Port authorities

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banning pornography would probably not solve the physi-cal abuse of women.

In the early twenty-first century, advances in com-puter technology raised new challenges regarding the def-inition and control of pornography. Pornography prolif-erated on the internet, and computer imaging technology sometimes made it difficult to distinguish which images depicted acts between real people, and which were simply computer-generated. Whereas anticensorship laws gen-erally protected people who wished to post or download sexually graphic images, using or creating child pornog-raphy was generally not protected, because it depicted il-legal acts between il-legal minors. But debate arose over computer-generated images of children engaged in sexual acts: some argued that because no actual children were involved in making the images, they should be legal; oth-ers argued that the difficulty in distinguishing between “real” and computer-generated images made this course of action dangerous. Continuing advances in computer and communication technology are likely to prompt further debates over the definition and distribution of pornography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Assiter, Alison, and Avedon Carol, eds. Bad Girls and Dirty Pic-tures: The Challenge to Reclaim Feminism. Boulder, Colo.: Pluto Press, 1993.

Baird, Robert M., and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, eds. Pornography: Private Right or Public Menace? Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998.

Cate, Fred H. The Internet and the First Amendment: Schools and Sexually Explicit Expression. Bloomington, Ind.: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1998.

Cornell, Drucilla, ed. Feminism and Pornography. New York: Ox-ford University Press, 2000.

Stan, Adele M., ed. Debating Sexual Correctness: Pornography, Sex-ual Harassment, Date Rape, and the Politics ofSexSex-ual EqSex-uality. New York: Delta, 1995.

Alison M. Parker /d. b. See also Censorship, Press and Artistic; Convention on the

Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Internet; Music Television; Violence Against Women Act; Women’s Rights Movement: The Twen-tieth Century.

PORNOGRAPHY COMMISSION. There have been two presidential commissions charged with investi-gating the explicit depictions of sex and sexuality that some call pornography—even though “pornography” (unlike “obscenity”) is not a legal term.

In 1970 President Richard Nixon appointed the Pres-ident’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, also known as the Lockhart Commission. The commission’s eighteen members spent over $2 million reviewing the extant research, interviewing experts, and also funding a survey of its own. The final report concluded that there

was no evidence demonstrating any significant social harm from pornography depicting consenting adults, and rec-ommended that existing obscenity laws should be pealed. President Nixon refused to accept either the re-port or the commission’s conclusions.

President Ronald Reagan charged Attorney General Edwin Meese in 1985 with forming a commission to in-vestigate the effects of pornography. The Meese Com-mission was given a budget of $500,000—in real dollars about one-sixteenth of the Lockhart Commission’s fund-ing. Unable to afford research of its own, the commission held hearings to interview invited witnesses in six major cities. The commission’s final report said that pornogra-phy contributed significantly both to sexual violence and to societal discrimination against women, although critics charged that the commission’s membership and witness list were both selected to make such conclusions foregone. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donnerstein, Edward, Daniel Linz, and Steven Penrod. The Question ofPornography: Research Findings and Policy Impli-cations. New York: Free Press, 1987.

Hawkins, Gordon, and Franklin E. Zimring. Pornography in a Free Society. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

J. Justin Gustainis

PORT AUTHORITIES. These forms of special-purpose government are utilized in the United States and in other countries. In the early 2000s special-purpose gov-ernments were the fastest growing type of local govern-ment in the nation (municipalities were second). Port au-thorities are tax-free corporations funded by user fees and/or proceeds from tax-free bonds. Their function is typically legally limited to the financing, construction, and operation of facilities and projects involving rivers, lakes, oceans, and other waterways, such as canals, har-bors, docks, wharves, and terminals. One hundred four-teen U.S. metropolitan areas had port authorities with varying levels of function and authority in 1987. The old-est port authority in the United States is likely that of Portland, Oregon, established in 1917. The most well-known port authority in the United States is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921. It is exceptional because it serves two different states and because the actions of its governing body may be vetoed by the governors of New York and New Jersey. Sometimes port authority activities have been controver-sial, for instance over the question of whether port au-thority autonomy fosters growth and development incon-sistent with public goals.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Foster, Kathryn A. The Political Economy ofSpecial-Purpose Gov-ernment. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1997.

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Busi-ness ofGovernment. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.

Timothy M. Roberts

PORT AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY. The Port Authority of New York and

New Jersey is a self-supporting, interstate, corporate or-ganization of New York and New Jersey. It was created in 1921 to protect and promote the commerce of New York Harbor and to develop terminal and transportation facilities in the New York metropolitan area.

