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ACLU Sues Penn Prosecutor For Empty Threat of Child Porn
TechDirt is reporting that the ACLU has stepped in on behalf of several teens facing the threat of child pornography charges in Pennsylvania for sharing nude pics of themselves. Unfortunately for a girl in New Jersey, she is facing much more than just a threat, as she was arrested yesterday for posting almost 30 explicit pictures of herself on MySpace for her boyfriend to see. "...the ACLU has sued the prosecutor on the girls' behalf, saying he shouldn't have threatened them with baseless charges — which haven't yet been filed — if they wouldn't agree to probation and a counseling program. The prosecutor says he was being 'proactive' in offering them a choice, but the ACLU says he shouldn't be using 'heavy artillery' to make the threats. As its attorney points out, teaching kids that this sort of behavior can bring all sorts of unwanted and unforeseen ramifications is a good idea, but threatening them with child-porn charges isn't the best way to do it."
I think you parsed the sentence wrong. The DA said "Agree to probation and counseling, or I'll press charges"(incidentally, is that really what "rule of law" looks like?). The ACLU said "WTF? you shouldn't be threatening them at all."
It was the DA, not the ACLU, who proposed probation and counseling.
(playing Devil's Advocate for a moment)
For some people, the idea is that teenagers getting naked for other teenagers is moral decay, and moral decay means that God will punish the country by sending hurricanes and the like. So this sort of social issue is in their mind really a matter of life-and-death or the safety-of-the-nation. In this mindset, Hurricane Katrina was divine punishment for boobs on Mardi Gras, for instance. People like Pat Robertson have been pushing this worldview for a long time.
No, I don't believe it for a second, but that's the mindset.
I am officially gone from
This isn't the first case like this. There was A.H. v Florida, which made national headlines. Unfortunately, it ended badly for the teens in question.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I think you parsed the sentence wrong.
You are 100% correct. I realized sometime after I wrote it, and decided to just let it go rather than comment if nobody noticed. Unfortunately, somebody did, so here we are.
Now that I have RTFA... heh... I guess this is the relevant passage:
This relates to the Tunkhannock School District case where phones containing pictures of semi-nude girls were confiscated; the letters followed. One could conceivably consider them blackmail letters; confess to a fairly serious crime and do probation for it (as noted, election time is coming up; looking tough on child porn is always good political capital) or we'll haul you into a real court. I think the question of whether he would actually have drug them into court at all is a good one to ask here. I think that charging your constituents' kids with serious crimes is not a great way to ingratiate yourself to them, though.
No, bad laws make them criminals.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My understanding is that something has to include sexual acts to be considered pornography. Nudity, by itself, is not pornography.
Where have you been the last decade? You don't have to read through the respective laws to know that the term can, and typically does, mean most anything. A casual reading of headlines would inform you that people have gone to jail for taking pictures of fully clothed minors, and those registered as offenders, for example, have gone back to jail for looking at pictures of fully clothed minors. Equally bizarre is that terms like manufacture and possession have been successfully applied to images stored locally in RAM, or to what's contained in browser temp files.
The dirty little secret (pun intended) is that almost all of the "child pornography" available on the internet consists of minors in suggestive poses, and sometimes, but not always, in suggestive or provocative clothing. The other 0.0001% are private pictures taken by actual abusers (invariably relatives) and privately passed around until they're not so not private. Mixed into that last tiny percentage are a few one-off cases of people who actually took nude or semi-nude pictures and tried selling them on a website.
For anyone that thinks I'm exaggerating or overstating my case, this link will take you to what I believe is considered as one of the more popular sites. WARNING: be sure that the laws in your current place of residence don't preclude you from visiting this site, or downloading the gigabytes of "child pornography" available there or on similar sites.
With respect to the article, the irony is that those whom we seek to protect now must be protected from themselves. What isn't so laughable, however, is that at the mention of the term "child pornography", everyone nods their heads in complete and unthinking agreement, so much so that no one is paying to attention to what any of it means. That leaves those with power to do as they please.
Every law that congress passes should have a section titled "Purpose" which describes, in detailed but plain English, what the goal of the law is. When cases go to trial, the judge and jury review the law and also the stated purpose of the law and unless the trial is fulfilling the stated purpose, no crime has been committed.
That's a neat idea. Amazingly, it's been considered before. Even more amazingly, that's almost exactly what happens!
Except it's only done if the law is ambiguous, in which case judges attempt to work out the intent of the law by looking at committee reports, conference reports, floor debates, changes to the bill during the legislative process, and, in a pinch, hearing minutes.
This is probably the case you are referring to.
The girls are 14 years old. I don't know ANY thinking adult that would consider 14 as "sexually mature".
Sounds like you're the one not thinking.
Sexual maturity
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
You know that nearly 100% of violent offenders consumed a drink containing at least 60% dihydrogen monoxide within the 24 hour period before their crimes?
In fact, 100% of those who are under the influence of alcohol at the time of their arrest also had dihydrogen monoxide in their blood stream.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
| The sex drive is second only the hunger drive so if the teen has a full stomach then what
| do you think the next priority is?
It doesn't invalidate your point, but sex comes in at a distant fifth. Top five needs are:
Breathing, thirst, hunger, mothering and sex in that order, as determined by the amount
of voltage a lab rat will withstand in order to meet each of these needs.
Reference: __How to Get Whatever You Want Out of Life__ by Dr. Joyce Brothers, my second
favorite book title ever. Amazingly, it's full of practical suggestions, rather than
vague platitudes.
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Since that was 2006, I decided to see what they decided.. The Utah Supreme Court decision (pdf warning) wasn't nearly as imbecilic as the prosecutor, trial judge or appeals court.