Loss of Privacy

Youthful transgressions are part of life.  Everyone does something stupid that they regret, but, in the long run, it doesn’t really harm you.  That is, as long as law enforcement doesn’t get involved.  When it does, many children’s lives are destroyed, named perverts, and put on the sexual register for life.  Such is the way law enforcement and judges believe is the only way to protect children from themselves.

On March 25, 2004, Amber and Jeremy took digital photos of themselves naked and engaged in unspecified “sexual behavior.” The two sent the photos from a computer at Amber’s house to Jeremy’s personal e-mail address. Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else.

Amber and Jeremy were arrested. Each was charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography.

Under a 1995 ruling, in a case called B.B. v. State, the Florida Supreme Court said that minors can have carnal relations with each other and it is not a crime unless they document it.

The problem with the appeals court is that they felt Amber was guilty because the computers could be hacked and people could sell the photos.  This ultimately says that merely owning naked pictures of yourself, on your own computer, is illegal because someone could hack it and take the photos.

If someone’s stealing pictures of you in a compromising position and using it for blackmail or simply to profit off of your body, that makes you a victim. It’s not a crime to place yourself in a position where you may be compromised; it’s not a crime to walk alone in a bad part of town, or to wear “provocative” clothing.

The dissenting judge in the case agreed.  While taking naked pictures of yourself as a teenager should be discouraged because it could lead to future problems, it should not make you a sex offender.

Another girl in Pennsylvania is refusing to be bullied by the district attorney for taking photos of herself and her friend in their bras.

A 14-year old New Jersery girl posted multiple photos of herself naked on MySpace so that her boyfriend would see them.  While this is stupid, does anyone really believe that this girl should be charged with child pornography.  She simply does not understand the ramifications of her actions.  If she is convicted, she will be forced to place her name, for life, on the sex offender list.  This will permanently prohibit places where she can live and work.  Is the girl an idiot?  Yes.  Should her life be ruined because of it?  No.

It’s time for those in positions of power to educate instead of prosecute.  If we don’t, matters will become worse.  Many of these children do not understand the consequences of their actions.  They should not be labeled for life for something idiotic they did as children; something which they didn’t even understand.

Pedophiles and those who “supposedly” possess child porn are the new communists as the world has entered a new “McCarthy” era. Merely being accused is ruining people’s lives and careers while others jump the gun, declaring people guilty before all the evidence can be collected.

One such case is the story of Ting-Yi Oei, a 60-year-old assistant principal at Freedom High School in South Riding, Virginia. It all started when rumors flew about students sending one another naked pictures of each other on their cell phones. Known as sexting, several teenagers across the country are participating. Oei was asked to check it out. Oei found a student who had the photo and showed it to him.

The image depicted only the torso of a girl — later determined to be a 17-year old student — wearing only underpants, her arms mostly covering her breasts. The boy claimed he didn’t know who sent him the photo or who the girl was.

Oei says he showed the image to his boss, Principal Christine Forester, who told him to preserve a copy on his office computer for the investigation. A computer neophyte, Oei didn’t know how to transfer the image from the boy’s cell phone,  so the teen sent the picture to Oei’s phone,  and told him how to forward it to his work e-mail address. When the process was complete, Oei instructed the student to delete the image from his phone.

More students were investigated, but the identity of the girl in the photo was not discovered at that time. It was concluded that the girl probably wasn’t a student at the school. Oei informed the principal of his findings and the matter was closed.

Two weeks later, the boy caught with the photo was in trouble again — he’d pulled down the pants of a girl in class. The school suspended the student for 10 days. But when the boy’s mother learned from Oei about the earlier photo incident, she was outraged that Oei hadn’t reported the picture to her. She called his house at 7:00 a.m., screaming at him that the suspension had to be revoked.

Oei refused, so the mother called the police to report the incident of the photo. The police had to help Oei retrieve the photo from his phone and learned that the girl was indeed a student at the school.

A month later, the first charges were filed against Oei: failure to report suspicion of child abuse, a misdemeanor. The charge alleged that Oei had a legal duty to report the girl’s photo to her parents, and to state agencies or law enforcement.

How is Oei supposed to report the photo to the girl’s parents if he was unable to identify the girl?  And why is a pissed off mother allowed to destroy a man’s career just because she’s angry at school officials for disciplining her son?

The photo didn’t show sexual activity or genitalia, and even the sheriff’s office conceded it was “inappropriate” but not “criminal” — making it unclear what the “child abuse” was supposed to be. In any event, as a matter of law, Oei was only required to report suspected abuse to his principal, which he’d done.

The principal didn’t defend Oei in the case. Oei did what he should have done, but it was the principal who dropped the ball. Unfortunately for Oei, the prosecutor in the case, James Plowman, decided to proceed with the case. Politically motivated, Plowman wanted to be tough on crime and was going to make an example of Oei. When Oei refused to resign, Plowman changed the misdemeanor charge into a felony charge. Oei’s life then became a nightmare.

“We had to tell all our friends when they sent us e-mail that police could seize computers at any time so anything they wrote us could be accessed,” Curling says. “Any phone call they made to us could be recorded.”

Oei suffered the usual humiliation of someone who was arrested on child porn charges. He endured and, with the help of many, he continued to fight.

Then last month, Oei’s defense attorney, Steven Stone, filed a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the photo didn’t constitute child pornography. In a ruling on Tuesday, Loudoun Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne agreed. Citing a long history of state appeals court decisions, Horne noted that nudity alone is not enough to qualify an image as child pornography. The image must be “sexually explicit” and “lewd.”

Plowman still contends that Oei was wrong and should not be in the education profession. Oei, who was able to keep his job and his pay throughout the ordeal, isn’t sure he wants to return to a school where the principal won’t back him up, but he is also stuck with the reality that no one else will want to hire him. Though the charges were dropped, a google search will turn up his name, likely preventing him from finding work elsewhere.

Taryn Simon has taken some great photos of many places you have never heard of in America. She specializes in taking photographs of highly restrictive areas around the world.

Her latest book, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, took four years to assemble as the photographer gained access to research facilities and government offices hidden from the public. “I felt like I was discovering a new landscape in America, a new terrain, morally and politically,” she said.

The New York Animal Import Center in Newburgh, New York, detains all imported birds for a mandatory 30-day quarantine before testing them for bird flu and other diseases.

“I decided to photograph this facility because as a citizen, I was concerned about (avian flu), and what things were being done to protect our country,” said Simon. Simon scheduled her visit to the Avian Quarantine Facility between trips to other limited-access research facilities to avoid cross-contamination.