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Musician Jailed Over Prank YouTube Video
An anonymous reader writes "Evan Emory, a 21-year-old aspiring musician, edited together video of him singing a G-rated song to a bunch of giggling school kids with video of him singing a song with sexually explicit lyrics, and posted it on YouTube. For this stupid joke, done many times by professional comedians (all NSFW, obviously), and admittedly done without getting permission from the children shown 'hearing' him sing naughty words, he was arrested and could face 20 years in prison as a sex offender. On the pretext of looking for 'souvenirs' of child sexual abuse, his house has been searched by police, and the Muskegon County (Michigan) Prosecutor has insinuated (with no further evidence) that Emory actually wants to have sex with children and claims he 'victimized every single child in that classroom.' Emory insists he had no such intention."
Better jail Monty Python as well.
That's the very next thing I want to watch!
Seriously, this sounds pretty ridiculous...
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Welcome to United States of Iran
He wasn't saying sexual remarks to children, how about you RTFA.
just sounds wrong on many levels. 20 years for what seems to be a joke done in bad taste.
http://chimpbox.us
His video depicted him saying sexual remarks to children. Whether or not they were actually there doesn't really matter. In America you can't even post naked pictures online of people you claim are underage, even if they are in fact over 18.
Not even that, RTFS - Summary!
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Land of the litigious.
By railroading this guy, what the Muskegon County Prosecutor is actually doing is weakening the severity of real child abuse in the public's mind by diluting it with dumb but ultimately harmless comedy.
Gee, I wonder why he would possibly want to do that....
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
One of the very first vids I ever saw on YouTube was Barney the dino rapping along with kids to dubbed-in hard lyrics. He was shaking a giant toothbrush at the camera singing, "You want some of dis, niggah? Come git it!"
I never thought the author would be at risk of prosecution because I was too busy laughing my ass off. The sh8t you can get into trouble for is amazing. I thought the anal exams for possessing nail clippers at the airport was the pinnacle. But no.
Table-ized A.I.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCXwx7xfIMY&feature=player_embedded
The moral of the story is this: If you are a male (especially a single white male over 30) in the 21st century, do not go anywhere near children. Don't look at them, don't talk to them, don't get within 50 feet of them (especially if you own a camera, even if you leave the camera at home). For the love of God, don't be in a public toilet if one happens to come in, even if Dad is there with him and especially if Dad doesn't come in with him. Do not interact with them in any way, even virtually, such as re-dubbing a video, drawing a picture, mentioning children in an e-mail, nothing. More and more often, this includes your own children.
Remember, all men are automatically guilty even if they've done nothing wrong!
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
CSI just showed somebody shooting an underage person a dozen times in the chest. Better arrest those actors for murder, then. Idiot.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Gosh, amazing how soon change their mind. If someone dares to infringe upon your privacy you cry wolf but if a guy misuses children for the sake of views "However, when later asked if he regretted his decision he seemed a bit more cavalier: “I guess we’ll see how many views it gets on the Internet,” he said." then that is alright.
The kids nor their parents gave permission for this footage to be used as this. Don't they have rights? Hang him on this, confiscate all his past, current and future earning to pay for damages. That should frighten any musician I know far more then mere jail time.
Yes, the joke has been done before, but the other PAID and the people involved ALL knew what was going on. Big difference. If you disagree, then basically you think it is okay for a picture of you to be taken from the internet and placed besides an article you don't want to be linked to. Oh wait, that happened just a while ago and everyone was so outraged by it.
Guess that hypocrisy rides again.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Charge them all or let them all go.
Now, since he didn't get a model release or copyright release on the images of the children, the kids' parents may have a very strong civil suit on several grounds and the copyright owner of the video MAY have a copyright claim if it's not covered under fair-use.
All in all, unless this was a student project not intended for publication, he was stupid to do this without a model release. However, in a free country he shouldn't have anything to worry about on the criminal front. The question is, is Michigan free?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This video is probably going to go in wide circulation after the media reports on this story. If they try to suppress him, it'll just generate more publicity.
Sorry, "Charge them all" means charge all the comedians and others who have done this before.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The law needs to be extended to include morons. They feel they have to charge him with a sex crime since there's no laws on the books for charging him with rampant acts of stupidity. It's like charging him with attempted murder for running a motorcycle into a brick wall as a jackass stunt. They need to be able to charge him with being a jackass of the third degree. First degree would be extreme danger to himself or others but since he appears to cause minimal risk to himself or others the lesser third degree charge would apply. An appropriate sentence would be forcing him to wear a cone hat with the word "Dumbass" on it for 90 days and be required to do 100 hours of community service speaking to kids on how to avoid becoming a Dumbass like him.
His video depicted him saying sexual remarks to children. Whether or not they were actually there doesn't really matter.
What?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
8==D ~~~
check it out, it's an underage dick! oh the humanity!!!!
Eat shit and die you freedom hating fascist fucker.
And since it has been removed, I can't watch the video and make my own judgment about what was said. Because I think as usual, the prosecutor is doing the prosecutor thing and using the protect the children bullshit witch hunt to boost his political career.
Of course, the stupid ignorant easily swayed with two bit opinions dipshit public will crucify this poor guy and his life is forever fucked. Even if he's exonerated - he's fucked.
We are not a free country anymore, no thanks to our draconian sex, drug and terrorism laws.
A system which allows a moron to become a prosecutor, fails.
Read radical news here
whats thttp://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/02/19/2134202/Musician-Jailed-Over-Prank-YouTube-Video#he url for the video??
Here you go folks, let those at the Muskegon Prosecutors office know how you feel about their use of tax dollars....
prosecutor@co.muskegon.mi.us
It isn't illegal to depict children being murdered, we're totally fine with that here in America. The GP is correct though, and you're the ignorant asshole.
Some wrong these guys...
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Pretty sick and twisted thing to do. The guy obviously has issues and needs to get professional help to control these urges. The singer guy too sounds pretty screwed up.
You don't have the freedom to say sexual remarks to children.
If you're not paying attention to the constitution, that is. It clearly just says "freedom of speech." Speech doesn't hurt them in the least. How ridiculous.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
What if every singer in Michigan dared to take some out-of-copyright or liberally-licensed video of children and dub them signing this or some similar song they cleared the rights to and posted it on YouTube?
Would prosecutors in Michigan dare to arrest them all?
--
For the sake of not hurting anyone, if you try this please use videos of kids who are now adults or of possible, well over 50.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The keywords here are "stupid joke", "done many times by professional comedians", "21-year-old aspiring musician". He thought he was playing in the same field as the Big Boys with Big Lawyers. Big mistake. There is royalty, there are their jesters and courtesans, there are royalty's guards and minions, and there are little people. Those who belong to the latter category ought to know better than to stick their heads where they're not allowed. When the little guy plays with the Big Boys, the Big Boys rip the little guy's head off, chew on his brains and spit them out, shit into his skull and wipe their asses with his face.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
Next thing you know, it will be against the law to tell a kid that Santa Claus doesn't exist.
With the copyright violations it will probably never be back up.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
His video depicted him saying sexual remarks to children. Whether or not they were actually there doesn't really matter.
So if I step on a 3" person I made out of clay I can be found guilty of murder? Are you fucking insane?
Protect them from naughty words, video games, television, movies, comic books, music, and pretty much all forms of entertainment in existence. And yet, even with all of this meaningless 'protection', I still don't feel as though I've locked them in a small enough bubble yet. What should we ban/censor next? After all, saying naughty words is bad because naughty words are bad (because I said so). Even though they're just words with meanings like every other word and they won't really hurt them unless they themselves be hurt by them (and as everyone knows, your constitutional rights are being violating if you get offended by something), they mustn't be allowed to hear them! What a great plan! Forget freedom of speech (speech that offends others is clearly prohibited, even though that is extremely subjective and the constitution mentions nothing about that)! This guy's just... a terrorist and a pedophile!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
But, this person should be banned from participating
in education of children
... is of little help if you are distracted.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You're practicing murder. So, yes. Besides, stepping on clay offends me, and as everyone knows, the constitution was made to protect you from things that offend you...
