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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."
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...
Since there are penalties there... still no common sense.
"....teens who receive explicit images won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it"
Seig Heil !
So teenagers with breasts are not allowed to, well, be teenagers; but parents are still allowed to push their pre-teen kids into beauty contests complete with swimsuit competions and prostitute dress-ups?
The types of people who villify sexting are the dirty old men-types who jack off to teen porn and pop boners watching their daughters play in the pool while being pissed that they couldn't have the same fun when they were younger, then spend the rest of their time praying for forgiveness and validating their perversions by projecting them onto others.
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
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
Did you miss the part where they have to report it? Meaning you have to share it with the law enforcement or you might get in trouble.
Whoever made that law is a huge wanking pervert.
Pragmatic? You're asking for a pragmatic approach?
Accept the fact that teen's bodies are flooded with hormones, and they only think of sex for about 36 hours each day. (Yes, I know, for children and adults, there are only 24 hours in each day - teens live in a different continuum!) The little bastards are always going to be thinking of sex, they speak sex, they look sex, they breathe sex. Pragmatism dictates that we leave them the hell alone, to deal with their own demons, in their own way.
If YOU don't want to see pictures of naked teens, then DON'T LOOK AT A TEEN'S PHONE!
Dumbasses . . .
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Oh the whole "save teh childrenz!" thing is royally fucked and we have been way past sane for quite awhile. Some examples include the guy who wrote the "pro pedo" book that is now rotting in jail. Nobody accused him of touching anybody, no pics or anything, just his thoughts and opinions on paper. I seem to remember someone writing about a time when people could be arrested for their thoughts. There is also the guy doing prison time for writing his fantasies in his journal which his shrink told him to do, another thoughtcrime. Then there is the guy who went to jail for dirty Jap cartoons, again no kids, just pen and ink. as a friend that works in the state crime lab told me these laws are so badly written you could draw a stick figure and scribble "nekked kid" on it and theoretically be guilty of child pron!
For one a little closer to TFA how is THIS for fucked up: In several states I can marry a girl as young as 14 with their parents permission. I can marry her, bang her any way my little heart desires, again completely legal, but if I take a picture of my wife naked I'd be a child pornographer!
This whole damned thing has become another red scare, only instead of commies we see pervs behind every tree. what we seriously need is some common sense laws but sadly politicians have learned they can stir up the rabble and get more votes by pushing the "save teh childrenz!" button.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The other terrible thing about the sex offender registries is all the horrible regulations one has to live with if you end up on the list. My dad has a friend who lost the lawyer lottery (and admittedly wasn't smart enough to realize it at the time) and was advised to plead guilty to a sex crime when his ex wife convinced their daughter to claim he had touched her inappropriately in the middle of their ugly divorce. He now isn't allowed to live within 5000 yards of any schools or daycare facilities. He just rented an apartment and was told after moving in that somebody living nearby is running a daycare in their house so he has 10 days to find a new place to live. There is a database of daycares you can check before you move somewhere, and the database said his new address was in the clear. It was only after he paid his non-refundable deposit and moved all of his stuff into the place that the sheriff came by and said "Oops, turns out there IS a daycare nearby. Too bad, get out within 10 days or you go to jail for a felony. have a nice day!"
Terrorist watch, no-fly, felony, and sex offender lists are the new yellow stars. Anybody who claims America doesn't have classes or a caste system is either misinformed or lying.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Someone getting nailed on kiddie porn charges for THEIR OWN PICTURES is what is ridiculous.
You can't get much more victimless than that.
The bestiality thing is a bit of a joke, because it was already effectively illegal under broader animel cruelty laws - and with the precident to back up that interpretation too. Making a law to explicitly outlaw it is really just moral grandstanding - publicly attacking some icky sex thing to boost the Family Friendly credentials of a few politicians, even though it doesn't actually change a thing.
Depends on the lawyer. Public defenders are generally kept overworked to the point where they just don't have time to make a defence. That's the way the state likes it - every time a person gets found innocent of a criminal charge, it makes the police look like idiots. Unacceptable.
They are getting a little less evil but only for "crimes" that could accidentally impact the lives of white, middle class kids. The only reason this law is getting a second look is that it happened to hit "good kids." The laws that impact brown or black people still stand.
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.
A lot of districts make those laws to be deliberatly impossible to obey, with the intention of driving sex offenders as far away as possible.
Yes, but the problem is that now that they DO know that this is what happens, and it's relatively harmless, they refuse to fix the law with a little sanity and instead seem totally incompetent and out of touch with reality.
Parent is spot on. I've always lived in the USA and I've seen it happening around me; somehow I'm not affected by the foolishness as nearly everybody else around me is. It is easier to see this from the outside.
