http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28679588/

There have been a lot of cases of police arresting and charging teenagers/minors with possession and distribution of child pornography because they've been sending racy pictures through their phones. Authorities argue these measures are done to send a message. They are protecting kids from further harming themselves by risking their pictures getting put on the internet. So a 14 year old girl who sends her boyfriend a naked picture of herself could get arrested and charged for distributing child porn.

However, once charged, these kids have to register as a sex offender, in some places for as long as ten years. Which means, that 14 year old girl will find it a lot harder to apply for jobs and college all because she sent a photo of herself to her boyfriend and got lumped into the same category as a child molester.

Thoughts?

*deletes racy photos from cell phone*

but before I do. one last time.....

Wtf are you eating? Pink and blue?

Yeah, I heard about this a while ago and I think the charges are absolutely wrong. They could not be much less deserving of having to register as a sex offender. It's not even just about the jobs; it's incredibly hard to live outside of jail as a sex offender. Georgia may have particularly strict laws where this is concerned, but here they are prohibited from living near bus stops, schools, churches, parks, and anywhere children may gather. This makes going to the mall illegal. I don't know how it would work if the sex offender is a minor; are they not allowed to be around themselves or anyone their own age? Prosecuting the kids may prevent others from following their example, but the punishment is certainly not for their own benefit, which the criminal justice system is supposed to be geared more towards where there are minors involved. Not to mention this is denying them the rights to their own bodies.

I'm glad they are getting arrested and charged. Every case needs to be breaking news nation wide, imo.

And I praise all those who crack photobucket accounts only to expose those little idiots who have nudes. Personally I'd send their nudes to their parents.

Because...it's not the fault of either one of them?

Wow.. holy shit.
Not taking no more of those pics. haha

Those kids shouldn't have to register as sex offenders. It's stupid that they don't consider the effects that it might have on them. As paperplanes said before, it's gonna be hard for them to live their life properly and isn't that what the government wants? And there's the emotional stress too - do you really think that those kids could gain any more friends because it's probably leaked out that they're sex offenders.

it's stupid to me. 15 year olds are not sex offenders becuase they send nude pictures to their boyfriend/girlfriend. they are horny little teenagers taking advantage of technology. it's just stupid, who is really that hurt by it? is a kid gonna be scarred for life cause his gf took a naked picture for him? wtf, no. it's really not that huge of a deal.





that would suck. surely there is more important things going on in the world we should know about than weather a 15 year sent a naked picture to their boyfriend. i wouldn't watch any news station who considered this little teenage practice to be "breaking news" or interrupted actual important news to tell me about some 15 year olds relationship somewhere else in the nation. what a dumbass idea.

Breaking news to make the children and their parents aware. This way it could possibly prevent the next moron from passing around their nudes.

You know what, I'm actually gonna email FOX, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, and a few other networks to make it mandatory to have such cases put on the airwaves.




That's nearly impossible. One of the parents would literally have to be a housewife or house-husband. They'd have to place the computer in a strategic spot where the parent(s) can always have an eye on their children. Definitely not in their child's room.

One thing I know from what I've experienced since the age of 13, no way are my children having televisions nor computers in their bedrooms.

^ Well, parents shouldn't get off completely free of anything. If their children do something that's against the law the parents are responsible too, because of negligence. I don't see how that wouldn't apply to this situation. And I agree with JC, if someone sending nudes to her boyfriend was considered breaking news I would never watch the news. That's more ridiculous than some of the stuff they report anyways.


I think I could understand someone under 18 being charged with something if his/her intent was to post the photo on the web or to send it to an adult. But even then, it should be the adult getting charged, not the child. Just because sending nudes to someone is in poor taste, doesn't mean it should require a child to register as a sex offender for 10 years. Children are naive, and I think that's a bit harsh. I'm not saying they should just let it go, though.

How do they know about these things, anyways? Teens can keep quiet about this stuff from their own friends, let alone their parents. Invasion of privacy, if you ask me.

what if I took nudes of 18+

sounds ridiculous

all you idiots if you think underage kids should get charge with porn..

What if I took nudes of <18?

