|
Click here to play Audio File
Bodies of Evidence Is taking naked pictures of yourself a crime? If you’re a minor, some judges say yes. Cyber-crime specialist Mark Rasch explains how the combination of teenagers and technology creates a challenge for current child pornography laws. Last week I worked a piece on sexting from the Tennessean for tn.net. It got a lot of local attention, but since then I've found out that story was only an introduction to this fad. Here's the background as explained by the Impact Lab, "The tools of courtship have changed. Move over SMS, MMS and texting, the latest trend is sexting - the sending of x-rated text messages or photos to someone on the cellphone. It’s like having a complete foreplay experience via text messaging."
OK, I guess this is a predictable use - or misuse - of the technology. Isn't is a natural extension of the dust ups over the MySpace profile pics? But with cell phones texts and photos there's no moderator ... no one to delete the photo - undo the deed.
The big rub comes when minors are sending nude and semi-nude photos of themselves via their cell phones. Enter child pornography laws.
Technically the person possessing such a cell phone photo can be charged, convicted, listed as a sex offender and go to prison.
Mark Rasch, a SecurityFocus columnist capsuled the legal issues during an On The Media segment.
Rasch is an independent computer security and privacy consultant. Before that he was an attorney with the Department of Justice's Computer Crime Unit.
According Rasch federal and state law focuses on possession of photos and whether or not the person in the photo is a minor. It doesn't make any difference if the minor took the picture and sent the picture. Possession is enough to warrant prosecution.
Many of the sexting cases so far have resulted in lectures and probation. But according to Rasch, there a very real possibility that someone snagged in a sexting case where minors are involved could be prosecuted after they reach the age of majority.
Rasch mirrors what some privacy advocates are saying about such cases, that turning child pornography laws against the people it was supposed to protect is a perversion of the law. But it can and is happening.
The cases vary from the naughty, which usually results in probation, to what can only be described as skanky teenage sex.
Prosecutors in Greensburg, Penn. charged six teens ranging in age from 14 to 17 with creating, distributing and possessing child pornography, after three girls were found to have taken photos of themselves in the nude or partially nude and e-mailed them to friends, including three boys who are among the defendants.
And in Florida, a 16-year-old girl and her 17-year-old boyfriend were charged with producing, directing or promoting child porn after they photographed themselves having sex. Neither of the teens shared the images with anyone else.
Brian Marvin, a member of the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force of Central Ohio told the Impact Lab, "I’ve seen everything from your basic striptease to sexual acts being performed. You name it, they will do it at their home under this perceived anonymity."
But it not anonymous when the send button is involved.
And Portland-area prosecutors have said parents can also face charges if they know their child is sending racy pictures and allowing it to continue.
It's proof that if you mix equal parts technology and hormones you have a lead-pipe-cinch formula for trouble.
Related Report:
They send risque texts to joke and flirt
By Natalia Mielczarek
THE TENNESSEAN
Kacie Horner, 20, didn't come across "sexting" until college.
That's when she learned that some girls on her soccer team had sent nude photos of themselves to their boyfriends using text messaging.
About one-third of people in Horner's age group have done it, according to a recent survey. So have 20 percent of teenagers: They've sent or posted nude or semi-nude images of themselves, mostly to flirt or for fun.
"I've heard about this happening, and it's becoming more and more common, but it's still weird to me," said Horner, who graduated from Franklin High School in 2007. "Maybe sexually explicit things are easier to text than say?"
In a relationship or not, consequences of sending such images are damaging and long-lasting, said Marisa Nightingale, senior adviser with the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit that commissioned the survey with the Web site CosmoGirl.com.
The study, she said, ought to serve as a starting point for conversations between parents and children.
"If they're doing it on impulse, as a joke or as a dare, they're not thinking about: 'What if I want to get a scholarship or a job and that embarrassing topless photo could come back and haunt me,' " she said.
"We also ask how, if at all, does this affect off-line behavior? Forty percent of teenage girls who said they did this, said they did it as a joke. But 29 percent of teen boys who received this kind of content have expectations about that girl off line."
Hide behind cell phone
The study surveyed 1,280 teens and young adults online between Sept. 25 and Oct. 3. It found that about one-third of young adults ages 20-26 and 20 percent of teens said they've sent or posted nude or semi-nude pictures or videos of themselves.
Thirty-nine percent of teens and 59 percent of young adults said they've sent suggestive text messages. Twenty-two percent of teens and 28 percent of young adults said they felt more forward in cyberspace than "in real life."
Jimmy Hawkins, a senior at Gallatin High School, believes it.
"You can definitely hide behind text messaging and your cell phone," he said. "Whenever you have a group of guys hanging out and one is texting a girl, you have one say: 'You should text her this or that.' I've seen it happen, almost as a joke."
In a recent sexting case in Michigan, at least 20 students were suspended and parents instructed to attend an educational workshop after nude photos of a 14-year-old girl were circulated to at least 200 people.
A local prosecutor decided not to file criminal charges against at least two teen boys involved in the case but said that because the girl was a minor, the incident amounted to criminal distribution of child pornography.
Schools: Not issue yet
Sexually charged texting hasn't come up in conversations among guidance counselors in Metro schools as a problem, said Kellie Hargis, executive director of school counseling services in the 75,000-student district.
"Does that mean that it's not going on? No," she said.
"As far as an adult going in and weeding through the messages, that shouldn't happen; we have privacy issues. It's really difficult for us to keep a pulse on what the kids are sending back and forth when we're not seeing it. And we're not seeing it unless it's being reported."
Todd Campbell, principal at Independence High School in Thompson's Station, said he has heard students discuss the issue.
"Very, very seldom will you have people taking risqué pictures at school," Campbell said.
"Most of the time, it's pictures that were taken at a party and have been passed along from student to student. Unless it happens at the school, there's not much I can do about it. That's what I tell parents: 'You've got to keep up with what's going on.' "
|
