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Teens Prosecuted For Racy Photos
An anonymous reader writes with a story on CNet about two teens who were prosecuted under anti-child-porn laws in Florida for having made and emailed racy photos of each other. Both were under 18 years old, so the resulting pictures are clearly illegal; but the teens' intent was not to share the pictures with anyone else. An appeals court majority opinion found that emailing the photos from one of the kids to the other was a careless act that should, it seems, bring down the full weight of the law. A minority opinion argued that the laws were intended to protect children from exploitative adults, not from other children.
Utterly stupid. 18 year is way too high. Where I come from it's 15. When I was that age in the early 70's we fucked like rabbits.
IMNSHO, this is not an issue for the legal system at all.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
So now even children are victims of ill-thought out, inane "OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!~1~!" type laws?
My head asplode.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Are they going to start prosecuting 17 year olds who have sex with mutual statutory rape?
It should be encouraged.
Sorry, that's all I've got.
are hungry for more bodies. The system works.
What?
1) 16- and 17-year-olds are by no means "children." 2) These laws were made to protect minors from older perverts, not from themselves. 3) This is stupid.
Now if I try to commit suicide will I be charged with Attempted Murder?
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Pics or it didn't happen.
The courts are only allowed to consider letter of the law and not intent. Given how poorly most laws are written it leads to this kind of abuse.
This thread is totally useless without....oh wait, this is /.
Prosecuting teenagers for taking pictures of themselves naked and sharing strikes many as absolutely stupid. This is a victimless crime. Now, prosecuting others for sharing someone elses picture I can understand.
So why are these laws being applied when the photographer is the subject?
It's quite simple. If the uptight authorities don't do this, why, then you'd have teenagers all over the place taking naked pictures of themselves and passing them along. The whole world would be flooded with naked pics of teens!
Can you possible imagine what such a world would be like? Why, why, ahhh, oh nevermind.
Anyway, the religious authorities don't like this. That's what it boils down to.
Oh my. Now we're starting to sound like Iran.
How is this related to your rights "online" ? If they took polaroids of themselves, the issue would be the same - minors in Florida are allowed to have sex, but cannot document it. This is a social and political problem, it has nothing to do with being "online".
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Soon everything we think and do will be illegal and we will all be criminals under Christian sharia law.
According to the Wikipedia article on age of consent in North America - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_No rth_America two 17 year-olds in Florida can legally have sex.
It's just they can't take and send dirty pictures to each other.
That minority opinion was especially clear and sensible. It is unfortunate that common sense so often goes out the window when computers become involved.
This is just madness! Children exchanging photos of them selfs naked is perhaps inappropriate. But it is certainly not child pornography! How can anyone with any common sens pretend it is otherwise? I can't even think where the court is trying to go with this. How could child pornography laws be applied to this case as a proper punishment for those children???
"Sockets are the standard networking API, also useful for stopping your eyes from falling onto your cheeks" zeromq.org
This is the next step forwards. It is obviously only teenagers and pedophiles using this site. Best stop it at source. Shut down Myspace, faceparty, and anything else that teens can be involved with on the net. If we stop children using these sites, then we stop pedophiles using them too. Problem solved, right?
AC because this post will likely be moderated troll, when in fact I intended it to be insightful. id: 844933
Now they will probably have to be listed on "registered sex offender" registries. How fucked up is that?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I can understand how these charges could be upheld, after all, a judges job is to uphold the law as it is written, not as they would like it to be. The person who should be ashamed of himself is the district attorney who is pressing charges on what obviously is an unintended consequence of a poorly written law. Is he so desperate for work, he has nothing better to do then go after two teens who are only guilty of being young and stupid? His job is to serve the public and see that justice is done, not waste their time and money on witch hunts. I wonder how many criminal cases got ignored or plea bargained so 2 dumb kids who took pictures of themselves could learn their lesson.
I can only assume he wants to pad the numbers, so he can claim he busted another "kiddie-porn ring" and kept our children safe. It really scares me that in the article, the judges use a lot of reasoning along the line of the pictures "may have" been shown to others later, or the computers "may have" been hacked laster, or something, somehow "may have" gone wrong. When did abstract possibilities becomes illegal? I believe people should be held accountable for the consequences of their actions, but I don't see how they can be held accountable for what happens only in the wild speculation of some judge.
There's really no way to speculate about whether or not a crime occured without actually seeing the allegedly obscene images. For the sake of clarity can somebody post these so-called "racy pix" or email them to me (mfoley@hotmail). thx
That's fine in a world where we don't have underage rapists and killers. But that's not our world sadly.
Yes, let's protect potential future damage to their lives or careers by ending them early! What the fuck???? I can't believe that this was an actual reasoning.
This is unbelievable on so many levels. As the monitory opinion states, it's ok to have sex, as long as you don't document it. Protection from hypothetical damage allows for doing actual damage. Consensual, legimitate and accepted practices can lead to association with scum of the earth practices.
The more I see, the less I think I'll raise kids in the US.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Of course, prosecuting the minors in this way for what was an innocent act on their parts, throwing them in jail for years, sticking them on sex offenders lists, and marring them for live will cause no harm to them at all.
This is just beyond crazy. A sheer sign that our country has gone way down hill. And you know what? These prosecutors will probably get a pat on the back, promotions, and the like. It's nothing to them to destroy the lives of these two teenagers just to forward their own careers.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
What happens when some smart ones start emailing photos to their teachers along with a message saying "here are the photos you demanded not to tank my grades" and BCCing the FBI?
That's the kind of scary crap you get when you don't consider intent when deciding on guilt.
Beep beep.
but I won't be satisfied until we really start cracking down on all those infants that are suckling breasts - it's downright lewd!
wake me up when people remember what human rights are.
Never mind taking pictures of each other, does a 17 year old have a constitutionally protected right to take pictures of HERSELF?
After all, it's her body. She should have the right to document how it looks at age 17 or even 7 for posterity's sake.
The laws are to protect children from exploitation, whether by adults, other children, other children acting for adults, or whoever. It's not a "gotcha" for adults, it's protection of children.
However, parents are to protect children. Disciplining children by the law is a total failure of the parents. While that happens, it must always be the last resort. And always include legal charges against the parents.
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Is "this news for nerds" because they used email? Or because of racy nude teen photos? The density of posts designed to whip up righteous nerd frenzy is getting old.
Yes yes, the law can affect nerds too. I can also get that news anywhere.
...just sayin.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
First they had sex without being married, then they made photographs of it! I imagine they also worship other Gods and lie about things. I feel so disgusted that I need to ask you all to donate to my Church which will fight for a 50,000 year sentence to protect our country from non-believers. Thank You, Manipulative Religious Idiot
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
But first, we should examine the evidence.
URL for pictures, anyone?
Sigs are for the weak.
Won't someone PLEASE subpoena the children?
Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors' careers or personal lives. These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos.
