The government sees it as a way to ensure that minors are not being sexually exploited. Porn producers worry that it is a way to regulate and harass their industry.

Ron Jeremy, Jenna Jameson - get ready to stand and be counted.

The Department of Justice wants to come up with an official list of every porn star in America - and slap stiff penalties on producers who don't cooperate.

The new rules, proposed under the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act, would require blue-movie makers to keep photos, stage names, professional names, maiden names, aliases, nicknames and ages on file for the inspection of the department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

"The identity of every performer is critical to determining and ensuring that no performer is a minor," according to the new proposal.

The adult film industry plans to challenge the new rule as a violation of the First Amendment, said Paul Cambria, a lawyer for Hustler and other adult film companies.

He sees it as a way to harass legitimate stag-film producers.

"If they can't get you for obscenity, they'll get you for violating record-keeping," he said. Such a violation would carry a five-year penalty.

It does raise some interesting questions, especially when one deals with the internet. After all, who will be responsible for keeping the records -- the original producer, a website owner, or the person who posts the picture? Will this record keeping law become the equivalent of the tax evasion statute used to put away Al Capone? And ultimately, how far will the US government be able to go in imposing requirements on foreign producers of porn? These are interesting questions from a First Amendment standpoint.

However, the question that impacts me more directly is this -- will it help stop the flood of comment spam from porn sites that I have to deal with daily on this blog?

Posted by: Greg at 10:47 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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