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Ruining Kids in Order To Save Them, Ct’d…
Friday, January 29th, 2010Indiana boy, 12, and girl, 13, charged with felony child exploitation and possession of child pornography for sending one another naked pictures of themselves via cell phone.
The idiots charging them out to be tarred and feathered.
MORE: A commenter points to this passage, which is even scarier:
“Illinois legislation is pending to make it illegal to upload on the Internet or disseminate a video of someone without their consent or with the intent to cause harm.”
I really hope the law isn’t as vague as implied here.
This Louis professor is so out of touch with reality it’s disguting. Boys=bad, my body check it out RAWWWRRR me want sexy times
Girls=want family and relationship, oh so innocent
Technology should be used to destroy any prosecutor who ruins lives over “sexting”. Leave a trail of child porn on their computers, spoof IPs and emails, etc.
Romeo and Juliet were that age.
I wonder what they used in place of GPS technology and offender monitoring back in Elizabethan England, because, I’d bet, they… er…fooled around a bit.
It’s okay that this happened, after all, it’s for the childr…. oh wait.
I bet the prosecutor already has a collection of child porn and is just doing this to show how “straight” he is so people will not suspect.
Hmmm… How best to comment without sounding like a perv?
Okay, try this:
What the hell did anyone think kids were going to take pictures of when given a camera that allows instantaneous sharing of images? Puppies and kittens?
What did YOU do the first time you got a digicam, or for those a bit older, a video camera, or for those even older, a Polaroid? Yeah, that’s right.
So why is everyone surprised that in our hyper-sexualized society there are kids doing the same thing?
For the millionth time… there is a WORLD of difference between a photo of a partially-undressed kid and child porn.
But that’s zero tolerance for ya.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=2475289
Police knock on wrong door, beat the shit out of wrong door man, lie about it. What a shocker. I’d like to know how ANYONE can excuse police for their brutality? How are these bastards even walking around alive after this?
If you ask a prosecutor why he is prosecuting children under laws originally meant to protect them, they will look at you as if you’re speaking an unintelligible alien language. To a prosecutor, laws are weapons in an arsenal. You use whatever works to get a conviction and put some little person in his place. And, as everyone knows, there is nothing worse that a snotty little teenybopper who arrogantly thinks he’s exempt from the national mandate of cultural conformity.
This is just as scary from the story.
“Illinois legislation is pending to make it illegal to upload on the Internet or disseminate a video of someone without their consent or with the intent to cause harm.”
You can bet the police are praying this will pass.
I’d love to know the financial costs the families incur because of this nonsense. I imagine they’ll plea to lessor charges and everything will be ok, but not until credit lines are maxed out, pensions are drained, and savings are emptied.
imagine how much worse things would’ve been if the kids were caught with advil…
#6 | BamBam
The new professionalism — international edition.
To quote from another thread: Sexting can ruin your life. To prove it, we’ll ruin your life.
Note to idiot prosecutors: It’s called “puberty.” I’m sure you have Google. Look it up.
@#6 BamBam
Most everything about that story was horrible. However, the police did admit that the original charge of resisting the police was false. And, incredibly:
I think if an American police chief went to someone’s home to apologize, I’d be carrying an umbrella to protect from pig droppings.
So… a charge of “felony child exploitation” implies the photos are of (and as indicated by the ages given) children. So perps (who took pictures of themselves) are children. But if they’re being charged as adults, then it follows that the pictures should be considered to be of adults. So no crime. This is what you get when an insane government is permitted to run amock, instead of relying on old-fashioned parenting: Victimless “crimes” in which a single person becomes both adult and child.
Since screwy sex crime laws the topic, this just in from the
Twilight Zone.
Australia bans A-cup boobs and young-faced actresses
Kylie next in firing line?
“The forward thinking Australian Classification Board is planning to ban ladies with a less ample bosom from appearing in porno in case a paedophile sees.
Somebody Think of the Children, a blog Down Under focused on moral panic across Oz, pointed us toward the Australian Sex Party’s Fiona Patten who says she’s seen women in their late 20s banned from porno because of their A cup breasts.
