Thomas and Rachel Myers at the ACLU recently covered the story in PA where a group of teens were being threatened by Wyoming County (PA) district attorney George Skumanick, Jr. of facing criminal charges over distributing revealing pictures of their classmates - including charges against the very girls in the pictures for being accomplices to child pornography because they allowed themselves to be photographed.
Well, we're happy to see that a U.S. judge has filed a restraining order against Mr. Skumanick from pressing charges against the students. Said the judge:
"The court agrees with the plaintiffs that the public interest would be served by issuing a TRO (temporary restraining order) in this matter as the public interest is on the side of protecting constitutional rights."
Awesome.
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Good. It may not be wise to play "I'll show you mine, you show me yours" with electronic devices, but it is not criminal.
Okay, I don't know a lot about law, so can someone explain why it's a restraining order? Don't they issue those when someone's threatening or stalking someone else?
I'm guessing that in this case its restraining him from filing charges, not from going near them.
Yay! This is a good news day. First Iowa, now this. http://www.feministing.com/archives/014630.html
I hears a story my local NPR station about this case. I expected better from them, but unfortunately, their guest "experts" kept asking "why do girls want to do this?" and "oh noes, this means that girls seek validation from boys," all ignoring the fact that adults do the same things (wear racy underwear and take racy pictures as a sexy present for their SO) for the same reason: for fun and to feel sexy. Their poll of girls who had done this showed that the vast majority of girls who had done "sexting" didn't feel pressured into it.
I brought up two points when I called into them. Firstly, they lumped nude and semi-nude photos together. Semi-nude could be anything from a tight top to a bikini. What's next, prosecuting teens who take pictures at pool parties or the beach for child porn? Secondly, why are we prosecuting girls who took one lingerie-clad photo and sent it to one person for "distribution" of child pornography? The real distributors are the teenage boys, why not prosecute them?
Heard, not hears.
And you know boys send nude pictures and sexy videos of themselves too.
Another posting on this topic a while back coincided with a news story a sexual predator who coaxed a bunch of boys into sending him nude pictures of themselves, apparently in suggestive poses. Then this man proceeded to blackmail the boys into having sex with him.
Of course probably nobody questions why a boy would send nudie pics of himself.
Another study in from similar story claims that at least one study indicates that the number of boys claiming to have sent nude or semi-nude or other suggestive materials is not that much different from the number of girls who do this---something like 25% of boys and 33% of girls or something like that from the one study.
From what I gather in the news it sounds like kids (boys and girls alike) like to make it a habit of using these photos of girls to humiliate and to bully. Gee...I wonder where that idea comes from in this day and age?
I never understood the logic behind prosecuting a minor who took a racy picture of themselves and gave it to someone else for "distributing child pornography." WTF, world? Aren't child pornography laws supposed to protect children from other people taking pictures of them? =/