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I, personally, think the idea was hilarious and I am in search of the video so I can watch it and laugh. But to the parents and school administration, perhaps this video is insulting and tasteless, at best. Criminal? Felonious? Child pornfuckingography? Are these people INSANE?
Next thing you know, it will be against the law to tell a kid that Santa Claus doesn't exist.
Child rapist! We got a child rapist here!
Legally, he is correct. Rationally, it's stupid that he's correct... But he's still correct.
This country is broken.
Please fix it.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Give the FBI a run for their money.... are they *really* going to spend millions of dollars to bust down every Slashdot nerd's door just for clicking on that link? Maybe, considering how flagrant their definition of "turrrrist" is.
You don't have the freedom to say sexual remarks to children.
I guess you don't watch TV much, or listen to the radio.
Oh, and show us where the guy in question did as you suggest, as he didn't.. The children never heard a thing.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
His video depicted him saying sexual remarks to children. Whether or not they were actually there doesn't really matter. In America you can't even post naked pictures online of people you claim are underage, even if they are in fact over 18.
Yes. This is known as "crimethink".
I didn't read the book but the WikiPedia summary of the book makes it sound like child sexual abuse is no big deal when in fact it is a very big deal.
While the book's author is largely correct "that later in life, after the memories are processed, examined, and more fully understood, the experience becomes traumatic" this is precisely why child sexual abuse IS a big deal.
The fact that it is a delayed trauma does not make it non-traumatic, except perhaps to people who die fairly quickly after the abuse happened, before their sub-conscious or conscious mind reacts to it.
Another factor not addressed in the summary which I hope the book covers is the harm done by the ongoing subconscious processing of the experience before the conscious processing happens. This may come out as stress, physical ailments, physically aggressive or other socially inappropriate non-sexual behavior (socially inappropriate sexual behavior is easily explained by "daddy did it to me, it must be okay if I do it to someone else"), and the like well before the child consciously processes the fact that she was abused. I say "she" as most child-sex-abuse victims are female, but the same goes for male victims.
Also, the Wikipedia article says "[Susan] Clancy [the book's author] concludes that since sexual abuse of children is not violent per se." If Clancy does indeed say this then she is just plain wrong or she restricts himself to only certain definitions of violence. In my book, violence does not have to be physical or even overtly coercive. Any act which violates another person without being, on balance, good is in my book an act of violence. Parents and other caretakers frequently violate the personal autonomy of children, it is a necessary part of proper child-rearing. The "on balance good" test covers things like forcing a child to endure pain while he gets his vaccinations, forcing a child to go to bed at a certain time, and all the other things that parents and others can and must to in order to be responsible caretakers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
To all the people talking about model release forms and all. Watch the videos in the article. The principal specifically says the parents opt-in to their children being recorded on video. Honestly. If my daughter was in a video like this. I'd laugh for 10 minutes straight and thank the guy for giving me a good laugh. As long as she wasn't exposed to the lyrics, there is no harm to her. I'm typically over protective(or so I'm told). My daughter has a slight fever and I want to take her to the doctor. I stare down every man around if we're out in public. Whether they're looking at her or their back is turned to us. I'm paranoid. But seriously. This is ridiculous to say he's harming children when no children were present during the explicit song.
... has to have its witch hunt. What I find really odd about it is that some of the same people who now recoil in horror at the thought of what happened during the McCarthyism era will happily toss gasoline onto the pyre of anyone who is accused of pedophilia. Proof isn't an issue anymore; the accusation itself equals certain doom.
It sure seems that modern "crime" investigations need to start with these words: "alright, first: everyone kindly calm the fuck down".
I'm tired of hearing about cases where there is OBVIOUSLY no real victim, yet the "trial" marches on. And it appears that we have a hard time presuming innocence when there's insufficient evidence to convict.
I hope that this isn't an upward trend...maybe this has always happened to some degree, and we only hear about it more now because of the Internet. Either way, it scares the hell out of me and makes me feel like we should be putting the prosecutors on trial instead of the "criminals".
"Microsoft killed my company, I hold a personal grudge. I don't use Microsoft products and neither should you."-JWZ
What's even bad taste about it? TF summary links to six examples of the same thing. It's a common joke. Having a character do or say something inappropriate in front of children has been done forever.
This is just some retarded prosecutor thinking a clip of someone using dirty words in front of children is the same as a clip of someone actually fucking the children. This is just moronic. Saying "fuck" in front of little Billy is not the same as fucking little Billy.
I've seen someone go through this and despite having video evidence in his favour (that the police saw at the start), the police continued for 2 years and eventually lost. But not before racking up enough legal costs to take several years to pay off. The police don't have to win to do severe damage. If someone is on a blind crusade, they can do one hell of a lot of financial damage and damage to his reputation before they run out of options.
This case is less cut and dry. It will be harder to prove, and harder to defend since it's about intentions rather than an act. But I suspect for the police, that's not the point.
Funnyhacks - Wierd, unusual, and fun hacks
Wouldn't you want law enforcement to investigate something like this? Whether he was prosecuted or not would be a different question, but if something looks sexually explicit towards children, then isn't that to be investigated?
If the article is correct, however, and the scenes and things were edited in and not performed live in front of the kids, well that is for the attorneys to work out (and most likely the charges will be dropped).
I'm pretty sure that faking a rape on you tube would also get the police involved. It's just not a smart thing to do.
So what every commenter so far is saying is that this "Harmless" "Bad taste" joke in no way victimizes the kids. That's absurd. At what point does it become victimization then. If he had actually done the song in front of the kids and filmed it, would they be victims. If he had made a movie where he abused the kids, would that be wrong, even if it was not real. Get a sense of law and morality, there are few victimless crimes, this is not one of them. The kids are victims, because they did not consent to something that in reality would have been damaging, libelous, and subject to prosecution. Computers and technology do not give free reign to virtually create abusive depictions without consequences. Good grief, I cannot believe the support yielded to this shithead on /.
what I implied, but forgot to say: They don't have to be right either.
Funnyhacks - Wierd, unusual, and fun hacks
As ridiculous as it may sound, replace "Santa Claus" with "God" and all of a sudden we're not that far from reality anymore.
c++;
The 'professional comedians' link is for the clerks scene where Randall is trying to order porn from his supplier, but in the commentary it explains the reason they cut to just Randall is he wasn't comfortable saying all those things in front of a kid.
Freedom shrinks as population grows.
They don't have to bust down everyone's door. Just a dozen or so, and make sure it's well publicized.
That's awesome justice! A few high profile bust ins, and the'll have the ACLU up their ass faster than a junkie can roll a joint...
While it's true almost anyone can go to a school office and ask for a tour, actually getting to be in a classroom where the kids are is not commonly allowed.
He was an invited guest in the classroom in a place where John Q. Public would not be allowed in during the school day.
Public events like open-houses, PTA/PTO night, and the like are different. But that wasn't the case here.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I would want a cursory investigation to make sure the video was faked and that the actual filming of the students was done with the school or teacher's okay.
Once that was proven then it becomes a civil matter and the information should be turned over to the school and parents for them to handle as they see fit.
This whole thing should've taken a day or two to investigate. The judge should've demanded this level of investigation and reasonable evidence that the video wasn't faked before issuing the search warrant.
As for the Michigan law as written, the judge should've looked at it through the lens of the 1st amendment and related Supreme Court precedents before issuing a search warrant pursuant to the statute. If he had done so, he would not have issued the warrant unless he had reason to believe it was not faked.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Is anyone over the age of 13 really going to get upset that that particular person was shot?
