Wyoming County, Pennsylvania District Attorney George Skumanick, Jr. is threatening to prosecute girls who send nude or underdressed photos of themselves to their boyfriends (called sexting). As reported in the Wall Street Journal, he told the parents that they must either force their kids to enlist in an "education" program or he will charge them with felony child pornography (which in most states carries mandatory, sometimes lifetime, sex registration). One of the girls sent a photo of herself in a bathing suit. Apparently prosecutor Skumanick thinks bathing suits are obscene.
While I agree that sexting is stupid, because the pics can and will find themselves all over the place, including hardcore porn sites, prosecutor Skumanick's tactics are heavyhanded, unconstitutional, and just plain clueless. The laws on obscenity protect minors, and not all nude photos are obscene, as even a cursory reading of United States Supreme Court law would reveal to prosecutor Skumanick, if he bothered to read the lawbooks. But why bog yourself down with dry legal stuff when you can make national news by bullying kids and their parents? That's so much easier.
Fortunately, not everybody is that easy to bully. Some of the parents, with the help of the ACLU, are suing prosecutor Skumanick for violating their constitutional rights. Skumanick's response was that he could have just prosecuted the girls: "We thought we were being progressive." Now that's scary, because it shows he just doesn't get it.
Here's the part I really like: "Before showing the photos, Mr. Skumanick explained his offer to the crowd, answering one father's question affirmatively, that -- yes -- a girl in a bathing suit could be subjected to criminal charges because she was posed 'provocatively.'" (Ref: WSJ, 4/21/09.)First, If this stuff's pornography, then it's Skumanick who's distributing it. Second, provocative posing does not turn a non-obscene photo into obscenity. Hello, read Miller v. California! Please!
Fortunately, a federal judge who has actually read the law has stepped in and issued an temporary restraining order keeping prosecutor Skumanick from going forward with his persecution (oh, did I misspell that?)
