PHILADELPHIA — “Fruitless” is probably a nice legal way of saying nice try but no cigar. According to a story being reported on www.xbiz.com, government attorneys have called the Free Speech Coalition’s challenges to the revised 18 U.S.C. § § 2257 and 2257A regulations just that and have asked a federal court this week to dismiss the FSC’s challenges to the record keeping rules.

The FSC and 14 other plaintiffs claimed in a suit filed last year against the government at U.S. District Court in Philadelphia that the regulations are unconstitutional, as well as an unfair burden placed to producers to comply with the regulations.

Government attorneys also said that placing burdens on producers for age-verification requirements “is a form of speech that receives no 1st Amendment protection at all — and the fact that producers remain free to create, publish, or distribute any images of adults engaged in sexual conduct as long as they adhere to the statutory and regulatory scheme designed to ensure that these performers are adults.”

Attorneys also said that, “Plaintiffs cannot claim a reasonable expectation of privacy in these records. Government inspection of these records therefore does not qualify as a ‘search’ subject to 4th Amendment challenge.”