6 Pennsylvania Teens Face Child Porn Charges For Pics of Selves 1044
mikesd81 writes "MSNBC reports six Pennsylvania high school students are facing child pornography charges after three teenage girls allegedly took nude or semi-nude photos of themselves and shared them with male classmates via their cell phones. Apparently, female students at Greensburg Salem High School in Greensburg, Pa., all 14 or 15 years old, face charges of manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the boys, who are 16 and 17, face charges of possession. Police told the station that the photos were discovered in October, after school officials seized a cell phone from a male student who was using it in violation against school policy and the photos were discovered at that time. Police Capt. George Seranko was quoted as saying that the first photograph was 'a self portrait taken of a juvenile female taking pictures of her body, nude.' The school district issued a statement Tuesday saying that the investigation turned up 'no evidence of inappropriate activity on school grounds ... other than the violation of the electronic devices policy.'"
Take this as a lesson (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is going to raise a lot of legal questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Where's justice? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Think of the children (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Think of the children (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not? Does that mean I can kill someone if I'm an American school student, and they can't prosecute me because I was on school grounds?
The law doesn't apply? What kind of bullshit is that?
(Other than the aforementioned TOTC crap.)
How about this? We KILL the children who engage (Score:1, Interesting)
in such depravity, just like the Taliban pretend the Koran tells us to do.
We could line them up face down on the ground against a wall and put single bullet from a Kalashnikov through as many heads as it'll go through.
Well, all the girls anyway. Boys get their week-end pass privileges revoked.
That ought to please all the religious whack jobs who says that being naked is punishable by something...
We've been heading this way for a long time now (Score:5, Interesting)
The United States has been heading this way for a long while now, at least since Anita Bryant started her "Save Our Children" campaign, when she was under the impression that homosexuals could only increase their number by "recruiting" innocent children. Then John Walsh turned his personal tragedy into a national, and now a global tragedy with his movement that deceived the nation into believing that the thousands of children who run away from abusive homes each year were in fact millions of children who were being raped and murdered by strangers each year. (The quasi-governmental organization Walsh founded, the National Center for Misusing and Exploiting Children, is the king of dubious statistics - at one point they were telling Americans that over a million kids went missing annually. More recently they have been claiming that the non-existent child porn industry is larger than the legal pornography industry and Hollywood, combined.) What started out as an anti-homosexual movement has turned into an anti-child and anti-man movement, and in fact an anti-everything-good-about-the-world movement.
(As a curious aside: Anita Bryant made a name for herself as a singer, and one of her hits was a tune from the 1950's musical "The Music Man", which was set in the early 1900s. "The Music Man" was about a charlatan who deceived parents into believing their children were in danger so that he could sell them the cure. Sound familiar?)
So now we have reached the point where we are putting children who are "doing what comes naturally" in jail, or blacklisting them for life, in the name of "protecting them". Protecting them from what, exactly, no one has been able to satisfactorily explain, but protect them we will, by God, if we have to kill every last one of them!
I feel for both the boys and girls who have been caught up in this situation, in which the only real crimes were those committed by the principal who violated their right to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure and those committed by the police and prosecutors who pursued charges.
When combined with such things as The Drug War, it is getting harder and harder every day to do anything but laugh at the notion that the United States is home to the free or the brave.
"And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the fear and the home of the slave!"
Play ball!
Re:Not good enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A great victory in the fight against child porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, my last lines spell it all out.
The REAL problem is the disconnect between nature/culture and our morality laws. They are moving in separate directions.
We had similar problems with smoking at one point until laws were create to reign that in... now that we have laws preventing children from smoking and laws preventing its advertisement, we are at least consistent. But laws against sexual expression in advertisement will be a LOT harder to come by and a lot harder fought. Meanwhile these sappy laws "protecting the children" even from themselves are in dire need of revisitation and reconciliation with our present day standards and culture.
Re:A great victory in the fight against child porn (Score:3, Interesting)
They're old enough to consent, but god forbid I videotape it for later.
I'm actually cool with that. Recordings are a lot more likely to cause trouble in their lives than just having sex.
What I think is perverse is that someone could be old enough to have sex with you, but not to *watch* a video of you having sex.
