Ovila a suicide grrl posted:


Hello,

I just wanted to let you know that, thanks to the "War on Porn," SG will be taking down a bunch of photosets and individual photos today.

Even the FBI agents paid to surf for porn find this ridiculous,
but apparently sending people to jail for pictures of two consenting
adults enjoying a little rope bondage is more fucking important
than.... I dunno, pick any one of the million of better causes out
there that the government could be focusing on.

So, I apologise heartily for having to do this, both to the
SuicideGirls whose art is being fucked over and the members who are
being treated like babies, but we really don't want to get shut down
and sent to jail. As soon as legally possible, the photosets and
pictures about to be taken down will come back. Until then, bid a fond
farewell to your favourite blood-bathing beauties, rope-bound babes,
and handcuffed honeys. Apparently they've no place in today's society.

If you want to help stop this stupidity, feel free join SG in donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Free Speech Coalition. If you live in the US, you can also send a letter to your representative in Congress.

Missy, qu33|\| b33 su1c1d3 grr1 edits in:

Hello Missy here,

You can see Olivia's post below...

Our statement on this controversy is this...

While we do not believe any of our images are illegal, SG has removed a number of images in order to ensure that we are not targeted by the U.S. Government's new war on porn.

We have received no formal government notice to remove these images, however in the course of our involvement, as witnesses, in a federal criminal prosecution that does not target SG, we have been made aware of the risks posting such content poses the owners of the company. Given the U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales' new war on porn task force and it's intent to bring obscenity charges against their loosely defined "Deviant" imagery, we have removed any images with fake blood and any images we felt could be wrongfully construed as sadist or masochist.

Given the natural disasters in Louisiana and Texas, the U.S. Government's numerous foreign war's and the growing U.S. deficit, we feel there are far better uses of government resources then pursuing the legality of imagery created by consenting adults, but as is usually the case, our opinions are not shared by the current U.S. Administration. Also, we really miss Bill Clinton.

If you feel strongly about this issue, feel free to join SG in donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Free Speech Coalition.

Yours Truly,

Missy Suicide

Back to olivia's original post....

boing boing posts their official response:


Suicide Girls responds to post on FBI and image takedowns


Disclaimer: Suicide Girls is a Boing Boing sponsor.

Responding to a Boing Boing post from earlier today, Steve Simitzis of Suicide Girls says:

Well, since you posted about the criminal case (which isn't over yet), the case is United States vs Chad Grant, not Suicide Girls vs Chad Grant. It's a criminal case - your post would imply that it's a civil dispute between us and him, which it's not. We reported the intrusion to the FBI, and from there, the government decides whether or not to prosecute. I already gave my testimony (yesterday) so I feel okay talking about it.

But anyway, the reason why the two situations (the criminal
case and the upcoming government crackdown) are connected:

During the investigation, the FBI asked us to provide them a
list of every single photo set that contains bondage, blood play,
urination, etc. In short, anything a jury might find "obscene". The
idea was that the defense would try to discredit SG by displaying in
graphic detail how we're disgusting and therefore evil. And the
prosecution wanted to be ready for this attack, by knowing everything
we had in advance, so they could either try to downplay it or make some
other point about it. Either way they wanted to be prepared. But of
course that's irrelevant to the case, since the defendant (a) also
worked for an "adult entertainment" company, and (b) we're not on trial
anyway - he is, for computer intrusion.

So, as requested, we started assembling the list of photos
containing said naughty content, when news of the upcoming crackdown

started to surface. And it immediately became crystal clear: if we were
handing over a list of every photo on our site that contains the
content they're about to start prosecuting, and if someone in the
Attorney General's office would have that on file, it would be a quick
and easy few steps from there to going after us, a fairly well-known
site. We felt that we were too close to the fire at that point, and
took the content down.

So - were we contacted by the FBI specifically because of the
"war on porn"? No. Were we contacted by the FBI and asked for a list of
all our "obscene" content? Yes. So when people were asking "were you
contacted by the FBI?" we really couldn't give a straight yes or no
answer without talking about something we couldn't talk about.

Shannon Larratt of BMEzine responds to Steve's statement::

So you took down content to help you win a case against
a competitor (even if by proxy), effectively admitted on the public
record that you feel this content is legally obscene and you're ashamed
or afraid to show it in court, played a highly misleading PR game, and
didn't come clean about it until the PR started to go bad?

As I said before, as someone who really has had a real threat of
prosecution and had to uproot my whole life and company to avoid being
shut down due to being unwilling to compromise the ethics of my site, I
really think it's unfortunate that you guys did not have the strength
of character to do the same, and I think it's even worse that you'd
manipulate the courts by playing along with the FBI like this. It's not
going to be helpful.

I'm sorry to be so blunt about this but I really feel you guys
need to take a stronger stand, especially because if they ever actually
did come after you on this point you're such an easily defendable
target.

PLEASE restore the content, along with a pledge to fight to protect it.