A US District Court Judge, Michael Baylson, has granted the government's motion to dismiss the Free Speech Coalition's (FSC) attack on the onerous 2257 record keeping requitements.

The FSC, in its original complaint, said the revised 2257 regulations are unconstitutional, as well as an unfair burden placed to producers to comply with the regulations.

Baylson rejected the FSC's case, focusing on the trade group's 4th Amendment challenge.

Baylson, in his decision, said that the government has a substantial interest in preventing sexual exploitation of children in the production of such depictions.

He noted producers of such depictions have adequate notice that their records will periodically be inspected by government officials and that Congress has both authorized inspections and created rules, further fleshed out by implementing regulations, governing the procedures that inspectors must follow.

Adult DVD Empire will plead guilty to an obscenity charge filed against the company by federal prosecutors.

Attorney Lawrence Walters told XBIZ that this appears to be a pre-arranged, pre-packaged deal where all the parties involved came to an agreement in advance.

Walters says the deal was structured in a way where the corporation was charged, not an individual, so no one will be doing time in jail.

As part of the deal, Adult DVD Empire will be on a three-year probation and pay a $75,000 fine.

Federal prosecutors filed the charges July 22 charging that the company, which operates AdultDVDEmpire.com, mailed four DVDs containing obscene material to an Erie post office box in May 2007.

Walters says the charges seems to have been initiated by Mary Beth Buchanan, the former U.S. District Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, who was active in obscenity prosecutions

The four DVDs are identified as A Bounty of Pain, Shattering Krystal both from Dan Hawke Productions, Extreme Tit Torture 18 from Galaxy Productions and Pussy Torture 8 also from Galaxy and directed by Rick Savage.

The judge has ruled the John Stagliano case is over.

US District Judge Richard Leon, ruling that the government didn't meet the burden of evidence on any of the eight charges, admonished prosecutors over their efforts.

I trust that the government will learn a lesson when going forward, Leon said in his ruling. The myriad of novel legal issues that have bubbled up in this case will continue to pop up around the country.

Leon found that the government had not shown any evidence that either of the two corporate entities effectively had any direct ties to the charges, or that the defendant himself had any direct links to the videos he was charged with.

While there was circumstantial evidence, Leon ruled that it was insufficient for a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The courtroom erupted into applause after the judge read his ruling and dismissed the jury.

Outside the courtroom Stagliano, perhaps joking, said he was disappointed. [The government] didn't put up much of a fight. They were sloppy and not passionate and doing the prosecution for the wrong reasons, Stagliano told XBIZ.

A Stagliano attorney, Louis Sirkin, told XBIZ that it proves if you've got the guts to fight, wonderful things can happen. He compared Stagliano to Lenny Bruce and others who protect the 1st Amendment.

Dozens of people have protested in front of the Craigslist headquarters, calling on the popular website to close its Adult Services section and set a sex industry-free standard which would eliminate human trafficking on the Internet.

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Prostitution Research and Education and over 75 Co-Sponsors said technology should never be used to prostitute women and girls.

Protesters said a large portion of Craigslist profits come from the sale of commercial sex. They say Craigslist normalizes and facilitates online pimping.

They become another channel. They become cyber pimps. The owners of Craigslist need to regulate their website, said Alfonso Faustino, a Filipino-America candidate for California Assembly.

Members of the US Prostitutes Collective, who held a counter protest this afternoon, said stopping sex workers from advertising in Craigslist will do more harm than good.

Rachel West of US PROS said, Stopping sex workers from advertising in Craigslist will prevent women from being able to work more safely from premises. It is ten times safer to work indoors than on the street. When sex workers are forced out of premises, many end up working on the street and are more vulnerable to rape, violence and arrest as a result.

The US House of Representative passed a supplemental appropriations bill (HR 4899). It contains an easy-to-miss provision that some legislators have been trying to get passed into law for several months that would prohibit funds to any recipient that doesn't block porn on its computer network.

According to an OpenCongress summary of the legislation, which passed by a vote of 239-182, This bill would provide billions to support US troops in Iraq, help teachers and police get through the recession, help Vietnam war veterans etc.

But tucked into the second-to-last page of the bill is the short provision—Sec. 4601(a)—that outlines the pornography restriction, which reads, None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading, and exchanging of pornography.

Seemingly straightforward, the wording of the anti-porn provision has some people concerned that its reach may extend far beyond actual government-owned computer networks to include those belonging to any contractor or subcontractor who receives even a dollar from the government for any work required under this bill.

Pat Trueman, a former Justice Department saying he had yet to examine the exact language, but that if it could be legally problematic if it says that in order to get a government contract, a business must filter out all porn for all employees—even those not on a government contract.

The jury selection process has begun in the highly-anticipated John Stagliano obscenity trial.

Opening statements will more than likely begin at the end of the week.

Stagliano and his companies, Evil Angel Productions Inc. and John Stagliano Inc, are charged with seven counts for illegal possession, distribution and sale of two videos sent through the mail, Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters 2 'Target Practice'.

Stagliano faces a maximum of 32 years in jail and $7 million in fines if convicted on all counts. The trial is expected to last two weeks.