Fw: URGENT

[Janet Petty <pettyrap@xxxxxxxxx>]

“Do not create the .XXX domain.”









 “Do not create the .XXX domain.”






 
Please do NOT establish an .XXX domain for pornography.  This matter has been 
considered twice before but stopped because of overwhelming opposition in this 
country and abroad.  An .XXX domain will increase the amount of porn on the 
internet and make it more available to adults and children. 
 
Please consider our children and we women who have suffered enough and the 
countless innocent that should remain so!
 “Do not create the .XXX domain.”   
 
I fully spport the letter below as well.
Please consider our earnest pleas.
Vote NO against porn. NO one but perverts gains from this and all of society 
pays for it's detrimental effects every day.
I am a Mom against it!
Sincerely, Janet M. Petty
San Jose, California
 
Dear Members of the Board of ICANN:
 
I formerly served as the chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Child 
Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Criminal Division, Washington, D.C.  For 25 
years I have worked to stop the widespread devastation that pornography is 
causing to children and adults. The establishment of a .XXX domain would 
increase, not decrease the spread of pornography on the Internet and thus cause 
even more harm and make ICANN complicit in that harm.  That would be a tragic 
development and thus I urge you to kill the .XXX proposal once and for all.  
There is no evidence that the public wants or needs this domain.  In fact, each 
time this idea has been proposed it has been overwhelmingly opposed by the 
public and governments throughout the world.  There is also absolutely no 
evidence that any good would come of it.  Instead it appears that the company 
proposing it is merely seeking enrichment at the expense of the public.  
Pornography addiction is skyrocketing among
 adult males and is even affecting many women and children in the same way.  
Countless marriages are breaking up because of pornography use and sexual 
promiscuity is more widespread than ever before because of pornography.  
Pornography is destroying lives and relationships and ICANN should not be using 
its authority to promote more of it.  Here are some specific arguments against 
the .XXX proposal:
 
1.)   Neither ICANN nor the company urging the establishment of this new domain 
are arguing that the .XXX domain would clean up the .COM domain and require all 
pornographers to move to .XXX.  The .COM domain is a cash cow for pornographers 
and they are not leaving it.  ICANN has no enforcement powers to make them 
leave and thus clean up .COM.  Pornographers would simply expand to .XXX and 
maintain their current .COM sites, perhaps doubling the number of porn sites 
and doubling their menace to society. 
2.)   The .XXX domain will NOT make it easier to filter porn, even if all 
pornographers would voluntarily move there (and that will NOT happen).  The 
problem with filtering is not that it is difficult but rather that too few 
parents care enough to employ filters for the home or laptop computers used by 
their children.  Even if most parents did use filters on home computers, kids 
have access to the Internet outside the home.  And it isn’t just the kids that 
need filtering.  Addiction to pornography by adults is rampant so everyone 
needs filtering but, sadly, few bother.  The new website Pornography 
Harms, http://pornharms.com, provides overwhelming evidence of harm from 
pornography and thus the need for protection from it.
3.)   Since most families do not use effective filtering services, the .XXX 
domain would merely make hardcore pornography even easier to find for children 
seeking such material.  Thus the argument that .XXX would benefit children by 
“cleaning up the Internet” is without any basis in fact. 
4.)   U.S. citizens should not believe claims by some that the U.S. Congress 
could merely pass a law requiring all porn companies to leave the .Com for the 
.XXX.  Any law attempting to force pornographers to relocate to .XXX would 
likely be declared unconstitutional because under the First Amendment, all 
pornography is “presumptively protected” by the U.S. Constitution until it has 
been determined to be “obscene” or “child pornography.”  Just as the Department 
of Justice cannot force porn stores to move or go out of business because it 
believes that such stores are operating illegally, the Department cannot force 
pornographers on the .COM domain to move or go out of business without first 
charging them with a crime and having a court make a determination of 
illegality. 
5.)   Hardcore pornography (or “obscene material” as it is called in U.S. law) 
on the Internet is ALREADY a violation of U.S law.  It is just not being 
prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice because those in charge are 
letting the public down.  So for those who argue that by establishing a new 
.XXX domain AND then passing by a new law requiring porn companies to move (IF 
such a law was upheld after years of litigation) we can solve our Internet porn 
problem, we must ask why these two events will suddenly compel the Department 
to begin prosecuting porn companies.  If the Department of Justice is not 
prosecuting Internet porn companies now for violating U.S. obscenity laws, it 
is not going to prosecute such companies for merely locating in the wrong 
address.
6.)   If somehow all porn sites providing obscene material would actually leave 
the .COM Domain for the .XXX Domain, they would STILL be 
violating U.S. obscenity law which prohibits such material on the Internet 
regardless of location. We don’t want the Department of Justice to say to 
illegal porn companies, in effect, that it is okay to violate U.S. law as long 
as you do it on .XXX.  Men, women, and children are becoming addicted to 
pornography and I believe the rates of addiction are skyrocketing – this is a 
virtually untreated pandemic.  Many who begin by viewing adult pornography 
deviate down to harder and harder material as they continue a steady 
consumption of material and many of these will deviate down to the point that 
they only become excited by child pornography.  This is a significant factor in 
the growth of child pornography on the Internet.  Countless marriages are 
breaking up because of pornography use.  Violence against
 women, which is depicted in most porn films, is changing male attitudes toward 
girls and women in a very negative way.  A more appropriate goal should be to 
STOP the distribution of this destructive material by prosecuting those 
responsible for it, NOT protect pornography on the .XXX domain. 
 
Sincerely,
 
Patrick A. Trueman
Attorney At Law
http://www.PatTrueman.org