The National Classification Code in Australia says that anything that describes or depicts a person who appears to be a child under 18 in a way that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult is refused classification.
That means that if you’re 25 but look, say, 17 you’re barred from showing your breasts to the world via Webcam or what have you. Budding “film stars” should start leaving the wrinkle cream on the shelves.”
#12,
The umbrella might get mistaken for an assault rifle, and then you’d be dead. To protect the children.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/hillsboroargus/2010/01/shoppers_take_cover_in_corneli.html
Somebody has to be disenfranchised. Somebody has to be abused by the state. That somebody can’t vote is completely incapable of self reliance, a dependent for another. They don’t own themselves. They don’t get to be free. They are victims and offenders at the sametime. They have no innocence, only capable violation for any action. These are characteristics of slaves. Kids are expensive slaves that don’t produce, but exist to be abused by those with authority.
The prosecutor is Brian Gensel of Porter County. I think buddy needs to reread his own “inspirational” quote…. The difference between what he can do and what he should do my ASS. What a hypocrite.
“Prosecutors are unique among lawyers in that we are ethically bound to seek justice. [...] A Prosecutor must know the difference between what he can do and what he should do.”
#13 | Carl Bussjaeger — “But if they’re being charged as adults …”
I don’t think they are. I think this is juvy. Interesting argument though.
Forgot to include where the quote came from, his own bio. http://www.porterco.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=103&Itemid=146
#17 | Maria — “A Prosecutor must know the difference between what he can do and what he should do.”
Why, to Brian Gensel, a word means exactly what he intends it to mean, nothing more, nothing less.
/humpty dumpty
“Illinois legislation is pending to make it illegal to upload on the Internet or disseminate a video of someone without their consent or with the intent to cause harm.”
Good-bye citizens videotaping misbehavior by people in authority. Now if only we could more narrowly define who qualifies as a journalist to prevent any pesky potential “freedom of the press’ defense. *sigh* I used to wonder whether law-makers were just extremely short sighted, or if there was maliciousness in their action. The longer time goes on, the less willing I am to accept stupidity as the reason for some of their actions.
Fear not, things are under control in California:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-whittier-porn29-2010jan29,0,4438179.story?track=rss
“Eimiller said the investigation was ongoing and that authorities had not determined the extent of the alleged pornography or whether any children were victimized.”
Well, one of the suspects committed suicide, so he must have been guilty. Of something anyway. All in all, a good day for our heroes in blue.
/sarcasm
“I really hope the law isn’t as vague as implied here.”
Probably will be. Aren’t most laws designed to be as vague as possible? It insures that LEOs and prosecutors will have the leeway that they need to keep their numbers up.
Any time there’s a case like this, involving youths abused by prosecutors, the question that always comes to my mind is “When does a person get to claim ownership of their own body?”
If you voluntarily decide you’re ready to become sexually active at 15, who’s to say that that’s not the right age for you?
I’m in agreement with most of what’s being said here, but, I have to wonder about one thing. Say you have two 14 or 15 year olds taking video and pictures of themselves having sex and then they post the video and pictures on a pay per view website. What do you do now? Right now these laws are in place to prevent adults from exploiting children, what happens when the children start exploiting themselves? Your next internet porn kings could be a group of children.
And the beat goes on… and on…
This one has a vindictive ex-boyfreind forwarding a pic… but as far as i can see, the baseline issue is the same…
http://www.kirotv.com/news/22368799/detail.html
Show of hands… If this technology had been available 20 years ago, who here would be likely to have made the news???
#23 | A.G. Pym — “the question that always comes to my mind is “When does a person get to claim ownership of their own body?”
Hahahahahaha! ROFLMAO! Aaaaah …. mmmm …. omg …
Oh, my stomach hurts!
You’re not from the U.S., are you Pym?
“When does a person get to claim ownership of their own body?”
