Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 216 posts

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#51

Post by ubernostrum »

jrockway wrote: post #33
danbmil99 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is someone out there who really thought that trying to bring the case was a good idea. Really? Sounds more like there's some cynical jerk with no sense of ethics or boundaries who gets their jollies by randomly victimizing normal families with the excessive powers bestowed upon them by paranoid CYA legislation and an army of deranged ideologues who see abuse everywhere.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: "Someone who really doesn't understand what his job is does some work in an attempt to get a promotion."

Most likely: someone whose continued employment depends on turning a certain minimum percentage of reports into criminal charges/convictions. Busting actual child abusers who have experience with the system is likely much harder than setting up innocent people who don't understand what's going on, so this would presumably be an easy case.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#52

Post by blueberry »

kls wrote: post #13

I had a similar run in with DCF, not for child pornography but for accusations of child abuse. I helped out a high school friend who had become a heroin addict (I had no idea what I was getting into), by letting his family and himself live with me while he tried to recover. It ended up that this was a common scam with him and his wife and they use a sob story to get friends to help them out and once they wear out the…

I wonder what is with those brownie points? Do they transform into big buck$?

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#53

Post by c1sc0 »

holdenc wrote: post #24

This kind of story is indicting of our culture. Outside the US nudity is not so taboo. In my daughter's kindergarten (a nice private school in Southeast Asia) boys and girls share the same bathroom, with no private stalls, and no door on the entrance. Everyone sees everything -- passers-by included. Meanwhile, in the US, nudity is synonymous with sex, and good people have to worry about things like this.

I'll add to that by saying it's a sign of our times as well. I was educated with material from the 60's / 70's & having nudity in school textbooks was perfectly normal then, including shared nudity between adults & children.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#54

Post by jvdh »

On the one hand I completely sympathize with the author. As a parent myself I would not wish this upon anyone.

On the other hand, the author is a journalist, exactly the people who are the cause of this type of witch hunt. If you would leave out the prologue of the story, and make it into a story where the accusations actually were true. Then noone would have blinked about what happened. If they were treated any other way, there would have been a public outrage.

Think about the officers handling this case. There is absolutely zero incentive for them to handle this case differently. If the accused turn out to be guilty, then they better have handled this case with the utmost seriousness. Any leniency can possibly lead to a scandal. And media love childmolesting scandals, so the officers will be part of a nation if not worldwide scandal. They will be singled out, their mistake will be broadcasted for the whole world to see, and they effictively lose their job.

If people turn out to be innocent, psyches have been damaged, it's bad but they'll get over it. More importantly, maybe a complaint will be filed, they will have done the right thing within the rules, and case is closed.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#55

Post by btilly »

jrockway wrote: post #36
Jun8 wrote: post #3

America has one of the absurdly strictest set of laws for sex offenses against minors, Economist had a great cover story about this some weeks ago. Problem is, since politicians know proposals for stricter laws bring in votes and no sane politician would ever propose a relaxation in these laws, they get stricter every year. On the other hand, the US has one of the most sexualized tweens and teen-agers I have ever see…

America has one of the absurdly strictest set of laws for sex offenses against minors no sane politician would ever propose a relaxation in these laws So what did the other countries, that have less-strict laws, do? (I agree that Americans are very afraid of anything sexual, but I'm not sure how this happened. Not everyone is a Puritan.)

Back in the 90s I ran across an interesting survey. In America more people were privately concerned about excessive violence on TV than excessive sex. But most thought that their neighbors were more concerned about sex than violence. And therefore found it easier to publicly express their concerns about sex than violence.

As to your question, laws and solutions vary widely by country. And other countries have their own problems. (See, for instance, the Catholic abuse scandal in Ireland.) But in general other countries have laws which serve the same purpose as US laws, however with less draconian details. For instance England and Canada have copied US legislation for registered sex offenders. However they do not seem to have implemented the sort of geographic rules on where they can live that lead to the infamous tent city under a bridge in Miami.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#56

Post by Kliment »

btilly wrote: post #55
jrockway wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has one of the absurdly strictest set of laws for sex offenses against minors no sane politician would ever propose a relaxation in these laws So what did the other countries, that have less-strict laws, do? (I agree that Americans are very afraid of anything sexual, but I'm not sure how this happened. Not everyone is a Puritan.)

Back in the 90s I ran across an interesting survey. In America more people were privately concerned about excessive violence on TV than excessive sex. But most thought that their neighbors were more concerned about sex than violence. And therefore found it easier to publicly express their concerns about sex than violence. As to your question, laws and solutions vary widely by country. And other countries have their o…

I suppose you mean violence in your second sentence, not sex.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#57

Post by loewenskind »

Why wasn't the Clerk investigated for child pornography/molestation?

If you look at a picture of naked kids in non-sexual situations and think you're seeing something sexual then there is something wrong with you. Full stop. Either you've been abused, you're an abuser yourself or you've been horribly brain washed. Any of these possibilities makes you more of a risk than the person who shot the photos.

Taking this a step further, people need to start filing scary "child pornography" charges at judges, lawyers and everyone else who participates in this kind of insanity. If the judge doesn't take one look at the photo, realize it's nothing and dismiss the case then he might well be a consumer of child pornography. Otherwise, why didn't he realize it was innocent? If a few people in power start getting their lives ruined by this nonsense maybe it would stop.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#58

Post by philk »

jrockway wrote: post #32

Sounds like the system worked. She was accused of a crime, an investigation was performed, the state realized they had no case and that nothing was wrong, and the charges were dropped. I guess it's kind of a pain to be the target of an investigation, but nobody's life was ruined.

That is entirely false:

a) If the system worked, the initial photos would have been checked and then the complaint would have been disregarded.

b) If the system worked, innocent parents who provided a loving and safe home for their children would not have been treated like criminals.

c) If the system worked, the state would not have kept pushing in the hope of getting some sort of conviction in a case where it was manifestly clear that nothing had happened.

d) If the system worked, the children in the case would not have been subjected to invasive and personal questioning by government functionaries.

Accusations of pedophilia do ruin lives, and no one should ever have to go through the hell of proving their innocence in a case as flimsy as this.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#59

Post by Tichy »

jvdh wrote: post #54

On the one hand I completely sympathize with the author. As a parent myself I would not wish this upon anyone. On the other hand, the author is a journalist, exactly the people who are the cause of this type of witch hunt. If you would leave out the prologue of the story, and make it into a story where the accusations actually were true. Then noone would have blinked about what happened. If they were treated any othe…

"a journalist, exactly the people who are the cause of this type of witch hunt."

And I am a software developer, exactly the kind of people who cause computer viri, identity theft, spams and scams?

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#60

Post by Twisol »

I've read just over 30 pages of the comments on Salon to this story, and undoubtedly I'll read many more. My main observation is that most of the commenters seem to be sensible people who do understand what parenting is like, and how kids really act. Thank _God_. But some of the other comments just make me facepalm terrifically.

Legally, I'm going to be an adult within the month. I'm certainly not a parent, but I am a kid, and I haven't been so brainwashed as to lose sight of what pre-adolescence is like. I could go on and on about the funny, stupid, and downright embarrassing things I did, particularly before I turned "double-digits".

Side-point: Giving these decidedly private photos to a public agency to develop was an absolutely stupid thing to do, but by no stretch of the imagination can I blame everything on him because of it. That's a lesson learned, for sure, but the idea that anything else he did was "wrong" just blows my mind. I'd like to say to some of the salon commenters... don't impose your personal morals on everyone else, please. I know there's a fantastic one-word term for people who do that, but it escapes me.

Post reply on HN