So instead of "if these pictures are ultimately released", they are doing them the favor of damaging their careers and personal lives FOR SURE by the inevitable registration as sex offenders they will be branded for the rest of their lives. Instead of "if these pictures are ultimately released", let's instead have "no living next to schools, being around minors unsupervised, and let's just keep an eye on where you're living for the next 70 years if you dont mind, because you are a foul perversion of a human who doesn't deserve rights." Yeah that makes sense.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Sexual harassment suites for finding out your toddler played 'doctor' with another toddler?
Does no one actually remember how kids are, or what it was to be a child?
Just fyi, "nisp" should be "nisi", I think.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
From what I can remember about Finnish legislature we have a law that prohibits child porn, obviously, but also takes into account that teens can, will, and should express themselves sexually. Thus, inter-teen stuff of this nature is not illegal, as long as it stays private, of course.
.: Max Romantschuk
How can they be charged as adults, but not have "foresight or maturity" as the trial judge claimed ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
A guy over the age of majority sleeps with a girl under the statutory age. He's charged with statutory rape-- after she snuck into his house and quite literally slipped into his bed naked. She got charged and convicted of... conspiracy to commit statutory rape and as an accessory to her own rape. The appeals court in that case overturned the conviction and held that as a matter of law she couldn't be charged, because, you guessed it, the laws were intended to protect her.
However, I somehow doubt that that's going to be the holding in this case. If being under 18 gave you license to take and distribute nude photographs of yourself, you can only imagine the consequences. Actually, I think they did an episode of Law & Order about this.
40 or 50 lashes to both of the delinquents and let them go.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
First they had sex without being married, then they made photographs of it! I imagine they also worship other Gods and lie about things.
I feel so disgusted that I need to ask you all to donate to my Church which will fight for a 50,000 year sentence to protect our country from non-believers.
Thank You,
Manipulative Religious Idiot
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
So it's Florida that leads us to the police state... I woulda guessed California or Boston, at least after the last few months...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
This is just hypothetical, of course, but it does illustrates many issues here. The teen case is similar to this scenario; and perhaps we'll need an actual case to make the laws sane again. Of course, anyone who does this will risk everything.
But then again, this old song of "protecting the children" is a wash, anyway, made worthless by those who have the power to judge and prosecute, but do not exercise sound judgement.
And the really sad fact? There are real children who are really being exploited, and these silly laws do nothing to help them. It's all a joke-- a wash, where the guilty goes free and the innocent are punished to make it appear as though the system "works".
Gotta love the USA.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Yet another example of how these draconian child porn laws are often completely abused, to the point of punishing the very people they were designed to protect. These legislators and zealots who pass oppressive "think of the children" laws often aren't thinking about the children at all. They've lost sight of their goals, and act like a rabid mob.
I am at a loss of words. From TFA:
...using the net" part. He just assumes email is accessible to everyone, with no mention of possible security they employed. And yes the computers can be hacked, so is any adult with porn guilty of making it available to minors since a computer can be hacked? The potential for a computer to be "hacked" makes lots of people and companies guilty of lots of crimes.
"Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors' careers or personal lives. These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos.In addition, the two defendants placed the photos on a computer and then, using the Internet, transferred them to another computer. Not only can the two computers be hacked, but by transferring the photos using the Net, the photos may have been and perhaps still are accessible to the provider and/or other individuals."
In the name of protecting them from future damage to careers and personal lives, they will now be labeled as Sex Offenders for the rest of their lives? This is an appleals court and this is the best they can come up with? The concept of justice is fleeting since logic does not seem to matter anymore. Bet the prosecutor and the judges are real proud for catching these dangerous predators. What is not clear is how they were caught.
Also interesting is the "transferring
You could've killed my brother.
*BANG!*
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Yeah, you're missing the other sentence in my post which says that parents should discipline kids, not the courts. I explicitly did not say these kids should go to jail - to the contrary.
Relatively harmless as it is, letting another child keep a picture of you naked is irresponsible. As we can tell with this story, the pictures are likely to be seen by other people than just the kid who first got it. Parents should prevent their kids from doing that, and discipline them when they find out. Letting your kids exchange naked pictures of themselves is irresponsible parenting.
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They'd have been charged with child molestation.
It is absolutely not appropriate to also charge parents in every case where "children" are charged. If a 15 year old starts skipping class class and shoplifting candy bars, that's not the parents' fault, and they shouldn't be charged with anything. The actual solution is to use the legal system to scare the bejeezus out of the kid, tell the parents what's going on, and create just enough hassle that everyone is sure the parents ARE taking the real punishment into their own hands and that the kid learns the appropriate lesson. Charging the parents for some obscure accessory or negligence crime is overkill, and it does a lot more harm than good.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
It was said that the photos were uploaded to a private email account. Did they get the photos from the email or from the uploading computer? who retrieved the photos and under what circumstances?? i think these facts were left out from the article , but somehow i find them important.
and no, I am not that RAY GOLD, bunch of proverts...
Anyone who knows the name, is guilty just the same!
For as much as 1984 is referenced in issues of privacy, I'm surprised there has been no mention of the Anti-sex League in this topic. With teens in some places being encouraged to take "chastity pledges", there is an absurd expectation being forced on teens about sex, much like the Anti-sex League in 1984 where they worked to "triumph over the orgasm".
Isn't Florida famous for stupid prosecutors any ways?
What's in the watter down there?
Money is the root of all evil?
Why not? The parent raised the kid, is responsible for their actions.
Skipping class and shoplifting candy bars is certainly no cause for charging the kid with a crime (absent some bigger picture of criminality, and even that is wrong when the acts are better corrected with psych or other counseling). Those petty "crimes" are exactly the kind of misbehavior that parents should correct, not the state. However, if parents do not correct them, if parents have produced a "bad kid" who damages someone else, then of course the parents contributed to the damage.
Your idea of "using the legal system to scare the bejeezus out of the kid" is the wrong way to grow kids up. It's inappropriate use of the legal system, and damages the kid further.
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I started getting it on at 15 as well. If I wanted to send a picture of myself back then, that would have been my business. "Land of the free" my ass.
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77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
....and here in Canada we go to the opposite extreme. Here an 80 year old man can legaly have sex with a 14 year old girl (or an 80 year old woman with a 14 year old boy I suppose), and can even document it if the images are intended for personal use and are not shared with others. Now, which one of these systems is better?
Discuss.
Judges aren't compilers that process the law produce an executable judgment. They are supposed to make their judgments based on the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law.
The real question is whether they will be prosecuted as adults. Only then would the trifecta of contradiction be complete.
The article is vague on this issue, but who brought this matter to the police? The parents?
Well I hope that parents are happy that their kids are going to be labeled as sex offenders for 5 years simply because they couldn't handle their own business.
