There is an interesting fight brewing over the arrest of Chris Wilson. Wilson is hardly Thomas Paine, unless Paine dabbled in porn. Wilson, 28, is the founder and manager of a controversial site, nowthatsfuckedup.com, where guys post sexually explicit shots of their wives and girlfriends. Nice. However, recently Wilson began to post explicit and disturbing pictures of the carnage from Iraq, photos reportedly sent by soldiers posted abroad. In October, Wilson’s home was raided, his computer seized, and he is now facing life in prison. Beneath the gore and porn, Wilson may have a valid first amendment case.

At the outset, it is curious that Wilson has not been sued previously for this porn site which seems to profit for what constitutes violations of privacy and the disclosure of private facts. Yet, it is his recent penchant for Iraqi photos that make the story more complex. His site contained hundreds of graphic images, alleged of dead Iraqis.

Prosecutor Chip Thullberry insists that “Our charges were not related to the notoriety brought to that Web site” by the war-dead photos. Likewise, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd denies that it was the Iraqi pictures that led to the arrest. This according to him isa simple porn prosecution. Of course, no porn prosecution is simple given the long history of first amendment challenges.

Before his arrest, Wilson has much publicity for the separate forum he created for the Iraqi picture. He notably included a quote from a line Life Magazine, when it published war-dead photos during the Spanish Civil War: “Dead men have indeed died in vain if live men refuse to look at them.”

Rolling Stones notes that the government could use the seized computer to track and prosecute those soldiers who sent the pictures.Putting aside the war pics, there remains the efficiency and basis for these porn prosecution — or the legitimacy of a life sentence for such crimes.

Ironically, it was the Supreme Court that created a curious trend in the porn industry of including briefs segments of redeemable social content in their films and clips.  So, in the middle of some raw porn scene, someone would read a line of Shakespeare or suggest a plot line.  Here, the inclusion of a politically sensitive forum on Iraqi deaths adds the same complication. 

While a new website, Freechris.org, has been created to fight for Wilson, it remains unclear whether Wilson is a victim of a political hunt as opposed to a porn hunt. Polk county prosecutors have long embraced porn prosecutions as a popular use of their resources and time.  Either way, this could make for an interesting case. 

For the full story on Wilson, click  here