Senate vote on pornography attorney David Ogden for Deputy A.G.

By: Chris Johnson

Personal note:

The letter (below) from Patrick Trueman, former head of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Enforcement Section at Justice in DC, delineates the concerns those of us within the pro-family movement have today regarding the vote on pornography attnorney David Ogden to be the second in command at the Justice Department.

I made my calls to Michigan Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin. Yes. They are both liberals. I made the phone calls anyway. Before Christ and my supporters and family, I wanted to have a clean conscience knowing that I DID WHAT I COULD. If this man gets voted in, it WILL have long term negative consequences!

Now I must pray and leave it in the hands of God who ultimately is in control of everything. Nothing surprises Him. Yet, I am to be faithful to what I know is right. I made the calls.

I urge you to do the same.

Here’s a letter from Pat Trueman:

Dear Friends,

It looks like the vote in the full U.S. Senate for pornography attorney David Ogden is going to be [today, Wednesday]. Ogden has been nominated by President Obama to be Deputy Attorney General – the man who will run the U.S. Department of Justice. The deputy is considered the CEO of the Department. Shocking as it may seem, Ogden looks like a shoe-in at this point. The vote may even be overwhelming in his favor.

Let’s recall why this nomination has riled the public throughout America. Ogden has not just represented major pornographers in prominent cases; he has been a leader in an effort to get courts to proclaim greater protections for pornography and pornographers. He VOLUNTEERED to represent plaintiff’s challenging the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which was designed to protect children by keeping pornography from school and public library computers. He insisted that the Congress, which voted overwhelmingly in favor of the act, was acting unconstitutionally in passing CIPA. Children should not be exposed to pornography in schools and libraries. Yet, David Ogden believes the Constitution requires it.

Ogden filed a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in the notable child pornography case, U.S. v. Knox. In the disgusting films involved in Knox, children were posed so that the focus of the camera was on their genital areas though they were not completely naked. The films were a pedophile’s dream. Ogden argued that such material is protected by the U.S. Constitution and that Knox should be acquitted. Fortunately, the Supreme Court disagreed and the conviction of Knox stood.

There are other issues that Ogden has prominently championed such as abortion and homosexuality. I wanted to highlight his outrageous positions on pornography not only because that is the issue on which I have concentrated my efforts over the past 22 years but because David Ogden too has spent much of his time concentrating on the same issue during that time. He even sued the Department of Justice in a key pornography-related case when I was the chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section at the Department of Justice.

I don’t think that President Obama is putting Ogden at the top of the Justice Department to help pornographers. I think he just doesn’t care. One would think that Ogden’s past work would eliminate him from consideration. After all, the overwhelming majority of the public must still oppose child pornography and want children protected from pornography in public libraries. But it seems that our President just doesn’t care what people think as long as his core group of left-leaning supporters – and that includes more than half the U.S. Senate – support him.

The President, I fear, has a radical agenda and can count on Ogden to carry it out at the Department of Justice. Make no mistake about it, pornographers will be beneficiaries. Ogden has not been shy about pursuing a radical agenda in the law for decades and his radicalism will be rewarded and ratified tomorrow as the Senate votes to approve him.

I hope you will call your two U.S. Senators, 202-225-3121, to express your thoughts on Ogden before today’s vote. But, more than that, I hope you will remember how your senators vote on Ogden in the next election. Your senator is very familiar with David Ogden’s body of legal work. Tens of thousands of phone calls by you and others like you over the past few weeks have made sure of this. Yet, tomorrow a large majority of the Senate will embrace David Ogden. The message that I take away from this is that we cannot count on the federal government to do anything significant against pornography, at least for the next four years. The battle against pornography is ours to fight.

In that light, I want to again call to your attention a promising development. Late last year, the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton University held a conference on the harm from pornography. I attended and came away greatly encouraged that knowledge of the harm from pornography is beginning to be spread. The Witherspoon Institute has begun a very promising conversation with the public on pornography’s harm. Look for much more from the Institute. Here is a link to the papers presented at the conference: http://www.winst.org/family_marriage_and_democracy/social_costs_of_pornography/consultation2008.php.

Sincerely,
Patrick A. Trueman
Attorney At Law
10350 Southam Lane
Oakton, VA 22124
703-938-1776
703-303-4777 (cell)
703-938-1770 (fax)
http://www.PatTrueman.org

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American Decency Association
Bill Johnson, President
P.O. Box 202
Fremont, MI 49412
ph: 231-924-4050
https://americandecency.org

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