Double standards, a game you can't play

[unixronin]

C|Net is reporting that Lower Merion School District will face no charges whatsoever for covertly photographing underage students using laptop webcams, allegedly including photos of students "partly dressed or sleeping" — because "federal and local prosecutors looking into the incident were unable to prove criminal intent on the part of school employees".  (Emphasis mine.)

Now, if a private individual not associated with the school district was found to be in possession of 56,000 photos of sometimes-partly-dressed high school students, without their knowledge, criminal intent wouldn't have even been on the table.  Mere possession of the photos would have been enough to nail the coffin shut on kiddie-porn charges, because if you're a private individual, possession is enough to damn you.  Even if the US Postmaster sent you a package as part of a sting operation and you never even opened it or knew what it was.

(There's plenty of cases on record of innocent people who have had their lives ruined that way in kiddie-porn witch hunts.  You want to nail someone on kiddie porn charges, but you don't have any actual or even circumstantial evidence that he has, or ever had, any in his possession, and can't find any grounds that a judge will buy into for a search warrant?  No problem, just mail him some, then arrest him for possessing it the moment he takes the package out of the mailbox, while he's still looking at the package in confusion because he hasn't ordered anything.)

But because this is a school district doing it, they got a free walk.

Double standards, anyone...?

Comments

[ithildae]

I saw that go by a few days past. My blood pressure is still not down to normal.