"I'm a shitty parent oh no what do I do? I could talk to my kid about it, I could call the other kids parents and talk to them about it.. no this is all too much responsibility for a shitty parent like myself, I will call the police about this entirely simple matter!"
An appeals court majority opinion found that emailing the photos from one of the kids to the other was a careless act that should, it seems, bring down the full weight of the law. A minority opinion argued that the laws were intended to protect children from exploitative adults, not from other children.
So these kids have to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives? How does this help them? where will they live? How will they get jobs?
The Government is ruing their lives.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How could child pornography laws be applied to this case as a proper punishment for those children???
Oh no... he hasn't heard... Is anyone gonna tell Valtor about the execution of 5 year old pedophile Johnny "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours" Smith?
:-D
Since the detectives/prosecutors involved seem to be so exceptionally talented at finding evil dangers hidden from public view, I propose we send them where they're really needed - Iraq.
I wonder, are you as judgemental in other fields, or does this just offend some personal moral value you choose to impose on everyone else? Why is something not morally OK -- "irresponsible parenting" even -- if someone 17 years and 364 days old does it, but fine and down to personal choice and personal responsibility a day later? Does it even occur to you that many people find nudity an entirely natural state? It is, after all, how we're born.
Of course I don't support the sexual abuse of minors (or anyone else, for that matter), and if that's what was happening here then fine, throw the book at them. But that is clearly not what was happening here, at least as far as I've read so far. I don't see what business either the courts or someone like you have telling people who are mature enough to understand what they're doing and the potential consequences that they may not do it, when it causes no harm to anyone else. What happened to living in a free society, taking responsibility for one's own actions, having the self-discipline to think about things before doing them, and generally treating people like adults when they're old enough to behave like them?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
is why I'm moving out of the US.
If con is the opposite of pro. Then isn't congress the opposite of progress?
These kids need to go bang each other in front of a state owned surveillance camera, then have these same charges brought against the photographer.
I agree with the sentiment, but it's not "prosecutorial misconduct" if the court convicts.
I'm glad the police are out there watching out for those dangerous teenagers taking naughty photos for each other instead of arresting the crack heads outside looking for people to scam.
See this post for details.
Just out of interest, what would happen if paedophiles started emailing photos of eachother when they were kids? Do the same rules apply even though it's themselves? I'd imagine they would do as it still puts modern day children at risk (indirectly of course), but when you see ridiculous stories like this you begin to question just HOW retarded some people are.
This country that I live in is sick. It has some sort of psychosis, some widespread mental disorder; this disorder affects judgment and reason. It is an illness to remove logic and reason so easily to "protect the children". We are all sick for allowing things to get this bad. These lawmakers and judges and politicians all come from our society, so we get what we deserve. We let these things happen without actually righting the wrongs or fixing the problems. We are all to blame for this. We are in the death throws of our nation. The end is near and we don't deserve anything more than to wither. It is our fault, we could have stood up a long time ago, but we just laid down and let them fuck us.
Like BSD we are all dead.
That way they'll serve time in an adult prison. That will bring justice for the victims of this terrible crime.
If a 15 year old starts skipping class class and shoplifting candy bars, that's not the parents' fault
Why not? The parent raised the kid, is responsible for their actions.
Skipping class and shoplifting candy bars is certainly no cause for charging the kid with a crime (absent some bigger picture of criminality, and even that is wrong when the acts are better corrected with psych or other counseling). Those petty "crimes" are exactly the kind of misbehavior that parents should correct, not the state. However, if parents do not correct them, if parents have produced a "bad kid" who damages someone else, then of course the parents contributed to the damage.
Your idea of "using the legal system to scare the bejeezus out of the kid" is the wrong way to grow kids up. It's inappropriate use of the legal system, and damages the kid further.
Man, your so right.We should hold parents accountable for their bad parenting. Lets start with Bin Ladens parents, Timothy MCveighs parents, David Koreshs parents, Burkowitzs parents, we could have this whole crime thing cleaned up by spring. Ollie Norths Parents, that astronauts parents, Bill Clintons parents (he committed perjury remember), I could go on forever. Maybe if you get a speeding ticket they could send one to your parents too. Hey your kid could never go bad right? What do you have to worry about?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
I don't think it has to be malicious at all. For one thing, the judges had to avoid setting an ugly precedent.
Let's say the photos were made legal, returned to the youths, and no conviction performed. Now there are legal "child porn" photos in their position.
Snap forward a few years until they're 21, and one of them is desperate for money. And sells their legal photos of their own underage antics. Are those still legal child porn as set by the precedence?
I think the judges just avoided being blunt about the concern.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
When i saw two christian dudes on the train sitting next to me, I was thinking... maybe I should say, "what did the spanish do to the latins 600 years ago?"
Was that very christian?
Maybe I should have asked, is the bible a future prediction text, or is it a manual instructing the political powers at be how to rule the world?
Stargats ORI remind me of the bible bashers!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
It's up to the parents. It's up to them whether to let the kid off the hook because they're grown up before the law says they're an "adult" by the average definition. And even a child should receive the appropriate discipline. After that, it's up to other people in private transactions, and the state in public ones, to enforce order.
I don't see how you could read my post about how the parents are responsible and somehow decide I'm saying that the courts are responsible. Unless you've got your own agenda which blinds you to what I did say.
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Does anyone have any idea what email service they used? I know Yahoo wouldn't even give out logins to parents of deceased 9/11 patents despite a court subpeona. I'm interested it it was a private ISP, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail (yuck!), etc... as I want nothing to do with an email service that gives out information so easily.
Is there some kind of problem you're having distinguishing between children not responsible for their actions, and adults who are?
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Those kids should have taken a Polaroid instead. Then there would be no arguments about how their computers could be hacked and exploited and blah blah blah.
Also, you just know that every member of the jury was immediately cranking one off as soon as they returned to their hotel rooms.
Reminds me of the quote I saw on Google a few days ago – "The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced." - Frank Zappa
My Blog: http://nic.dreamhost.com/
are notoriously bad at understanding the whole "parenting" concept.
Ranger is right.
Clear, Dark Skies
We didnt do this 50 years ago so why now?
Too much laws and criminality will eventually be the downfall of society because everyone will be made a criminal.
Maybe every parent should not let their child out of their house, and lock the doors then.
The lesson here is... Keep things more secret, dont tell anyone, cover your tracks, dont trust even
your parents or the law. Tough laws really worked in the soviet union didnt they.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Won't someone please think of the fucking children?
This crap is what happens when everyone has been drumming up mass hysteria of Think-of-the-children 24/7. Read any newspaper, watch any channel on TV and you will get a couple of makenews items related to the same awesome phenomenon. Why is everyone surprised that people are actually losing track of why such a law seemed like a good thing initially? This is inevitable with everything which is started with a emotional reason rather than a logical one - sooner or later the reason is forgotten and everyone blindly follows the 'consequence' part of the law. I bet that if some angry lawmakers were able to pass a law back then which asked for public molesting/raping of the child molesters/rapists then you would be reading about how the court has decided a date for public stripping and molesting of those two kids because of some bullshit way they could have hurt themselves in some possible future.