You keep using that word. (Children.) I do not think it means what you think it means. I don't see any children in the video at all. I see a bunch of high schoolers.
Odds are, he'll end up pleading guilty to a lessor charge. I honestly believe he likely did violate the law in terms of child protection statutes. He used footage of the children without permission of the parents. If that is the case, then the case is pretty cut and dried. It may have been a joke, he may not have not intended to hurt any children or break any laws and he may be an idiot, but that won't cut it in front of a judge. If he's smart, does a plea agreement and appears to be contrite, however, the judge might take those things into consideration when handing out a sentence.
He did NOT sing profanity to children.
He faked a video that made it look like he did. This kind of humor has been done on a professional level many times.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It is serious shit, lying to a school to gain access to their kids.
These 6 and 7 year old children were edited into the video in a way that would achieve maximum shock value. That is a good working definition of "pornographic."
The publication of the video violates any notion of privacy, any notion of informed consent by the parents, the teacher, the children or the school.
The law in Michigan does not give you a "Photoshop" defense. The depiction of a child - or any part of child - that is pornographic in context is criminal.
It doesn't matter that the children near heard the obsence lyrics. It matters that audiences were being led to believe they were part of the performance.
That a singer whose career has been going nowhere fast did this simply as a "prank" stretches credibility to the breaking point:
Parents learned on Wednesday that the video was first shown on Valentine's Day while Emory was performing at a local comedy club
Evan Emory's YouTube classroom video turns into felony sex charge for singer
Don't drop the soap
... producing and possessing child pornography - if you did that as a part of a sexual fetish of some kind. And filmed it or recorded it in any way or form.
I'm one of those old fashioned guys who thinks that you can't punish sex offenders enough as soon as there is a kid involved. That being said I'm even more old fashioned to say that there is no humor IMO when it comes to threading on the edge of these things.
Making up saying dirty stuff to minors? my, my, what fun we're having...
We can whine all we want here but how is the justice system going to determine that this is or isn't real? Because you're saying so? Yeah right! Because you can show another vid. of those kids in class? How are we to know that the "proof vid" isn't actually the fake one? Or a deliberate one to cover up ?
I think its a very good sign that when in doubt the justice system acts and hauls your ass in. Don't want to risk such penalties? Easily done; don't get involved with explicit material in combination with minors. How simple can it be ?
Sorry, but I think he got what he had coming to him.
This is fucking ridiculous. This guy shouldn't have even been charged. Not only because any reasonable person can see these children were not exposed to the material, and it was produced for the sake of humor, but also because he didn't violate the law.
Here's Michigan's law on child porn:
[www.legislature.mi.gov]
And here's the relevant stuff:
(m) "Child sexually abusive material" means any depiction, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, including a developed or undeveloped photograph, picture, film, slide, video, electronic visual image, computer diskette, computer or computer-generated image, or picture, or sound recording which is of a child or appears to include a child engaging in a listed sexual act."
(h) "Listed sexual act" means sexual intercourse, erotic fondling, sadomasochistic abuse, masturbation, passive sexual involvement, sexual excitement, or erotic nudity.
(j) "Passive sexual involvement" means an act, real or simulated, that exposes another person to or draws another person's attention to an act of sexual intercourse, erotic fondling, sadomasochistic abuse, masturbation, sexual excitement, or erotic nudity because of viewing any of these acts or because of the proximity of the act to that person, for the purpose of real or simulated overt sexual gratification or stimulation of 1 or more of the persons involved.
Using dirty words around a child is not a listed sexual act. Therefore a video which purports to depict children listening to a dirty song is not a listed sexual act, therefore this dude is not guilty and he should sue the fucking pants off the city for arresting him and charging him with a crime which even a layman can see clearly does not fit the act in question.
Also, if this guy is guilty they need to arrest the people at the TV stations which accuired copies of the video, because if this video is child porn, they were trafficking in child porn, and there is no clause which allows a news station to make a copy of and posess a child porn tape for the purpouses of reporting on it.
It must grate on the intelligent folks in the US every times one of their mouth-breathing compatriots pulls one of these stunts (and for those of you needing a scorecard, I'm referring to the prosecutor). Sorry for interrupting your 'Ow My Balls!' to the rest of the US.
So is hate speech laws.. and we are ok with them aren't we?
...that prosecutors and lawmakers felt pain for writing and enforcing unconstitutional laws. Not simple fines, but something akin to what they'd do to the defendant if they won. Or, if that's cruel and unusual, they should simply be executed.
Pot heads roll joints, junkies use needles. Lets not lump them into the same category shall we?
... and the Muskegon County (Michigan) Prosecutor has insinuated (with no further evidence) that Emory actually wants to have sex with children and claims he 'victimized every single child in that classroom.'
Seems that the Prosecutor is projecting (with no further evidence) onto Emory. Hopefully the Prosecutor will get help and stay away from children, especially the most vulnerable, his. Boy this evidence thing just gets in the way.
He wasn't saying sexual remarks to children, how about you RTFA.
He lied to the school to gain access to their kids.
That is criminal trespass under almost any jurisdiction you could name.
Without permission, he used an empty classroom as a stage for his sexually explicit performance. That again is criminal trespass.
Without anyone's informed consent he edited videos of six and seven year old kids into his adolescent and obsene music video.
There are well-timed cuts to particular faces.
The video makes these kids part of the performance ---
and that is all that Michigan law requires for prosecution on the felony charge.
The video was posted to YouTube and played to a local comedy club. That looks less like a prank and more like commercial exploitation.
First off, he didn't sing to them as davidwr pointed out.
Second off, legally speaking, it is not illegal to "sing profanity to children" so long as it is, "indecent, but not obscene." Obviously, had he actually been singing to these kids the obscenities used in the song (or, at least, stated that were used in the song as no one seems to be able to find a copy of it) than that could be grounds for an obscenity charge.
As it stands, this is likely to settle, get thrown out, land the guy in jail for much of his natural life for a prank that I'm pretty sure I've almost done, or (possibly the worst outcome of them all) make a law that has (as far as I know) effectively taken many pedophiles off of the streets and away from kids that they can hurt unconstitutional... Kinda sad, but that's what happens when the world is run by paranoid politics...
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Are those prosecutors and agents actually taking a step back and look at what they're doing anymore? It's like they're deliberately trying to look as idiotic as possible.
I'm curious why the link that says 'Professional' links to some random tone-deaf douchebag who couldn't be funny if his life depended on it?
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
No.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Different studies will yield slightly different stats. Here's one I found:
For all forms of abuse and neglect, the gender breakdown is about 48.2 percent make and 51.1 percent female, which is close enough to 50/50 to not nit-pick. See Child Maltreatment 2009, p. 22, "Child Victim Demographics", http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm09/cm09.pdf for that statistic.
The full article is behind a paywall, but the abstract for
"Characteristics of child sexual abuse victims according to perpetrator gender," http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7583755 , says "Both lone female and lone male perpetrators abused more girls (62%, 76%, respectively) than boys."
This study was published in August 1995. These numbers do not include victims who had multiple abusers working in concert. However, with the 3-to-1 preference for girls by lone male perpetrators, and that male perpetrators are generally thought to outnumber female perpetrators 3-5 to 1, I find it very hard to believe that female victims don't outnumber male victims by a noticeable margin even if other factors such as any differences in the number of victims per perpetrator based on the perpetrator's preferred victim gender are included. Sorry this isn't the rock-solid evidence you wanted but until something that contradicts it comes along, it should be enough to support the claim that female victims outnumber male victims.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Just like everyone else here, IANAL.
