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Al Franken Urges FBI To Prosecute "Revenge Porn"
mi contributes this excerpt from National Journal: "Sen. Al Franken is urging the FBI to more quickly and aggressively pursue and respond to reports of revenge porn, marking a rare burst of attention on a controversial topic about which Congress has typically been quiet. In a letter to FBI Director James Comey, the Minnesota Democrat asked for more information about the agency's authority to police against revenge porn, or the act of posting explicit sexual content online without the subject's consent, often for purposes of humiliation and extortion. Its popularity has ballooned in recent years, and victims are disproportionately women."
Here's Franken's letter.
It makes no difference if the victims are disproportionately any group; it would have to be UNIQUE to that group. Otherwise, if it's bad for people, it's bad for people, and no distinction need be made about age, gender or any other subgroup. It's not equality if we only consider some of the people, is it?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I find it disgusting that the author wouldn't stop revenge porn because it's an immoral or criminal act, but only because most of the affected audience happens to be women.
Nice straw man. There's nothing in the letter or TFS or TFA that suggests anyone is doing this "only because most of the affected audience happens to be women."
The overwhelming majority of rape victims are women. But we have laws against rape because it is wrong, not because women are in the majority as victims.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
The reason the FBI isn't doing more to combat revenge porn is thus: It's not illegal.
I would expect Franken, or at least someone who works for him, to know this. Perhaps he just wants it declared illegal by executive fiat, as is the practice with this administration.
But really, this ploy, and Slashdot's new social-justice-warrior driven coverage of it, is driven more by a desire to distract everyone from foreign events, Hillary's email server, and Obama's frequent and blatant power grabs.
That's actually kind of funny, now that I think of it. There's been no story posted at all about Clinton's email shenanigans. Well, we know who Dice has thrown their lot in with.
I would expect someone who writes a comment accusing the subject of being misinformed would at least RTFA to ensure they aren't completely misinformed on that very fact:
In a letter to FBI Director James Comey, the Minnesota Democrat asked for more information about the agency's authority to police against revenge porn, or the act of posting explicit sexual content online without the subject's consent, often for purposes of humiliation and extortion.
[...]
Franken wrote in his letter. "As technologies rapidly advance, it is our responsibility to ensure that our nation's laws keep pace with those technologies. But it is also our responsibility to ensure that existing laws are strictly enforced."
[...]
In addition, Franken wants information on any limitations within current law that may have impeded the FBI from carrying out investigations or making arrests. Franken, who asked for a response by May 8, is exploring whether legislation may be necessary to combat revenge porn, his office said.
In summary Franken is saying that revenge porn is a serious problem and he wants to know if the FBI can do more with the laws already there or if they need additional laws to fix the problem. Isn't this exactly what you want a legislator to do?
I stole this Sig
The implication here is more along the line of: "revenge porn is wrong, period. Some people may not feel like its an issue because they're guys and the victims are usually women".
The fact that revenge porn is not against Federal law has "impeded the FBI from ... making arrests".
Isn't this exactly what you want a legislator to do?
Well yeah, but not a legislator (D) by his name who consistently calls us right-wingers out on our B.S and makes us look like the asses we are.
Sheesh.
What then would prevent my ex-wife from posting the sex tape via a public computer terminal and reporting it to the FBI's "revenge porn" task force? Nothing....and it would be my word against hers and her ass on every computer screen in the country so there goes 5-10 years of my freedom.
...And if she were caught falsely reporting a federal crime, she would be the one doing 5-10 years. (Lying to the feds is a really bad idea, unless you like orange jumpsuits.)
Nothing except perhaps, the fact its against the law. IANAL, but I think that is covered by:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I'm glad you're not a lawyer because that is untrue in many, many situations. You can't take a picture of a celebrity and use it in advertising for example, even though you can publish that very same picture in a tabloid newspaper article full of unflattering insinuations. Sure you own the copyright but that doesn't grant you the right to use the information in that picture any way you want.
Here's a close parallel. Suppose you're an insurance adjuster and you get permission to photograph earthquake damage inside someone's house. You own the copyright to those photos, but no right to use them other than for documenting damage for the claim. You can't put them up on your public website.
On the other hand, if you're a newspaper photographer and you get permission to photo the earthquake damage inside someone's home you *can* put them up on your website. What's different is what a reasonable person would expect he's giving permission for you to do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You just made the grandparent's point entirely by accident. The overwhelming majority of rape victims are women because the definition of rape does not count men raped by women as rape victims. Per Koss men are not raped by women because they "choose to engage in unwanted sexual intercourse". This is why the federal government counts men raped by women as "other" and not "rape" victims in the National Intimate partner and Sexual Violence Survey. This is a textbook example of the fallacy of equivocation. "Rape" as reported statistically has a very narrow and specially tailored meaning. "Rape" as people understand it means something else entirely.
If you look at the actual data itself the number of men made-to-penetrate and the number of women penetrated in each year of data released so far has been virtually equal. The only difference is men are categorized as "other" and women as "rape" victims.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Honestly, this whole thread feels like I've stepped into a man-cave of a 1960s summer camp.
Unless you have some well researched data pointing to an epidemic of kids offing themselves, clearly caused by someone they were dumb enough to let into their pants later posting a photo of their wee-wee without permission.
You make an interesting point about the number of suicides in that age group--the data you point to is inconsistent with what I learned in Developmental Psychology not too many years ago, but interesting.
But you are also victim-blaming. The AC next-door is saying she loved the attention and had it coming. These are positions overwhelmingly held by men trying to rationalize the rape of women.
You even realize this, and rationalize it by saying you're just rejecting a generalization from anecdote to generality:
To suggest that there is an epidemic of pixel-related suicides is a vile and dishonest setup of a straw man.
So is implying blame of "attacking a victim" on anyone saying otherwise.
Keep in mind that revenge porn can include recordings that were not made consensually in the first place.
Also, you have a huge number of girls in this country who are trafficked. Someone who has Stockholm Syndrome may give their "consent," but you should still be able to prosecute the pimp for making videos of them knowing they were not free to refuse, and to take the video down.
And even if it were true that she did something dumb and that she loved the attention from her boyfriend, would that make it all right to share that with the world, or brag to the two hundred people she sees every day about that time you videotaped her? No, you would deserve to have the shit kicked out of you by her friends. And that's the kind of thing we should criminalize to discourage people from doing it, because not everybody has friends who will kick the shit out of you. It doesn't have to be a felony, but I think it should be as serious as misdemeanor assault.
The letter didn't mention what Federal criminal code violation he wanted the FBI to use to justify such a response. After a quick search, I found no such law.
Right in the post is says (emphasis added):
In a letter to FBI Director James Comey, the Minnesota Democrat asked for more information about the agency's authority to police against revenge porn, ...
IOW, Franken's asking them what they can do about it. I suppose if it turns out they can't do much that might lead to Franken introducing a bill but at this point he's just gathering information.