http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/sexting-hysteri.html?tl;dr: School administrator asked to investigate rumors that students were passing around nude pictures of each other (taken, mind you, by their own damn selves). Administrator does his job. Finds a picture, reports it to his principal. Parent of the student in possession of the picture is not told about it, finds out anyway, throws a hissy fit and goes to the police. Overzealous prosecutors try and charge administrator with possession of Child Pornography.
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Yeah. The good news is that the judge here wasn't a total dumbfuck and threw the case out. The bad news is that this isn't the first such case, just the first such one lobbied at an administrator.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28679588/In this one, the girls who took pictures of themselves are being prosecuted as child pornographers.
It's been happening a lot, recently, that students (all of whom are age<18) who had been sent the pictures, the girls who took the pictures, and in one case ( though I cannot find the news story for the life of me) someone who had been sent the picture and even deleted it are being tried as child pornographers and face the very real possibility of being labeled as sex offenders.
This is fucking ludicrous, and highlights a huge weakness in our legal system: seeking to keep their jobs via election, the prosecutors try and assure the public that they are hard on crime and pursue these retarded cases at the expense of ruining the lives of some children. Further, the label of Child Pornographer is quickly becoming an overused tool: I recognize the need to protect young children from exploitation, but the fact that it is being used against teenagers experimenting with people their own fucking age (hur hur hur) says the system needs re-evaluation.
So stupid. So fucking stupid.
