ACLU Sues Penn Prosecutor For Empty Threat of Child Porn 590
TechDirt is reporting that the ACLU has stepped in on behalf of several teens facing the threat of child pornography charges in Pennsylvania for sharing nude pics of themselves. Unfortunately for a girl in New Jersey, she is facing much more than just a threat, as she was arrested yesterday for posting almost 30 explicit pictures of herself on MySpace for her boyfriend to see. "...the ACLU has sued the prosecutor on the girls' behalf, saying he shouldn't have threatened them with baseless charges — which haven't yet been filed — if they wouldn't agree to probation and a counseling program. The prosecutor says he was being 'proactive' in offering them a choice, but the ACLU says he shouldn't be using 'heavy artillery' to make the threats. As its attorney points out, teaching kids that this sort of behavior can bring all sorts of unwanted and unforeseen ramifications is a good idea, but threatening them with child-porn charges isn't the best way to do it."
Re:The Children? (Score:1, Interesting)
Indeed. All these "unwanted and unforeseen ramifications" that they are trying to engage in. I dont know what they are, but they sound bad! This has to stop.
So what do we do to protect our children from themselfs, /.?
I would suggest sending them to prision until they are 18, but then I look at the local schools and see they already are, so that dident work.
Maybe we can put them into a comma when reach 9 until they are 18?
Well /., lets hear your ideas!
Re:I wonder.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Taking naked pictures of yourself and distributing them is, arguably, stupid; and kids are hardly renowned for their wisdom; but that doesn't mean that the state needs to become involved.
Coercive power is all well and good when dealing with crime; but it is a lousy tool for teaching responsibility. "Hey, kid, the consequences of your actions are so severe that, in order to teach you that actions have consequences, I've had to impose a bunch of synthetic consequences on you. Enjoy life on the sex offender registry."
If, in fact, their actions have consequences, then I suspect that the kids will learn about them soon enough, no need to impose artificial ones. If they don't turn out to, then there is no need(or ethical reason) to impose any. Their parents should definitely have the "doing stupid things is a bad idea" talk with them; but the DA can GTFO.
Re:Only today... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Children? (Score:2, Interesting)
Having bad judgment is sort of the definition of childhood in legal terms.
But taking nude pics of your self is pretty harmless. And seriously, there is something about digital cameras that seem to encourage it.
It's not like a future employer is going to reject someone for something they did when they were 13, and if they do they would have to admit googling for jail bait!.
It's Ironic. Or is that tragic? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Only today... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've got a thought, maybe it's a crazy one or maybe it's a good one, I don't know. Every law that congress passes should have a section titled "Purpose" which describes, in detailed but plain English, what the goal of the law is. When cases go to trial, the judge and jury review the law and also the stated purpose of the law and unless the trial is fulfilling the stated purpose, no crime has been committed.
This does two things. One, it prevents wanton abuses of the system by those looking to make a name for themselves or make an example of others. Two, it requires that lawmakers actually stop and think about what the law is intended to do and, hopefully, think about whether the more technical portions of the law actually will achieve that aim.
Re:5th Amendment? (Score:2, Interesting)
well, since they're minors, they cannot own anything; whatever they have belongs to the parents/guardians....
OH NO! Her Parents have CHILD PORN!!!!!1!1!
Re:The Children? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I wonder.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Easy, the couple will eventually break up and then the ex-boyfriend will post the pics online and/or pass them to his guy friends. If you weren't smart enough to see that one coming, well too bad for you. Lesson learned.
You can tell a kid that riding his bike without holding the handlebars is dangerous and he'll get hurt. Either he listen to you or he doesn't, falls, gets hurt and then understands the lesson.
If we keep on preventing kids from learning stuff on their own we're going to get a generation of people who can't think for themselves... what a lovely world that'll be...
Re:Seriously, what is going on here?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, our failure as a nation has been to pretend their viewpoint has merit (everyone is a beatiful snowflake after all) instead of calling those people stupid, and ignoring everything they say.
Re:Possession? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the thing, if I can get arrested for looking at it, she should be charged.
Theoretical scenario, I'm a priest. Decide to reach out through my flock via myspace. Through some click-click-clicking, I end up on that damn myspace page and immediately hit the back button. I'm not a techie, so I don't clear the cache. Someone down the road with a grudge accuses me of molesting them as a child. The police swoop in and examine my computer. 30 instances of child porn! I'm going to jail. Even if I'm ultimately exonerated, a quick google search of my name by any parishoner in the world will see "Priest charged with 30 counts of child porn" about twenty times.
Scenario two. Student is pissed off because she got a B+. That should be an A-. So she gets my cellphone number somehow and sends me topless pictures. Then claims I molested her. Even if the molestion charges don't stick, the child porn charges could.
