Sexting: “Most people don’t think it’s that big of a deal anymore”

The New York Times ran a thoughtful and extensive series of articles on sexting during the weekend. According to one of the stories, sexting is now mostly a middle school phenomenon. By the time they reach high school, most teens are more interested in dirty text messages. With that thought in mind, here are some highlights: But adults face a hard truth. For teenagers, who have ready access to technology and are growing up in a culture that celebrates body flaunting, sexting is laughably easy, unremarkable and even compelling: the primary reason teenagers sext is to look cool and sexy to someone they find attractive. Indeed, the photos can confer ...

Sexting Student Sues School

The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit today against Pennsylvania school district for searching a student's confiscated cell phone without probable cause and punishing her for storing semi-nude pictures of herself on the device. The school subsequently turned her phone over to George Skumanick Jr., at the time the Wyoming County district attorney, who threatened to file felony child pornography charges against the girl unless she took a class on sexual violence. The Third Circuit recently threw out the prosecutor's case. "Students do not lose their privacy rights at the schoolhouse door," said Witold Walczak, the ACLU of Pennsylvania's Legal Director and ...

See no evil . . .

A report issued yesterday by attorneys hired by the Lower Merion School District found that the collection of images stemmed not from an effort to spy on students but from "the district's failure to implement policies, procedures and recordkeeping requirements and the overzealous and questionable use of technology by IS personnel without any apparent regard for privacy considerations or sufficient consultation with administrators." The report also criticized leaders and several members of the IS department as "not forthcoming with the Board, administrators and students about what TheftTrack could do and how they used it," citing incidents demonstra...

School Captured 56,000 Images from Student Laptops

Finally the truth about Lower Merion's use of remote monitoring software on student laptops: On Monday, the District's lawyer admitted that the school system captured 56,000 images of students, although thankfully "none of the images appeared to be salacious or inappropriate." Back in February, the District's website declared that they only activated the software to locate lost, stolen or missing laptops: "The district has not used the tracking feature or webcam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever," the Web site said. Conclusion: there must be an awfully lot of missing laptops in the richest school district in Pennsylvania and one ...

NYTimes: Prosecutors Gone Wild

The New York Times editorialized today about sexting: Schools across the country are understandably concerned about students “sexting” — sending sexually suggestive photos and text messages by cellphone. But a Pennsylvania school district went too far when it referred several female students for criminal prosecution after their images showed up on other students’ phones and they refused to participate in an antisexting education program. A federal appeals court was right to rule last week that parents had the right to block the district attorney from prosecuting the girls. In the fall of 2008, officials in the Tunkhannock ...

Sexting Subterfuge – Miller v. Skumanick Decided

The long awaited decision in the first sexting case to reach a federal appeals court was issued yesterday by a unanimous Third Circuit. The verdict: "appearing in a [sexting] photograph provides no evidence as to whether that person possessed or transmitted the photo." In other words, as I correctly opined here in December, a minor depicted in a sexting image is only guilty of a child pornography offense if the prosecutor can prove that they possessed or distributed their image; a teen's appearance in a sexting image (even an image of bona fide child pornography) is not, in and of itself, a violation of current law. As the Third Circuit stated: Ass...

Lower Merion Parents Say No to Lawsuit

This just in from Philly.com: A group of Lower Merion and Harriton High School parents met to discuss ways to derail the possibility that a federal lawsuit over laptop spying could lead to a lengthy and expensive class-action case against their district. Bryn Mawr resident Michael Boni, one of the organizers, said yesterday: "We have spoken to our neighbors and friends, and it seemed that there was a groundswell of opposition to one family with one lawyer bringing this action on behalf of the community." He said the parents were "not suggesting there weren't problems" with how the district has handled the laptop issue. "But we don't think [a class-...

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