Some people really need to be aware of child pornography. -.-

Some are askin if you're 18+, then of course that's not a problem... assuming you're giving it to someone else who's 18+

Simply put this is only dealing with underage people.

why? cuz they like to share their intimate body parts with their boy/girlfriends? that's pretty harsh. you know, i think your values are quite different from most of ours, that's why everybody are pretty much condemning you right now. maybe you can find a forum that's much more conservative.

No thanks. I rather assure myself that the generations younger than me are in fact a decay in the human race.

please don't be forceful about your opinions then, especially when the majority doesn't agree with you.

you're not exactly a prime example of adulthood either.

Oh trust me... I actually have to lower my maturity at times with people in this forum. -.-

then dont come f*g

HAHAHAHA

You've lowered it too much. A ton of people here are more mature than you.

Back to the topic at hand:

I think the law is being taken too literally.

And if some of these teens have to be declared sex offenders, what happens if they have younger siblings? They wouldn't be able to live with their family.

Technology. The F.B.I. has access to any information that's passed through the internet or simply the airways. You can thank the Patriot Act.



That's the beauty of "law" it's supposed to be taken literally. You break that law in any form... well you broke the law, no buts about it.

That's not right. Kids hide stuff from their parents all the time. Do you honestly think that a parent can monitor everything their kid does? That's impossible. You could try keeping your kids from having sex by having them not go out, but that wont work because they'll just find some place at school to do it. So should the parents be held responsible for teenage pregnancy too or all the other mischievous stuff teenagers do?

That's not true, though. Sometimes it doesn't make sense and the law has to be revised. For example, when a seventeen year old engages in consensual acts with his fifteen year old girlfriend, he should not be in jail. The law has since been changed to reflect this, in GA, with the Romeo and Juliet clause. It's not really statutory rape if there's little age difference between the consensual partners, and it's not really child porn if they're taking pictures of themselves. Because there's consent and not exploitation, the latter being the main issue where child porn is concerned.

They're under age. If the parents catch them in the act, the parents have every right to press charges.

What are you talking about, the pictures or the sex? Because if you're referring to sex...okay, but it varies by state. And in most, I'd assume though I can still only speak for my own, teenagers of similar age are not going to be required to register as sex offenders for committing sodomy. Because frankly it's stupid and unjust. Just because something is law doesn't make it right. Don't you smoke a lot of weed? Do you think marijuana laws are just and correct? Were segregation laws right? No. I think it is completely untrue that the law is that concrete; laws should be questioned. They may have been broken, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every offense should be prosecuted. It's inaccurate to think of the law as that concrete either; laws can be changed retroactively, such as in the case of the Romeo and Juliet clause I mentioned previously. People may have broken a law five years ago, but technically speaking they haven't broken the same law now.

-.-

Learn the laws. Anyone under the age of 18 cannot have any sexual affiliation. Even sex under age is against the law in majority if not all states of the U.S. Your parents can either punish you over it or take it to the extreme of pressing charges. Same thing with pictures and or videos... if you're under age and you're affiliated with sex in any pictures and or videos, you broke the law.

I'm done with this discussion.

I don't think this is a reasonable law, but i can see why they're doing it.
But if two minors have sex, i think they should both be charged with statutory[sp?] rape.



The government watches everything you do, on the internet and over the phone.
Hell probably in your own house soon, Google is going to be putting cameras over every part of the world.

why? why should they be charged with anything? who cares? me and my gf had sex when we were both 16. why on earth should i be charged with raping her? i do not get the point in saying that two minors having sex should be charged with ANYTHING. i don't even get what the offense is in two minors having sex consensually is, other than the fact some people think it's "morally wrong".

I know that's why i don't think the whole Child Porn thing is right because if your going to charge a minor with Child Porn, it would be equally the same to charge them with statutory rape.
I don't think any of it is right, if they're both under 18, and not like 12 and 17, but more like 15-16, they shouldn't be charged with anything. That's just accounting them as an adult, and they're not.

ok but you said this, which is why i asked. i didn't know why you thought that, but maybe you had a typo because now you're saying you don't think they should be charged.

For f*ck's sake, I'm talking about the law. And under 18? That is so blatantly untrue. In most states the age of consent is under 18, usually 16. http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

Haha, I meant to say that being charged as a minor with child porn would be just as bad as being a minor charged with statutory rape, sorry for the confusion.

