FotoDave@aol.com
Sun, 25 Jul 1999 18:07:52 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 7/25/99 9:11:06 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
kthayer@pacifier.com writes:
> I did hear a story on the radio last
> week about a proud pair of parents who sent their fairly innocent snaps
> of mother breast-feeding newborn child to WalMart for processing, and a
> few days later were astonished to have their prints hand-delivered to
> them by police, to whom WalMart had sent the images for possible
> prosecution. Luckily for the couple, the police decided not to pursue
> the matter.
A similar case happened in Southfield, Michigan a few years ago where a
retired professor brought a negative of their baby boy without cloth to be
processed by a local one-hour lab. The professor was visited by police.
Later, the professor brought the son (now fully grown of course) to the
police department, and they dropped to case too.
Children pornorgraphy is, of course, illegal. Photographing your child
without cloth is not really illegal. The reason we often hear about the
horrible story that causes embarrassment to parents who have nothing to do
with child pornorgraphy is because the US government, in their effort to wipe
out child pornography, apply strict interpretation to the law concerning
children pornography.
One of the laws is the it is illegal to *distribute* or *aid* in the
distribution of children pornography. So in the Walmart case, for example, if
the picture turns out to be ok, then everything is ok; but if it is child
pornography, then they are liable also for aiding the distribution, according
to strict interpretation.
Another thing is that the law is so strict that I believe failing to report
child pornography is also illegal. This applies to the employers *and* the
employees. Thus again in the Walmart case, if it is proved that the picture
is illegal, then the employess who happens to run the print is also liable.
That is why most operator / printer choose to simply report the case to the
police. They might intuitive feel that the picture is not child pornography,
but they feel safer not to take the risk upon themselves.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 28 1999 - 21:40:38