Nikki's (dad's) ride. Ouch.
Posted on 05/16/2009 4:17:49 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Online Photos Of Teen's Fatal Crash Spark Controversy Over Privacy, 1st Amendment Rights:A battle between a California family and the state’s legal system could see a resolution in the coming days, more than two years after controversial photos from a teenage girl’s fatal car accident landed on the Internet and sparked a heated debate over the right to privacy for someone who has died.
CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports a court ruling is expected soon in the case that’s exposed the dark side of the Internet and uncovered the pain of the Catsouras family, who say they’ve been forced to constantly relive the death of their 18-year-old daughter, Nikki, who was killed during a high-speed crash in 2006.
Nikki was driving close to 100 m.p.h. on Halloween night when she clipped another car, flipped across the median and crashed into a toll booth. Very little remained of the Porsche she drove and the condition of Nikki’s body was so disturbing that the coroner would not allow the Catsouras family to identify it.
However, days after the accident, millions of people saw pictures from Nikki’s crash on the Internet after at least one California Highway Patrol dispatcher allegedly e-mailed photos of the scene to friends. From there, the photos spread very quickly and landed on the Internet.
"I didn’t understand it initially," said Christos Catsouras, Nikki’s father. "I didn’t understand it…[I said] ‘what do you mean there are pictures?’"
The most disturbing photos were of Nikki’s nearly decapitated head. Catsouras said someone e-mailed him one of those pictures.
"Sick, just horribly sick," he said.
Nikki's (dad's) ride. Ouch.
Then they'll swerve to avoid hitting a baby duck and get crushed by a produce truck.
But they drove with pride....
“Yes we should. And we should also respect the free communication of facts. Banning one kind of fact is just a doorway to banning more facts.”
A bloody mangled picture of a loved one is not a fact. Just as pictures of your naked wife is not a fact everyone should see.
“Almost all facts are good facts”
Nonsense, that has nothing to do with making public the accident pictures of peoples loved ones. If a teen doesn’t understand what can happen the picture of someones dead wife or child will not make the difference.
“And there’s no law that’s going to protect everyone completely from such vile actions. “
That is what happens when you remove morality from a culture.
“If we try to protect everyone from being affected by the actions of others, we’ll lose more of our freedom and evil people will still find ways to hurt others.”
being offended because I say homosexual behavior is self destructive is far far different than parading around pictures of some persons dead loved one.
ironic that the prior will soon be outlawed where the latter is apparently allowed.
I’ve seen those photos. Unless you were told who it was, you wouldn’t know.
IMHO, crime and accident scene photos must be public to keep the gov’t (and others) honest.
The car crash is a little more complicated, as it occurs in public and is a news event. However, the person didn't plan to be in this situation. Normally, the police, fire and EMS units create a zone of privacy around the incident as soon as possible. However, unlike a locker room, if someone can get a photo, it's perfectly legal. However, if the photos were taken and originally circulated by the responding agencies, there was probably a violation of departmental policy, and could result in the firing of the involved parties.
As far as I know, once an image is in the public domain, though, except for child pornography, it is perfectly legal to distribute it.
There are several web sites out there that get a lot of hits by posting the most graphic death images they can find, and like almost anything, there is an audience for it.
When I worked for a fire department, people always slowed down to see if they could get a look at the bodies, and at dive calls it wasn't unusual for people to ask if they could see the bodies.
It's a different thing when it's a loved one, but many people find the dead body of a stranger fascinating. We're also fascinated by sex and death. This girl is beautiful, and that makes her far more interesting than a fat fifty year old.
The father is upset because whatever dumb thing his daughter did, it hurts to see her dead body splattered across the internet. The responding agencies, that should protect the privacy of the victims, instead exploited it.
“Just as pictures of your naked wife is not a fact everyone should see”
Then don’t take them! The results of dangerous driving is an important fact. I’d rather have a less than ideal amount of civility in exchange for a less totalitarian environment
OK, thanks for the explanation of the ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ thing... in this case, it apparently was one of the responding emergency officers who took the photo in question, and even in the lectures for my forensic pathology class always had a slide at the start stating that it was illegal to share the photos with anyone outside of the class, so I’d imagine most emergency response departments have similar policies, not to mention the HIPAA violations that could ensue if the person survived said accident. And, if there was an ongoing investigation or open legal case related to the incident, aren’t the photos protected by some kind of confidentiality?
I’m kind of confused about the public’s fascination with death, however. Everyone becomes a dead body at the end of their life, and most people have attended or will attend an open-casket funeral at some point as well. But, since you mentioned ‘sex and death’, the reason for the popularity of the CSI shows becomes a little clearer, as the producers love to focus on weird sexual escapades that result in death, and the ‘science’ consists of instanteous test results and omnipotent coroners... Interestingly enough, people who study forensic science because they watch those shows will ALWAYS drop it once they realise that forensic science actually involves math and science (really, what a surprise!) rather than investigating others’ sexual fetishes.
Also, does HIPAA also cover individuals who are not in the medical field? Since you’re a photographer, you might be able to clarify this a little. A friend’s school’s student newspaper published a photo of a student being attended to by the student EMT service, and included the student’s name with the photo. We knew it would have been a HIPAA violation had the attending EMT’s given out the student’s name, but would it be an issue if she had discovered his name by reading an event program, or even knowing him personally? And what about NCAA student athletes in the ‘money sports’, where such a photo would be definitely accompanied by their name and an article giving some of the details about the injury, and run in national news outlets?
Agree with you on that. Well written.
Thousands die in car crashes, making the speed limit 25 everywhere and strictly enforcing it would probably help but no one ever suggests that. If you really want to stop it then it’s that or mythical smart cars.
“The results of dangerous driving is an important fact.”
And well known, the sight of dead people is not necessary to relay the fact that accidents kill people.
“I’d rather have a less than ideal amount of civility in exchange for a less totalitarian environment””
Sopping cops or paramedics from taking personal or professional pictures and posting them on the web is not the act of a toalitarian environment. It is the act of an environment which values life and the feelings of those who have lost loved ones.
The only people who want to see dead people are sickos, people selling pictures to sickos, and morticians.
‘not to mention the HIPAA violations that could ensue if the person survived said accident”
HIPAA laws don’t stop with the death of the individual.
‘Also, does HIPAA also cover individuals who are not in the medical field? ‘
HIPAA covers any entity or individual that has access to personal medical information.
Fines start at $10,000 and 1 year for accidental release. For intentional release its $250,000 and 10 years for each record compromised.
OK, so correct me if I’m wrong, but if HIPAA laws extend past death, wouldn’t the easiest way to keep photos like the ones of the crash from getting online just be to say they qualify as, or include, ‘personal medical information’? Then they’d have a way of prosecuting anyone who posted such photos for their own twisted enjoyment (or financial gain, as I’m sure those highly visited website bring in quite a bit of ad revenue), yet there wouldn’t really be an issue with right to privacy vs. freedom of speech.
I cover high school and college sports. If a kid gets injured during a game, the coaches and trainers can't talk about it. The kid can, the other players can. If I get the information, I can print it. I won't, without the kid's permission, but legally I can. If a kid breaks his leg and I get a photo of it, I can print it. Again, I don't do this without permission, but that's out of respect for the student, not because I'm legally prohibited.
Firefighters, cops and paramedics taking photos of gross stuff has been around for a lot longer than digital photography. What's changed now is that with the internet, instead of those photos being passed between cops or firefighters, people email them and they end up all over the place. I know a lot of fire departments have rules now that you can't take a cell phone or digital camera on a call.
Deuce and a quarter! Yeah, baby!
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