Fears for America’s youth over sex-text craze

Sexting – taking an explicit photo of yourself or your loved one with a mobile phone, and then sending it to your classmates – has become, some say, 'an epidemic' amongst the US teens who've grown out of Miley Cyrus.
 
There is certainly plenty of it going on. One Ohio high school teacher was convinced that "If I were to go through the cell phones in this building right now, of 1,500 students I would venture to say that half to two-thirds have indecent photos, either of themselves or somebody else in school." And, in various cases around America, the authorities have now started browsing pupils' inboxes - and prosecuting.
 
Which has led to a problem; camera-phone technology has developed faster than the law. When, one hot night in summer 2007, Marissa Miller and Grace Kelly, two 13-year-olds from Tunkhannock, a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, stripped down to their undies and posed as a friend took a photo, they say they were having good wholesome fun. Marissa's mother agreed: "There was absolutely nothing wrong with that photograph," she said.
 
But Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr thought differently. After the photos ended up on other people’s phones, he threatened to charge the girls with offences that he said ranged from "sexual abuse of children in Pennsylvania, criminal [use] of a communications facility, or open lewdness".

His office planned to prosecute unless the girls agreed to go on a five-week after-school programme, to be taught "what it means to be a girl in today's society", followed by probation. When, in a television interview, it was suggested to Shumanick that this was just a case of kids being kids and not realising that they were committing a crime, he was adamant: "As you well know, ignorance of the law is not a defence."
 
However, the girls' families sought legal counsel, and got help from the American Civil Liberties Union. They argued that the photos were not in violation of any obscenity laws - indeed  were protected under the First Amendment - and asked federal judge James Munley to stop Shumanick filing charges.

On Monday, Judge Munley ruled in favour of the girls, and issued a restraining order on Skumanick. His moral crusade has been checked, but doubtless this will not be the last time that sexting comes into the courthouse. ·