Posted on 09/21/2010 12:04:09 PM PDT by Inappropriate Laughter
A Pennsylvania teen who stored intimate photos of herself on her cell phone — but never e-mailed or shared them with anyone other than her longtime boyfriend — settled her federal privacy case against high school officials who had seized the phone without a warrant and turned it over to prosecutors.
Still unsettled, however, is the question of how far educators can go when it comes to fulfilling their obligation to keep sexually explicit images, audio and text from reaching the eyes and ears of minors while on school grounds.
"I hope this settlement will lead school officials in the future to consider whether they have valid grounds to search students' private text messages, emails and photos," the teen, now 19, said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.
SNIP
...the local district attorney's office mounted an investigation. In the lawsuit, the ACLU claimed that a prosecutor threatened to file charges against the teen if she didn't attend a special class. Instead, N.N. sued everyone involved — including a district attorney’s office investigator who she claimed made the comment that if she had waited a few months until her 18th birthday, Playboy would have published the photos.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.msnbc.msn.com ...
When Federal Courts have twice (2x) decided that a 13 year old girl is capable about making a decision about abortion and needs no parental involvement at all.......
- how can nude pictures by a 17 year old be of any significance?
- how can sex or prostitution be of any significance?
once you've decided that 13 year olds are perfectly free to make life or death decisions, how does any of this other stuff seem anything but trivial?
(half-hearted, sad sarcasm - OFF)
Yes you are. Read the article. She didn't distribute anything, the school and district attorney distributed the photos to far more people than she did. Using your logic, they should be in jail, not her.
Har - remember being 17? It was “I’ll love you forever!” Having said that, I hope the govmint officials are charged with viewing kiddie porn and this kid is left alone.
And there-in lies the problem. It's an invasion of personal privacy and an unconstitutional seizure of personal property, regardless of the school board's "policy".
The problem is (IMO) that too many parents are willing to let the school system become the proxy-parent and will happily roll over for any and all of this just so they can abdicate their personal responsibility as that parent.
It's sick, twisted and exactly what the Federal School System wants.....your children.
In the process, they'll deny those children and parents any and all the rights that they can in "the interest of the children". Sick & twisted.
>>>> And, yes, surprisingly, 17 year olds do the dumbest things!!
Not just 17 yr olds. Middle-aged people can have the darndest things on their phones. Often, what has been seen can not be un-seen. Worked for a cell phone retailer in customer service and have seen way too much when customs would say “tell me how to send this picture...” while showing you the picture. My mind can not be cleansed of some of the things I’ve seen.
customs= customers...
Good for her. I’m in favor of the school confiscating the phone for a day or a week but they’ve got no grounds for doing anything with it but having her turn it off first.
The title says “nude” the article says “intimate”. I know these kids are sharing swimsuit and underwear pics all over the place, youtube, facebook etc. So I don’t know just how troubling these images really are. But she is a few months before her 18th B-day. Whoever promoted this intrusion was just asking for it.
I like that they told the ACLU to shove it too!
Planned Parenthood has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to inquiries as to how a 13-year old can afford to pay for an abortion.
If she had been 5 years old would it have been ok? what if the photos had shown her in sex acts with herself? if the boyfriend and her had broken up could he have posted the photos online?
I don't have a cellphone, may never have one (but the rest of society is frowning on pay phones, hotel lobby phones, etc)... but if I do, I'll be sure to use Helen Thomas' miserable mug as the "can you help me with this" picture for any customer service inquiries.
using your logic child pornography can never be prosecuted because the prosecutor, police, judge and jury would never be able to view the photos.
If she admitted to sending photos to the boyfriend, was his phone also searched for incriminating evidence?
Unless you are a 17 year old girl, the coppers don't want to look at you naked.
she didn’t send photos to her boyfriend, she just showed them to him on her phone. she didn’t send them to anyone.
What are "nake" children?
What do you mean by "print" online?
“when it comes to fulfilling their obligation to keep sexually explicit images, audio and text from reaching the eyes and ears of minors while on school grounds”
The only areas where they have such a responsibility is in (1)official academic materials THEY present to students, (2)”private” materials anyone on their staff (negligently) presents to students, (3)actions/behavior of anyone on the school staff that constitutes “presentation” of “sexually explicit images, audio or text”, (4)sanctioned use of any school property or facility for any of the aforementioned actions, (5)sanctioned presentation on campus of an officially invited guest who “presents” any of the aforementioned materials or action/behavior.
But, material that is privately contained on a personal communication device and intended by that device’s owner for “sharing” only with those whom that owner chooses, does NOT constitute material that comes under a school’s “obligation” to control.
Now, if that same owner of the cell phone took it upon themselves to make printed copies of the images on the cell phone, to bring those printed images to school and make distribution of them on campus; that the school would be obligated to control and to prohibit - the student would have taken their private material public, on campus.
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