Given laws setting restrictions on when one can drink and use tobacco products, not to mention completely illegal substances like marijuana and restrictions on prostitution and throw in the occasional crusade against salt, sugary beverages, trans-fats…I’d say we’re well beyond ever really claiming full ownership of our bodies.
That, Sir, is a brilliant observation.
And all this you thought. I live in a country that is free. You and do not live in a free country.
Don’t be silly. Of course we’re free. They aren’t marching us off to concentration camps, are they? Our head of state doesn’t even have a mustache.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/portland_police_officer_accide.html
Brilliant cop sprays man who set himself on fire with pepper spray instead of a fire extinguisher. Both containers supposedly were the same color. Apparently cops can now also claim “same color, not my fault” and still get heralded as heroes. So the BART incident where cop claimed “taser and firearm, similar feel, no foul” isn’t so far from SOP.
Right now in Pennsylvania, a Judge is trying to decide whether or not to try a 12 year old boy as an adult.
http://kdka.com/local/Jordan.Brown.hearing.2.1457225.html
If you have all of the responsibilities, you should have all of the privledges.
This sounds like it should have been handled as a privacy issue in civil court.
I think prosecutors like prosecuting sex crimes because they like the attention and sensationalism. And they know from the day care hysteria that there’s no down side. Even if they leave a swath of destroyed innocent lives in their wake, their career still gets a shot in the arm. When you prosecute a sex crime (even if there is no crime), you can’t lose. The public doesn’t care about innocence once they smell blood.
Over @ H&R, there is a post @ 2:50 PM from someone claiming to be Brian Gensell, the prosecutor. He says the kids have not been charged but the matter has been referred to ‘probation services’ as ‘required by Indiana protocol.”
Here’s the pending legislation for Illinois:
Provides that it is a Class A misdemeanor for a person to upload on the Internet an electronic nude image of another person without the written consent of the person whose nude image was uploaded and with the intent to injure the reputation of the other person or with the intent to cause emotional distress to the other person. Provides that it is a Class A misdemeanor for a person to disseminate a video recording of another person without the written consent of the person whose nude image was disseminated and with the intent to injure the reputation of the other person or with the intent to cause emotional distress to the other person. Exempts: (1) the dissemination of a nude image of an infant or toddler that is not child pornography; or (2) the depiction of a nude image in a museum or place of worship that is not obscenity or child pornography.
Senate Committee Amendment
Provides that the violation applies only to the initial uploading of the electronic nude image to the Internet, and shall not apply to any subsequent forwarding, linking to, storage, or viewing of that image.
Senate Floor Amendment
Exempts from a violation of these provisions any depiction of a nude image that would be protected as free speech under either the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article I, Section 4 of the Illinois Constitution.
This looks like the Illinois bill http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/96/HB/09600HB2537.htm
Its not quite as vague as the article indicates because it requires the image to be nude.
“It is unlawful for a person to upload on the Internet an electronic nude image of another person without the written consent of the person whose nude image was uploaded and with the intent to injure the reputation of the other person or with the intent to cause emotional distress to the other person. ”
So i guess its ok to post naked pictures of all your exes as long as you don’t mean them any harm. “Honest, I didnt mean any harm. I was just bragging! Its a compliment.”
Still this strikes me as a law which is created even though there is probably already something on the books which covers it.
No worries about innocent “children” being prosecuted as adults. In most states, the statute of limitations does not start running until the “victim” is an adult OR there is no limitation at all. Meaning if the State wants to it can wait until the 12 year old is 22 and no one will feel sorry for a perv that age. He had a naked picture of a 12 year old! It’s a crime forever.
The Smoking Gun has the police report on this. If that’s what the fuss is over, and the county is not prosecuting, it’s much ado about nothing. More could be learned from making the point that the kids’ parents signed off on allowing the cops to “search” the phones without benefit of legal council was a very dumb thing to do.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0128102text1.html
How sleazy – the school interrogates the kids with cop “standing by as a safety agent” so he gets to listen in to the kids’ confession. That would give them probable cause for a search warrant for the phones, so it doesn’t matter that the parents consented to the search.
