The FBI is seeking agents for a new Washington, D.C.-based “top priority” anti-obscenity squad, reports the Washington Post. The newspaper reports some resistance at the bureau’s second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes, and public corruption. The new squad will have eight agents, a supervisor, and assorted support staff gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography — not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults. “I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror,” said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Another employee said: “Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves.”
An internal FBI memo said that “based on a review of past successful cases in a variety of jurisdictions,” the best odds of conviction come with pornography that “includes bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior.” Congress began funding the initiative in fiscal 2005 and specified that the FBI must devote 10 agents to adult pornography. The bureau decided to create a dedicated squad only in the Washington Field Office. Public corruption, officially, is fourth on the FBI’s priority list, after protecting the United States from terrorist attack, foreign espionage, and cyber-based attacks. It was not clear where pornography fits in.
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901570.html