But what you seem to mistake is that filming in a location that has an extremely limited expectation of privacy such as a school room (just ask any COP if they need a kid's permission to search the locker. They don't, they're the school's property) is not illegal. Using this footage in this way can be seen as libelous, but that's a civil, not criminal matter.
If your kid were used in this video, you would have a civil case against Evan Emory without a doubt as it was being implied that the child was enjoying a sexually explicit song. Now if Emory were to have sent the video out directly to the children, he could easily have been charged under obscenity laws, but that's about it.
Long story short, it was a stupid move. He should have used some B-roll that he could purchase licenses from someone and found a way to make it look like he was in the same room with them, or having it played over a TV in the classrooms. At least then he would have covered his ass civilly. Long story short, this is going to be bad for Michigan.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Sooo.... are all the people that viewed the video and have it cached on their hard drives guilty of possession of child porn or a depiction thereof ?
K... arrest all those individuals also or its not fair... I mean... they are obviously pedophiles if they viewed it right ?
WTF?
he was explaining the legal situation. not approving of it.
as you thick?
It would be interesting to see how the victim-gender breakdown changes with the age a given perpetrator first victimized a given victim.
It's been said - and I have little to back this up - that among male perpetrators who prefer prepubescent victims the number of perpetrators who aren't picky about gender is way higher than for perpetrators who prefer adolescents.
While I can't cite a statistic that says it's true, if it is true, it makes some sense. Biologically we are wired to become sexually active at age 14 and some societies that don't extend education past age 12-13 still allow marriages at this age, even between people of vastly different ages. Among adults who prefer adult sex partners, only about 5-10% of males strongly prefer male partners and a few more are close to 50/50 bisexual, so you would not be surprised if the "gay + bisexual prevalence rate" is close to that of of adult-preferring men among adult males who prefer adolescent partners. My guess is it's less than 20% for both groups if you define "bisexual" as having less than a 2-to-1 preference for one gender over the other and "predominantly hetero- or homosexual" as having more than a 2-to-1 preference.
If true, this "high bisexuality rate" also makes some sense because absent social clues like dress, prepubescent kids are a lot harder to tell apart by gender than adults or teens late in adolescence, particularly if they not engaging in gender-identifying behavior.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Actually, it does matter, because he never actually said sexual remarks to children. No one was fucking victimized by this. No one was harmed unless you count the kids/parents being angry that the footage was used in such a fashion, and even then the best you could probably do is a civil suit. As others have pointed out, this guy is hardly the first to do this kind of thing. South Park depicted Mr. Garrison teaching kindergarteners about hot carls and the like. Why aren't Matt Stone and Trey Parker in prison?
This is beyond fucking absurd. Show me who was sexually abused or shut the fuck up.
Who's this "we"? Do you have a turd in your pocket? You'll find very few /.ers defending hate speech laws.
Then charge him with criminal trespass. Charging him with creating child pornography is ludicrously overboard and beyond idiotic as I seriously, seriously doubt he had any kind of sexual motivation whatsoever. It was a joke and he never actually sang the explicit lyrics to the children. The guy's a dick, and perhaps prosecution is in order, but let the charges actually fit the crime.
Well, the video has since been removed by Youtube. And since it has been removed, I can't watch the video and make my own judgment about what was said.
Well what do you expect youtube or the police to do if they come across something they think falls under the definition kiddie porn? No need to search the shady corners of the Internet if you can just "study evidence". Duh.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Thanks, AC. Us "pot heads" appreciate your swift and accurate defense.
I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
However, in a free country he shouldn't have anything to worry about on the criminal front. The question is, is Michigan free?
He was in deep shit from the moment he lied about why he wanted access to these kids.
It goes back to the civil rights era of the sixties and to later and well-publicized cases of parental and stranger abductions, school shootings, hostage-takings, rapes and other acts of violence.
You have a legitimate reason for being on the school grounds. You play by their rules - or you are going to see some jail time. It is that simple.
Michigan doesn't have a Photoshop defense.
If you edit the video of a child - or any part of a child - into your X-rated final cut, it will be taken at full value.
If you conned your way into a grade school to get that facial shot of a six year old girl you needed, expect the cops to come around for a look at the porn on your PC and the panties in your dresser.
No, he absolutely was approving it. He seems to be completely unable to comprehend that people might be outraged at broken laws. Probably because he's a fucking moron troll.
His video depicted him saying sexual remarks to children. Whether or not they were actually there doesn't really matter.
Are you serious or is your interpretation of the law just warped? First of all I'd like to see you actually cite any real laws that are remotely on your side. If someone is depicting something that isn't real, then my interpretation is that you can't charge them for the act. See in Hollywood there are things called "special effects" in which things don't really happen. Like in any teen slasher movie, that 16 year old (played by a 22 year old) that got decapitated by the villain didn't really happen. Otherwise, the actor who played the villain could be arrested for murder.
In America you can't even post naked pictures online of people you claim are underage, even if they are in fact over 18. In America you can't even post naked pictures online of people you claim are underage, even if they are in fact over 18.
Really cite any real case. In the case of Melissa Ashley, she's had to testify in a few cases that despite her appearance she was over the age of 18 and any photos or scenes of her are not child pornography. I think one judge admonished the prosecution for not doing any research.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Guess we'd better arrest Dave Chappelle, too. Or is saying you're going to urinate on someone not considered sexual by the courts?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You selectively excluded an important part (1466).
and B)lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value;
Details matter.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Does, or does not?
...meh, each side of the God debate claims to be persecuted. Have fun depicting the other side as the overbearing authority, that seems to be the standard operating procedure when brought into question. Rather than debate whether or not God is real, claim persecution and blame the other side for turning society against them. As if they weren't already bringing it on themselves.
This is one of the greatest things the internet has ever produced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQp5l4-sfFA
It's been taken down time and time again and people continue to upload it, google have given up taking it down now. I find it utterly hilarious and quite relevant.
As for the seriousness of the article itself, one word. Idiocracy
Umm. What was the question?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Evan-Emory/192566290767711?sk=wall
Well, it's not entirely without cause. If you have a picture of a little girl and a picture of a dick, both are legal. If you photoshop them together so it looks like a sexual situation involving the girl, it's child pornography. If this wasn't the case you could make and distribute lots of extremely realistic pictures this way without risking any real penalty.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Why is it written in past-tense, has he been jailed or not?
We are not a free country anymore, no thanks to our draconian sex, drug and terrorism laws.
Spoken like a true Communist.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
A school is a public place, hence no real expectation for privacy.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!
The school is one of those places where trespass laws have teeth that can bite and bite hard.
You are welcome on the premises only when you have a legitimate reason for being there - and only when you play by the rules.
We can have both an effective system to give abused kids the therapy they need and we can have a society that allows caring adults to be caring adults.
As for the state of therapy - I've said elsewhere in this thread that today's system needs improvement but it beats anything we've had since before the Leave It To Beaver era.
If we are to have a society where caring adults can be caring adults, we need several things we don't have today:
* Training the next generation how to be friendly to kids they don't know well and whose parents they don't know well but not behind closed doors, especially not 1-1.
* Train kids from a young age what is and isn't okay for an adult to do. Unfortunately we have a chicken-and-egg problem since the best training is to live in a world where the vast majority of adults DO engage kids spontaneously yet responsibly, which because of fear we do not have today.
* Train parents that it's perfectly acceptable and expected that adults will interact with their kids IN PUBLIC PLACES and that the adults will sometimes initiate the conversation. Give parents the tools they need to train the kids how to react if they become uncomfortable and give the parents the tools they need to keep the lines of communication with their kids open.
* Accept that there will likely be a small increase in the number of non-family child abuse victims as a result.
The last one will be a hard sell - convincing people that a generation of kids that live in a relatively sterile, to use your words, society is actually more harmful than a small uptick in the number of kids who will suffer an immense harm is no easy task.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Bad taste is not a criminal offense in the U.S. Far as I know he did not lie to anyone far, according to the news reports of this case.
