• Air Force searches out porn, other 'offensive' material on its bases

    The U.S. Air Force has released a report revealing hundreds of instances of pornography on its bases. The investigation was spurred by a female sergeant who risked her career by stepping forward. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.

    By Michael Isikoff
    National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

    A worldwide inspection of U.S. Air Force facilities uncovered more than 631 pornographic movies, videos, DVDs, posters, magazines and other material that were either stored on computer servers or displayed in common areas at bases, according to a report released Friday. The hunt also found 31,585  other instances of "unprofessional" and "offensive" material -- including some that was racially insensitive, it said.

    The  search and report come on the heels of allegations that sexual misconduct is rampant within the Air Force and mounting complaints from Congress and women's groups that the service has tolerated a "culture"  of disrespect for women. Other branches of the U.S. military have been the subject of similar complaints.  

    Maj. Joel Harper, an Air Force spokesman,  confirmed that criminal investigations have been launched into some of those responsible for the material and said that some personnel may be subject to possible court martials. All the pornography and offensive material has been either removed or destroyed, Harper said.

    The purpose of the inspection was "to send a message that this type of stuff is not acceptable in this day and age," Harper said. "Some of this was clearly inappropriate."

    Mattel

    The 'offensive' material seized at Air Force bases around the world ran the gamut from hard-core pornography to a 'Ken' doll clad only in swimming trunks.

    An especially high number of improper materials were found at the Air Education and Training Command in Texas, which includes Lackland Air Force Base, the report said.  More than 30 instructors there are already under investigation for sexual misconduct—including allegedly sexually assaulting trainees --  and the issue will be a subject of a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee next week. Among the material found at the command on common computer drives, according to the report, were 144 pornographic posters and graphics -- including some "glorifying suicide" and "racial" in nature -- and 13 videos at showing "sexual images" as well as "killings and torture." Another video removed from the command was entitled "Achmed the Dead Terrorist."

    Material found and removed at other bases included Maxim magazines "with scantily clad women in provocative poses"  and photos of a "clothed lady performing oral sex" and a "female in tank top with beer bottle between breasts," it said. Other less explicit material, deemed less serious but still inappropriate,  included a shirtless photo of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and a “Ken' Doll dressed only in swim trunks."

    The worldwide inspection of all Air Force bases was ordered last month by Gen. Mark Welsh, the service’s Chief of Staff, who directed commanders to “document and remove as contraband” any material they deemed “unprofessional or inappropriate” – defined as “detrimental  to a professional working environment” as well as “lewd, obscene or pornographic images or publications.” Harper said it was up to individual commanders to determine what constituted “inappropriate” materials.

    Welsh acted after Jennifer Smith, a technical sergeant at Shaw Air Force Base, filed an administrative complaint alleging "systemic and intentional sexual discrimination" against women in the Air Force. Smith, a 17 year veteran of the Air Force, told NBC News that she found highly offensive and "disgusting" pornography stored on computer servers and in songbooks at the base -- as well as some that she said were stored in classified vaults.  

    "I have served just as long and just as hard as any male has and for them to put that type of pornography out there was degrading," she said.  

    As the numbers  of women serving in the military has increased over the years, it has led to mounting complaints of rapes, sexual assaults and other misconduct. The Pentagon estimated that there had been as many as 19,000 sexual assaults against members of the military in 2011, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta vowed  vigorous action to attack the problem. 

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  • Internet piracy suit asks: Can you even copyright porn?

    By M. Alex Johnson
    NBC News

    The porn industry says it loses billions of dollars a year to Internet piracy, and one of its prime tactics to recover some of that money is to send letters to alleged downloaders threatening to sue them, thereby exposing their identities — and browsing tastes — in public records. 

    Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union say it's nothing more than extortion. When such cases make it to court, they're usually thrown out, but the industry still sends the letters to tens of thousands of people every year on the assumption that some will settle — usually for $3,000 to $5,000 — because they're too scared to risk outing themselves as porn aficionados.

    But a California woman is taking a different approach, according to Courthouse News Service. The woman, Liuxia Wong of Solano, sued first, hitting a studio called Hard Drive Productions on Monday with the argument that its demand for a $3,400 settlement was unconstitutional because porn is obscenity, and obscenity isn't protected by the Copyright Clause of the Constitution.

    You can read Wong's suit in .pdf form here. It argues that:

    Hard Drive's work does not promote the progress of science.

    Hard Drive's work does not promote the useful arts. ...

    Hard Drive's work depicts obscene material.

    Plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges that to create the work, Hard Drive and its agents and/or its employees violated laws which prohibited pimping, pandering, solicitation and prostitution, including any claims of conspiracy.

    Hard Drive's work depicts criminal acts and/or conduct.

    As a result, she argues, "Hard Drive's work is not copyrightable" in the first place.

    Msnbc.com traced how such piracy cases usually work last year:

    The shorthand description of what plaintiffs' firms ... do is scour P2P networks to identify IP addresses that are downloading copyrighted material. 

    In non-tech, that translates to looking for videos that are being distributed across decentralized peer-to-peer (hence, P2P) file-sharing networks called "torrent sites." Then, using geotracking technology (like the GPS in your car or on your smartphone), investigators harvest the numeric Internet protocol addresses of the computers that are retrieving and sharing them. ...

    That requires sophisticated programming, because the computers linked into the torrent "swarm" go on and offline from second to second — and when they're plugged in, their IP addresses can also change second by second. 

    A letter is typically then sent to dozens or hundreds of people at a time. The letter usually explicitly urges potential defendants to seize the opportunity to avoid litigation by settling before their names are published in a lawsuit. 

    In some cases, the potential defendant turns out to be an otherwise innocent bystander. Many people still don't know to secure their wireless routers with password-protected encryption, leaving them open — and easy for anyone in the neighborhood to piggyback on. 

    The industry shorthand for those people is "false positives," some of whom turn out to be 70-year-old grandmothers or ministers who had no idea the kids next door were feeding off their wireless systems.

    One of the leading practitioners in this area of law, John Steele of Chicago — whose firm sent the original demand letter to Wong (you can read it here in .pdf form) — talked with msnbc.com at length about his strategy:

    And yes, one of the goals is to "scare people," he said — not primarily into writing checks, but to stop them from "stealing our clients' content."

    That's not a bad thing, Steele said, because piracy today is so easy that "the industry's really on its knees right now."

    Lots of people may think his firm's methods are unfair, but adult entertainment companies are legal businesses with valid claims, and "we believe it's completely ethical and important to recover more money than the cost of the litigation," Steele said.

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