Its much worse to see this stuff happen 1st hand and have everybody think you are some sort of fanatic nut if you speak out, protest or do anything that is not sanctioned by some powerful group. ACTIVIST IS A BAD WORD. Fact and opinion are blurred; the Rove strategy of creating alternative realities is now pervasive. Admitting you spend your nights watching TV reality shows is normal; you are a freak if you do anything else. Being actually informed is no different than somebody using only sound bites on the crap TV news - in fact, they'll feel you are less informed because you don't know about the latest BS issues in the mainstream news or celebrity gossip. They'll also feel they understand something because they heard the sound bites. Being kept busy working, buying, and consuming there isn't much time; plus it seems that the only reason many issues can be followed is because they've discovered that heavy obfuscation isn't necessary; keeping secrets isn't necessary either-- just exploit information overload.
Even the language is warped; it is hard to even discuss many issues because there is too many errors to correct first. To avoid being dismissed as a nut or creating confusion one has to severely limit conversation to such pointlessly tiny baby boring steps and work long term towards an actual issue... if you bump into some sacred cow then emotional blocks kick in and its a whole other mess. For example, both sides have been calling Social Security an entitlement.
Crisis / Fear games - is how it often works here; people who are worried bury their heads in TV; they can't handle it. Plans are made up in advance; then crisis opportunities are created or the plans are adapted to an actual crisis which is usually amplified. A higher level of terrorism goes on continually. The trick is old as mankind but the techniques have been refined.
There need not be some big-brother thought police (although some are bent on that angle so its coming) they have working control over the populace that produces decent results all on its own. Like some sort of social virus, it'll run, spread, and mutate on its own allowing the benefits of crowd sourcing. This modern sophisticated approach will eventually allow for all the things authoritarians have done in the past but without the black and white simplicity that leads to their downfall. Its smart social engineering at work; 1984 mirrored advanced conventions of the day (1940s) but it is just a short book with just 1 approach and things have progressed. Americans are ironically quite conformist all on their own.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Minor? The third picture constitutes a felony! You could breach that limit in a few minutes!
Couple points of order:
* You don't define "back then", so...
* before 1900, it was fully expected that half the children born would die of something before the age of five, and that only 1 in 5 would make it to puberty.
* before 1800, puberty was pretty much considered to be adulthood insofar as sex was concerned in most nations and cultures - and before 1900, marrying at sixteen was considered normal. Children were expected to work as soon as they could gain enough mental acuity and strength to do so, be it on the family farm or in the factory. The only exception involved kids of more well-off parents, who were expected to get an education that would scare today's kids.
* before 1700, the prohibitions on fornication (notice that sex for procreation isn't considered that) were put in place by church authorities, but was widely ignored unless it became politically expedient to pay attention to.
Some other cultural bits...
* Back then, what would be considered as teen sex usually happened after the teens were married, or in a house of prostitution. Girls were kept from "fornicating" because potential suitors by and large demanded a virgin bride. OTOH, many teen boys of affluent parents were encouraged by their fathers to visit a brothel, if only to get some experience in the matter.
* For most guys, you either did it with your wife, did it in a brothel, or you hadn't hit puberty yet. Any outliers in that data set usually involved adultery, which was harshly dealt with. What you had left was not enough to be statistically significant., and if you had sex with a girl but didn't marry her, she'd be the first one to scream to the authorities demanding marriage (else you either faced charges of rape, or an outright lynching by her family).
* Speaking of brothels, they were not only popular, but legal damned near everywhere (or at most studiously ignored by the local constabulary).
* The whole idea of banning fornication and and adultery revolved around the idea of lineage and property rights (your kid inherits the herds, land, or whatever - not some other guy's kid). This stretches back to the very historic concept of inheritance, and why most religions have that prohibition in place - as a concept, it is that damned old. But, you yourself mention the pragmatism as well. :)
As for today, kids are treasured far more highly, even to the point of legal worship over ideals that earlier civilizations really couldn't give a damn about. It is certainly wrong to harm a kid, to exploit one, or to molest one. This is common sense to a civilized modern human being. OTOH, there comes a point where at least biologically, a person is no longer a child, and the law has to allow for the adolescent to start taking steps into the world of adulthood. As long as it doesn't involve an adult taking advantage of that period of growth, the law should just leave the teenager the hell alone in that regard.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Presumably this means you have already been in front of a judge *twice* who has told you that this behavior will result in a felony charge. Whether or not you agree with a 17 year old taking nude photos of themselves being a felony-worthy offence, someone who gets caught doing it after being in court for it twice before has only themselves to blame. The law is on the books and actively enforced, so until that law is changed you had better follow the damn thing (and I wouldn't suggest risking sex offender status and a felony in order to try your luck at getting the supreme court to change the law).
Bottles.
Did you miss the part where the penalties if you don't report it are very very minor?
Does it matter that the penalties are minor? If someone sends you an unsolicited pic, and you delete it right away, why should there be any penalties at all?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
But if a 16 year old sends a photo to another 16 year old with the consent of both, what business is that of law enforcement and how in hell should either be guilty of *any* criminal offense, whether it was the first, second, or third time? The new law is still absurd.
Grant was wrong. Nowadays, governments can do whatever they want to lawbreakers and not only will everyone around them be unsympathetic to their plight ("Well, you knew you weren't supposed to walk on the grass...now you're in for a beheading and it's your own fault") but even the lawbreakers will buy into that reasoning.