WA: House Passes Responsible Teen Communications Act
The Washington State House of Representatives passed House Bill 1742 on a bipartisan vote of 57-39. The Responsible Teen Communications Act, sponsored by Rep. Noel Frame (D-Seattle), updates Washington’s laws to reflect current technology, and ensure minors sharing sexually explicit images or videos of themselves with their peers (commonly known was “sexting”) are not automatically charged with a felony sex offense and forced to register as a sex offender.
According to a recent study, more than one in four teenagers report having received a sexually explicit image, while around 15 percent of teens reported sending a “sext.”
Under current law, it is a felony sex offense for anyone to view, possess, or distribute any images, videos or other depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. That means a minor sharing an intimate image of themselves is treated the same as an adult who takes explicit photos of children to exploit them, and can be charged with a class B felony sex offense. A felony criminal record carries lifelong consequences, making it hard to find housing, employment and education.
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teen texting behavior should never be an ordeal of government responsibility.,., That is a parents domain NOT daddy government….We dont need laws to tell us that laws are illegal..We need government restrained and limited so the imbeciles will stop passing foolish legislation in the first place. Until we get government OUT of family’s and OUT of private lives in the first place it will be just a matter of time till the next stupid legislative idea by some hair brain that has never had children but has read a cartoon somewhere and so has a stupid idea..
There should be some kind of penalty for sexting, if young people feel free to do that ” innaproperiatly ” then they could go on later in life to do other types of innapropriatly things.. isn’t that what usually happens to some of us!!!.
NO and super duh no!..when ever someone say’s “there should be a law” they are the problem! you can bet your slap silly head, some idiot in congress is more then willing to make a stupid law regulating your family for you.. parenting..Parenting is the law that should apply. NOT government..Stop it already with the government nanny logic ..Stop thinking government should have any business raising or correcting family’s or children.. Government can not even govern government.. dads belt, moms spoon is the answer.. Government is never the right answer.
When is this craziness going to end…or will it ever? There must be money in it somewhere, otherwise, why would responsible individuals be wasting their time with it.
Finally, a law that DOES protect children.
This law will also improve test scores since the law allows children to freely distribute pictures they can plant on their teacher’s computer if the teacher does not give the grade she wants.
One of my first thoughts.
If you think about it though, this can already happen without much effort. That’s why it is ridiculous that simply receiving an unwanted CP image is a crime. If it cannot be proven that you solicited, looked for, or intentionally kept CP, that’s a whole other argument. But anyone can receive CP without ever asking and sometimes without knowing for example if it is embedded in some other content.
If the spammers in Russia and China ever get wind of this, they could send CP to their targets and report it to the police simultaneously. Possession is a crime as it stands. Does anyone ever skip prosecution because they claim they did not cause it to be in their possession intentionally? Correct me if wrong, but the answer seems to be a resounding “NO”