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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."
Pics or it didn't happen.
What kind of world do we live in when the children won't think of the children?!
The girl yesterday was apart from her distribution charges was also charged with possession of child porn. So any child may not have pictures of themselves naked. Hope everyone has burned all their photo albums with the pictures of themselves or children in the tub as infants. Because if you have not, then you are next.
... so you don't miss the part about the 14 year old girl in New Jersey who has been charged with possesion of pictures of herself.
IANAL, esp. a constitutional one: However, this seems to get into 5th Amendment territory. You can't be underage, post pictures of yourself on the internet, and be charged with child pornography distribution as a minor. The act of distributing lewd material inherently assumes that you are not a party in the material itself, or at LEAST, that you are not the ONLY party in the material. If anything, you could charge the minor with public nudity or something, but not a pornography charge. That's ludicrous.
Only today can someone be sent to jail and put on a sex offender's registry for sexually abusing themselves. Clearly, she is a danger to children and shouldn't be allowed to live within 2000 ft of a school building or daycare for the rest of her life. And certainly, every time she applies for a job this should come up on her background check. Oh, and don't forget to force her to notify her neighbors that she's a sex offender.
I am so tired of the "let's make an example of them" mentality that is used to justify this crap.
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
Probation? That's still an admission that she did something illegal. If you don't own your own likeness, that's a problem. It would not be the first time the ACLU completely missed the point. (Yes, I'm still glad they exist, on the balance.) Counseling is only really an admission that she did something not socially acceptable... which is therefore an acceptable statement to make. But even probation is an obscene punishment for distribution of your own likeness.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Really? Teenagers having sex and taking naked pictures of themselves is now a nationwide problem?!
No. Millions of people losing their jobs is a nationwide problem. Teenagers taking naked pictures of themselves is a non-issue. These aren't exploited kids being molested or stripped against their will. And I guarantee you at least one of these prosecutors streaked, went skinny-dipping, etc. in their youth. This is just ridiculous. Don't we as a nation have better things to be worried about than a teenager getting naked for another teenager?!
Personally, since "my body, my choice" (abortion) law applies to teenagers, I'd personally say that the same should apply to this situation. If they want to take or distribute nude photos of *themselves*, then there shouldn't ANY "way to do it", best or not. The government should butt the heck out of the situation.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Umm... Do nothing?
Taking naked pictures of yourself and distributing them is, arguably, stupid; and kids are hardly renowned for their wisdom; but that doesn't mean that the state needs to become involved.
Coercive power is all well and good when dealing with crime; but it is a lousy tool for teaching responsibility. "Hey, kid, the consequences of your actions are so severe that, in order to teach you that actions have consequences, I've had to impose a bunch of synthetic consequences on you. Enjoy life on the sex offender registry."
If, in fact, their actions have consequences, then I suspect that the kids will learn about them soon enough, no need to impose artificial ones. If they don't turn out to, then there is no need(or ethical reason) to impose any. Their parents should definitely have the "doing stupid things is a bad idea" talk with them; but the DA can GTFO.
Following this same logic, if a teenager masturbates they should be charged with sexually molesting a minor...
In my state, age of consent (with some exceptions) is 16, which is pretty realistic because they would just do it anyway. What isn't realistic is that they can do it... but they can't look at it.
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
Well, as you know, sex offenders are very likely to reoffend. Sex offenders who offend against children are extremely dangerous today. This prosecuror is doing his part to change that.
By making these girls sex offenders abusing themselves, well... soon they will be too old to reoffend! Thus drastically lowering the recidivism rate for sex offenders!
Don't you think it would be great if we could lower the number of sex offenders who reoffend later? Shit, measures like this could result in a 90% drop in reoffence rates!
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The consequences of what? Being sexually mature but living in a society that pretends you aren't?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Easy, the couple will eventually break up and then the ex-boyfriend will post the pics online and/or pass them to his guy friends. If you weren't smart enough to see that one coming, well too bad for you. Lesson learned.
