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The Bush II regime may be building a Brave New World Order of high-tech universal surveillance, absolute executive power, and unilateral global warmongering. But like a mere Nixon or Reagan, Bush is also gearing up against perennial, dog-eared right-wing bugbears-- such as pornography.

Hence the 10-count obscenity indictment handed down August 7th by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh against California-based porn producer Extreme Associates-- in what Attorney General John Ashcroft vows will be the start a wave of prosecutions against porn makers and retailers. While the Feds regularly prosecute people for noncommercial erotica showing adolescents or children, there hasn't been a major new investigation into America's burgeoning porn industry in ten years.

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Twenty-nine-year-old Robert Zicari and Janet Romano, 26-- Extreme Associates' husband-and-wife owners and operators-- each face 50 years in prison and a $2.5 million fine.

The charges follow a raid on the firm's Northridge, California, offices April 9th by some 47 federal marshals, US postal inspectors, and LAPD cops. They seized business records and five titles: Extreme Teen 24, Cocktails 2, Ass Clowns 3, Forced Entry, and 1001 Ways to Eat My Jizz.

Months before, federal agents set up a sting operation through a Pittsburgh PO box. Posing as customers, they ordered tapes and subscribed to Extreme's online web feeds. Local US Attorney (i.e., prosecutor) Mary Beth Buchanan recently chaired a Justice Department committee on "child exploitation and obscenity" (her work was "invaluable," Herr Ashcroft declared earlier this year). Also, the Feds probably figured Pittsburgh would be a suitably straightlaced place for a local jury to conclude that Extreme's videos violated "community standards"-- one of three criteria necessary to win an obscenity conviction.

Putting the poke in 'Pokemon'

For Ashcroft's hungry anti-porn crusaders, Extreme Associates must have seemed like ripe, low-hanging fruit. The firm's videos are to mainstream corporate porn what Imus in the Morning is to National Public Radio. The company is profitable-- sales are between 20 and 50 million dollars a year, with only 15 employees. And executives Robert Zicari (whose porn de plume is Rob Black) and Janet Romano (a.k.a. "Lizzie Borden") stand out as brash, colorful figures in an industry known for vibrant hues.

Directed by Romano, Forced Entry is a graphic depiction of a violent forcible rape. Extreme invited PBS-Frontline documentarians, filming a segment about the industry, "America Porn," to drop in on the shooting of Forced Entry, and they reportedly shut off their cameras in revulsion.

"She won't get hurt. I mean, not too much," Romano told Frontline about the starring actress, who earns $100,000 a year for her work with Extreme. "But if she doesn't like something, she can tell me. She'll be, like, 'Liz, I don't like this.' And then we'll stop it, you know? She'll get a little hurt."

Cocktails 2, another video under the gun, is the second in a series featuring cocksucking and deep-throating to the point-- and beyond-- of actual vomiting. Director Zicari grants the video is "pretty repugnant"-- but less so, he contends, than films showing people getting killed, fictionally and otherwise, that are widely sold in the US as entertainment.

Extreme Teen 24, is edgy in its own way. According to a plot capsule in the trade journal Adult Video News, the film "has at least one scene featuring an adult performer (Black Cat) playing what appears to be a pre-teen who lives in a crude tent in her parents' living room, wears pajamas with feet and constantly sucks on a lollipop. Valentino enters, claiming to be selling Pokemon merchandise, and tells her that Pokemon would want her to suck his cock, which she proceeds to do, then moves on to a full sex scene."

Getting even

But prosecuting Extreme Associates isn't just about cracking down on button-pushing, gritty, violent porn-- it's also a matter of settling scores: the US Postal Inspection Service's "Search Warrant/Arrest Operation Plan" suggests as much: "During the PBS-Frontline interview, [Rob Black] (principal) and Extreme Associates issued a challenge to US Attorney General Ashcroft [USAG]. They touted the USAG in regards to the content of their movies and that USAG could not do anything about it."

Playing Peter Rabbit to Ashcroft's Mr. McGregor may have helped make Extreme case numero uno in the new Bush crackdown. But Zicari-- the son of a Rochester, New York, porn seller-- and Romano remain feisty. Courageously, recklessly, or just with a good business sense, the firm's website (www.extremeassociates.com) now sells the "Federal Five" in a package deal, along with online video samples for the downloading.

Prior censorship

In addition to violating "community standards," prosecutors in US obscenity cases must get a jury to agree that the material in question is "patently offensive" and whether "taken as a whole" it "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Anticipating a Bush porn crackdown, in early 2001 a well-placed obscenity attorney came up with a list of new no-no's for porn makers hoping to avoid indictment in the Bush era. Among the proscriptions on the so-called "Cambria List" are "no forced sex, rape themes," and "no shots with appearance of pain or degradation," (as well as "no black men-white women themes" and "no male/male penetration"). Extreme Associates obviously didn't submit to this sort of obnoxious self-policing, and now they're paying the price. But whatever happens to Zicari and Romano, Ashcroft's new war on porn is just getting started with Extreme.