Re:Think of the children (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is going to raise a lot of legal questions (Score:3, Interesting)
No he did not have that right. My wife is a teacher, and if they feel a need to search the contents of a students bag, they either get parental permission, or if they think something criminal may be occurring (i.e. drugs) then they'll call police to do the search. But he did look through the phone. Once that happened, it all snowballed from there. Note that I am not trying to defend this person. I'm just trying to make the point that this isn't Big Evil Administrator ruining the lives of Poor Innocent Children. It's considerably more complex than that--a culture of fear around anything linking children and sex. People become irrational and will gladly throw everyone else into the fire to save themselves as the consequences are so often so out of proportion with the offense.
Re:Not good enough. (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I can tell it came out of this weird collective fear parents have had after you started seeing two income households.
And keep in mind, all those things people claim are breeding grounds for pedophiles. Nudist colonies esp are having a really difficult time in the US over the last few decades.
Re:A great victory in the fight against child porn (Score:3, Interesting)
Before, when some crazy shit happened it was only for those actually there. If you weren't at the party you never saw that girl flashing her tits, and while some talk might get around if you were a parent you wouldn't be present nor would anyone tell you about it. Parents *want* to have a certain blind spot like this, it's kinda like not wanting to think of your parents having sex. Documentation shatters that illusion, kids this generation actually do the same stuff you'd almost managed to forget you did as an impetus teens. I'm now thirthyish and people have stopped telling only the "moral" stories some time ago. The last generation or even further back did a lot of things that were stupid, illegal, dangerous and sexual as teens too. Particularly before legalized abortion it doesn't take much more than birth dates and subtraction to figure out what was going on. So yeah, in many cases the problem people have isn't what's happening but the video tape.
Re:This is going to raise a lot of legal questions (Score:3, Interesting)
Police Capt. George Seranko was quoted as saying that the first photograph was âoea self portrait taken of a juvenile female taking pictures of her body, nude." The school district issued a statement Tuesday saying that the investigation turned up âoeno evidence of inappropriate activity on school grounds ⦠other than the violation of the electronic devices policy.â The statement also said that school officials didnâ(TM)t learn of the charges against the students until Monday.
(Emphasis mine)
To be (somewhat) lenient on the school, it is my impression from the article that school officials didn't go in guns blazing demanding that the perverts be burned. Consider it from their point of view: child pornography is illegal and they found child pornography on a student's person (the legality, morality, acceptability of the search being ignored ATM). Even if they could identify it as a student at the school that tells them nothing, and it would be wrong for them to assume no crime was committed. The only thing they can be sure of at that point is that the girl took a picture of herself nude with her phone and didn't delete it. If someone else had stolen her phone then they could have sent the pictures to the boy they found, the internet, whoever. They can make no assumptions about the circumstances in which he obtained the pictures and for the protection of the girl (who may at this point be a victim) they MUST inform the police so they can investigate. This is to protect the girl in the pictures because the letter and intent of child pornography laws is to protect the child in question. It would have been irresponsible on the part of the school to assume that everything was innocent and not report it to the police. I wouldn't put too much blame on the school.
Now the police... Well, suffice it to say that their stance at the moment is rather absurd and ignore the intent (and possibly the letter) of child pornography laws. But I'll let others handle that point better than I.
conservatives + feminists = insanity (Score:2, Interesting)
"Psychologically, I say this is the extreme conversatives who would really like to outlaw nudity, masturbation and while we're at it, even thinking about sex."
That's only half of it. The liberals are also idiots, especially the feminist faction.
There have been at least two cases where women have been put in prison for being raped by teenage boys. Yes, you read that correctly, they were put in prison for being the victims of actual, honest-to-god, forcible rape. Because their rapists were less than 18 years old, the victims were convicted of statutory rape of a minor. Unlike Saudi Arabia, where the public was outraged when a woman was convicted for being a rape victim, nobody cared much. And where did this happen, some conservative bastion in the backcountry? No. It happened in Madison, Wisconsin - a famously "liberal" enclave.
This idiocy is coming at us from right and left, and frankly I think the feminists on the left are worse. The conservatives at least have some moderating influences like a belief in the power of forgiveness and millennia of history.
Re:Not good enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't like child molesters, someone do something about them!
Laws are passed, people are happier.
Politicians need a rallying cry, and who can resist "I'm doing this for the Safety of the Children"?
Snowball begins...
When you're super-conservative, nudity=thinking forbidden thoughts=sin. Logical solution? Remove sources of nudity to prevent sin. As an added bonus, Think of the Children will garner votes.