This is all the more disgusting because majority of the media is a part of the hysteria campaign. You can bitch about it as much as you want but as long as no one wants to take a public stand against such bullshit nothing will change.
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
Show me a cite for the idea that judges are supposed to follow the "spirit" of the law.
Judges, at least in the USA may have to interpret the law but they certainly aren't allowed to waive the law because they don't like what it says.
Clear, Dark Skies
attempted suicide is an offense, and you will be charged
Not so in the United States, and most other industrialized countries. The last state to decriminalize attempted suicide did so in 1994. In a few U.S. states, however, suicide is still considered a common law crime.
Unfortunately, there are other countries in the world that still have such laws, however.
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
They raised them, theyre responsible for their actions by your logic. Why should the responsibility end at 18? And if you think no good parent has had their teenager become a murdering drug dealer or anything else your sadly mistaken.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Is there some kind of problem you're having distinguishing between children not responsible for their actions, and adults who are?
I think the problem he's having is that the distinction you claim does not exist either in fact or in law.
Are you adequate?
Why not? The parent raised the kid, is responsible for their actions.
Because of course, the actions of one's offspring are mechanically determined in a simple fashion by one's own actions, and by nothing else than that.
Are you adequate?
The manufacturer of the camera should be sued for not including warning labels telling teenagers not to photograph themselves!
My server
Basically what they're saying, through this precedent, is that it is also illegal for two 16/17 year old kids to see each other naked aka have sex or be sexual in any kind of way. Seems kind of ridiculous to me...
Up here in Canada, a 64 year old man could have sex with a 14 year old girl, he just can't 1) tell anyone about it 2) write about it 3) record it The act is fine.
insight through the mind
Totally fucking ridiculous; these laws are meant to protect children from adult predators; not to protect children from experimenting sexually with other children.
What's next; prosecuting kids for playing doctor?
And you don't find it at all odd that in this case, the law says that the children are responsible enough to decide for themselves whether to have sexual relations -- something that could result in anything from bringing a new life into the world to prematurely ending their own as a result of an STD -- but not to decide whether to let a friend simply photograph them?
This entire thread is about the courts (and by association, the prosecutors and related administration officials) deciding they are more responsible than the kids in question.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This certianly isn't the first time...
o r-sexually-abusing-herself/
http://www.lies.com/wp/2004/03/30/teen-arrested-f
-- The Hoss Man
I suppose you could say there is some mighty bizarre legal overlap here and the Court was just doing its job. Sensible minds could put the kids on probation, community service or whatever, and perhaps expunge a juvenile record even if there was a desire to prosecute? Modify the legislation in the next session.
But when was the last time Florida was sensible? What are the penalties for creation and distribution of kiddie porn in Florida? Probably something like mandatory life without parole and eight hours of Sunday prayer meeting after the dawn whipping? That's teach them for photographing themselves in the U.S.
This is probably the biggest misuse of anti child porn laws yet, but If some republicans get their way it won't be for very long.
Baby Boomers all came of age together. Without the continuum of older siblings/cousins/uncles of previous generations. Their parents, scared of the Depression, the Nazis, then the nuclear Cold War, let them get away with murder, while keeping them in line with fear - though the kids had cars, money, and places to go like movie theaters and rock concerts.
So Boomers raised their own kids all too willing to both spoil them and let other authorities do the dirty work, so they wouldn't be "uncool parents" like their own.
What I said is that parents, not the law, are responsible for disciplining kids. How come so many people in this thread think I said exactly the opposite?
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To be "safe" themselves many adminstrators employ zero tolerance. Posessing hings like plastic lunch knives can get you expelled.
Can someone tell me why "racy" pictures of someone under 18 are "clearly illegal"? The writeup doesn't even try to justify this statement or explain it - it is just said as if there can be no other possibility.
... and then they built the supercollider.
No, because adults are different from kids. You are creating a vacuum in which to analyze my statement that exists only in your mind. There are all kinds of other valid assumptions, like "adults are responsible for their actions, kids parents are responsible for the kids".
The point of the distinction is how to treat the kids. Because adults are not as able to be corrected by an authority figure disciplining them as are kids.
And you know, every murdering drug dealer (or whatever other bogeyman you're afraid of) certainly does have a bad parent to blame for failing to raise them right. Certainly every one I've ever known or known of in my direct experience. What makes you so sure that your blanket statement is correct?
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by "not children" I didn't mean legally, I meant physically and emotionally and all that. ... there should be a third legal status in between "child" and "adult" for teens so shit like this doesn't explode.
The ambiguity is precisely why there is a problem. You can not hold someone beneath the age of consent AND responsible for the abuse of their body the same time. Creating a nebulous third class would only make the problem worse. A person is either capable of making these decisions or is not.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
My personal opinion:
Adults can do anything they want in the bedroom.
Mature teens who want to be treated as adults should apply for emancipation.
Other teens and children need to keep sex with their own age bracket and keep pictures of themselves out of the public eye until they are adults. Limit it to friends and family. For practical purposes this means no emailing them around until they are 18. Once they turn 18 they should be able to spread the KP they made around all they want.
Their own age bracket is like within 5-10 years or so of your partner with prison time and and sex-offender registries only for adults with a minor partner more than 10 years younger OR where it wasn't consensual.
A 30 year old with a 14 year old or a 20 year old with a 4 year old should get prison, a 22 year old with a 14 year old or a 12 year old with a 4 year old should get a misdemeanor non-sex conviction. Both should get a full psych evaluation and if necessary free treatment.
In fact I think that "children" (in terms of responsibility, not puberty) are more trustworthy with having sex with each other than with exchanging naked pictures. Teenage sex has thousands, millions of years of experience mitigating its risks. Sharing pictures has a few generations. The damage might not be as great with the pictures, but the probability of any damage is higher. That's why putting available parents, rather than unenforceable state presence, in charge of this discipline makes sense. Because parental discipline is more available, and more appropriate in its response.
So people are responding to the article when rebutting me, not responding to me though I rebutted the article? That's not worth arguing with.
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make install -not war
Didn't the Court have to examine these photos? It's the judge we should charge with child pornography, in my mind! If it weren't for them, no one but the couple (who obviously have seen each other naked already) would've been looking at them!
Dragging them into court is far more exploitative in my mind than punishing them due to some hypothetical exploitation they might undergo if... what? The kids handed them out to their friends? Even after the Court handed out all their pictures to everyone on the jury!?
And for those ragging on the Christians as though we all support this, I'm a Christian and this is ridiculous. Yeah, fornication is sinful, but I'm sure as hell not going to support locking up children as if they were child molesters. That's just asinine.