Please, teach your children: don’t talk to cops, don’t talk to anyone when they are around.
The Bastille was stormed on less than this
I already +dinged your post but “And, as everyone knows, there is nothing worse that a snotty little teenybopper who arrogantly thinks he’s exempt from the national mandate of cultural conformity” IS AWESOME
GOD DAMN IT APPARENTLY I HIT THE WRONG BUTTON ENABLING “SPACE” TO ENTER MY COMMENT BEFORE I CONTINUED “and bears repeating, and a slight correction – ’snotty little teenybopper who…’ could be generalized to ’snotty person’.”
But, yes, awesome.
I kinda hate to quote Dave Matthews as I’m not all that into him (on occasion, older stuff), but he did also put it well –
“Everybody’s happy
Everybody’s free
We’ll keep the big door open
Everyone’ll come around
Why are you different?
Why are you that way?
If you don’t get in line
We’ll lock you away”
From BamBam’s link in #15:
“His mental capacity made it questionable whether [he] understood his actions.”
The same thought goes through my head every single time I a see a cop.
Jim Collins, #25:
“Say you have two 14 or 15 year olds taking video and pictures of themselves having sex and then they post the video and pictures on a pay per view website.”
Such things are dictated by what arbitrary line on a map enslaves you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent
Note the legend: the age of consent in some places is *9* years old.
Cynical, comment #22, I fixed it for ya ;) :
“…heroes in *costumes*.”
[...] offender” labels! The latest case brings felony charges against kids of 12 and 13 (via Radley Balko). I’ve been meaning to write about this issue, but just read these [...]
Could my 12 year old be charged with molestation if he masterbates? Will that turn him into a sex offender?
@ #25 | Jim Collins |
“I’m in agreement with most of what’s being said here, but, I have to wonder about one thing. Say you have two 14 or 15 year olds taking video and pictures of themselves having sex and then they post the video and pictures on a pay per view website. What do you do now?”
In a free, healthy society, we would do absolutely nothing. It would not even occur to us that something should be done about it.
“Won’t somebody PLEASE think about the children?”
Think, I say, THINK, that is, not run around like a flock of headless chickens and pass laws that you could drive a fleet of Hummers through.
Thinking won’t get you votes, Andrew. Our elected officials must be men (and women!) of action!
#32
I am not a cop, never been one. And, I think there is a new police state, with much of the witnessed behavior on the Internet.
But, I believe that cops are not trained firemen. Firemen might make a mistake like this, under a similar situation. The people admitted a mistake was made. I was not under the impression that they were denying anything. Accuracy, would be much more appreciated.
Your snide comment was obviously pointing out, either your ignorance, or the fact that you don’t give a damn that an honest mistake was made. Did you see the picture of the canister? It looks just like a fire extinguisher. Good thing it was not something flammable. These types of mistakes are addressed in hospitals every day!. They are constantly changing labels and locations of certain medications to try to keep us from making any, human, mistakes.
I believe in pointing out intentional police misbehavior, when it occurs. This is not the case, here. It was damn honest mistake. Why abuse one of the victims of the mistake? I am sure I would have felt great if I did something like that to a person on fire!
Do you demand perfection? I know that I am not perfect. Neither was the cop! I can forgive the mistake.
And, as a doctor, I was sometimes heralded as a hero. We are not! Just like the policeman and firemen, we are just doing the job we have been trained to do. I don’t see it as a fault of the policeman that his/her superior though the actions were heroic. Fact is, there are not that many, true, heroes out there!
@ #38 | SusanK |
“How sleazy – the school interrogates the kids with cop “standing by as a safety agent” so he gets to listen in to the kids’ confession. That would give them probable cause for a search warrant for the phones, so it doesn’t matter that the parents consented to the search.
Please, teach your children: don’t talk to cops, don’t talk to anyone when they are around.”
I could not agree with you more. A colleague of mine has developed quite a nifty little rhyme to drum that very point home to his clients: “Don’t talk to the Man, or it’s your butt in the Can!”
