WASHINGTON, D.C. (FR) – President Ronald Reagan recently introduced a package of anti-pornography legislation to Congress called the “Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1987.” The bill’s two-fold purpose is to update the federal law to take into account new technologies and ways of doing business employed by the pornography industry, and to remove loopholes and weaknesses in the law, which have given criminals in this area the upper hand far too long.

The package was developed in response to the Attorney General’s 1986 Commission on Pornography. In the last several years, distributors of obscenity and child pornography have expanded into new areas,” said Reagan. “They are employing new technologies and reaching new audiences.”

“This is how any business grows and develops, except that this business is illegal,” he said. “This administration is putting the purveyors of illegal obscenity and child pornography on notice: your industry’s days are numbered.”

The bill would have the following effects: it prohibits distribution of obscenity through computers, cable TV, and phone lines (dial-a-porn), prohibits the selling of children by parents or guardians for the production of child pornography, requires producers of pornography to keep accurate and complete records of the ages and names of persons in films with the burden of proof for legal age of actors and actresses placed on the movie producers.

In May 1984, the national commission to study the scope and nature of pornography to the U.S. was formed. After 14 months of research, the Attorney General’s Commission released its final report in July 1986 that contained recommendations for changes in Federal Law. Attorney General Edwin Meese III announced a seven-point initiative to address the obscenity and child pornography problem.