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The school censors in Florida strike again
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:53:02 -0800
________________________________________ From: Paul Levy [plevy () citizen org] Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 11:28 AM To: David Farber Subject: The school censors in Florida strike again The St. Peterburg Times carries a report that a school security officer is under investigation by the New Port Richey police department and the Florida Attorney General's cybercrimes unit because one of his MySpace friends has links to nude photographs from his (the friend’s web site), and those sites with those photographs, apparently, link to porn sites. The theory is that the security officer could be criminally liable for intentionally making pornographic material available to children. Or, perhaps it doesn’t matter whether the officer had bad intent - the Times also carries the follow peculiar quote from the Florida Attorney General’s office: “I am sure the attorney general would be extremely concerned if a member of the trusted law enforcement community was either inadvertently or directly placing students at risk to being exposed to inappropriate content.” According to the story, the security officer was specifically encouraged by school authorities as well as by the local police department to create a MySpace page in order to reach out to the local students “where they are.” But because he had to approve of any new “friends,” he is subject to a criminal investigation into his “purpose” or state of mind when approving these friends. The newspaper carries this story without any consideration of the First Amendment implications of opening a criminal investigation into someone for the “crime” of linking to somebody else who in turn links to nude photographs and thence into the world of porn. http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/24/Pasco/Links_leave_cop_red_f.shtml http://blogs.tampabay.com/schools/2008/01/school-officers.html Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group 1600 - 20th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 588-1000 http://www.citizen.org/litigation ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- The school censors in Florida strike again David Farber (Jan 24)