What matter here is that the prosecutor is making up charges as he goes a long. In fact, I am sure that he is abusing his power by this action and has made him self liable by a criminal investigation into his office by this action that he has taken. Because this is not a due process and this man that he is prosecuting is not guilty of any crime by U.S law far as I know.
Sec. 145c.
(1) As used in this section:
(a) "Appears to include a child" means that the depiction appears to include, or conveys the impression that it includes, a person who is less than 18 years of age, and the depiction meets either of the following conditions:
(i) It was created using a depiction of any part of an actual person under the age of 18.
(ii) It was not created using a depiction of any part of an actual person under the age of 18, but all of the following apply to that depiction:
(A) The average individual, applying contemporary community standards, would find the depiction, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
(B) The reasonable person would find the depiction, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
(C) The depiction depicts or describes a listed sexual act in a patently offensive way.
[. . .]
(k) "Prurient interest" means a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion.
-----
It's likely that under the "appears to include a child" standard, the issue will be:
Based on "community standards" would an "average individual" find the video to appeal to "a shameful or morbid interest in sex"?
That seems like a stretch - but the bigger issue (IMO) is the use of the prosecutorial resources for a situation that would be more appropriately handled through civil litigation than criminal prosecution.
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
that millions of people come and want to come to the US? Oh, that's right, total propaganda blanket and censorship and all that...nm
But she's only 2 clicks away from child abuse!
Today, at least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa-Ashley
leads to
http://telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061228/NEWS/612280745/1101
which has as one of the top stories:
Articles Most Read Today
2. Ex-pastor found guilty of sex with teen (T&G)
http://telegram.com/article/20110219/NEWS/102190363
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Headline: "Musician Jailed"
Article: Musician could be charged with offence which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years.
Pretty crazy to be arrested for it but lets just wait and see whether the case gets laughed out of court before we jump to conclusions.
Potentially jailing someone for 20 years after making a parody is a slap in the face to victims of real child rape.
What a terrible world that would be! Imagine, a place where people posses the unrestricted right to free expression. The horror!
2nd to last paragraph should read:
Assuming there was a sure-fire way to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies, and assuming a society that operated in a pure lasse-faire, do what you will and harm none mode only reacting to offenses upon complaint rather than preventing or deterring them, sex before marriage would still be unwise in any case. For sex between equals or near-equals the cost of ignoring that wisdom would be small. Sex between non-equals where neither is not an adult would need to be supervised to prevent unintentional or intentional taking advantage of the situation, and sex between non-equals where one is an adult would need special handling to make sure the adult wasn't taking advantage of the situation. For the same of argument I'll allow for same-sex and even more-than-2-person mutually monogamous lifetime bonds to be considered a marriage. Not that I would be happy living in such a society, but if you are going to have a lasse-faire society, such unconventional arrangements will be part of the picture.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yes, you'd think Muskegon MI Prosecutor Tony Tague has got a full plate, what with a serial killer on the loose in his county, eh?
I'd imagine that good ol' Tony wasn't too happy about his ongoing failures appearing on television every night, but the Evan Emory case buys him a nice little reprieve, never mind if it distracts law enforcement resources from finding a serial killer. If your feeling frisky, I'd suggest calling his office to tell him that his little stunt isn't fooling anyone.
I'd expect the internet vigilantes will eventually start harassing the parents who complained. As the police are involved already, I foresee the /b/ tards proceeding by giving anonymous tips that various involved parents are the Muskegon county serial killer, or running a meth lab, or simply reporting a domestic dispute.
Imho, the /b/ tards will actually do less damage to Evan Emory's case by pranking the police about the parents rather than prank calling the parents directly because the police won't involve the news media when they get pranked. I hope his lawyer asks for a change of venue irregardless of the internet shit storm of course.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I live here in Muskegon, Mi. These are the same people who tore down an 80 yr old retired WW2 veteran's home (basically) because they could not afford to take it by eminent domain @125% of value. It was an historic home. The home was built by the first mayor of the city and was on the city's precious historic trail. The man was a hoarder - a known mental illness- so the house was filthy on the inside. After the first hit by the wrecker the city declared the house structurally unfit and finished demolishing the home.
These people have a nickname -- Gestapo. They are extremists in their puritanical beliefs, and this musician knows this. Therefore he wasn't just being a moron, his actions went to the level of recklessly - moronic - imbecile. He should have moved to Detroit first then did this using a willing classroom out there. Does he deserve 20yrs in prison and the reputation afterwards? Does a guy who puts his hand in a running lawnmower blade deserve to keep his hand? I guess fate plays it's part in these kinds of cases. He lost.
---- Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
America
You will find a lot more then you realize.
Most posters on slashdot do not mind questionable laws they can benefit from or that do not directly effect them.
While the existence of God is the subject of debate, no right-thinking adult on earth actually believes Santa Claus exists.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
It's an act. How is this any different from movies depicting adults doing bad things to children?
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
Reading over my comments in this thread it's possible someone might get the idea that I don't think child sexual abuse is very, very wrong.
Let me be clear:
While I concede that over millions of victims of child sexual abuse over the centuries, there are a small percentage who lived their lives without any signs of harm and who themselves believed they were not harmed, and while I concede that there is also a small percentage who either in their own mind or in an objective sense benefited from the experience, IT IS STILL WRONG. VERY WRONG.
Even if - and I think this would be a gross exaggeration by a factor of 10 to 100 - 50% of victims lived the rest of their lives with minimal or no negative consequences and even if an additional 10% believed - accurately or not - that they had a net benefite from the experience, the harm done to the other 40% including the grave psychological harm done to some victims and the fact that we as adults KNOW this harm occurs is more than enough to declare sexual between people who are wide apart in age in power if both are not adults as WRONG on its face. Even for those who do not share my moral values, most would agree that it is worthy of criminalizing in the same way that we criminalize other behavior which is likely to cause harm even if it does not do so all the time even if my grossly exaggerated numbers above were correct.
Since the true distribution of harm is much more tilted towards "harm was done" and away from the "it's mostly harmless," the argument that it should be illegal is bolstered. By how much, I don't know, since I don't have an accurate statistic. But it is bolstered.
By the way, I'm just talking about non-painful sexual acts that a child or teenager might find enjoyable in the moment, such as fondling. Yes, you heard me right - I admit that a child can enjoy having his privates being fondled by an adult. I already factored that into my statements here and in other threads, so don't try to convince me to lower my estimations of the amount of harm sex with adults does to children and teenagers.
Once you factor in sexual acts which are painful or which the younger or less powerful person objects to in any way or in which the child felt coerced, the harm and wrong-ness become far greater.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'd be upset if my kid were in the video without my permission, but the manufacture of child sexual abuse material charge is complete bullshit.
He lied to the school to gain access to their kids.
Debatable. He probably didn't lie per se, but rather simply failed to volunteer some key details. "I'd like to come sing for the children" vs " I'd like to come sing for the children, and then edit the video to appear as though I sang a much less appropriate song for comedic purposes". IANAL, but both are true in the technical sense.
That is criminal trespass under almost any jurisdiction you could name.
Even if we were to conclude he lied, and what you say here is true -- two big if's -- it still wouldn't matter. Criminal Trespass is not what he's being charged with and it's not a crime which carries a 20 year prison sentence and listing on a sex offender registry.
Without permission, he used an empty classroom as a stage for his sexually explicit performance. That again is criminal trespass.
He had permission -- not necessarily from the school itself, but from an employee of the school who was his friend.
Without anyone's informed consent he edited videos of six and seven year old kids into his adolescent and obsene music video.
Poor judgment perhaps, but at *worst* this is a civil matter -- not a criminal one.