So until the day that fourteen year-old can take pictures of herself, publish them, sell them, and I can't get into a shitstorm for possessing them (not that I want to, accidents happen), hell yeah she should be charged.
drugs (Score:5, Interesting)
Its like explaining to a narcotics officer the problems with prohibition. He will tell you about the dangers of drugs, the way they have no quality control, the dangerous ways they are produced, house fires, stuff thats too pure killing people, stuff thats adulturated killing people....
I saw something in the news earlier on this, the tide may be turning: "New York to ease its landmark tough drug laws [google.com]".
Yet never once can you expect acknowledgement that if it was legal and regulated, then phizer, phillip morris, and glaxco-smith-kline would produce standard product, at known purity, at reasonable prices.... and solve ALL of those problems, leaving behind the medical issue of addiction, thats really one for the doctors.
CNN has been going on about the War on Drugs and what's happening along the Texas border with Mexico. Every tyme I see something about it I think it wouldn't be a problem if drugs were not made illegal. Legalizing drugs would cut down on crime. And practically empty the prisons in the US, the US has the largest prison population [wikipedia.org] in the world and half of the prisoners are there for drug offenses. Setting free those who were convicted of non-violent drug offenses then many will become tax paying employees and would help with the budget deficit. As would taxing drugs.
Falcon
Re:Fuck you Linus and the horse you rode in on (Score:5, Interesting)
If minors can have sex legally with each other, which they can...
Actually, I wish I could find the link to the story that contradicts this.
A girl, 14, did the deed with her boyfriend, 13. Due to the state's laws, the girl was classified as a victim of sexual abuse. However, as she was the one who initiated the act with another minor, she was also classified as a sexual predator.
Still trying to figure out that one.
Tell the parents and go away (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the most sensible British judges, Pickles J, once commented in dismissing a case that there are many things that people do which are annoying, stupid etc., but so long as they do no harm to other people the law should never get involved. Unfortunately, the Labour Government in the UK tries to imitate the US system. (Which is one reason I hope we get rid of them next year.)
nude babies (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was a child and growing up, seems like everybody had pictures of the kids in the tub or whatever, and it was fairly common to see a neighbor's 2-year-old running around naked. There was absolutely nothing sexual about it and nobody even thought twice about it.
Not only did we run around naked when I was growing up but we also played Doctor. Even today, and I'm middle aged, I don't have a problem with naturalism [wikipedia.org].
I think the real perverts are the people who have turned this into something naughty and sick.
You hit the nail right on the head.
Falcon
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fuck you Linus and the horse you rode in on (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Possession? (Score:3, Interesting)
Drug prohibition is a particularly good example; it's hard to get rid of because now enforcing it is a multi-billion dollar industry, but it wasn't at first, and it seems unlikely that that was the primary motivation of the people who originally pushed it through decades ago.
You are correct:
There are a few more, but the bulk of illegal drugs today are illegal simply because it was easy to continue what had already been begun.
As for child pornography, that's easy. It began as a law meant to ban actual child pornography (minors actually having coitus or obviously masturbating), and after a continued push from our beloved religious right it now includes any nude image, real or imaginary, of a minor. The next step is "could possibly pass as a minor". We're not there yet, but it's been argued for in Congress, and it's just a matter of time, really.
After all, the idea of minors having sex is thoughtcrime, and must be stopped at all costs.
Re:The Children? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever read Starship Troopers? No, not watched, but read the book. One of the themes of the book is similar to what you say. The author explains using a dog metaphor.
"Did you housebreak him?"
"Err . . . yes, sir. Eventually." It was my slowness in this that caused my mother to rule that dogs must stay out of the house.
"Ah, yes. When your puppy made mistakes, were you angry?"
"What? Why, he didn't know any better; he was just a puppy.
"What did you do?"
"Why, I scolded him and rubbed his nose in it and paddled him."
"Surely he could not understand your words?"
"No, but he could tell I was sore at him!"
"But you just said that you were not angry."
Mr. Dubois had an infuriating way of getting a person mixed up. "No, but I had to make him think I was. He had to learn, didn't he?"
"Conceded. But, having made it clear to him that you disapproved, how could you be so cruel as to spank him as well? You said the poor beastie didn't know that he was doing wrong. Yet you indicted pain. Justify yourself! Or are you a sadist?"
I didn't then know what a sadist was â" but I knew pups. "Mr. Dubois, you have to! You scold him so that he knows he's in trouble, you rub his nose in it so that he will know what trouble you mean, you paddle him so that he darn well won't do it again â" and you have to do it right away! It doesn't do a bit of good to punish him later; you'll just confuse him. Even so, he won't learn from one lesson, so you watch and catch him again and paddle him still harder. Pretty soon he learns. But it's a waste of breath just to scold him." Then I added, "I guess you've never raised pups."