You can tell a kid that riding his bike without holding the handlebars is dangerous and he'll get hurt. Either he listen to you or he doesn't, falls, gets hurt and then understands the lesson.
If we keep on preventing kids from learning stuff on their own we're going to get a generation of people who can't think for themselves... what a lovely world that'll be...
~Syberz
A meeting with the girl, the guy, both sets of parents the DA, a teen counselor, and ideally a judge. Make it mandatory for all. Although it's technically a crime by the letter of the statute, it is probably not by the intent of the legislation writers. An explanation that it could be considered a crime; how the pictures could be misused, how they're not private (anything in the internet can get out), and how the future might not look favorably on what they consider a prank or what a 14 yo thinks is harmless fun.
Really, the legislature should address this in a sound fashion by identifying it as a different class of offense - ideally only for digital transmission (since polariods have always been around, and hard copies generally aren't forever) - and as a very low level misdemeanor that includes the potential for a fine and/or community service only, and drops of your record when you hit 18. This isn't life or death here, and it's not exploitation, but it does carry some inherent risks. Treat is as the foolishness of youth that it is.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
When I was a child and growing up, seems like everybody had pictures of the kids in the tub or whatever, and it was fairly common to see a neighbor's 2-year-old running around naked. There was absolutely nothing sexual about it and nobody even thought twice about it.
I think the real perverts are the people who have turned this into something naughty and sick.
Yeah, I agree with you in that charging these kids with a crime is a pretty terrible way of dealing with it. I mean, I can see it (the threat of being charged with a crime) working most of the time on some kids in the "Scared Straight"-style, but it really does seem to be overkill. And, of course, if they're actually charged and jailed/registered that is WAY out of line.
That said, these actions can have consequences and, these days, they could turn into long term/permanent consequences. I'd draw a comparison to getting a tattoo on an exposed body part (face, hand, etc.). It's perfectly fine if you know what you're getting into, but teenage behavior generally isn't characterized by its foresight. Especially in instances like photo sharing where the expectation will be that it remains private, but whether or not it actually STAYS private is completely out of your hands. And with the longevity of data on the internet, the consequences can live on for a long time.
My question is simply what would be a good way to inform teens of the consequences of these actions without forcing them to live through the possible mistake. That's the whole point of education after all. Good parenting, obviously, is the best answer, but somehow that doesn't seem sufficient (this is a whole other discussion). Should the government really just be completely hands free in this? Would a school sponsored D.A.R.E. like program work? (probably not). I don't know the answer, but I think it's worthy of some thought.
Its like explaining to a narcotics officer the problems with prohibition. He will tell you about the dangers of drugs, the way they have no quality control, the dangerous ways they are produced, house fires, stuff thats too pure killing people, stuff thats adulturated killing people....
I saw something in the news earlier on this, the tide may be turning: "New York to ease its landmark tough drug laws".
Yet never once can you expect acknowledgement that if it was legal and regulated, then phizer, phillip morris, and glaxco-smith-kline would produce standard product, at known purity, at reasonable prices.... and solve ALL of those problems, leaving behind the medical issue of addiction, thats really one for the doctors.
CNN has been going on about the War on Drugs and what's happening along the Texas border with Mexico. Every tyme I see something about it I think it wouldn't be a problem if drugs were not made illegal. Legalizing drugs would cut down on crime. And practically empty the prisons in the US, the US has the largest prison population in the world and half of the prisoners are there for drug offenses. Setting free those who were convicted of non-violent drug offenses then many will become tax paying employees and would help with the budget deficit. As would taxing drugs.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
If minors can have sex legally with each other, which they can...
Actually, I wish I could find the link to the story that contradicts this.
A girl, 14, did the deed with her boyfriend, 13. Due to the state's laws, the girl was classified as a victim of sexual abuse. However, as she was the one who initiated the act with another minor, she was also classified as a sexual predator.