The video makes these kids part of the performance ---
and that is all that Michigan law requires for prosecution on the felony charge.
A court will decide that, but expect that if it agrees with you that another court will be asked to decide if the law itself can possibly be constitutional.
The video was posted to YouTube and played to a local comedy club. That looks less like a prank and more like commercial exploitation.
Irrelevant to anything. Again, if he's using people's likeness for a commercial gain, that might be a civil matter -- but never a criminal one.
http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/1295334513_24bc9423.gif?w=350&h=185
So? Prison time?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Nary a peep from the law, anywhere (that I could find). Clearly, depictions of a teacher blowing kids up into hamburger because they didn't have the correct opinions doesn't sink to the heinous depravity of this musician's vid. /sarc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k&feature=player_embedded#at=86
People on my street get stabbed and beaten shitless at a frightening rate.
Mr Policeman, who would you rather arrest? A musician sat at home watching TV, or an angry as fuck smackhead with a bloodstained knife and nothing to lose?
No, it's like you don't know the laws or something.
Sorry, but its too late for you there. Think of the country as the Golgafrincham B ark - just leave them there. Tell them you are going out for a walk and then slip across the border!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The cops came to my house to deliver a warrant for a speeding ticket and notifed me of how long I had to pay it before it became contempt of court.
Anyway, the neighbors freaked out. Thought I was a pedophile and the cops were there for that. They don't let their kids outside anymore...even after I talked to them and explained it.
They defaulted to the pedophile thing. They are still hung up on it. I bought this house a year ago and I'm going to move soon - and part of the reason is to get new neighbors.
I name "Michigan", and I do not believe that lying to obtain permission to access a school is criminal trespass. I also dispute the idea that the kids belong to the school.
That again is not. Furthermore, he had permission: "The teacher had bowling practice, and he told us we could use the room."
No, it does not. It makes the kids appear as if they were part of the performance. The performance took place in an empty room.
Really? He was arraigned on a charge of "manufacturing child sexually abusive material". Even ignoring any constitutional questions, the definition of child sexually abusive material from MCLA 750.145c is
The key thing to notice is that it must include a child, or appear to include a child, engaging in a listed sexual act. Listening to a song (raunchy or otherwise), is not included in the list, which is "sexual intercourse, erotic fondling, sadomasochistic abuse, masturbation, passive sexual involvement, sexual excitement, or erotic nudity."
Pranks and commercial exploitation aren't mutually exclusive. Typical, of course. You're like most people, with such a pro-authority bias that no matter how ludicrous a charge is, you'll tie yourself in knots to justify it.
If someone actually commits then prosecute them. There are real predators out there but hysteria over every hypothetical doesn't solve anything. In this case of the musician, what he did isn't remotely related to child pornography yet it was brought as an almost irrelevant hypothetical.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This sounds like more zero tolerance police state crap. Have a look at this: http://www.lewrockwell.com/whitehead/whitehead26.1.html
Throughout US history, there have been several episodes of fear, hysteria and scapegoating. The first example is the infamous witch hunts. Post WWII, it was Sen. McCarthy-led anti-communist crusades. The famous playright Arthur Miller made the comparison very clear in his master work The Crucible. Now, it seems pedophiles are the new communists. What better a 'fear fix' than to imagine Pedobear hiding under every bed, lurking in the school staffrooms and coaching your kids' ball teams.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
How many are ACs and how many are registered members? Don't take ACs into account when measuring the views of /.ers.
I'm surprised you didn't say don't count the same person twice too.
the fact of the matter is that there have been stories on slashdot concerning the very subject of hate speech and hate crimes and there are generally always enough people on both sides of the argument to drive the discussion to well over 500 posts and usually more.
I don't keep metrics on slashdot. I keep mental notes of what it see. There are quite a few people here who would either side with the same type of law if they saw a benefit from it or wouldn't care about it altogether.
Correct. Even if he prevails, he loses. Any future date or employer or friend or other associate that ever googles his name until the end of time will see this disgusting accusation tied to his name at the top of the results and there's nothing he can do about it.
Maybe the prosecution should read their own state's laws. Under Sec. 750.145c of the Michigan Penal Code: "'Child sexually abusive material' means any depiction [...] which is of a child or appears to include a child engaging in a listed sexual act.
'Listed sexual act' means sexual intercourse, erotic fondling, sadomasochistic abuse, masturbation, passive sexual involvement, sexual excitement, or erotic nudity."
The only thing in the law even remotely resembling what Emory might have included in his video was children who appear to be engaging in "passive sexual involvement." Let's define it:
"'Passive sexual involvement' means an act, real or simulated, that exposes another person to or draws another person's attention to an act of sexual intercourse, erotic fondling, sadomasochistic abuse, masturbation, sexual excitement, or erotic nudity[...]."
Thus, the law requires that the video at the very least appear to depict children who are exposed to any of the bolded actions above. Even if, for the sake of argument, you could say the children in the video qualify under the "appears to include" language, the children are still not depicted as being exposed to any of the "listed sexual acts."
So it boils down to this: the video appears to (but does not actually) depict children watching Emory sing an explicit song, which falls under none of the actions covered by the statute. These children were not harmed, at least not in the way from which the statute is designed to protect them. In American law there exists a concept called the act requirement - meaning we can only punish people for things they actually did. Emory did not actually violate the law as it stands. The prosecution should pursue the case from a privacy rights angle, but leave it at that.
...it's not uncommon for the whole family to go to sauna together. I wonder what prosecutors like this would make of that...
You know what, fuck this place. I go to all the trouble to research the actual statute, post why it doesn't apply to this case, and I get voted down to 0 so nobody will see my comment. There's no fucking point in posting here anymore. The fucking comment system sucks anyway.
While the existence of God is the subject of debate, no right-thinking adult on earth actually believes Santa Claus exists.
AFAIC, no right-thinking adult on earth actually believes gods exist.
the guy made a video where he pretended to say highly sexual things to kids.
That's not as bad as actually saying those things to kids, but it' s still pretty bad.'
If one of those kids saw it on YouTube, it would really not be a good thing, normal children of that age are still quite shocked about 'dirty words', much less some adult pretending to ask them for sex.
Oh never mind... This is just one of the many examples of why I'm ashamed of what this country has become.
If the mexicans start seeing how evil and soviet style usa is, they might reconsider crossing the border.
What made usa great? all its immigrants from yesteryears. So make the country so shit house, no more immigrants, and what out come do you get?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
This guy sang in front of kids, then modified that video to appear as if he was saying vulgar things instead. Somehow, this ludicrously construes child abuse or some nonsense. Ok, whatever.
Here's the missing puzzle piece... what if someone ELSE had taken his video, redubbed it, and posted it like that?
Lesson: if you want to do what this guy did, make sure that the redub is posted by a different user that isn't traceable. Apparently this 'crime' only happens if you are both the person who sings to high school kids with permission of the school AND the person who makes the humorous redub later- just don't be BOTH of those people (traceably) and you should be fine.
In the meantime, of course, this is an absurd travesty of the legal system.
How can a "stranger" abuse a child without abducting them?
The stereotypical "pervert in the park toilet" - which hardly ever happens by the way - can be result in abuse without an abduction.
Another possibility is a "friend of a friend" situation, such as my kid is over at a friend's house, and one of my friend's friends or relatives who doesn't know my kid or me is there and this friend/family-of-a-friend entices or coerces my kid into an abusive situation.
My kid was not abducted - he was exactly where he told me he would be.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Failure to pay the monies to the victim would be considered contempt-of-court, and the responsible persons sent to 1 year additional jailtime.
In most states contempt of court comes in two flavors:
The kind the judge can send you to jail for for the duration of the contempt plus a small additional time, usually days or weeks, and "Criminal contempt of court" which requires a full-blown jury trial, tried by a judge OTHER than the one you are allegedly in contempt of. The latter can get you a longer, fixed-length sentence.