"Many. I'm raising a dachshund now â" by your methods. Let's get back to those juvenile criminals. The most vicious averaged somewhat younger than you here in this class . . . and they often started their lawless careers much younger. Let us never forget that puppy. These children were often caught; police arrested batches each day. Were they scolded? Yes, often scathingly. Were their noses rubbed in it? Rarely. News organs and officials usually kept their names secret â" in many places the law so required for criminals under eighteen. Were they spanked? Indeed not! Many had never been spanked even as small children; there was a widespread belief that spanking, or any punishment involving pain, did a child permanent psychic damage. ...
They probably were not spanked as babies; they certainly were not flogged for their crimes. The usual sequence was: for a first offense, a warning â" a scolding, often without trial. After several offenses a sentence of confinement but with sentence suspended and the youngster placed on probation. A boy might be arrested many times and convicted several times before he was punished â" and then it would be merely confinement, with others like him from whom he learned still more criminal habits. If he kept out of major trouble while confined, he could usually evade most of even that mild punishment, be given probation â" 'paroled' in the jargon of the times.
"This incredible sequence could go on for years while his crimes increased in frequency and viciousness, with no punishment whatever save rare dull-but-comfortable confinements. Then suddenly, usually by law on his eighteenth birthday, this so-called 'juvenile delinquent' becomes an adult criminal â" and sometimes wound up in only weeks or months in a death cell awaiting execution for murder. You â" "
He had singled me out again. "Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house . . . and occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and still not housebroken â" whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. ...
Mr. Dubois then turned to me. "I told you tha
Juries cannot nullify anymore... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Will you be able to render a verdict using only the judge's instructions on how the law is to be applied."
I was under oath, and obligated to raise my hand indicating that I might not be able to do this. When I was questioned about my response, I had to answer honestly to the point that I could not follow the Judge's instructions if I felt the law was being applied in an unfair way. I was immediately dismissed.
Re:The Children? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you a complete moron? WTF did the parents do? I assure you, at that age if all the kids are doing is sending nude pictures to their boyfriends they're practically saints.
The problem was not with them sharing the pictures with each other, it was them posting them to a PUBLIC website (myspace).
There is not much you can do to prevent kids from sharing pictures with each other (cell-phone image sending, physical copies, etc), but the kids obviously had un-supervised access to the internet to post these pictures in a very public place.
Also the only reason the kids would be "messed up now" is all this BS "think of the children" legal posturing.
Have you ever heard of the expression "pissing in a swimming pool"? It refers to what happens when you post something on the internet, it spreads. The only way to get piss out of a swimming pool is to DRAIN it, and that's not going to happen to the internet any time soon.
If the kids were dumb enough to post these photos on myspace, I guarantee you that they also posted their real name/address/phone/cell/etc as well. Just wait until they get older and their friends, potential employees, relatives, etc start googling their names... Trust me, this will come back to bite them in the ass HARD!
People need to wake up to the fact that once a child hits puberty they're going to start experimenting with sexual things, it's damn near the definition of "puberty".
This is true, but these experiments should private, not public for every pervert and sucker who clicked a planted link to see. If you found out your kid had sent nude pictures to a boy/girl friend, you may ground them. But if you were browsing myspace and came across the pictures, I'm sure you feel a little more strongly about it.
Re:Fuck you Linus and the horse you rode in on (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if we say they can't consent (which is fine with me), it doesn't then make sense to prosecute them for that. I mean, if we say they can't comprehend the consequences of having sex (or taking photos), why do we then say they can comprehend it when it comes to criminalising them?
The argument for saying they can't consent is that they don't have the mental capacity to do so, but this also means they ought not be held criminally liable for it.
So that's one way to handle it - below a certain age, they can't consent to sex with all (even with someone of the same age), but they also aren't liable for their actions.
I am actually hoping this case gets prosecuted (Score:3, Interesting)
Cases like this pose interesting and important Constitutional issues. Do teenagers have a first amendment right to take nude pictures of themselves? Or do these fall under the child pornography exception to the first amendment even when not for public display? This sort of thing gets threatened reasonably frequently, and I think that a court really should be forced to rule on it in the reasonably near future. Personally, I think that if you make a child a sex offender and a felon for behavior that would be constitutionally protected for an adult (taking nude photographs of oneself, and handing said photos to boy/girlfriend), there are serious 4th Amendment issues to consider as well.
Hopefully, the courts would accept an as-applied Constitutional challenge to the child pornography statutes. This wouldn't overrule the statutes but simply say that they could not be used to prosecute this sort of behavior.