The Port of New York Authority, as it was originally called (the name changed in 1972), was created by the joint efforts of Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York and Governor Walter Edge of New Jersey with a view to solving the problems caused by the artificial New York-New Jersey boundary line down the middle of the Hud-son River, which split the natural unity of the port. Be-cause it was an interstate treaty, approval of Congress was required. By the compact of organization, the Port Au-thority is permitted “to purchase, construct, lease and/or operate any terminal or transportation facility” and “to make charges for the use thereof.” Its sphere of jurisdic-tion extends over a twenty-five-mile radius from lower Manhattan. Jurisdiction may be extended beyond this limit if approved by the governors and legislatures of both New York and New Jersey. A twelve-person Board of Com-missioners governs the Port Authority. The New York and New Jersey governors appoint six members each, subject to the approval of their respective state senates. The commissioners appoint an executive director who manages the day-to-day operations of the Port Authority. The leadership of J. Austin Tobin, executive director of the Port Authority from 1946 to 1972, is widely credited for making it a powerhouse on planning and economic development issues within the region and the largest or-ganization of its type in the nation. Tobin’s success de-pended on his ability, with a minimum of political con-troversy, to use revenue from the Port Authority’s bridges and tolls to finance economic development projects that expanded the organization’s power.

In addition to running many of the region’s bridges and roadways, the scope of the Port Authority’s work in-cludes the construction and management of infrastructure for mass transit and marine and aviation industries, as well as the development of office and industrial real estate. Among the facilities built, owned, and operated by the Port Authority are the George Washington Bridge (1931); the Goethals Bridge between Staten Island and Elizabeth, New Jersey (1928); the Lincoln Tunnel (1937); the Port Authority Bus Terminal (1950); and the George Wash-ington Bridge Bus Station (1963). The Port Authority owns and operates major marine facilities in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Brooklyn, New York, as well as industrial parks in Elizabeth and the Bronx, New York. The Port Authority operates the region’s major airports (Kennedy,

La Guardia, and Newark), all owned by municipal gov-ernments. Perhaps the most prominent Port Authority facility was the World Trade Center, two 110-story office towers in lower Manhattan that opened in 1973 and dom-inated New York City skyline as a symbol of U.S. eco-nomic power until they were destroyed in a terrorist at-tack on 11 September 2001. The site of the towers, dubbed “Ground Zero” in the aftermath of the attack, became hallowed ground in memory of the many office workers and New York City fire and police officers who died there. In 2000, the Port Authority’s cumulative investment in facilities and infrastructure totaled $35 billion. Its bud-get totaled $4.6 billion, and it employed 7,200.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Doig, Jamison W. Empire on the Hudson: Entrepreneurial Vision and Political Power at the Port ofNew York Authority. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

Richard M. Flanagan

See also Airports, Siting and Financing of; George

Washing-ton Bridge; Lincoln Tunnel; New York City; 9/11 At-tack; Transportation and Travel; World Trade Center; World Trade Center Bombing, 1993.

PORT ROYAL. Port Royal, Nova Scotia, at the site

of present-day Annapolis Royal on the southeastern shore of the Annapolis Basin, was variously under the control of France and England throughout the seven-teenth century. Pierre du Guast established the earliest settlement of Port Royal in 1605. Though alternately de-stroyed or taken by the British over the course of the seventeenth century, Port Royal remained the most im-portant French outpost in Acadia, and became the seat of French government there in 1684. The town’s strategic location made it desirable as a launch site for French at-tacks on British colonial soil. After several battles during which the region changed hands, Acadia was ceded to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht, and Port Royal was re-named Annapolis Royal. Once the British designated Halifax as the seat of their government in Acadia in 1749, Annapolis Royal lost both its strategic and governmental importance.

Port Royal enjoyed a renewed prominence in the eighteenth century, as a destination for some of the thou-sands of Loyalists who fled the United States in the wake of the American Revolution. Among those who settled in Nova Scotia were enslaved Africans who fought in the service of the British on the promise that they would gain their freedom. Thousands of freed slaves who were prom-ised farms by the British journeyed north, only to con-front bitter cold and near starvation. On receiving a pe-tition describing the plight of the 102 freed black families in Annapolis Royal and 100 families in New Brunswick, the British Secretary of State ordered that, if the petition proved true, the province must either finally compensate the families or send them to Sierra Leone. In January of