Brickbat: Phone Sex

Peter Cripps / Dreamstime.com

Stephen Kyle Goodlett has been sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to transporting child pornography and knowingly possessing child pornography "that had been transported in interstate commerce." Goodlett was principal of LaRue County High School in Kentucky. School officials regularly confiscated phones from students who violated school policy that phones must be kept in pockets, backpacks or lockers during the day. Goodlett would then search the phones for nude images that he would trade online.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The system will not tolerate school administrators and law enforcement officials perving on teen nudes outside of the workplace.

[Longtobefree]

So remember kiddies, always practice safe sex; lock your phones and use robust passwords.
"What happens on the web, stays on the web" Several photo apps automatically back up your pictures, 'for your convenience'.

[Cy]

Yeah... the government never makes mistakes. They should run everything and be the only ones with guns.
/s

I can't believe people actually believe this shit.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

But believe they do, because it will be "their" government running things and "their" big men and women and transgenders et al in charge.

[Inigo Montoya]

So the FBI has to harass Apple because they can't get into a terrorist's phone no matter how hard they try, but a school principal can get into any kid's phone without breaking a sweat?

Much like that check-forging guy that they made that Tom Hanks movie about, I predict this principal with have a lucrative federal law enforcement career after he's served a few years of his sentence.

[SQRLSY One]

Hey, with just one minor tweak, it would all be OK! Compared to the cops and confiscating your money (for the cops' budgets) in "official highway robbery", AKA "you are not being charged with a crime, your money is being charged with a crime". AKA "asset forfeiture", of course, in which case we ALL forfeit our asses to Government Almighty (unless we are "pubic servants").

Have the principal sell the kiddie porn and give the money to the school, and THEN it would all be "clean"!

This would all be in agreement with Prime Proggy Principles... Money moved by willing buyers and sellers (AKA "profit") is EVIL! Money moved by Government Almighty coercion is GOOD!

By logical extension, private kiddie porn is evil, and public kiddie porn should be GOOD! "If just one child is saved by a better education funded by kiddie porn..."

[Jerryskids]

We all know the deal with digital photos - it's just bytes of information being sent and received and stored and transported. It was the cops clicking on the file that caused those bytes of information to be assembled into the image of a nude teen. Charging the principal with kiddie porn just for having the bytes of information is as silly as charging me with possessing a bomb just because I've got a tank of gas in my car and a lighter in my pocket.

[Wizard4169]

Did you read the article? The principal didn't merely "possess" random bytes. He deliberately went looking for nudie pics and shared them. Charging a 17yo boy for sending his gf a picture of his dick is insane, but this guy is a genuine creep who abused his position of authority and deserves to be prosecuted.

[Longtobefree]

Just a bunch of ones and zeroes, right?
So what about all those Russians? What about the whacko in Florida? All just ones and zeros, or heinousness crimes?
Same thing for revenge porn and sexual harassment on campus?
How about an old fashioned ransom note? Just ink and paper?

And I know students in the sixties who were federally charged with possession of bomb making components during a campus building occupation. They expected utilities shutdown, so they had camp stoves and cans of stew and soup. They also had vinegar to soak bandannas against tear gas. The feds said they could pour out the vinegar, use the stove fuel and the bandannas to make Molotov cocktails out of the jars. Damn near made it stick, but one kid had a rich daddy with lots of lawyers. Interestingly enough, they were suspended for one quarter, then allowed back. Compare and contrast with getting permanently expelled for saying "AR15".

[Sigivald]

...

Seriously?

[?rboles de la Barranca]

But he gets his old job back when he gets out, right?

[Feminist Killjoy]

This is pure evil, so no he doesn't get his old job back. He gets his old salary and gets to sit around until he retires with a nice pension.

[Procyon Rotor]

Hooray for finally finding someone who was actually doing something wrong, and ruining his life with criminal charges rather that some innocent kid. But is "child pornography" really the charge that fits? Distributing nudie pics that teenagers voluntarily took of themselves is a horrible violation of privacy, but it's not even in the same zip code as sexually violating children and videotaping it. The law ought to better distinguish degrees of wrongdoing.

[sharmota4zeb]

That principle is an asshole.