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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.
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".
All genders (and indeed all gender self-identifications) are entitled to equal protection, but not all genders *require as much*. As women move into representative numbers in jobs and supervisory positions, that situation is changing.
My wife once worked in a division of a state agency where the division and departmental management happen by chance to be women; a few years earlier the leadership had been entirely men but they'd moved on and the agency promoted from within. One day she was recounting how she and another scientist coworker had good-naturedly teased one of their male colleagues for having a habit of "man-splaining" (something which in my experience female geeks do as well). "Wait a minute," I said. "You can't do that anymore. It's called 'creating a hostile work environment'."
Now some men are still not willing to be seen complaining about higher ranking women taking the piss out of them, but the number of sexual harassment suits filed by men has been on the rise, doubling from 8% of all cases in 1990 to 16.4% in 2010. If that guy who'd been teased for "man-splaining" had complained the women could well been disciplined. Telling somebody their long-winded explanations sound condescending is being assertive and it's a good thing. Attributing their behavior to their *gender identity* is harassment.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you give someone consent to take a video of you having sex then you need to beware
In many cases, no consent was given. Even if it was, consent to take a picture shouldn't automatically imply consent to broadcast it to the world. A girl at my daughter's high school was a victim of revenge porn. She killed herself. That is far from an isolated case. To suggest that this isn't traumatic, and that the victims somehow deserve it, is asinine.
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!