My view: Keep adult entertainment from kids

In retail stores, the FTC in 2008 found R-rated movies were sold to underage kids at a dizzying pace: Kmart, 47 percent of the time; Blockbuster, 53 percent; Best Buy, 62 percent, Barnes & Noble, 64 percent; Target, 65 percent. At Transworld Entertainment/FYE, with stores throughout Utah, the failure rate is 78 percent!

At the 1999 White House promise-fest, the head of video game lobbyist Entertainment Software Association promised "to close the loophole" that allows kids under 17 to get their hands on mature-rated games via the Internet. This very day, not a single U.S. Internet retailer, such as BestBuy.com, WalMart.com and Target.com, verifies the age of any purchaser, even though reliable age-verification software is used by online alcohol, tobacco and firearm retailers.

Here's the bill in Utah: It doesn't define what content is "harmful to minors," so we avoid the phony First Amendment arguments Hollywood loves to make. The bill simply states: If you promise the public you don't sell adult-rated entertainment to kids, then you had better be telling the truth, because if a parent catches you selling this stuff to his or her kids, then you're guilty of fraud under the Truth in Advertising Law.

The Entertainment Software Association bragged this week that it spread $4.2 million around to "lobby" politicians at the federal level, with more spread around to state politicians. ESA wants to make sure entertainment retailers can continue to go behind parents' backs and get at kids.

In Utah, this dangerous fraud must stop.

Jack Thompson, a former practicing attorney who lives in Miami, Fla., is the author of "Out of Harm's Way," which recounts his efforts against the entertainment industry.