Still trying to figure out that one.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
One of the most sensible British judges, Pickles J, once commented in dismissing a case that there are many things that people do which are annoying, stupid etc., but so long as they do no harm to other people the law should never get involved. Unfortunately, the Labour Government in the UK tries to imitate the US system. (Which is one reason I hope we get rid of them next year.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
When I was a child and growing up, seems like everybody had pictures of the kids in the tub or whatever, and it was fairly common to see a neighbor's 2-year-old running around naked. There was absolutely nothing sexual about it and nobody even thought twice about it.
Not only did we run around naked when I was growing up but we also played Doctor. Even today, and I'm middle aged, I don't have a problem with naturalism.
I think the real perverts are the people who have turned this into something naughty and sick.
You hit the nail right on the head.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
At least half of all high schoolers are sexually active (along with a larger proportion of college students, some also teenagers). When I was in high school, I remember most of my sexually active peers had digital pictures of themselves or their partners. This was true of males and females, gay, hetero, and bisexual. The number has probably increased recently now that everyone (middle class and above) has a camera phone.
I think young people need to fight back for their right to love each other and express themselves. These should be basic human rights. In the west we decry female genital mutilation because we believe that it is a basic human right to experience pleasure and to have full control of our own bodies. We need to apply the same standard to all of our post-pubescent population. As someone in their mid twenties, I can tell you that plenty of my peers in high school were more responsible in their sexual activity than my peers now. Maturity has more to do with individual personality than age.
Sexual images are a form of expression like any other. There is no reason that free speech should not apply to it as much as anything else.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Your understanding is incorrect but very understandable. The problem is that what is and isn't pornographic is highly subjective. Generally, as far as child pornography is concerned, it is merely enough that the pictures are of someone under 18 years of age and "intended to arouse sexual desire". Which does seems appallingly vague. In this case though, it seems pretty clear that the pictures were intended to excite her boyfriend.
The questions here are:
1) Can a person sexually abuse his/her self?
2) Is the purpose of child pornography laws to punish for the harming of the particular child in the photographs or to shut down the child porn network itself? I can imagine an argument that although she wasn't harmed in the taking of these pictures, these pictures do harm society by supplying material to a network of people that do harm children.
3) If she's to young to consent to the pictures because she can't make rational decisions regarding her sexuality, why can she be charged for making a poor decision regarding her sexuality?
If they aren't going to be flexible on this then the public needs clear guidelines:
adult takes photos of a nude minor - illegal
nude adult takes photos of a nude minor - more illegal
adult takes photos of nude adult - sexy
minor takes photos of a nude minor - illegal
minor takes photos of nude self - illegal
nude minor takes photos of adult - ?
nude minor takes photos of nude adult - ?
parent takes photos of nude infant - generally legal
infant takes photos of nude parent - probably funny
stranger takes photos of nude infant - OK only if it's Ann Geddes
traffic camera, security camera, sporting event camera crew takes photos of nude minor streaking - ?
adult makes drawing of nude minor - probably from Japan
So we have a few spots that need clarification.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
A girl, 14, did the deed with her boyfriend, 13. Due to the state's laws, the girl was classified as a victim of sexual abuse. However, as she was the one who initiated the act with another minor, she was also classified as a sexual predator.
There's nothing to figure out there: morons were writing the law. For one, having sex with within a few years of your age someone should't count (with consent of course).
Also, having a law that allows a girl to be classified as both victim and predator for the same act is seriously fucked up. Someone didn't think of the children.
Best possible way to get this law stuck down - get a high school student to go nude in front of the city hall security camera, and then file child pornogrpahy charges against city hall, and a lawsuit.
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.
This is probably the case you are referring to.
I am so scared of the government abusing anti-sex laws to control the population and regulate the Internet, that I am starting to think it would be better "for the children" to form an alliance with the evil, hated pedos.
It's not that I approve of their sexual desires, but honestly - we are facing some of the most dangerous legislation in recent history - and using child exploitation as an excuse. The thing is, when I do have kids, I will be far more afraid of legislators and police assaulting/jailing them than run-of-the-mill child molesters.
