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what the hell?
Teen who posted own photo charged with child porn
Monday, March 29, 2004
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
State police have charged a 15-year-old Latrobe girl with child pornography for taking photos of herself and posting them on the Internet.
Police said the girl, whose identity they withheld, photographed herself in various states of undress and performing a variety of sexual acts. She then sent the photos to people she met in chat rooms.
A police report did not say how police learned about the girl. They found dozens of pictures of her on her computer.
She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.
Police said they are trying to identify all the people who receive photos from the girl.
http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/20040329pornp6.asp
i may be pro-porn, but i absolutely, positively do NOT condone child porn. however, making a 15 year old a sex offender for the rest of her life for sending pictures of herself. . . i just don't get it.
i get it even less than a 15 year old posing nude and sending her picture out there into INTERNET land. that alone makes my head hurt.
but, as someone in the journal i stole this article from pointed out, how the hell is she going to stay away from herself?
x-posted
Monday, March 29, 2004
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
State police have charged a 15-year-old Latrobe girl with child pornography for taking photos of herself and posting them on the Internet.
Police said the girl, whose identity they withheld, photographed herself in various states of undress and performing a variety of sexual acts. She then sent the photos to people she met in chat rooms.
A police report did not say how police learned about the girl. They found dozens of pictures of her on her computer.
She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.
Police said they are trying to identify all the people who receive photos from the girl.
http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/20040329pornp6.asp
i may be pro-porn, but i absolutely, positively do NOT condone child porn. however, making a 15 year old a sex offender for the rest of her life for sending pictures of herself. . . i just don't get it.
i get it even less than a 15 year old posing nude and sending her picture out there into INTERNET land. that alone makes my head hurt.
but, as someone in the journal i stole this article from pointed out, how the hell is she going to stay away from herself?
x-posted
no subject
The whole reason child pornography is exempt from First Amendment protection is not that it's per se obscene, it's that it's potential exploitive and damaging to the kids involved, who can't give legal consent. That lets the courts circumvent all of the normal procedures they'd have to go through to prove that adult pornography was "obscene" and thus not protected by the First Amendment (which just does not happen anymore).
But by prosecuting a kid who voluntarily posts the crap on her own, the prosecutors are implicit rejecting the lack of consent/exploitation theory. It looks like they're attempting to prohibit her conduct not because it lacks consent or exploits children (you can't say, even under a legal fiction, that she didn't consent to it, since she's both the victim and the actor.)
In my mind, this undermines the entire doctrine of child protection. What it's saying is that child pornography prosecutions are based on moral disapproval of the article itself, and the contents of the article—which would bring it back under the rubric of First Amendment jurisprudence. Considering the significant burden of prosecution when the First Amendment is implicated—especially for obscene materials, which more or less no longer exist—I'm not sure that's such a wise choice.