obscenity before and failed, Levy thinks that "in this climate, he might have a chance." Since the 2018 passage of FOSTA, a bill that criminalized hosting online content that could facilitate prostitution, we've seen increasing attempts to try and censor online content, she notes. "This is just another attempt to throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks." Central planning and vibes: "For a case that could reshape the American tech sector, it's astonishing how little clarity the government has offered about the problem it's trying to solve," writes Robert Winterton, vice president of public affairs at the tech-industry trade group NetChoice, about the federal government's antitrust case against Google: The [Justice Department] hasn't identified actual consumer harm—nor has it proposed remedies that suggest they are focused on improving outcomes for users. Instead, the agency has proposed a grab bag of radical structural changes that seem less about restoring competition and more about punishing Google and asserting control over what it believes the digital marketplace should look like, based on vague notions of "fairness" to competitors—not consumers. MAGA's anti-tech antitrust warrior: Gail Slater, assistant attorney general for antitrust, is keen to take aim at big tech companies, notes Politico, describing a forum Slater convened to discuss strategy: It is a scene that until recently would have been unheard of for a mostly Republican crowd in Washington. Until [President Donald] Trump, Republicans largely embraced a light-touch approach to applying the country's antitrust laws—a tendency seen as part and parcel of the party's generally more business-friendly stances when compared to those of the Democrats….Trump himself showed limited interest in aggressive antitrust against the major tech companies until near the end of his first term, when the [Justice Department] filed a case against Google over the multibillion-dollar company allegedly unfairly competing in the search market just three months before he left office. But that's all shifting now, and Slater's own arc is one window into how it all changed for many other conservatives. Slater is a longtime Republican who throughout her legal and lobbying career has been known both as a by-the-book enforcer and bipartisan bridge-builder, according to interviews with nearly two dozen people who know her. But her long-standing disdain for the abuses of monopoly power has positioned her to be the leader of the surging MAGA antitrust movement's legal agenda, overseeing cases that include a pair of lawsuits against Google and another against Apple. She will also serve as an ally to Ferguson as his [Federal Trade Commission] sues Facebook-parent Meta over its purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp. Anyone hoping against the odds that the second Trump administration would be better on these issues than President Joe Biden's administration is probably out of luck. The best we can hope for is that it will go about as poorly in court as it did for Biden's antitrust warriors… The 9th Circuit reaffirms the government's loss in Microsoft case: "Microsoft's merger with gaming giant Activision Blizzard took a leap forward [last week] after a Ninth Circuit panel ruled that a federal judge was correct in rejecting the Federal Trade Commission's attempt to block the deal after a trial in 2023," reports Courthouse News. The three judges unanimously "ruled the federal judge had applied the correct legal standards. The panel also found the [Federal Trade Commission] had not shown it was likely to succeed on its claims that the merger would restrict competition." The post Republicans Want To Redefine Obscenity appeared first on
