Australian
children engaged in sexting could be charged with child sex offences
under laws set to pass federal parliament.
However, the attorney-general will have 'discretion'
[as if politicians know the meaning of the
word discretion] as to whether people under 18 are charged with
child sex offences for sending sexual material via their mobile phone.
The federal government has accepted the recommendation of a
parliamentary committee into the proposed Crimes Legislation Amendment
(Sexual Offences Against Children) Bill 2010 which means a young person
cannot be prosecuted for sexting without the consent of the
attorney-general.
The committee is of the view that the extension of this safeguard
may ensure that behaviour which is not exploitative of, or harmful to,
children is not captured by the child sex offence regime, particularly
where that behaviour involves children themselves, the committee
said in a report tabled in the Senate.
A rare dose of government-issued
sanity
Based on
article
from
theregister.co.uk
A
US federal appeals court rebuked a Pennsylvania district attorney who
threatened to file felony child pornography charges against teens who
were photographed semi-nude unless they attended an education
program.
In a unanimous decision issued by the appeals court in Philadelphia,
a three-judge panel said the threat amounted to a Hobson's Choice
that would retaliate against one of the girls and her family for
exercising their constitutional right to free speech. A rare dose of
government-issued sanity in the prosecutorial crusade against teenage
sexting, the ruling upheld a lower-court order issued last year in
the case.
The case stems from inappropriate images of minors found by
officials at Pennsylvania's Tunkhannock School District, that included,
among other things, a girl posing in her bathing suit. In late 2008,
Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick told an assembly of
about 20 students and their parents he would bring felony child
pornography charges against them unless they completed a six- to
nine-month program. For female offenders, that meant attending classes
designed to help the participants gain an understanding of what it
means to be a girl in today's society, and require them to write a
report on what the students did and why it was wrong.
The panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said the
education program requirement amounted to compelled speech, in violation
of the Constitution's First Amendment. As such, Skumanick's threat to
prosecute was retaliation.