17 in Texas cheaaaaaaaa.


Sixteen is the average age :( we're a bunch of prudes :(

Now that's funny. Because from what I learned in Internet Law (college) and from my lady who's a Paralegal, this contradicts the legal system. In fact the reason why (from what I was taught) that the legal age to have sex or affiliate oneself with sex is 18+ because at that age you're able to get married without the consent of the guardians.

paralegals are people who wanted to be lawyers but were too stupid to get their undergrad and go to law school

also, tamacracker, you don't have to be married to have sex. i know this might blow your mind, but they're not the same thing.



Oh and, what type of law does your "lady" work in? Just curious.

wow the more I read your posts the more I know you're a complete stupid f*ck. She's a Paralegal because she's still in law school you dumb shit. And she does Litigation law, phaggot.

Is she going to law school?

What you learned is contradictory to reality. Like paperplane pointed out, most states have under 18 consent laws. However, most are not younger than 16. So in most places in America, if you're between the ages of 16-18, you can have sex.

Just because one law that somehow relates to one thing has a certain age, does not mean everything about that one thing follows through. For examples most states, a person can drive by him/herself by the age of 21, however, most rental companies don't allow someone below the age of 25 to rent a car.

I know what you're saying, but there isn't a law against teenagers having sex. I was referring to things that are against the law and end up with lawsuit that the parents have to pay. If they make it against the law for someone underage to post a nude photo of themselves on the internet (not just sending it to someone) then somehow they'd have to find a way to prove that the parents were being negligent... and doing that is going to waste a lot of time and a lot of money. I think they should focus more on the perverts who are into kiddy porn and are looking at leaked images of underage kids than kids sending photos to each other.

If someone who is underage is sending nudes to someone else who underage I think that's different than someone who's underage sending nudes to someone who is their 40's. That shouldn't be treated equally.

You bring up a good point of how bogus this whole law is though. It's not illegal for two teenagers to engage in sex, however it's illegal for them to send pics to one another. With or without the pics they've already seen each other naked, so why is it a crime for a minor to have naked pics of another minor but not two minors having sex? Which one is potentially more dangerous? A minor with a nude picture of another minor or a minor having sex with another minor, potentially contracting a permanent std or conceiving a child. I think whoever came up with this law didn't really think things through or they probably have terrible logic.

I get what you're saying about the parents being punished for negligence if their kid commits a crime, but I still can't agree with that. You could place the blame on the parents for bad parenting perhaps, but charging them with a crime is beyond me.

Actually, people under 18 can have sexual affiliation

and
This is very stupid. If a case like this were to happen, they shouldn't be forced to register as a sex offender. The title sex offender means you were "offending" someone. These people aren't offenders, they're just horny.

and by the way, marriage has NOTHING to do with sex

lol that's for the sake of insurance and also because 25 is the adult age for maturity.

I'm somewhat undecided on this topic.
In the sense that I can understand both sides of the argument.



For one, it's distribution. It's a crime. But then again, what if the person charged is a minor? Since being a minor, doesn't that charge come back to the parents? As defined by many sources on the internet, including The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one can be charged with such a crime, in the case that they "knowingly distribute" said material. So, therefore, if the parents are unaware such behaviour is taking place, can charges be pressed on them by the local/state/federal government?
However, if it's a picture of yourself, and you freely give it away, I don't think that should be considered as such a harsh crime. After all, it only hurts you in the long run. It's not like your disgracing anyone else.

I recall reading somewhere, that somewhere in Europe it's not child pornography if the "child" is of legal age to take part in sexual intercourse.
In some places, that may even be 13 years old.

In Kentucky, recent legislature said that as long as a person was at least 16, and gave consent to their partner it wasn't considered sex with a minor. It's like that several places with varying ages.
Some think that this law/rule should be tied in with child pornography. If the person is of age to participate in sexual activity, then such photos/videos of minors cannot be considered as child pornography.

Anyone in agreement with the "rule" given above?

Thx.

Yes, I do not think she should send any nude picture of herself. But I would not put her under the same category as a sex offender, mostly because she isnt.
If the photos got some how leaked onto the internet, then onto a social networking site like Myspace, then I think she should be punished for not being careful.