No, your problem is that you're ignoring the distinction between child and adult responsibility that absolutely obviously exists both in fact, as any reasonable adult (and most any reasonable child) knows, as well as the law which defines various kinds of responsibility that adults have which children don't.
Other than mere denial, where are you getting your certainty that is totally counter to common sense?
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make install -not war
The fact that you use the sun expanding into a red giant as a frame of reference for time, makes the rest of the post completely believable. Very nicely done.
I, for one, am not going to make any judgment calls on these teenagers until I've seen the photographs for myself.
Please?
not understanding parenting concepts is a trait they have in common with their parents.
Tech Public Policy stuff
So if they get caught at it, you'll be going to jail in their place?
Nice of you, but it's an empty promise, the courts won't let you even if they agree with you that you deserve it.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Maybe it's the parenting concept we have got wrong, more especially since going nuclear.
Read Judith Rich Harris's The Nurture Assumption with an open mind if you want to know where I'm coming from.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Really, both parties, A.H. & J.G.W., while under-age, did this privately. How can the supposed "victim" also be the "perpetrator"?
How can they legally have sex but can't legally take sexual pictures of themselves? The law is an ASS! It is ridiculous to hold them to two different standards.
:) Just kidding. I'm more than happy with all of the adult pr0n out there...so is my wife.
As a side note, where are those pictures posted?
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
The rule of law to keep a just society is breaking down but that doesn't mean that it can't be fixed. Getting rid of a lot of political corruption was the answer to this in my state. The trick of moral outrage to get votes as used by hypocrites can really make a mess of things in the long run - these kids face the courts while those molesting minors in political offices get away with an apology.
I don't know what these kids did to piss the prosecution and the court off, but there is clearly malicious intent here.
9 -07/06-0162.pdf
The short answer as to why these kids were prosecuted is: puritanical paternalism. You can practically see it oozing from Wolf's opinion, which can be read in full here: http://opinions.1dca.org/written/opinions2007/1-1
No, these laws are intended to reinforce the puritanical idea that sex outside of marriage is wrong. They are also intended to give parents a club to use against boyfriends they want to get rid of. Yes, evil trenchcoat-wearing pedophiles were the pretext used to get the ball rolling, just as evil terrorists were used to get the ball rolling for the Patriot Act and other powers on the government's wishlist. Most sexual abuse occurs in the home, yet strangely the most draconian laws apply to those outside the home.
Your argument doesn't make sense. No damage was caused here. Even if the couple concerned split up in the future and one of them is nasty enough to distribute the photographs of the other more widely, that distribution won't mean that the taking of the photo in the first place suddenly became abusive, any more than every time I slept with my ex-girlfriend became rape just because at some later time things didn't work out and we split up. The laws against things like child pornography are there to prevent exploitation and abuse, and neither appears to have happened in this case. Nothing that happens in the future will change that.
(There could, of course, be other kinds of damage caused by distributing those pictures, but that would be true of adults with similarly bad manners too. I wouldn't object to making such distribution illegal on privacy grounds, but this has nothing to do with whether minors were involved.)
I was responding to both, and my views on the behaviour in the article are indepenent of my challenging your position on this issue.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
At least I can keep track of these deviants using the Florida Convicted Sex Offender Database! When a 17 year old girl convicted of Sex Crimes moves in to my 'hood, I'll no *exactly* what to do!
These two indiviuals broke the first universal rule of civilization -- Do Not Get Caught. Regardless of the act, the circumstances, the laws and their penalties, this is the only thing that truly separates the persecuted from everyone else. Kids should be taught that there is no redemption, no hope once you've been had, and no chance to recover their innocence.
On the other hand, if they can take the punishment shovelled out by these persecutors and treat it like it never happened, then they can rise above the masses and join the ranks of Paris Hilton and Dick Cheney. Remember the second universal rule -- If You DO Get Caught, Never Act As Though It Bothered You Even In The Slightest Little Bit.
Damn, I'd like to see Puritanism gone wild:
Puritans Gone Wild XIV: Cape Cod Cuties
You've never seen ankle-baring like this!
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
My work here is done.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Yet the schools expect the kids to be having sex, but playing doctor is outlawed. Where is the logic in this? Sure, they did something wrong, but the application of the law in this case is absurdist humor, not jurisprudence.
I guess irony isn't dead.
"Whatever happened to 'you show me your pee-pee and I'll show you mine'".
Florida is so weird that at www.fark.com, Florida stories have their own section.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Without reading any of the comments, all I can say is...
What the fuck!
The girl's computer may be hacked? That makes it a crime? Now that we replaced Polariods with digicams everything is illegal? Guess I better burn down my house to make sure that the Polariods with previous girlfriends (all the same age) are gone. DOn't want 17 year old charges to screw up my life now.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
If you're too young to consent to having sex then you're too young to be prosecuted under laws relating to children and sex. Surely someone can't be so young that they don't understand the issues and yet old enough to be prosecuted by the law?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What can you expect from a state where the tourist brochures state that, because of the heat, you lose up to ten percent of your mental capacity? Which most people don't have too much of to start with...
I lived there for a year back in the Eighties (not by choice). Florida is full of redneck morons, drug dealers, wizened retirees (including my father, which is why I was there), and assorted other losers. It's on a par with Texas, Oklahoma, and other benighted states with backwards, inbred cretins.
The state needs to fall into the bottomless pits it's built on. (No joke, they have sinkholes all over that state. A two-lane fifty-foot section of freeway suddenly disappeared into a sinkhole some years back.)
Prosecuting two teens for sending racy pictures to each other is the dumbest thing I've heard all week (next to Dell and their power supplies, and Intuit for making QuickBooks require the Administrator account to run.)
Change Florida's motto to: Florida - the Chimpanzee State.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Purely ridiculous.
What if they argued that the photos were inadmissable because they were a violation of their 5th amendment rights? Just a thought.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Just downloaded the MP90.
a ns.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/hyperdrive/killthehum
Age of consent in the United Kingdom is 16.
You have to be 18 to view pornography.
So, in short; you can go out and fuck like rabbits and spread your genetic code, but god forbid you see any naked pictures.
Goten Xiao
There seems to be a lot of misinformation going around about this one. The reasoning being the majority's decision was that, as the law was intended to protect children who were not fully aware of the potential harm that could come to them if they participated in this kind of activity, that they needed to be punished to protect both society from the pictures and their future selves should the photos get out.
They violated CHILD PORN laws. Now they have to register as sex offenders.
Stop and THINK. Does this make ANY SENSE whatsoever? They have to be labeled sex offenders for the rest of their lives because they were emailing EACH OTHER dirty pictures?
+++ATH0
I believe that heard recently on the news that they had upped the age to 16, or perhaps it was just that they were trying to.
I also believe that while the actual act between the two might be accepted under law, the pictures might still be illegal... depends on what judge you get I guess.
das fail to press charges all the time for known illegal behavior.
not filing charges doesn't make the pictures legal.
give me a break.
