Month: July 2014

Like many other similar cases, this involves two teenagers sexting each other. We can all admit that this is a rather stupid thing to do, but it would be crazy not to recognize that this happens quite frequently with teens these days. It’s already a pretty big stretch to try to twist those cases into “child porn” cases, but various prosecutors have been doing exactly that for years now. In this case, the 15-year-old girlfriend sent her 17-year-old boyfriend a photo of herself, and he sent back the video. The mother of the girl complained, and prosecutors went after the boy for “two felony charges, for possession of child pornography and manufacturing child pornography.”

So far, so normal (although one could argue it shouldn’t be)

The male teen was served with petitions from juvenile court in early February, and not arrested, but when the case went to trial in juvenile court in June, Foster said prosecutors forgot to certify that the teen was a juvenile. The case was dismissed, but police immediately obtained new charges and also a search warrant for his home. Police also arrested the teen and took him to juvenile jail, where Foster said they took photos of the teen’s genitals against his will.

That’s the real wtf-ness… W.T.F.???

Link (Techdirt)

Edit:

It seems like Lowering The Bar also picked up on the story:

Police in Sexting Case Want to Take Photo of Teen’s … No, That Can’t Be Right

The Washington Post calls this “a unique approach to collecting evidence,” and I guess that’s one way to put it. The approach is to forcibly inject a 17-year-old boy with something that would cause an erection so they can take a picture of that to compare with the picture he allegedly texted to his girlfriend.

I’m not at a loss for words very often but just now I sat and stared at this report for a while.

 

Scudder never did anything his superiors thought was wrong until after he attempted to free these historical documents. Everything the agency never took issue with during his previous 18 years of employment — like personal call infractions and the possession of photos (taken by Scudder in his position as “official CIA photographer”) deemed “classified” — was suddenly yet another reason to force him out. It’s been clear for a long time that the government doesn’t care much for whistleblowers. It also seems to have something against transparency, even concerning documents of historical interest only.

Link (Techdirt)

The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and a top staff member say the panel and its employees are “absolutely immune” from having to comply with subpoenas from a federal regulator in an insider-trading probe.

The committee yesterday responded to U.S. District Court Judge Paul Gardephe’s order to explain why it hadn’t complied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s requests for documents, phone records and testimony of aide Brian Sutter for more than a year.

Link (Techdirt)

A computer science student accused of hacking offences has been jailed for six months for failing to hand over his encryption passwords, which he had been urged to do in “the interests of national security”.

Christopher Wilson, 22, of Mitford Close, Washington, Tyne and Wear, was jailed for refusing to hand over his computer passwords, a move that frustrated an investigation into claims he launched an attack on a police website.

Wilson, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, was suspected of “trolling” the Northumbria Police as well as attempting to break into the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s website.

Link (The Register)

Thomas G. Smith made a fundamental error: he assumed that as an American he had a right to use blunt language to criticize the police.

Legally, he was right. Practically, he was wrong.

Link (Popehat)