PRESS RELEASE
Contact Patrick A. Trueman, 703-938-1776
Kill the .XXX Domain
Start a War on Pornography Instead

Washington, D.C., May 6, 2010. “The .XXX domain should be killed and a
stake driven through its heart so it never rises again,” said Patrick
Trueman, former U.S. Department of Justice pornography prosecutor. For
more than ten years, the promoter of this new porn domain for the
Internet has tried to get the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers, the Internet governing agency, to establish an additional
place on the Internet for access to pornography, Trueman noted. “Not one
sound argument has been put forward for why the world needs more
Internet pornography.”

Trueman said, “What is needed instead of an .XXX domain is a war on
pornography.” The public, should call a halt to widespread distribution
of pornography because of the terrible harm such material is causing.
“There are four major harms from pornography, harm to children, violence
against women, addiction to men women and children and increased sex
trafficking.” He outlined these harms:

1.) It is causing great harm to children who have easy access to
hardcore porn as soon as they are on computers. Also, men looking at
porn are deviating to harder and harder material to get a sexual high
and many are turning to child porn and child molestation.

2.) Violence against women is now a feature in most hardcore films and
this is developing violent attitudes towards women and girls, according
to research.

3.) Addiction to pornography is now an untreated pandemic. The brain
science research on pornography demonstrates that men are never
satisfied with what they see in porn and thus are driven to consume more
and more until addiction develops.

4.) Finally, pornography leads many to act out what the see and that is
leading to an increase in prostitution. So much prostitution today
involves sexually trafficked women and girls. The research on children
involved in commercial sex is staggering with studies indicating that
approximately 250,000 juveniles are involved in trafficking. Large
numbers of foreign and domestic adult women are also trafficked to meet
the demand for prostitution.

Trueman also noted that countless marriages are breaking up because of
pornography and sexual promiscuity among the young is growing. He cited
the new cell phone trend called “sexting” as evidence of promiscuity.
“Sexting is primarily a matter of children producing and distributing
child pornography,” an exceedingly alarming development in America.
Trueman said he believes that kids involved in sexting are steeped in
Internet pornography for years before they begin producing and
distributing it. Their normal inhibitions have been destroyed, he said.

Trueman is leading a nationwide effort called the War on Illegal
Pornography, designed to get the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce
Federal laws against illegal pornography. The Department is not
enforcing Federal laws that prohibit distribution of hardcore
pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite or hotel/motel
pay-per-view TV and in retail shops. The War on Illegal Pornography,
Trueman noted is a coalition effort lead by Morality in Media and has
more than 50 concerned national and state groups involved to date. A new
website called Pornography Harms; http://pornharms.com has been
developed to provide the most accurate peer-reviewed research on the
harm from pornography. “Education on the devastating harm from
pornography is critical to our efforts to get Federal laws enforced,
Trueman said.

To stop the .XXX domain, comments may be emailed to icm-options-report@icann.org
by May 10.

Trueman is the former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Child
Exploitation and Obscenity Section, under Presidents Reagan and George
H.W. Bush.

From: Patrick A. Trueman

Sent: 04/ذو الحجة/2010 04:24 م

To: Mishaal Al-Kadhi

I hope you
oppose a new .XXX domain for the Internet which would mean even more
Internet porn.  Time is ending on May 10 for your comments to kill this
terrible idea.  Even if you have emailed your comments before, please
email again TODAY with the following comment:

I support
Option # 3 of the March 26, 2010 process options submitted by ICANN for
public comment.

The .XXX sponsor, ICM, never satisfied the sponsorship requirements and
criteria for a sponsored Top Level Domain. The ICANN Board denied ICM’s
application for the .XXX s TLD on the merits in an open and transparent
forum.

Just copy and
paste the above comment into an email to:

icm-options-report@icann.org

Title your
comment VOTE NO TO Triple X Domain.

Please spread
the word.

Below is my
previous email to you on this.  There are many good arguments against
the .XXX domain, as you see.

This is
URGENT.  Many of you know that I am heading up “The War on Illegal
Pornography” designed to get the Department of Justice to begin
prosecuting illegal adult pornography again.  Now there is a threat on
the horizon, one that will likely interfere with our efforts to get the
Department to do its job and enforce Federal obscenity laws.  We need to
act NOW.

The Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, (the governing board
that controls the Internet) is ONCE AGAIN considering establishing 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.

It is
critical that you tell ICANN, “Do not create the .XXX domain.”  We need
to get an overwhelming number of comments to ICANN opposing this.
Please let your views be known by sending an email, short or long,
TODAY.  All groups are encouraged to send an urgent alert to members and
supporters.  Deadline for comments is May 10.  Below you will see my
email to the Board of ICANN along with my many arguments against this
proposal.  Feel free to use these arguments in your email to ICANN.

To Submit
Comments:

icm-options-report@icann.org

To View
Comments:

http://forum.icann.org/lists/icm-options-report/

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.