The key point of the majority opinion seems to be that the law was also inteded to project minors from their own mistakes. Given that, it seems to me that if anyone should have been charged and tried, it should have been the parents of the two kids. The majority even admitted the kids clearly did not have the maturity to properly assess the risks invovled with taking, storing and transfering the pictures. As such, it would have the parents' responsability.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
>The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of virgins.
Tell me... is this a reference to satanism, or... the first time?
First of all, the U.S. was not founded by Puritans. If I recall correctly, the Puritans were pacifists and believed in creating a pure religious society. The founding fathers of the United States rejected the idea of official state religion (though they may have been religious themselves) and they were certainly not pacifists when they organized a military secession from England.
As for colonization, that wasn't the American way, it was the European way. The English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Russians all took colonies in the Americas.
My other first post is car post.
You're thinking of Georgia and Alabama, not Florida as a whole. Florida, remember, is divided into two areas: South Georgia, and North Cuba.
(Yes, I live in FL)
It makes perfect sense. They are minors, as far as child porn is considered. They are responsible for producing that child porn. The fact that they believed they were above the laws just because of their ages, or the fact that they wrongly believed noone would find out, doesn't change anything.
They thought they knew what they were doing. They did not. They should face the consequences, and others should learn from their mistakes, and wait until they are 18 before emailing nude pictures of themselves anywhere.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
Laws with bugs. You shouldn't fix the bugs, because, you see, someone might be relying on the broken behavior already. If they need the bugfixes, let them just buy... uhm... I mean wait till the next version.
But if your mom's a MILF, you won't blame us for wanting to take up what you're passing on, right?
But you see, here in The Land Of The Free (TM)*, the majority of the population see boobies and even sucks on nipples frequently for the first few months of their lives. Then they aren't allowed to see them again for 18 years.
Wrong; that's the minority. Sometime before hitting eighteen, the majority usually get their own personal set to play with — but the Religious Reich frown on it, and yet never forgive them if they ever try to suck on anyone else's boobies ever again.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
No, it does not make sense. They're being punished for commiting a VICTIMLESS CRIME.
Circumcision is child abuse.
No matter what, kids only use digital cameras, computers and the Internet if their parents allow them. And, even then, they should be supervised. I would be surprised if the parents weren't held responsible. I believe they should be.
Children are just that . . . children. And, if the parents don't bring them up right . . . this kind of thing happens. And, it _is_ the parents fault.
Yes, I have a teenager who lives in my home . . . No, she doesn't have unsupervised Internet access. No, she doesn't have a digital camera of her own.
Sometimes, kids do things they shouldn't . . . even when they know better. But, if I found out one of my kids created such pictures, I would immediately have the pictures destroyed, and then I would punish the child for being stupid.
The parents of these children need to be counseled on proper parenting. I would throw the lot of them in jail together.
And, no this isn't flame-bait. This is serious stuff. Kids aren't being raised right these days. And, when they aren't raised right, this is the kind of thing that happens.
What I find interesting, Doc Ruby, is when a kid is at school and does a crime.
Does the school not hold guardianship when he/she is there? From what I have gathered (at least in Indiana), it does.
Why doesnt the school get in trouble: eg the principal, teachers, or guidance councel? Strange it only applies to the parents, not the guardians they spend at 8+ hours mandated a day...
A copy would be in HER outbox/sent_messages too.
---How come so many people in this thread think I said exactly the opposite?
Im sorry, but it's slashdot. Critical thinking is not required. Only being critical is.
And not only that, they even make sex toys for the abstinent (NSFW)
If anything, they've been doing LESS with sex education for years now. More and more, abstinence is being taught as the only form of sex education. Researchers who tried to prove abstinence-only education was superior reported that it is actually worse in all forms than more informative education. The education becomes more and more sparse as you move out from major cities and into smaller communities. A lot of this can be put on the morals movement we've been seeing for the last decade or so since a certain leader got some action in his office. They like to believe that lack of information being given to teenagers = lack of willingness by those teens to feel like sex is something they should do. They say that having a condom in hand will encourage them to have sex. You are right, responsibility is the issue and teens need to understand it. But then again, so do the people that are on the moral crusade to eliminate all forms of discussion about sex. They need to understand that responsibility is about having the knowledge to make the right decision.
Now you've gone and got the foot fetish people interested.
Okay, most of you guys know that Ted Haggard was a churchman who got outed by a jilted gay prostitute. Many of you also probably know about him buying amphetamines from the aforementioned gigalo. What most of you don't know is just what happens when you put 2 and 2 together:
Anal on crystal meth reachs levels of debauchery which heterosexuals have no grasp of. The combination of the two makes that awkward, snappy preacher a much harder man than most any of you ever will be. Imagine, if you will, two men fucking and fucking to the very limits of what they are physically capable of doing--and doing that for hours without slowing down. With enough meth you can stay up for a week, but, if you know what you are doing, you can turn that pile of crystal into a multi-day, multi-partner orgy with only the most minimal breathers. You can fuck to a point where you normally wouldn't just have lost interest, but also been experiencing too much pain to continue. Nothing matters but the fuck: not pain, not protection, and not exhaustion.
Just think about that next time you see him dressed pretty for the cameras.
I fully understand and agree with the laws whose purpose is to protect minors from being exploited by adults, but I absolutely cannot stand the ignorant behavior that most adults exhibit. The lawmakers seem to believe that once a person turns eighteen, they suddenly receive vast amounts of knowledge and wisdom that qualify them to make responsible decisions. Conversely, they believe that NO "child" who is under 18 could possibly understand the consequences of their actions.
/sarcasm )
Bullshit....
A seventeen and sixteen year old couple is COMPLETELY aware of the possible consequences of their actions, but unlike the adults who OBVIOUSLY "have it right", they don't care. They don't care because they have their entire lives ahead of them! It seems that the "adults" forgot what it was like to be sexually excited by the person you are involved with. Not only do they have every right to do whatever they want with each other sexually, but to actually believe that "These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos." shows direct disrespect toward humanity. Just because the laws say that these people are some sort of primal creatures until they turn eighteen doesn't make it true.
Could we maybe just accept the possibility that 'children' are humans, not animals.
p.s. This happens ALL the time. the ONLY reason that these kids are facing consequences in the future is the overreaction of the authorities. Great job, you're fucking up peoples lives because they have sexual desire. (of course its the American way to persecute other people based on your own beliefs. Thats what Jesus would have done!
If you were caught with a picture of these two kids. You would be sent to jail. No question. Is that right?
If these two 'kids' mutually agreed to send out their pics to other people, should they be prosecuted?
Now, can it be illegal to have pics of these two kids if there are situations under which the possession of such pictures might not be illegal. I mean, does the law really care who took the pictures, and the circumstances. Perhaps a judge has to consider that he might make a ruling that leads to a very slippery slope. So maybe these kids hope for a mistrial or something, or they are convicted, but not really punished so as not to set a dangerous precedent.