As the judge you wouldn't be able to send someone to jail for 6 months if they were unable to pay up.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I have no doubt that there are people who would approve of any arbitrary law as long as they profited from it. However, if that same law unduly imposes against another, that support is the result of a lack of integrity on the part of the supporter.
highly exagerated example:
Person X owns slaves, because law Z permits him to own them, and damnit, being able to force people to clean up after you is damn convenient. Person X claims that because it is not illegal to own slaves, that there is no problem whatsoever with such ownership, that arguments about how the slaves should have rights are just rhetoric from people that need to sit back and chill, because the law does not give rights to slaves, and the whole thing is just plain silly to argue over.
Nevermind the subtle truth behind the phrase "there but by the grace of god go I." (You can strip out any religiousity and still have a truism.) Person X is only in favor of slavery while he is the slave OWNER. His tune would change instantly if he was suddenly made into a slave himself. For this reason, his position lacks integrity.
The same kind of rationality can be applied to both the positions people hold on "child pornography", and on "Racial hate speech". The people that are for "Blanket" prosecution of these things (Really? cartoons?) would radically change their tune if they were the ones on the receiving end of the penal cudgel. (Just think how much stereotypical soccer mom would squirm on the bench after being charged with child porn for taking that cute picture of their 3 year old on the training potty--something that HAS happened.) For this reason, their support of such laws lacks integrity.
Society benefits from concise, practical, and reasonable legislation. Laws against child exploitation, for instance. (as in, child prostitution, etc.) It does not benefit (in the long run) by legislation that makes a privately held thought or impulse so taboo that ANYTHING remotely related to it is prosecutable. The latter only opens the door to witch-hunts, like this story is about, or to such insane outcomes as registering children as sex offenders for photographing themselves while naked. (Which has, and does continue to happen.)
Laws should be crafted for specific criminal acts, with a specific criminal intent. They should not be crafted to cater to moral panic, or to penalize nebulous and ambiguous activities.
Duct-taping a 10 year old girl to a bed, ramming a big black dildo in her and taking pictures is, and should be illegal, because you are harming a child, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Making a cartoon of such a sordid activity should be socially unacceptable, but not illegal, because no children are actively harmed by the enterprise. Arguments to the effect of "It promotes the real activity" lack credibility or integrity unless the person saying that argument is also against television dramas depicting physical violence, or destruction of property (pretty much all primetime TV in the US) and also believe that all actors that have been employed to create such television content should be charged with the simulated crimes they helped depict--OR they have highly documented evidence that creating or viewing such a sordid thing (simulated cartoon child exploitation) directly promotes non-criminals to become criminals.
So, as I see it, you are either against such stupid legislation, are a hypocritical bastard that lacks integrity, or are a fringe radical with insane opinions. Mod me troll if you wish, but that wont' change this simple fact, and my karma can take it.
Get along with it. That's what the governments do, no matter it claims to be democratic or NOT.
This isn't the first time some crazy bullsh*t has happened in Michigan
(remember this one? here's another)
Plus snowmaggedon is bad for computers, let alone people.
... has to have its witch hunt. What I find really odd about it is that some of the same people who now recoil in horror at the thought of what happened during the McCarthyism era will happily toss gasoline onto the pyre of anyone who is accused of pedophilia.
Not with the price of gas being what it is, we're not
... is why I take the whole "sex offender registry" and such "child rape" cases all with a grain of salt.
"Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
A few more cases like this and we might have an Egypt style revolution on our hands. However I would expect citizen deaths to be in the tens of thousands in each major city in the US.
the prosecutor is doing the prosecutor thing and using the protect the children bullshit witch hunt to boost his political career.
This is something that I always find strange about the USA. Why on earth did you guys think it was a good idea to elect judges, district attorneys, and so on? The entire point of the judiciary as an independent branch of the government is that it should not be subject to the same populist whims as the legislature and executive.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Even if it turns out he does want to have sex with children - so what?
There is no evidence of him ever acting on such an impulse. What happened to "guilty until proven otherwise"?
The true signature of a police state is that you don't get thrown in jail because of your actions, but because of your thoughts.
Well, to figure out which side is the underdog maybe you should ask yourselves a few questions about the situation. I have one you can start with, "Which side has used its political influence to get all its incomes made tax-exempt?"...
Some people need to understand that "jokes" have limits, and that you are responsable for what you say and do.
I am dissapointed in what some people consider funny these days... mockery and sexual perversion is NOT funny.
We are living some very decadent days... And the "culture" (or better yet, LACK of culture) is teaching us that it's okay to lie, cheat, mock, make jokes about violence and rape... i repeat, these things are not funny.
Doesn't anyone here get that this was done WITHOUT the consent of the kids? Surely it is not child porn or anything, but the guy can certainly be prosecuted for libel. Liberal thought is good, but common sense has to come in somewhere ....
I don't want to defend the prosecutors in this case or the police, but without seeing the actual youtube video i'm going to play devil's advocate. What if the video wasn't marked as 18 and over only? What if it was bad enough to encourage pedophile who have never committed the crime to go and commit the crime? Again without seeing the video... it could be just simply a parody, but let me provide this example. If you tell a mentally challenged person to walk off a bridge and they go and walk off the bridge. Should you not be held responsible for your actions of causing harm to the other person. Even if your intent was not to really have them walk off the bridge and you were simply just joking around and didn't think they would do it. And for those who want to cry free speech your free speech is only protected so long as it does not put life at risk. In which case our govt's responsibility to protect life trumps your right to free speech. Inalienable rights trump constitutional rights. So again I have no idea what the video is like, but in today's world ignorance should no longer be an excuse. I'm sick of people who go well I didn't THINK it would cause any problems. Thats the problem both government and society fails to THINK nowadays. Sometimes parodies do send the message that its okay. You think some middle school kid who see's everyone laughing at that video wouldn't think that its funny an go do the same performance to elementary kids at the park? So many people are so quick to jump at the conclusion that the police and prosecutor are wrong in this case. I hope they are wrong, but if it turns out the guy is a pedophile then at least they were able to protect him from harming any children. Yeah as a young man it sucks to walk around and if you're around kids people watch and stare at you making you feel guilty, but you know what I'll take that any day of the week if it helps deter the crime from happening. Its what we should be doing as a society... watching out for one another. If more of us did that perhaps we wouldn't have to have the government in our lives as much. So to all you guys complaining about how the media has made it difficult for you to be comfortable out in public around kids. I say man up and get over it. And if you can't??? Maybe you should ask yourself why its making you feel so uncomfortable is there something about yourself you don't know?
Hey, idiot, the US doesn't have hate speech laws.
The US has laws that make other criminal acts worse based on specific intent.
If you don't break those laws, which are all felonies to start with, no one gives a flying fuck what you said.
If you do break those laws, like if you assault people, yes, it matters why you did it. That has actually always mattered under the law. It's called intent.
Remember, folks: Everyone who whines about the 'hate crimes laws' in the US wants to commit felonies against people, and they are worried they will get an extra year or two because they often say racist or sexist things, but they insist they're targeting people to commit felonies against randomly.
Sure, they're going to beat up that black guy, and just the other day were talking about how black people should go back to Africa, but they beat him up because just didn't like his hat...they beat up a white guy last week for the same reason, so an extra year or two is totally unfair.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I think that using video of minors taken for non-obvious purposes and then publishing something edited to be sexually explicit is crossing a line.
Draw cartoons of children being sexual and sing about it all you want; but take video of my elementary daughter and talk about her sucking anything of yours and you're going to have a law suit on your hands.
It's one thing to express yourself. He has every right to do so.
