In an article posted today on WPXI's Website and on Wired a story broke concerning three teenage girls and three teenage boys who are students at Greensburg Salem high school that were recently arrested for manufacturing, disseminating/possessing child pornography.
My first impulse was immediately "Ok so the guys took pictures of the girls in the locker room and are getting busted, they deserve it." But it turns out that isn't the story at all. Apparently the girls had taken homemade pictures using a phone of themselves nude or semi-nude and sent them to the boys. And while I harbor no compassion, empathy or tolerance for child pornography I feel a basic rights violation has been compromised under the veil of "security and safety." The problems of course being 1.)This happens at all and 2.)It happens more and more everyday.
More below.
Police said school officials learned of the photos in October. That's when a student was seen using a cell phone during school hours, which violates school rules. The phone was seized, and the photos were found on it, police said. When police investigated, other phones with more pictures were seized.
For me this is shaky ground, were the students wrong? Yes. Did they blatantly violate a policy in one of the worst ways possible? Yes. Is their any reason to possibly defend these kids? . . . well, yeah.
I know that the community at Dkos doesn't need to be told about the 4th Amendment, but apparently Greensburg Salem high school does. For me, the seizure of the device is not what is at fault, but the searching of it. That a cell phone violated policy is of no consequence, seizing it and returning it after school seems like the proper remedial action. However, no reason has been given concerning the cause of the search of the phone.
I find it hard to believe a story could be conjured in which a faculty member could explain that searching through the phones images and video was vital to the security of the school - Good lord they could of been hiding an explosive device or planning to attack the school, after all. Such a story would be a thing of fiction.
The issue is the right to search and how far it extends. If the student was caught writing in a diary during school hours what right would the faculty have to read the diary? Are notebooks now prohibited from school unless they are thoroughly searched everyday to ascertain they are implicitly being used for study? What if the diary contained a story of a students date with another student and it involved sex? Is the student now going to be arrested for possessing pornographic material? Or be punished further because it was on school grounds?
It was my understanding child pornography laws were created to protect a child from the abuse of an adult. Not to make them ashamed of their bodies, or to repress the natural urges of a teenager. That the students were stupid and out of line bringing the damn thing to school and then going one step further and showing it off is not disputable - in fact it would have made a good Darwin award had they somehow knocked themselves off. And my concern is not so much for them, as it is the protection of rights. How far of a grasp can be legislated concerning the extent of sacrificing freedom for policy and safety?
I apologize for the shortness, but as I can almost see this high school from where I live I felt the need to get something out as soon as possible. I apologize if the Breaking in the headline seems out of place, I considered this important and found no other similar stories in place on kos at the moment.