I think an example needs to be made of these kids -- they should be tried as adults!
I'm worried, however, that then the Florida legal system might disappear in a puff of logic....
|>oug
...send a polite email to wolfj@flcourts.org? That ruling is just ridiculous. Really, who didn't take pictures when discovering sexuality? I know, I did. Sure, those weren't digital cameras, and the risk of spreading the pictures was a lot lower. But even if these pictures were leaked - shouldn't those that get in posession of the pictures be punished?
The bill is still winding its way through parliament, if I am not mistaken.
As for underage pictures, the SCOC ruled several years ago that so long as the sex is consentual and video or pictures not transmitted or viewed by others, the act of recording underage sex is not illegal.
The child is the victim when child porn is produced. How can someone be the victim and the perpetrator of the same crime?
This sort of worries me...I mean, I turned 18 in December. But my girlfriend whom I've been in a relationship with for about 2 years is only 16. Since 16 is the age of consent here though, we weren't exactly worried about how our relationship would be viewed as. The thing is though, she was thinking of giving me pictures of herself for Valentines day. But according to this article, it seems like I could be persecuted for possessing child porn. Just seems a little unfair on principle. I mean, I'm a normal upstanding, law-abiding guy. Eagle Scout even. I find the idea of exploiting young children for pornography disguisting. It's just so happened that I turned 18 at time when my girlfriend was 16, and that I just so happened to still find her sexually attractive despite turning adult all of the sudden. -_- Sigh...I'm going to get a visit from the partyV&, aren't I? Might as well post anonymously...
It should. The law however, should not make all child pornography illegal.
FRA: STFU GTFO
The Florida State Legislature today, unanimously decided to have all childen's genitalia removed at birth. In an overwhelming show of religious solidarity... The state legislature deemed that all conversations, images, and thoughts regarding to sex, would be witheld from children until the age of consent at which time their genitalia would be returned, and re-attached. As well it was decided that the age of consent would be raised to 30.
In a related story, the Florida state legislature has decide that all adults who have not had a child within the last 5 years would have to turn in their genitalia for reasons of "Non-Use". When asked, a representative said "If you're not making babies, then you don't need'em anyway. They just cause all sorts of trouble." Later when members of the press asked why the state legislature had exempted themselves from the bill, the legislature simply blushed and failed to respond.
Genda
The article reads as a concerned group (the Law) wanting to shield two youngsters from their own mistakes ...... by butchering them to death.
.... a death-sentence.
Its allmost as laughable/depressing as that (American) state which punished an attempted suicide by
And you know whats funny about the whole ? If a parent had attempted to do pretty-much the same (emotionally and profesionally scarring their own child for life) they would probably be prosecuted and put behind bars for child-molestation.
IANAL, But if it goes to court they have to be found guilty, or it'd set precedent, it shouln't have ever gone to court, but even now it has I'd hope they'd get something like a $50 fine and turned over to there parents, who no doubt would do far worse :)
Why not require a license for being a parent? why do I have to have a driving license and not for something far more serious than driving?
Its exactly this kind of cotton wool wrapped society that we now live in that is giving us increased crime rates and reasons to fear going outside. When I was kid (here we go.. ;P), I got slapped, I got grounded, I ate what I was given and I did as I was told. These days kids are so wrapped up that no one can do anything to keep them inline and, further, this results in a massive decrease in life experience which consequently harms natural developement. I dont play with the mains electricity after I replaced a resistor in a plug with a gold screw "just to see what would happen" when I was about 12, (240v is what happened). not that I condone letting kids play with the mains :P But I imagine you get my point. :)
Biomech
what next? walking will be prohibited too?
...but this topic is worthless without pics.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30352
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
At least when America was only executing minors and the mentally impaired, or giving people life sentences for stealing pizza, there was a tendentious argument that it was protecting the public from criminals. But this? This is like executing victims and banning pizza in case it gets stolen. "We had to destroy that girl's life in order to save it."
Frank Zappa, deceased i9conoclast, once wrote - Eventually it was discovered that God did not want us to be all the same. This was bad News for the Governments of The World as it seemed contrary to the doctrine of Portion Controlled Servings. Mankind must be made more uniformly if the Future was going to work. Various ways were sought to bind us all together. But, alas same-ness was unenforcable. It was about this time that someone came up with the idea of Total Criminalization. Based on the principle that if we were all crooks, we could at least be uniform to some degree in the eyes of The Law. Shrewdly, our legislators calculated that most people were too lazy to perform a Real Crime. So new laws were manufactured, making it possible for anyone to violate them any time of the day or night, and once we had all broken some kind of law we'd all be in the same big happy club, right up there with the President, the most exalted industrialists, and the clerical big shots of all your favorite religions Total Criminalization was the greatest idea of its time, and was vastly popular except with those people who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws. So, of course, they had to be tricked Into It, which is one of the reasons why Music was eventually made illegal. FRANK ZAPPA - "Joe's Garage" (1979)
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
Minors don't have the maturity to decide whether giving someone naked pictures of themselves as children is a bad risk. Unless their parents decide they do, which is a very iffy judgement.
And FWIW, disagreeing with the article's described behavior by disagreeing with me in terms that agree with me when I disagree with the behavior is stupid.
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make install -not war
If it was one of the parents who reported it to the police, did they send them copies of the photos as evidence? If so, they could be the root of a distribution tree that would likely include the police, the lawyers, the D.A.'s office, and the judges. If a few people send the photos to two people, who each send them to two people, who also send them to two people, etc.... Well, you get the idea! Some of those people may post them on websites, forums, or newsgroups. The distribution could be widespread in no time. Who are the criminals?
When you're dead, you don't know you're dead. It only affects the people around you. Same thing when you're stupid.
Obvious observation that was required...
Hear hear! Mod parent up! Hear hear! Mod parent up! Hear hear! Mod parent up!
Racy photo's are not "dirty". They are erotic, and in this case should only be viewed by the two young lovers.
Anarchists never rule
Heh, they're lucky they weren't in Georgia. Some 17 year old guy got jailed 10 years for "aggravated child molestation" - he had _consensual_ oral sex with a 15 year old girl.
that your parents didn't understand parenting concepts.
If there were an award for Most Ridiculous Person on Slashdot, you would win it. You want two consenting teenagers charged as pedophiles... That is just staggeringly idiotic, and smacks of you being a total fascist. FFS man, what is wrong with you?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Spying on our kids isn't going to be about protecting them from themselves in the future, it's going to be about protecting them from "the law."
The future presents a much scarier situation for parents than it ever has, if you ask me.