Dave – That’s what happens when there isn’t a good definition of the “public interest”. You don’t hear about sexting cases (or, for that matter, charged being brought when two fifteen year olds have consensual sex) in the UK, because it’s NOT in the public interest to bring charges.
(If it was a teacher and and a kid, sure, different story…)
The police here certainly have “expressed concern”, about sexting…in the context of bullying.
Interesting to note, that if these kids had actually undressed in front of each other, that wouldn’t be a crime. Only because it a PICTURE, then suddenly they are pervs and need to be taught a lesson. Oh yeah, and don’t forget that ruin their lives thing.
The most curious aspect of the sad tale of the self-immolating suicidal schlamazel and the schlamiel cop who emptied the canister of pepper spray on him is that this was one of the only conceivable situations where emptying a canister of pepper spray on someone was absolutely harmless.
Riddle me this: if one is ablaze, how could it possibly increase one’s pain to be doused with pepper spray?
Interestingly, if the pepper spray were an accelerant, her actions would have been more merciful than if she had used a fire extinguisher.
Michael #32:
I think your tone is a bit too acerbic here. I don’t find BamBam to be making an attack on the officer involved, snide or otherwise. I believe BamBam was merely voicing his frustration with the non-rebuttable presumption and non-falsifiable hypothesis that cops are always to be hailed as heroes, no matter what they may do. Regardless of whether cops are corrupt, vicious, venal, abusive, incompetent, or (as in this case) all too fallibly human, it is demanded that we mere plebes revere them as heroic icons. I object to this as strongly as BamBam does, even though my heart does go out to this obviously well-intentioned officer.
#13 | Carl Bussjaeger:
In a similar vein, the Feds can now charge you with doing things outside the United States which do not violate the local laws but are illegal in the U.S.
They can also charge you with doing things that are not illegal in the U.S. but violate foreign laws.
Off topic:
Police beat man to death at sobriety checkpoint. He was a passenger.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2010/01/30/ma.police.beating.death.cnn?hpt=T2
#58
Sorry about being acerbic. How much more acerbic could one be than bambam (sorry #32 dave) calling the cop “brilliant” then going on to make such statements that appear to not represent what was said in the article? I like your your response, though. It makes us look real intelligent when we use big words, doesn’t it? Your response, almost, feels like condescension.
This was far from the BART incident! Why even compare the two?
@ #61 Michael
“Sorry about being acerbic. How much more acerbic could one be than bambam (sorry #32 dave) calling the cop “brilliant” then going on to make such statements that appear to not represent what was said in the article? I like your your response, though. It makes us look real intelligent when we use big words, doesn’t it? Your response, almost, feels like condescension.”
How much more acerbic could one be? I will refer you to your posts #32 and #61 as exemplars. As for the “big[ness]” of words, I would point out that “condescension” contains 13 letters, making it “big[ger]” than any I previously used. Beyond this, I find it very telling that you would find any of the terms in my post to merit any comment. We “real intelligent” people use such terms without any second thought or even the slightest bit of self-consciousness, and it simply never occurs to us that another might find them at all stilted or otherwise remarkable.
Illinois House Bill 2537 is sponsored by Springfield bottom feeder LaShawn Ford, a Jesuit High School trustee behind a bill to provide public funds to private religious schools and churches (not for teaching religions but for labs and auditoriums secular things, of course) and she was the sponsor of the ‘mandatory moment of silence’ in schools bill.
House Bill 2537 criminalizes the uploading of nude images or video of another person without their consent and with the intent to harm their reputation. So if some drunk adult flashes in bar, and you upload a photo or video without their permission, you could be arrested.
You know, these comments amuse the hell out of me. I have to wonder how many of you would fight for the right of your 14 year old daughter to have sex with a 17 year old boy?
Because that’s what this all boils down to. It all about adults forgetting what it was like to be an adolescent. And wanting power over anyone they can.
And people are too afraid to do anything about it, which is a symptom of being told to fear everything.
I believe that in my lifetime this country will fall.
Hey, at least their names are being withheld to protect them. They are, after all, only children.