onceuponajanuary (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
onceuponajanuary) wrote2009-01-13 08:36 pm
onceuponajanuary) wrote2009-01-13 08:36 pm
Aren't you glad you don't live in Pennsylvania?
http://www.wpxi.com/news/18469160/detail.html
"GREENSBURG, Pa. -- Three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves, and three male classmates in a Greensburg Salem High School who received them, are charged with child pornography."
This is just ridiculous. Yes, child porn is bad. Yes, we should have laws that make manufacturing and distributing child porn illegal. But the reason child porn is bad is that it victimizes children. Who is being victimized here? No one forced these girls to take nude photos of themselves. It sounds more like the parties involved in this case were so morally outraged that teenagers might actually have sex that they jumped on the child porn charges and had these six minors arrested.
Yes, that's right. Six minors. Arrested. For manufacturing, possession and dissemination of child pornography.
Now this is an interesting point here:
"Police said the girls are 14 or 15, and the boys charged with receiving the photos are 16 or 17."
The following is the law in Pennsylvania regarding statutory sexual assault, as helpfully provided by "foobardog" on the Something Awful forums:
"§ 3122.1. Statutory sexual assault.
Except as provided in section 3121 (relating to rape), a person commits a felony of the second degree when that person engages in sexual intercourse with a complainant under the age of 16 years and that person is four or more years older than the complainant..."
Note that the youngest girl in this case is 14, and the oldest boy is 17. The maximum age difference is three years. Under Pennsylvania law, it is perfectly legal for a 17-year-old to have sex with a 14-year-old. (Let's not get into moral debates here, the question is legality.)
So he can see her naked; that's not sexual assault. He can have sex with her; that's not rape. But he cannot possess a picture of her naked, because that's child pornography, despite the fact that he is legally a child himself. Am I the only one who sees something odd about this?
It doesn't help their case that the policeman they chose to interview for this article is also clearly insane.
"'It's very dangerous," said Seranko. "Once it's on a cell phone, that cell phone can be put on the Internet where everyone in the world can get access to that juvenile picture. You don't realize what you are doing until it's already done.'"
I assume what he was going for is that despite the fact that these pictures were only sent to a very limited receiving pool, they could potentially be uploaded to the Internet, therefore constituting actual distribution of child pornography. This is a very slippery slope he's heading down. At this moment, I have quite a bit of copyrighted material on my computer. I could, if I wished, upload it to a file-sharing site and let millions of Internet users download it freely. That would be unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, which would be illegal. But I haven't done that. So by having a computer with an Internet connection and copyrighted material on it, am I committing a crime simply by having the capacity to commit a crime? I don't think any objective person could answer "yes" to that question.
Now let's look at the charges:
"Police said the girls are being charged with manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the boys face charges of possession."
Now, I'm not familiar with the legal definition of "dissemination," but the dictionary definition suggests that it requires more than one recipient. The fact that that recipient could then send it to others is immaterial; in that case the person who actually did that is guilty of dissemination, not the person who sent it to them to begin with. By that logic, the store that sold my mother the Princess Tutu box set would be arrested if I uploaded it on Pirate Bay. And hey, why stop there? Why not go all the way to the source and arrest Ikuko Itoh for writing Princess Tutu in the first place and therefore making it possible for someone to distribute it on the Internet?
Oh, wait, because that's stupid.
So to recap:
*The photos in question were taken by the subjects represented in those photos. No one was victimized.
*It is perfectly legal for those charged to have sex with each other, but it is illegal for them to possess naked photos of each other.
*Sending a photo to one person apparently constitutes dissemination because that person could then send it to others, even if he doesn't.
What is the legal system coming to?
"GREENSBURG, Pa. -- Three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves, and three male classmates in a Greensburg Salem High School who received them, are charged with child pornography."
This is just ridiculous. Yes, child porn is bad. Yes, we should have laws that make manufacturing and distributing child porn illegal. But the reason child porn is bad is that it victimizes children. Who is being victimized here? No one forced these girls to take nude photos of themselves. It sounds more like the parties involved in this case were so morally outraged that teenagers might actually have sex that they jumped on the child porn charges and had these six minors arrested.
Yes, that's right. Six minors. Arrested. For manufacturing, possession and dissemination of child pornography.
Now this is an interesting point here:
"Police said the girls are 14 or 15, and the boys charged with receiving the photos are 16 or 17."
The following is the law in Pennsylvania regarding statutory sexual assault, as helpfully provided by "foobardog" on the Something Awful forums:
"§ 3122.1. Statutory sexual assault.
Except as provided in section 3121 (relating to rape), a person commits a felony of the second degree when that person engages in sexual intercourse with a complainant under the age of 16 years and that person is four or more years older than the complainant..."
Note that the youngest girl in this case is 14, and the oldest boy is 17. The maximum age difference is three years. Under Pennsylvania law, it is perfectly legal for a 17-year-old to have sex with a 14-year-old. (Let's not get into moral debates here, the question is legality.)
So he can see her naked; that's not sexual assault. He can have sex with her; that's not rape. But he cannot possess a picture of her naked, because that's child pornography, despite the fact that he is legally a child himself. Am I the only one who sees something odd about this?
It doesn't help their case that the policeman they chose to interview for this article is also clearly insane.
"'It's very dangerous," said Seranko. "Once it's on a cell phone, that cell phone can be put on the Internet where everyone in the world can get access to that juvenile picture. You don't realize what you are doing until it's already done.'"
I assume what he was going for is that despite the fact that these pictures were only sent to a very limited receiving pool, they could potentially be uploaded to the Internet, therefore constituting actual distribution of child pornography. This is a very slippery slope he's heading down. At this moment, I have quite a bit of copyrighted material on my computer. I could, if I wished, upload it to a file-sharing site and let millions of Internet users download it freely. That would be unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, which would be illegal. But I haven't done that. So by having a computer with an Internet connection and copyrighted material on it, am I committing a crime simply by having the capacity to commit a crime? I don't think any objective person could answer "yes" to that question.
Now let's look at the charges:
"Police said the girls are being charged with manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the boys face charges of possession."
Now, I'm not familiar with the legal definition of "dissemination," but the dictionary definition suggests that it requires more than one recipient. The fact that that recipient could then send it to others is immaterial; in that case the person who actually did that is guilty of dissemination, not the person who sent it to them to begin with. By that logic, the store that sold my mother the Princess Tutu box set would be arrested if I uploaded it on Pirate Bay. And hey, why stop there? Why not go all the way to the source and arrest Ikuko Itoh for writing Princess Tutu in the first place and therefore making it possible for someone to distribute it on the Internet?
Oh, wait, because that's stupid.
So to recap:
*The photos in question were taken by the subjects represented in those photos. No one was victimized.
*It is perfectly legal for those charged to have sex with each other, but it is illegal for them to possess naked photos of each other.
*Sending a photo to one person apparently constitutes dissemination because that person could then send it to others, even if he doesn't.
What is the legal system coming to?