It's quite another to pull innocent children into it and make them a part of your expression as though they were complicit.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kYYuKbxa30
The prosceutor is probably just a pervert wannabe child moles tor or kitty porn addict and is looking to cover his own tracks.
Look at all these anit-gay activists out there, a lot of them turned out to actually be gay. Why should assholes like this be any different?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the toll is collected by hysterical parents.
Emory did a profoundly stupid thing. The prosecutor and probably the police acted in a manner either stupid or malevolent, or both.
Why would a person not think before faking evidence of creating a crime?
Just think of the possibilities. Make a fake video of yourself robbing a bank, preferably one that was recently robbed. Or committing the murder of someone who died recently. Or setting on fire a building that recently burned down?
Why not just test the strength of this rope by tying a loop around your neck, tossing the other end over a rafter...
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I thought people in the USA were living under freedom. I was wrong. Hell, I'll never put my foot there again!
I believe it was something like:
"I'm going to get something to eat. You hungry?"
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
"Parents are too outraged to worry whether Emoryâ(TM)s rights may be being infringed upon. One parent interviewed said, 'He humiliated my child. Heâ(TM)s humiliated all the parents that are involved in it and something definitely needs to be done.' "
Apparently if people get embarrassed, it makes perfect sense to sue someone else. Bob forbid someone be "humiliated".
"To stop the terrorists."
Wow.. what intelectual muscle you have there. Are you this bright around all the people you try to impress?
First, who said anything about the US. Why in the hell do you think only the US matters? There are hate speech laws in this world, go to Germany and praise Hitler or the Nazi's for instance. I Guess maybe you should have saved your idiot comment until you were looking in the mirror.
Why because you said so? You don't know shit. The hate crime law in the US is an add on to crimes that make them felonies if they weren't or more severe felonies if they were already a felony. That's the entire point of the hate crime law. If you do it out of some magical protection from hate, you get punished more then if you do because you are just an evil guy.
and yes, striking or assaulting a person in my state is a misdemeanor. Yelling Nigger, Jew, Fag, or anything derogatory to those protected classes of people will turn the misdemeanor into a felony. So yes, it is about hate speech even there.
No.. Not all laws are concerned with intent. And for the most part, unless someone admits to the intent, you are only guessing to their thoughts at or near the time of the crime. So even there, it's the same- as a thought crime. But if the evidence of your thought crime motivating the real crime is you yelling something derogatory, then you are being punished in addition to what normal people would based on your hate speech. You simply cannot get around that. You are either guessing on what they were thinking or punishing them for what they said.
Nice argument. I think I can sum it up for you in a little shorter package. "think of the children" or maybe "If you don't agree with me, your evil", or "your either with us or against us". Oh, and assaulting someone is only a misdemeanor until you attack the thought part onto it and make it a hate crime. Then it becomes a felony.
Why don't you grow the fuck up.
What's your point? I mean seriously, is it that we should tolerate people getting beat up for any reason (wearing and ugly hat) other then someone hating the other person? If the punishment for assaults and other person on person crime is not a deterrent, then why only protect certain people based on their speech? And yes, your scenario takes this directly to speech as you used talking about blacks going back to Africa as a motivator to why the person needs punished more then someone who doesn't like a hate he was wearing.
Hell, you can't even be consistent in your rant and you're calling me an idiot.
Nuff said.
We've even had one dinner lady charged with child grooming for giving a free biscuit.
Charged? As in criminal charges? I really something got lost in the translation to my American ear.
Here she would get into trouble for showing favoritism and not giving EVERY child a free biscuit. OR, she would get into trouble for misappropriating government property. But she would not be accused of sexual misconduct. Now, if it was a male lunchroom attendant on the other hand....
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Unfortunately, unless homosexual and heterosexuals abuse children at about the same rates in relation to their numbers, it's legitimate to say they have an un-equal risk of being a perpetrator.
Let's take 1000 child-abuse victims who were abused by only one abuser and assume each had an abuser that only abused that victim. We have 485 males and 515 females.
If 48 of the males were abused by men and the rest by women and 51 of the girls were abused by women and the rest by men, then you'd be able to say that homosexuality doesn't seem to be correlated to child abuse, at least not among single-victim abusers. About 10% of the male victims and about 10% of the female victims were victims of homosexuals. Because of the 1-1 rule in this example we can say that for every homosexual abuser there are 9 heterosexual abusers, which matches the overall homosexual/heterosexual population give or take.
However, I don't think this is the case.
The real numbers are probably more like 4- or 5- to 1 male:female ratio among offenders.
This means there are probably 166 to 200 female offenders in this group with 800-834 male offenders.
With 485 male and 515 female victims at best we have 200 female heterosexual offenders, zero lesbian offenders, 285 male homosexual offenders, and 515 heterosexual male offenders, for an overall homosexual rate among the males of 35.6% - 3 and a half times their number in the general population but still well under half of all male offenders.
I'm doing this from memory, but actual statistics from many sources all show men who prefer boys and young male adolescents or who show no gender preference among children and young adolescents are a far higher percentage of those caught abusing children and young adolescents than the presumed population of gay and bisexual men who are attracted to adults, yet it is still far less than 50%.
So, yes, most child molesting males are heterosexual, but the number of heterosexuals in this population is much lower than in the general population.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Part of the problem here is that there isn't a sensible remedy in the state's penal code. This guy needs to beaten by a roomful of outraged parents, but we can't have that, so the law employs a sledge hammer to whack this annoying little gnat.
In response to the constitutional free speachers, the child-haters and those who told all the imaginary stories about how their harmless intentions to some child or other were misunderstood, keep in mind that Emory did injure these children. This stuff is on the internet and you all know that once published, it never, ever goes away. There is no remedy that Emory can offer - the damage is permanent. We all get indignant when large corporation X proposes to take some action that has every chance of permanent damage to the environment, but when one person does it we bleat about his right to free speach. Emory's right to swing his fist ended just in front of the childrens' noses.
Take a look in the mirror - friend of Emory or friend of children? Set the bit then live with it.
I hate posting as a coward, but I've moderated this discussion already.
Seriously.
How many 100's of comments are pro-defendant.
And how many 10's of comments are pro-prosecution?
Point made.
Note to future law makers: Use internet as jury.
Using Occam's Razor, False Memory Syndrome seems a better fit in almost all cases.
Repression of traumatic memories sounds nice but I haven't seen any real evidence for it that didn't involve drugs or hormones that blocked the memories from ever being formed (so they could not be recovered in any case). However, there is an excess of evidence for implanted or suggested memories.
As stated in the lead, this is a comedic ploy used my many comedians. Inter-cutting video to mislead into a comic result is done all the time. (Watch Fox "News" entertainment some time.)
The only "rape" here is that some kid's parents didn't get paid and so they complained.
Oh, and the guy is getting raped by the system.
Someone go better arrest the Tosh.0 staff and the daily show etc... oh wait, those kids were properly prostituted to TV by their parents so it's okay.
"Children", "Drugs" and "Terror" are the root passwords to the U.S. Constitution.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Don't governments get taken down within a few years for starting to pull this type of crap?
A fine example of the 'constructed misunderstanding'.
I could blame a long week, the fact that the "protect the children at all cost" campaign hurts/scares/deters more innocent adult males than innocent adult females, or any number of other factors for my goofs but the simple fact is that I dropped the ball by not getting the female-abuser stats right or even close to right.
Thanks for the clarifications.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's an act. How is this any different from movies depicting adults doing bad things to children?
Presumably because our lawmakers (and, consequently, law enforcement) feel that this issue is of overriding importance. Personally, I think there are actually other, possibly more important things they could be spending our tax dollars fighting, but hey, I'm not a politician trying to show that he's "doing something" to justify the votes we throw his way.
Of course, it helps that the multi-billion-dollar motion picture industry has plenty of well-paid attorneys on staff to protect their Constitutional rights.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.