In the interest of protecting freedom, perhaps its time to start scaling down the hate and anger towards this group of people. If we don't, we could all - including the kids (like those in this article) suffer terribly for it.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
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"
This type of law is actually meant to prevent, for example, the girl's dad from reporting the boyfriend to the police. If he did, charges would automatically be filed against his daughter. Slightly less fucked up, but still fucked up.
Still trying to figure out that one.
Easy. Rule 1 of sex crime laws: the woman is always a victim.
Thanks for asking the question. Most people just assume that child porn has always been illegal and never give a thought to the basis for those laws.
I'm old and I've viewed porn since long before videotape existed as a consumer product. I'm also from the U.S., so my experience is limited to the laws in my country. I'll take a stab at answering your question because it's a very important one.
For most of the history of the U.S., child porn was legal. (Some will argue that child porn has always been illegal because obscenity has always been illegal and child porn is obscene. They have a point but not a practical one. There was negligible prosecution for obscenity in child porn cases in the past because they were hard cases to make and you couldn't be sure of a conviction. Thus,) Until the 1970s, child porn magazines and 8mm films were easily available in any large adult book store in any large city.
This bothered people for good reason. In those days, there was no amateur child porn. Film photography (no digital back then, remember) is expensive and developing film isn't easy. Almost no one took pictures of child porn unless they were doing it as a business. Further, there was no (essentially) cost-free distribution medium in those pre-internet days.
The bottom line is that back in those days, child porn was a business. If you possessed child porn, you had to have bought it. If you bought it, you were giving money to adults who were in the business of molesting children.
That's not a good thing.
In fact, it's such a bad thing that when we started making child porn illegal, the few objections on free-speech grounds (and there were some) were easily dismissed. The value of free speech, in these narrow circumstances, is not enough to overcome the legitimate interest of the state in protecting children. Remember, in this case, we're talking about the REAL protection of children. The act of buying child porn back then was functionally equivalent to paying a group of adults to rape kids. No court had a problem with outlawing it.
From that perfectly reasonable beginning, weirdness soon began to grow.
Simple possession was outlawed and nobody raised a fuss because, well, who cares, really? The few pervs who collected large amounts of the stuff were also the people most likely to buy more, so making their lives more difficult wasn't seen as a problem.
Remember, at that time child porn laws came into existence because child porn consisted of adults being paid to rape children. Child porn prohibition had a positive effect on reducing that problem and everybody was happy - except the pedos. In the immediate pre-consumer-internet period, child porn had ceased to exist as a commercial product. Essentially no one in the U.S. was selling it except for the U.S. Postal Service as a part of sting operations. About the only place to get it was alt.sex.pedophilia (and related groups); most of what was available there was simply scans of old nudist magazines. Child porn, for a while, was essentially dead.
Then, the consumer-level internet and ubiquitous digital media technologies came into existence. EVERYTHING changed. Comparing then to now:
Then, child porn was expensive to produce. Now, it's cheap.
Then, child porn was a business. Now, it's amateur hour, all the time.
Then, child porn exclusively involved adults molesting kids. Now, the most common forms of child porn involve children molesting themselves.
Then, child porn only saw the light of day because an adult sold it. Now, most child porn involves no adults at any stage of production or distribution.
Then, child porn was rare because it was difficult to physically distribute the magazines and films in quanti
thats slightly MORE fucked up. Laws should not be made to encourage people to NOT report crimes.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
The judge is about as smart as a fireman not stopping a fire in a burning building because of a "no trespassing" sign.
Liars, telling them that all drugs are the same, and all drugs are dangerous.
"Predators" apparently seeking to rape them (according to the media, anyway).
Cops trying to assault and jail them for self expression, sex crimes against themselves, underage drinking, and curfew violation.
School administrators making them pass through metal detectors, move at the sound of a bell, search them and their lockers, and threaten them at every available moment.
Parents praying that they don't explore what nature tells them to explore.
TV telling them the world's about to end, and that they should drink Coke and eat McDonalds, that intellectual pursuits are lame, and that sports rule everything.
