Sen. Jim Banks urges DOJ to restart obscenity prosecution team: ‘End this scandal’
WASHINGTON – Indiana Sen. Jim Banks is sounding the alarm about the “explosion of pornography” that is destroying the Internet and imploring the Department of Justice to stop it.
The Hoosier State Republican has urged Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to reconstitute the DOJ’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, which was disbanded in 2011 under the Obama administration.
“Abolishing obscenity prosecutions was a mistake. With content just a click away, there has never been a more important time to enforce our laws,” Blanche urged in a Tuesday letter seen by The Post.
The Bush administration established a task force in 2005 to track the spread of strong pornography. Banks previously petitioned the first Trump administration to renew that measure.
Banks argued that the situation has grown more urgent in the time since his 2019 letter to the DOJ due to the rise of pornographic content.
“Most of the 4 million creators on OnlyFans, an adult content subscription service, are selling porn. Another 370 million users are buying this content,” Banks explained.
“Only fans have been exposed for allowing children to sell graphic videos and showing content that sexually abuses children,” he added. “The site hosts other types of extreme and dangerous sexual content, including videos involving sex with animals, sex with relatives, and acts that degrade women.”
Banks said, “It’s not healthy and it’s not safe for sexual content to be so widespread.”
The senator noted that many porn sites often rely on social media companies such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram to promote their explicit content.
At the federal level, porn is allowed for use by consenting adults in the US. Before it was disbanded, the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force had pursued hundreds of cases.
Supreme Court precedent on the First Amendment has established the so-called Miller test to determine whether revealing content rises to the level of obscenity, including appeals to indecent interest, copyright infringement, and lack of value. Material must fail all three prongs to be considered legally obscene.
Before that, there was the famous “I know it when I see it” test from Justice Potter Stewart.
“It is a crime to create and distribute child pornography, as well as obscene content for adults,” Banks noted. “It is also an offense to intentionally display obscene material to children and to mislead children to view adult content or adults to view obscene content in general.”
“I urge the Department of Justice to re-establish the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, prosecute illegal content to the fullest extent permitted by current Supreme Court doctrine, and put an end to this scandal once and for all,” he concluded.
The Post has reached out to the Justice Department and Fans Only for comment.