It is ridiculously stupid. Ban nudity, and you ban most of the Renaissance painters. Those dirty, sinning pornographers.
Re:This is going to raise a lot of legal questions (Score:3, Interesting)
Underage porn laws are written with the intent (whether you agree or not) of protecting minors from themselves. Thus you can't differentiate who took it, or you could have adults paying/pressuring teens to do this. You need to be able to charge the teens if only to let them plea and turn in any adult who may have been involved.
So if some teen masturbates, they should be thrown in jail for child molestation because otherwise you could have adults paying/pressuring teens to do this? Might as well just rename all high schools to juvenile prisons instead of building more.
Re:Not good enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
When you're super-conservative, nudity=thinking forbidden thoughts=sin. Logical solution? Remove sources of nudity to prevent sin. As an added bonus, Think of the Children will garner votes.
I hope I don't get arrested for the back issues of National Geographic in my bookcase. Check issues from the 1950's and 1960's where photos of natives in far away places often included nude children playing.
Re:Refrence to example (Score:5, Interesting)
Just for grins, I flipped through a few old copies. An example of nude women and children making pottery is in the FEB 1964 issue page 174. Now you can get arrested for photos like this? Who knew we would become that crazy.
Re:Think of the children (Score:4, Interesting)
Given the teacher immediately turned everything over to the police I would think there is no risk of being charged... Its not, after all, illegal to report a crime..
It is illegal to be in possession of child pornography, regardless of knowledge of possession or intent. That's the law.
If I secretly copy some to your computer and then anonymously turn you in, you can be arrested and go to jail; your life forever destroyed.
Re:Think of the children (Score:4, Interesting)
Like it or not, agree with it or not, minors do not legally have civil rights so they can not be infringed upon.
Gonna need a source on that one. I can't find anywhere in the constitution that civil rights only apply to non-minors. In fact, the US Supreme Court has famously found that: "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." (Tinker v. Des Moines). If the first amendment applies to students, that would suggest that minors do have Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, and therefore that the rest of the constitution applies to minors as well.
Re:Not good enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
so does it mean that if two minors has sex .. legal their both child molesters? i mean .. ire meber being 16 .. and eating that one thing we used to eat when we were kids ... thats what being 16 is all about!! GIRLS!and i mean cmon.. what 16 year old guy wouldnt want naked pictures of his 16 year old girlfriend ... there kids .. I just dont see how its child pornography if they are the same age ..
btw .. im too lazy to sign in
- WINDOWS_NT
Re:Not good enough. (Score:3, Interesting)
Reword it.
Once we have banned all children, there will be no children in unsafe situations. We will finally achieve a perfect 0 incident rate on all dangers to children.
Re:Not good enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Think of the children (Score:3, Interesting)
I interpreted "most such laws" too broadly.
Just the same, the point remains. The US legal system is completely fucked. I understand the legal basis for arresting her. I wasn't surprised to hear the outcome in the least. Just the same, if common sense, reason, or even simple logic had been applied, she would not have been arrested.
You arrest people so they can be in the system and ensure they are properly addressed by the government. It is not reasonable for someone attempting to go above and beyond their civic duty to be arrested. In the end, this did nothing but waste tax payer's money and valuable court/police time. No justice was done. And a person with good intent was punished.
Ultimately, that's part of the problem. Law enforcement and courts do not see the mere act of being arrested or being forced to go through the legal system as a punishment in the least. Contrary to their ignorant position, simply having to react is a form of punishment. Locating and retaining an attorney can cost significant time, lost wages, vacation time, and thousands of dollars before a lawyer even touches a phone on your behalf. According to the courts, that's tough shit - deal with it.
Teenage carelessness... (Score:5, Interesting)
My experience with High Schoolers has been that:
1. Teens today are quite easily manipulated into many things that earlier cohorts may have resisted. Perhaps a changing of the times, where a media-driven culture sends out messages of 'everything is cool, the more 'kinky' the better...'
2. Don't understand the ramifications of a compromising photograph.
When 'everything goes', then who cares about a photo taken without a thought of its unintended usage. Not to mention, how easy it is for someone to pass the photo around. In one of my classes, I invited an HR person who explained how easy it was to take a picture and massively publish it... and pop up just at the wrong time for when a job offer may be at hand.
