Textual Frustrations
Sent from my iphone:
BION*, Da Vermont House & Senate peeps R wrkng on bils 2 decrim sexting Btween juveniles. Da house wants 2 rquire more education on D dangers of sexting N mke a nu law only 4 minors (ages 13-18), but:
Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas says he doesn't want to change Vermont's laws to lessen the potential penalties for teenagers who use their cell phones to send sexually explicit pictures and messages….
Douglas says he would rather leave the law unchanged, and allow the state's prosecutors to decide what, if any, charges to bring in cases of teen sexting.
…the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said he sympathized with Vermont officials for not wanting to exact heavy penalties for a teenager's foolishness. But he worries that exempting the behavior could have the unintended consequence of immunizing genuine sexual predators from prosecution.
"Our concern is that decriminalizing sexting is a blanket response that is too broad to a problem that is best handled on a case-by-case basis," Allen said.
Eh Guyz, WTF?! Those R bad ideas. Y? Sez Dahlia Lithwick @Slate:
Last month, three girls….were charged with disseminating child pornography for sexting their boyfriends. The boys who received the images were charged with possession. A teenager in Indiana faces felony obscenity charges for sending a picture of his genitals to female classmates. A 15-year-old girl in Ohio and a 14-year-old girl in Michigan were charged with felonies for sending along nude images of themselves to classmates …If convicted, these young people may have to register as sex offenders, in some cases for a decade or two….
One quick clue that the criminal justice system is probably not the best venue for addressing the sexting crisis? A survey of the charges brought in the cases reflects that-depending on the jurisdiction-prosecutors have charged the senders of smutty photos, the recipients of smutty photos, those who save the smutty photos, and the hapless forwarders of smutty photos with the same crime: child porno
Allen DUZ maks a gud point, tho: mandatory laws R bad. And fed govt laws wud B worse. But most prosecutors don't know WTF they R dealing w/. They R fkn up on case–x–case. They are SLUGs**. Kdz cn B gud W cmputAs bt vry dum bout lyf. They need 2 B protected frm bad litigation more than sexting cuz dat is da least of kdz online worries. Laws protecting kdz need 2 B state-x-state. But Nvr fed. MayB sum dy der won't hav2 B Ny laws.
It's a gud idea bt nt gr8. GTG. TTYL.
*Believe it or not; **Slow learner under guidance
Text translator here. Reason on mandatory sentencing laws here. Senior Editor Radley Balko does a hit & run on sexting arrests here.
