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Florida Reduces Penalties For 'Sexting' Teens
SonicSpike sends word that Florida has changed how law enforcement deals with teenagers who send racy pictures to each other over their phones. Quoting CNN:
"Before Saturday, a Florida teenager who sent or received nude photos or video could have been charged with a felony and forced to register as a sex offender. But a new law, recognizing the proliferation of cell phones and computers, eases the penalties for 'sexting' infractions. A first offense is punishable by eight hours of community service or a $60 fine; the second is a misdemeanor and the third is a felony. ... Under House Bill 75, teens who receive explicit images won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it, did not solicit the image and did not send it to someone."
Hey, just tell teens not to have sex while you're at it.
If the stuff isn't wanted, an alternative may be pursued: harassment charges.
How very pragmatic. Guess the sponsors will be voted out next election, since pragmatism is anathema to politics these days.
What about persons previously convicted? I doubt they're gonna retroactively "fix" those kids' lives.
It's still pretty fucking stupid to charge them in the first place.
At least it's a step in the right direction, albeit a small one...
Where's the "suddenburstofcommonsense" tag for the story?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
ok, that's great it's not a crime and all, but.........
A) Why is this even an issue? Are there really that many kids out there sexting each other?
B) How exactly are the police finding out about this? Isn't it somewhat disturbing to think that the police have people dedicated to watching out for kids sexting each other?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"....teens who receive explicit images won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it"
Seig Heil !
Under House Bill 75, teens who receive explicit images won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it, did not solicit the image and did not send it to someone.
Ah, and there's the catch. I challenge anybody to find a teen who will report their girlfriend/boyfriend/whoever to the authorities for sending nude pictures. If they delete it, do not encourage the behaviour and do not show it to anybody other then the intended recipient, I fail to see the harm to either party.
"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
But Puritanism is alive and well in the United States.
I find it ironic that some of those complaining loudest about the impending Sharia Law in the US and Europe are among those most likely to demand various Levitical Laws in the US.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
If they had had any sort of group awareness and organisational capacity they'd ALL have done it, then ALL turned themselves in. Let every single teen in Florida be registered as a sex offender.
Act like a sheep, get treated like a sheep.
Is it a $60 offense or a felony offense?
A fine step from very evil to ... less evil, but still very evil.
Under House Bill 75, teens who receive explicit images won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it, did not solicit the image and did not send it to someone.
So let me get this straight: A 16 year old's girlfriend sends him a picture, he is guilty unless he reports her to the police?
First, bite my shiny metal ass.
Second, good luck upholding that when it goes to a court above the Florida level.
Third, to expand on item one; holy shit are you a bunch of nasty assholes. Up until a circuit or the Supremes knock this foul law flat on its ass, it is going to put a lot of kids in really nasty quandaries about their obligations to the people they care about versus the state. Honestly, I figure it's safe to assume you will be creating thousands of anti-authoritarians in one stroke of your pen. I'm sure the year 2021 thanks you for the increase in civil disobedience you are creating.
Fourth, they're just body parts. They can't hurt you. How does it make sense to put kids into the ironically named "correctional system" because they received a picture of a breast? You think they are going to come out better people? That it will improve our future? You are bat-shit-looney if you believe that.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
That part of the law is so wrong.
You see, I was never a teenager, so I don't care. That's what they get for not just skipping ahead like me and everyone else in denial of human nature. I mean, it's not like they're inundated with smut by the entertainment industry, and certainly the hormones in modern food products are no excuse for such intolerable visual promiscuity. If the fools can't realize that abstinence is the best policy, then obviously their future careers should be ruined, and they should lose the right to bear arms and vote. We don't want people who are attracted to the opposite (or same) sex voting and wielding firearms. Hail Wackenhut, Geo Group, G4s Securities, Serco, and purity!
Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. - Otto von Bismarck
It all sort of raises the question of why the state needs to be involved at all when teenagers send pictures of their private parts to each other. This is something the parents ought to deal with - it doesn't require the heavy hand of the justice system.
Wow. Much like women in Muslim countries get convicted for the crime of being raped, this will convict a person simply because SOMEONE ELSE sends them a picture. How fucked up is THAT!!!
From the summary, this still sounds ridiculously difficult. It's a crime if you don't turn in your girlfriend?
Take off every 'sig' !!