3. I deal with law enforcement at times and they say that the #1 way to entrap kids, especially girls, is to have them either do something (e.g., nude webcam, pics etc.) for which they know they will be in trouble with their parents. Once a predator has established this sort of blackmail, the poor kid will end up forced into far worse things.
I don't like this porn law being used this way because it detracts from the real issue(s) at hand. Yet, I can see that law may not fit the bill entirely in such cases. I would instead favor a system which educates kids/teens better and a social system that encourages kids towards greater self-esteem and understanding of such things by informing them of the bad and very real consequences for teens who made reckless choices.
You have no autonomy (Score:2, Interesting)
It is against the law for children to take nude pictures of themselves....because their youth and immaturity make them more vulnerable to the kinds of harm that having a nude picture of one's self can cause...
and yet, they will probably be tried as adults, to make sure the punishment sticks.
Oh, the irony.
Lack of common sense (Score:1, Interesting)
Sorry about posting this as AC, but this subject is just the sort of thing AC is around for - to get true ideas said when saying them would get people too much and cause them to be dismissed. Anonymous speech is free speech on steroids.
Here are some facts:
However, remembering myself as a thirteen year old, I don't see any reason why a consentual relationship with an *average* adult would have more or less potential to damage me than a relationship with someone my own age at the time. It is true that currently a relationship with someone with enough screws loose to actually attempt to have a relationship with a minor as an adult has *lots* more potential to cause damage to anyone, minors included, than is likely with a relationship with an average person. However this is likely an artifact of the societal norms around such coupling affecting the makeup of the actual pool of participants. Without those norms, the makeup of the pool of adults who couple with minors is unknown to me, though it may differ in some unknown ways from the general pool of adults.
Also, remembering myself as a thi
Re:Think of the children (Score:1, Interesting)
The school is acting as a guardian of the children
That is surprising argument. I have always thought a school is responsible only to the lengths of its insurance policy. Any search should be performed by a police officer after a request by the school based on a suspected violation of city codes and criminal laws (weapons, controlled substances). A search of a phone in this case should be performend by the FBI after the school reports the suspicion.
Just wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
If nudity is seen as porn, imagine when some higher-up realizes that mothers kissing their children on the forehead when they go to sleep is CHILD RAPE!
Re:Not good enough. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not good enough. (Score:1, Interesting)
It's even worse than this. The subjects don't even have to be under age. They just have to look underage (whatever that means). The absurd reasoning is that anything a model who "looks" underage might encourage prurient interest in children.
So, now, anything that "might" encourage prurient interest in children is kiddie porn.
Know what? I'm a million times more likely to sodomize my eight year old son if these kids are prosecuted. Prosecute them and you're guilty of producing child porn, 1,000,000*0=0 being over your heads, clearly up the DA's ass.
As for "snapping", it's only crazy if done on the spur of the moment with no forethought under what conditions one will fight back with deadly force.
I know damn well the conditions under which I will start killing police and anyone who does not kill them with me, and one of them is being harassed for exercising my right of free speech to criticize this insanity.
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Interesting)
Why did the school look at the cell phone? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is what disturbs me in the case. I feel like the whole thing could be thrown out by illegal search laws. I'm sure that the school official had the right to seize the cell phone, but what right did he have to go searching on in the contents of the phone?! In fact, why the hell was he looking around on the phone of a 16-year-old?! What relevance could that possibly have to the issue of the child using a cell phone when he wasn't supposed to be using it?
I feel like a good lawyer will be able to get out of this without too much trouble.
Re:Not good enough. (Score:2, Interesting)
make the punishment fit the crime (Score:3, Interesting)
That is not what is going on here. Is it behavior that should be encouraged? Of course not! As you said, what is the intent by the model, photographer, and distributor?
There are some difficult questions to answer. The law also needs to be clear, but not by prosecuting these kids in a way that the law was never intended. I think some responsibility needs to go to the parents, but NOT the same charges. I think the harshest justifiable punishment would be some kind of counseling for the teens about appropriate school behavior, and the differences between appropriate minor vs adult activities.
Re:Not good enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not just the DA at fault. What about the 12 ordinary citizens? Why did they find him guilty?
Re:Not good enough. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:make the punishment fit the crime (Score:2, Interesting)
In Pennsylvania, the age of consent is 16. If one of the participants is under 16, but over 13 (as applies here), the partner must be within 4 years of age (which is true here). So, it is perfectly legal for these boys and girls to fuck, but sending nude pictures is inappropriate. Yeah....