ASHINGTON, May 10 — On the heels of a call for new legislation to circumvent the recent Supreme Court decision declaring parts of the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act unconstitutional, Attorney General John Ashcroft today by decree extended the Department's prosecution of computer artists to those depicting any type of act which in real life would constitute a violent crime.

In a broad sweep to eliminate other "cyber crimes" depraving our nation's youth, Mr. Ashcroft announced a task force dealing with cruelty to virtual animals. "The rampant cruelty to animals depicted on national television, arcade games, and devices of similar nature, in the face of an adult population seemingly accepting such behavior, is an untenable and sordid aspect of our culture, and it must be stopped," Mr Ashcroft said.

When children are taught that such action is tolerated, we create "a dangerous window of opportunity for animal abusers," he continued. "We aim to push for new legislation that would ban computer-simulated cruelty to animals and withstand judicial scrutiny by that "yellow-bellied Supreme Court," and the Department of Justice will not await the actual passage of such a bill.

Instead, by administrative decree, the Department, with the cooperation of the FBI and the Secret Service, will round up known computer artists engaged in "virtual animalistic cruelty" and will commence a registry of all computer animation artists with an aim to incarcerate those who depict specific acts of cruelty to animals, and to rigidly license, and control those permitted to continue their dangerous trade.

At a hastily convened newsconference at the Department of Justice, Mr. Ashcroft handed out photocopied examples of offending computer animation depicting what he called "inhumane acts of cruelty towards citizens of the Animal Kingdom". Prominent among Mr Ashcroft's handout were plastic cells from movies with names like "Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote", Tom & Jerry", "Sylvester the Cat" and "Daffy Duck".

When asked if the prosecution of computer animation artists would extend to those engaged in depicting violent crimes against humans, Mr. Ashcroft smirked and announced "it would depend on the circumstances."

"If, for instance, the animation depicts a human being performing cruelty to an animal or to another human being, like swinging a cat by its tail, such behavior clearly is unacceptable and goes against the very fabric of our culture and civilization," he added. "Those types of behavior will be stopped. We are, after all, a peace-loving nation."

"However, if you are speaking about your average, day-to-day violence routinely incorporated in computer-generated arcade games depicting gangster wars where one human being annihilates another by the use of powerful weapons, such behavior should serve as role models of our youngsters."

"As we all know, and what I have made a personal and departmental mission to proselytize, the right to bear arms is an inalienable right of our citizens, and I can think of no better way to expose our youth to impressive lessons of civics during their formative years, than to permit or even encourage them to watch such heroic behavior on the part of red-white-and-blue individuals who commit no crime but merely reinforce the deep-seated notion that the Second Amendment is one of the cornerstones of our proud nation, and, let me add, the Department of Justice, and the Administration under which we so proudly serve."

"Once we round up these perpetrators, our next wave of prosecution will be aimed at the so-called 'Johns' of the industry - those pitiful individuals who take sexual pleasure in observing one animal mutilate another innocent animal."