Like when kids in school get caught passing notes, and the teacher reads the note out loud in front of the class. Embarrassing for the note passers! Or when the local newspaper prints lists of folks arrested for drunk driving.
Bring back the village stock, I say!
Oh, and to answer Slashdot's question, "You are number 6! Who is number one?" . . .
"You, are, number 6."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
So sending or receiving an image of a child's penis is a felony, while chopping off part of the penis on a defenseless newborn is legal?
Whatever happened to the good ole love letter?
So, if a teenager someone buys a disposable phone and anonymously sends out pictures of his penis to ten girls that have rejected him and he does this three times the girls have to report this or get a criminal record ? Nice law you have there.
Blaming the victim is very convenient, because it allows you to victimize anyone you want and then lie about it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Any teen who photographs their own body should be charged for possessing child pornography.
And any teen who masturbates should be charged with sexually molesting a minor.
Finally, all breast-feeding mothers should be charged with indecent exposure to a minor.
The Government will not stop until EVERYTHING is a Felony. We are getting seriously close to Thought-Crime.
UN-Elect everyone.
Sorry, honey. That was a really sexy picture, but the laws the law and I had to cover my ass, so I reported you to the police. Anyway, can we have sex now? It's perfectly legal for us to see each other naked in person!
The legislature fear repealing this ridiculous law, because they will be seen as pro-paedo or worse, pro-sexuality, by the religious right.
It's a shame that the American political landscape is so fragmented that one of the few groups that can decide a consensus are such a close-minded bunch of medieval nightmares.
CAPTCHA phrase : autocrat
That's about right....
As a teenager, most boys have already experienced wet dreams, left hand exercises and know the old diddie below
In days of old when men were bold\
and safes were not invented.
They shoved some socks
around their ======== guess the word (It begins with a c and ends with an s )
and babies were prevented.
That diddie means that the girls were into it too.
So, is nudity porn, or is it the stuff shown on cable tv after 11pm many nights.
I am also of the opinion that nudity stops rapes, but true acts generate risks.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
There's little chance this law would stand up to a First Amendment defense. See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.
It might even fall to an Equal Protection challenge.
won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it
welcome to the "rat your girlfriend out to the police" state.
Here's the new Florida HOWTO take revenge on your ex-girlfriend:
a) whenever she sends you a nude pic, tell a non-existing e-mail address that looks similar to the local police about it.
b) when she breaks up with you, suddenly notice your "typo" and send it to the real address.
c) PROFIT - or rather, you've just reduced the number of boys she can break up with before it becomes a felony by one.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You get a big brother law like we just got in Norway/EU storing ALL sms(and internet data like mail) that is sendt for a minimum of 6 months. How long will it take before they then start using it?
The US thinks it is the government's business what a teen sends their bf or gf on their cellphone. The US thinks that when you travel, you give up all privacy rights. The US thinks that getting angry with a border guard is a crime. The US assassinates its own citizens, believes in torture, and incarcerates people indefinitely without a trial. And I could go on. But the amazing thing about all of this is that the US thinks it is a shining example of freedom and democracy around the world. How insane is that?
Americans used to live in a great country, but honestly, that country is gone, now. It's a shame. They need to collectively get their heads out of their asses and learn to question the government, because it is not getting any better. I am not an American, and boy am I happy about that, because I live in a country that is actually an example of freedom and democracy, and that feels great.
Why is the government in the citizen's bedrooms? Perverts. Al of them.
As long as you claim that your name which the government owns as legal property is yours, you will always be in dishonor in court and lose by default. The facts are on the moon, its all fluff. Stop saying you belong to the government and they'll stop treating you like it. Maxim: "Born without a name or number, under no obligation to use one". Its called the right of self determination. Do you know any of your rights?
The problem was kids exploring their sexuality and ending up on a sex offender registry for the rest of their life. This doesn't fix the problem, it codifies it.
An AC up above mentioned that the ONLY REASON this "law" is being changed, is because it was only catching the "good kids".
I'll leave it to the reader to determine what constitutes a "good kid" in the US.
Anyway, this is entirely the WRONG DIRECTION. Don't reduce the penalties, increase enforcement. Actively search kids' phones for nude pictures. Take them away in handcuffs, bring them before a judge and prosecute with every single ounce of power and fire you can manage. Crush them, destroy them, ruin them utterly and completely.
