We Stand On Guard For Porn!

Porn police review hundreds of suspect books, videos, magazines
OTTAWA (CP) — Katharina the Naked Czarina is OK but Housewives at Play, no way.
They were among the hundreds of videos, magazines and books screened for obscenity by Canada Border Services during a three-month period earlier this year, according to documents posted Monday on The Smoking Gun website.
The service’s Ottawa-based prohibited importation unit looked at approximately 700 items red-flagged as possibly offensive.
“Part of our mandate is to ensure that we keep anything that promotes hatred, any obscene material, child pornography off the streets of Canada,” said Michel Proulx, spokesman for border services.
Canadian law prohibits “any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex, or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence.”
The legislation also prohibits any material that promotes hate.
Once the items have been reviewed, the list is distributed to border points every three months. Items on the prohibited list are automatically rejected in the future.
“They have targetting criteria,” Proulx said, adding that the service does not release that information publicly.
Hustler and Penthouse were among the tamer magazines to try the Canadian border in the second quarter of 2004. The vast majority of other magazines, depicting everything from rape to real or suggested child pornography, were rejected.
Each item is reviewed by two of ten customs agents screening for the prohibited importation unit.
A copy of the children’s show Pee Wee’s Playhouse, circa 1986, passed the porn test.
The third season of the satirical TV cartoon show South Park was also approved and Proulx made no apologies for flagging the show.
“Have you seen South Park?” he asked.
The Smoking Gun website, which is based in New York, routinely posts quirky and unusual government and court documents, many of them obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. The website was acquired by the cable TV channel Court TV in 2000.