Bullies pushing them around, and occasionally shooting up schools.
Busybodies telling them to stop playing, and stay indoors, so they don't get hurt.
We are a truly screwed society in 20 years.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Should the government really just be completely hands free in this?
Yes. Nudity should never be a crime.
If you don't come down hard on a teenage girls sending nude pictures of themselves to their boyfriend, they could possibly eventually hypothetically in the future end up having problems because of it, somehow.
Instead, let's throw them in jail and brand them as sex offenders.
Better not leave it to chance.
The system is built to prevent nullification. I was called to jury duty last year. As soon as we were seated to answer the judge's questions, we were all first put under oath. Under oath, we were all asked a very specific question.
"Will you be able to render a verdict using only the judge's instructions on how the law is to be applied."
I was under oath, and obligated to raise my hand indicating that I might not be able to do this. When I was questioned about my response, I had to answer honestly to the point that I could not follow the Judge's instructions if I felt the law was being applied in an unfair way. I was immediately dismissed.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
TFA: "When lawyers for the parents asked for a copy of the photos that would be used to charge their children, Skumanick reportedly refused on grounds that he would be committing a crime by sharing child porn."
Let's assume that this can be generalized -- the kid's lawyers in a child porn case can't have the pictures because that would still be distribution by the DA. Also, let's assume that we're going to be showing them to the jury, so that they can determine if the picture in question is actually child porn.
The 6th amendment, abridged for brevity's sake: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to...be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation"
In a case like this, the pictures are at the heart of both the nature and the cause of the accusation -- and actually seeing the pictures is necessary to determine if it is pornography.
Seems to me child porn laws are illegal, given at least one of the statements in the two posits above is true.
but IANAL.
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.
Well, it's a bit harder than that because the consensus view is that people under 14 can't give consent. Personally, I don't think it makes sense to have a universal age limit for that, but most people disagree with me.
No I agree with you, the current law is very unjust. Part of the problem nobody wants to deal with is that children become sexualized quite gradually starting at a very young age.
Having said that, wanting to have sex is not the same as being able to give valid consent to have sex. These are two separate issues. To give valid consent (so the theory goes) you have to be able to assess the likely consequences of an action in light of an understanding of your true desires and intentions. The orthodox view is that 13-year-olds don't know what's good for them.
To give valid consent (so the theory goes) you have to be able to assess the likely consequences of an action in light of an understanding of your true desires and intentions.
My two basic desires and intentions are survival and reproduction. Everything else is just the framework to make that happen.
Part of the problem nobody wants to deal with is that children become sexualized quite gradually starting at a very young age.
I think the problem is more likely the adults. They're embarrassed about it. They think the TV will teach the kids. By the time they want to give The Speech about bees and flowers, they could very well ask them for advice.
Even if we say they can't consent (which is fine with me), it doesn't then make sense to prosecute them for that. I mean, if we say they can't comprehend the consequences of having sex (or taking photos), why do we then say they can comprehend it when it comes to criminalising them?
The argument for saying they can't consent is that they don't have the mental capacity to do so, but this also means they ought not be held criminally liable for it.
So that's one way to handle it - below a certain age, they can't consent to sex with all (even with someone of the same age), but they also aren't liable for their actions.
Cases like this pose interesting and important Constitutional issues. Do teenagers have a first amendment right to take nude pictures of themselves? Or do these fall under the child pornography exception to the first amendment even when not for public display? This sort of thing gets threatened reasonably frequently, and I think that a court really should be forced to rule on it in the reasonably near future. Personally, I think that if you make a child a sex offender and a felon for behavior that would be constitutionally protected for an adult (taking nude photographs of oneself, and handing said photos to boy/girlfriend), there are serious 4th Amendment issues to consider as well.
Hopefully, the courts would accept an as-applied Constitutional challenge to the child pornography statutes. This wouldn't overrule the statutes but simply say that they could not be used to prosecute this sort of behavior.
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