STATEMENT OF C. NEIL BENSON, CHIEF POSTAL INSPECTOR, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE, ACCOMPANIED BY KURT SIMILES, MANAGER OF PROHIBITED MAILINGS BRANCH

Mr. CONYERS. If you would introduce the assistant with you, we welcome you before the committees, the Select Education Committee of the House Committee on Education and Labor and the Subcommittee on Crime of the Judiciary.

Mr. BENSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is C. Neil Benson and I am Chief Postal Inspector of the Postal Inspection Service. Accompanying me is Inspector Kurt Similes, manager of our Prohibited Mailings Branch at our national headquarters.

We would appreciate the opportunity to comment on this legislation that is pending before your committees. I will briefly try to summarize some of the things that the Postal Service is involved in in enforcing postal obscenity laws.

We, the Postal Inspection Service, are primarily responsible for the investigation of all criminal laws involving postal service. In addition, we provide protection security for the Postal Service and have the internal audit function. In the area of obscenity through the mail, we investigate and assist in enforcing the pandering advertisements statute, 39 U.S. Code, 3008, which affords a measure of self-protection to individual mail recipients.

This particular statute permits a customer of the Postal Service to indicate that he is erotically aroused by the sexual advertisements which he has received, and in his sole discretion to obtain an Administrative Postal Service Order which directs the mailer of the advertisements to refrain from further mailings to his address.

Since the inception of the statute in 1968 the Postal Service has issued about 500,000 such orders. We are also responsible for the investigative jurisdiction of the sexually oriented advertisements statute, 39 U.S. Code 3010 and 3011, as well as 18 U.S. Code 1735-1737.

This permits the Postal Service to maintain a list of persons who do not desire to receive unsolicited sexually-oriented advertisements and prohibits the mailing of such material to any individual if his name has been on the list for 3 days.

The list presently contains approximately 320,000 citizens of this country-the names of 320,000.

In addition to that, we can request the Attorney General to file a civil action against a mailer who sends the sexually-oriented advertisement to an individual on the list.

Finally, the Inspection Service is charged with the Postal Obscenity Statute, 18 U.S. Code 1461. This section contains the basic restrictions of the use of mails to distribute pornographic material. In language dating back to 1965 or so, it prohibits mailing of any obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device or

substance.

The violation of the statute is punishable by 5 years imprisonment, a fine of $5,000, or both. We have attained a great deal of prosecutorial flexibility in this particular act. Under the particular act, we can pros

ecute in venue where the piece of mail is mailed, any district through which it passes, or in the district of address.

The main thrust of our enforcement effort in this area, in accordance with guidelines set by the Department of Justice, is directed toward major dealers who use the mail both for advertisement and for selling of pornography.

We develop evidence from complaints of recipients of unwanted mail matter, from advertisements mailed to postal inspectors using test names, and on the basis of advertisements and in tabloids offering mail order pornography for sale.

Our investigations of child pornography are conducted within the ambit of the statutes I have described. Accordingly, in these investigations we look for mailings which could be considered to violate statutes under our investigative jurisdiction.

As a practical matter, the postal obscenity statute does not deal separately and specifically with child pornography. However, we believe that the shock value of this type of material should make cases particularly attractive from a prosecutorial standpoint.

We see a few provisions of the pending law which would make the investigation of these particular offenses somewhat difficult. The first one is the requirement that the Government establish the age or identity of the child participant in the pornographic production. I think it would be evident that the age of the child is sometimes difficult to determine, particularly as they come closer to the age of 16, and the identity of the child is very difficult to ascertain.

The second point is the requirement that the Government establish the defendant's knowledge that individuals depicted in the pornographic material are less than 16 years old.

I think here would be a serious problem for all of us.

The third one is that this particular law requires that Government establish the fact that the material had been mailed across State lines. In the normal and in all the other postal statutes it is only necessary that the piece of material enter the mail stream, it doesn't mean that it has to be carried by the mail across the State lines from one State to another. Entering the mail stream is the Federal offense, whether it is carried one block or across the country.

With that brief summary of my prepared statement, Mr. Similes and I stand ready to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. CONYERS. We want to thank you very much for joining us. I havo only three questions.

Can you describe for me specifically how you view the problem from the postal point of view? After all, almost all of this pornographic activity which brings us here today travels in interstate commerce. There is every indication that there are clubs and mailing lists, magazines, film distributions, advertisements in magazines, so that all of this is literally dependent on the mails for existence

Do you experience any problem in reporting, detecting, and cooperating with prosecuting authorities, both Federal and State, in terms of bringing this pornographic material to a halt?

Mr. BENSON. I think that the problem in our Service is not identifying the material so much because we do receive complaints from people. The problem is in determining what is obscene. That, of course, is the problem for the courts.

We might feel it is obscene, we might even convince a prosecutor it is obscene, but sometimes the jury doesn't necessarily agree.

Mr. CONYERS. That is not your problem. I want to find out what your problem is from the Postal point of view.

Mr. BENSON. Well, I don't think we have a particular problem in investigating this type of crime.

Mr. CONYERS. Why do we have so much of it then? In other words, what can you tell us before these two subcommittees that we can help put an end to what is viewed generally as an enlarging, rapidly expanding area of activity that we consider illegal and mostly immoral? In other words, where do you come in? Is everything okay and, if not, what ought we be doing about it?

Mr. BENSON. I think we could, the Congress could, in some fashion, make the obscenity depicted by children more better defined and separate, a separate law, if it is possible. However, because this would involve, it may not involve more cases, but it would involve an easier prosecutive function. Let me ask Mr. Similes.

Mr. SIMILES. Let me briefly describe the pornography industry as a highly competitive business. Obviously we know that. There is a need to accelerate the elicitness in order to meet the market conditions like we have seen over the years, a steady increase in the type of material that is pushed upon the public.

As the chief inspector said, we do view the obscenity problem in total. We do have a positive investigative program. As an example, to answer your direct question, how deep is the problem? We have currently approximately 100 outstanding investigations in the pornography area, including all types of pornography. Approximately 13 of those investigations deal with child pornography.

Only yesterday we reached an indictment in one child pornography case in San Francisco. The case has moved forward. The prosecutive climate is certainly there, wherever we have the evidence to present the cases.

Mr. CONYERS. Let me ask you a simple question. You pick up a magazine and here is a perfectly horrible advertisement about a pornographic film. You are outraged. Somebody's grandmother would be similarly outraged. What do you do? You are the postal authority on obscenity. Do you go out and call up the U.S. attorney and say, "Here we have got one. Let's go," or do you read it and say, "There is nothing much we can do," or do you pretend you don't see it. What happens?

Mr. SIMILES. The direct answer is we immediately investigate each and every instance.

Mr. CONYERS. Then I have got 10,000 cases for you to immediately investigate.

Mr. SIMILES. We will look at each case

Mr. CONYERS. Doesn't somebody read the magazines over there? Mr. SIMILES. If I may complete. We investigate considering the guidelines that have been established for us by the Department of Justice.

Mr. CONYERS. What are they?

Mr. SIMILES. The guidelines are that the Federal prosecutive climate is to prosecute major obscenity dealers, to prosecute dealers in child