Why?
[End Of Line]
Maybe you could make a movie about underaged zombies. That would be great.
How so? Nobody here is arguing that it shouldn't be a crime for any adults involved, only that consensual sexual activities between people under the age of consent shouldn't be criminalized under statutory rape and similar laws that were designed to target abuse of kids by adults.
you're a simpleton. you really think it's that pat and done with?
the issue is these pictures go far and wide, out of simple high school meanness. you act like these pictures are exchanged in a philosopher's lounge between consenting parties. you're an idiot for thinking of this problem like that
start here, for what is really going on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27sexting.html
get your head out of your ass with your ignorant's understanding of the issues in play here
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You're a cretin. I never argued that people who maliciously spread these pictures shouldn't face repercussion, nor that adults who are involved should ever escape prosecution.
As far as I can see, however, nobody is arguing that they should. My argument, and indeed most people's on here, is that the victim - the person the law is supposed to protect - should NOT, ever, be facing the same charges as the people who maliciously spread pictures of them.
To argue otherwise is to blame the victim for the action of others; it's equivalent to holding a woman responsible for her own rape because she was "dressed provocatively", or holding the victim of a robbery responsible simply because he wore expensive clothes. It's a dangerous argument which strongly undermines the enforcement of those crimes, since few victims are going to report a crime against them if they themselves risk prosecution simply for being the victim.
In fact, I can easily imagine a pedophile coercing a kid into silence who'd been tricked into sending them pictures, by simply telling them that they could be held responsible for producing the pictures if they ever dared to report their abusers.
Blaming the victim solves NOTHING, and makes things easier for criminals.
Now if other states would only follow this example.... Outbreak indeed, and it needs to be retroactive, before they have even larger colonies of people living under a bridge or in swamps.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your politician, and hitting them?"
Recognize that the lawmakers are serving a populace that is largely incapable of logic or critical thinking. Consequently, the majority of Americans believe the following false things:
1) Making sexting illegal will stop kids from doing it.
2) The kids are, in general, aware that this is illegal and that the punishments are severe.
3) The kids believe that they are very likely to get caught.
4) The kids believe it is morally wrong to do this because it is illegal (and so are even less likely to do it).
5) Any kid that does this probably is a pervert who will grow up to be a child molester, so putting them on the sex offender list early on is a good thing.
6) Any person who tries to reduce the enforcement or punishment of anti-sexting laws is probably a child-molestor who should be pro-actively punished, in the interest of protecting the kids from future victimization.
i feel like i am a room full of 45 year old pedophiles
Guilt by association is a great argument! Well done.
If there's a chance that something could be 'abused', ban it! Ban cars, knives, pencils, pens... ban everything! Criminalize taking naked photos of yourself if you're a child (the pedophiles might getcha, much like the terrists)!
I'm 100% right and anyone who disagrees is obviously 100% wrong.
i feel like i am a room full of 45 year old pedophiles
the tenor of concerns here skews far away from actual parental concerns
Really? You think parents want police searching through their kids' phones looking at naked pictures? You think parents want their kids to face a very public trial over simple youthful indiscretions? You think parents want their kids fined and given a record simply because they didn't report to police that someone forwarded them some dirty pictures? If that's what you think parents want, then I thank God I'm not one of your children!
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Imagine you are sent and email containing a naked child. You choose to disregard it, as it is quite obviously spam (let's presume you have a terrible spam filter), but do not delete it. This thing sits, rotting away in the depths of your inbox. Seeing as you didn't take any steps to report the image, if the cops found out about this would you be on your way to a felony?
I think we just need mass, mass, mass culling of politicians as soon as possible. Anyone who thinks they can legislate that its illegal to USE YOUR PHONE FOR FUNCTIONS IT WAS DESIGNED FOR has asked for their final meal, seriously.
Because teens with raging hormones participating in pretty much the exact types of activities their bodies are demanding they participate in makes them EVIL and they should be PUNISHED. How about we realize that a guy getting a picture of his girlfriend to, erm, enjoy on his own is better than them having unprotected sex (and since these same Puritanical nitwits pushing for laws like this have made sex education basically worthless, it WILL be unprotected).
Really news for nerds stuff that matters ? and this falls into what category there ? or is /. becoming just another online newspaper ?