If you show me yours" apparently doesn't work online, well not until you're 18.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
It's the next step forwards. There are obviously only murderers and nutjobs using them. Best stop it at the source. Take away guns, blowguns, bow and arrows, and anything else that crazy people can use to into someone. If we stop normal people from using these weapons, then we stop nutjobs using them too. Problem solced, right? AC because this post will likely be modedated insightful, when in fact I intended it to be funny. id: 882697
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
I dearly hope this continues to get appealed and gets crushed by a higher court, because right now I have to say the entire Florida legal system just showed how utterly without sense it is.
It's just a matter of upholding justice for all.
Of course they don't. In fact, it is well established that all human beings suddenly develop judgement and personal responsibility at midnight on their eighteenth birthday.
Absolutely. That is why the law requires parental consent before those same 17-year-old kids have sex.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This is just another example of an endless chain of examples of the American hysteria over nudity and sex. I never been in a society so obsessed about sex and at the same time so condemming about it. I live in the Netherlands were every other city has a red light district so I should have something to compare with ;-) Why can't American just accept that nudity and sex is normal thing. It doesn't damage peoples head to see it!
For further information on this topic, refer to "We Live for the One" and the books at your local library.
You are beating the strawman that exactly 18 is suddenly responsible. I have said no such thing. To the contrary, I have maintained that parents decide when in the gradual process their children are responsible. But until that deadline manageable by the law, as a margin of error, the parents decide.
I'm done arguing down all the strawmen in this thread. Goodbye.
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So if "someone else" is held accountable for the actions of a 17 year old, that "someone else" gets to dictate the rules.
and
These kids got caught breaking the law. They knew it was against the law. They should face the consequences.
So do or don't you consider teens to be responsible for themselves? If they are not, surely they should get grounded rather than go to jail for such a non-violent transgression.
Just how many grandparents are raising their grandchildren, because the moms and dads are not remotely mature or old enough to raise their own kids?
I don't know of a single law that compels grandparents to do so, or treats teenage parents any differently from any other parents.
You expect a Britanny to be able to catch a rabbit when you've got him on a leash? Of course that's not going to work.
Our Brittany catches wild rabbits (full grown...not babies) on a regular basis in our back yard, when he's free to run, and the rabbits are, too.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
The thing that bothers me most about this story was that nobody knew how the police ever found out about the photos... and nobody seems to care.
The "child porn" charge is a technicality. They took the pictures of themselves and only showed them to each other. No victim, no exploitation, no harm. And you can bet that these kids' parents wouldn't turn them in as child pornographers.
How did anyone find out what was in those teens' personal e-mail? Interpersonal communications are supposed to be private and there are laws forbidding invasion of privacy without a court order. So who was peeking at these kids' e-mail, and why aren't they being charged? Isn't that the real story?
I neither confirm or deny these comments: "I know I certianly wanted to look at naked 16 year olds when I was 16, and possibly a couple of years after. Quite frankly in Britain most adolencent males are guilty of rape due to some retarded law about if two underaged concenting 'children' have sex, it's the guy that's done for rape. I beleive the system is outdated, people shouldn't be told how old they have to be to feel something" However, I did write them. XD
Given the hysteria surrounding child porn, molestation, etc. I doubt this could have possibly turned out any other way.
Prosecutor decides not to go after them? The next election, attack ads say "he let a child pornographer off scot-free" and he's history. Possibly he gets suspected of being a "prevert" himself, and his life ruined.
Legislators try to fix the child-porn laws to align with the age-of-consent laws? Same thing.
I'm surprised there was a dissenting opinion among the judges. That took serious balls.
So true.
... "if a girl is vaccinated against the most commonly transmitted STD, won't she just have more sex, which is wrong".
I recently read that HPV vaccines have been available for some time now. It's preventable, but the catch is the vaccine only works if the recipient has not been infected yet. HPV is not always detectable and in females may lead to cervical cancer. However, HPV vaccines have been help up in the government bureaucracy (mostly the Republican side) because, the argument is
I just don't fully understand their logic. They seem to say that "the fear of cancer should stop them from what we think is wrong". Not really. All it does is not-save people when it could, for no good reason.
Education and parenting are what control behavior. It's not 100%-- nothing is. But a child that is loved, nurtured, and educated, is extremely likely to make good decisions with their mistakes being relatively undamaging. In fact, that's our job as parents, to allow our children to have a much room to make their own choices without the mistakes being too damaging. It's called teaching them to make decisions. Their mistakes will teach them more than there successes in many cases. Their successes will teach them confidence.
The government is here to protect and organize our society, not parent our children or make our decisions or run own family units. Maybe the children in this article were being responsible and serious. Maybe they were experimenting and making their own mistakes. That's for them and their parents to decide. Who's to say from our outside point-of-view. The event was private until the prosecutors decided to make it public. I am quite sure, though, that they were not "sexually exploiting each other as sexual preditors" which is what they seem to being prosecuted for. The suggestion seems so patently ridiculous and laughable that I'm livid that they think so.
*Sigh* </rant>
--Dave Romig, Jr.
Actually you just hit the real problem. In my book they were emailing each other personal pictures of legal sex. Emailing personal stuff is pretty stupid when considering the number of places it touches in between but not illegal.
As a result I would ask a couple of question. Why are the pictures dirty? Is it because they involve sex? Or is it simply because the two of them were naked? What if she was in a bikini and he had speedos on. What constitutes a "dirty" picture.
The real problem in this country is its prudity. (spelling?)
These pictures could very possibly get into the hands of some pretty weird types out there. Seems more like there should be a penalty for not being responsible and more than a little bit stupid. Despite all the "my parents should trust me" crap in the various posts, the reality is these two are minors and, from the article, their parents were trying to take care of the situation.
Part of breaking law is supposed to involve INTENT. It is pretty clear these two minors did not intend for anybody else to see the pictures. This is a case of holier than thou cops, a prosecutor looking to make a name for himself and judges that can not differ their personal opinion from the law.
What they did was wrong, and if I was one of their parents I would immediately have a long talk with them about security, privacy, encryption, storage/interception of emails, etc. I'd find a nice and easy file encryption program, show them how to use it and wouldn't rest soundly at night until they promise to use it, goddammit! (Yes, I know I am being harsh, but it's for their own good. We don't want them getting arrested on child porn charges or anything, do we?)
The key part to this phrase is "no matter what". In real life, of course, there are no certainties. For sake of argument, let's assume the going rate is $1000/hour for torturers. If everyone refused to comply with the incentive to torture, the person would not be tortured. Now, many people will say to themselves, "well, someone else will torture that guy anyway, so I might as well get paid $1000/hour to do the work." Unfortunately, given a labor force of 150 million people (or so), one could argue that - beyond a reasonable doubt - this person will be tortured (assuming it's legal). That kind of argument would also have worked (and did) in Nazi Germany in many cases where unspeakable evil happened. That does not absolve the torturer, however. The torturer who rationalizes their decision is part of the system and is thus part of the evil. They are not absolved.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?