MacRaven - Dave Haxton's Weblog

Tue, 18 Jul 2006

One family's journey to Hel and back, courtesy of a drugstore employee convinced that camp photos of their skinny dipping kids were child porn. To call this "Kafkaesque" would not be an understatement - no charges, no right to see the evidence against you, and if you retain an attorney he can only represent the parents: the children are automatically presumed to be under the protection of the agency doing the investigation that may result in their being removed from their parents home!

These kinds of incidents are becoming as disturbingly familiar as botched paramilitary police raids. The article details this particularly disturbing incident:

For instance, in Dallas in 2003, as the result of a complaint by an Eckerd drugstore employee, a 33-year-old woman was charged with "sexual performance of a child," a second-degree felony punishable by 20 years in prison, based on a picture of her breast-feeding her 1-year-old son. Although the district attorney dropped the charges in the case, the parents had to fight for weeks to get their two children back from the Dallas County Child Protective Services.

We are rapidly becoming a nation which would not be recognizable to our Founding Fathers. And once our freedom's gone, it's going to take another Revolution to get it back.

Won't somebody think of the children?

When she returned to pick up the film, she was approached by two officers from the Savannah Police Department. They told her they had been called by Eckerd due to "questionable photos."

(link) [Salon]

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/Politics | 4 writebacks | permanent link

On 7/18/2006 12:17:22
Bjorngrímnir wrote

A Fine Line

I can see both sides of this issue. Of utmost importance is that the children are seen to first. Anything else is unacceptable, and the risk to children too high. On the other hand, I have also been temporary legal guardian to a child whose mother was falsely accused of abuse, by a woman who was supposedly in love with her husband. The call was made, the cops and child protection lady showed up, and all of a sudden I was some kid's mommy for about a month, until the child protection lady was satisfied that the accusations were without merit. So the problem is that the line between protecting the children and protecting the sanctity of the family is a pretty thin one. I would have no problems with the overal process, except that enforcement is not consistent and the determination of guilt is often not expedient (or cheap).

On 7/18/2006 14:54:01
Dave H wrote

But...

I would contend that turning us all into spies on our neighbors is counterproductive: the more "false positives" (such as the pic of the woman breastfeeding) that the police have to wade through and the courts and agencies have to screen, the greater the likelihood that *real* abuse is going to get missed. The case highlighted also illustrates the problems of definitions: to the clerk, a child suckling at a breast was a sexual act! To normal humans it was the way kids get fed... They're already talking about making smoking (cigarettes) in front of your kids as an automatic form of abuse. When will buying your child a "Happy Meal" earn you a trip to the slammer? Thanks for the comment and Be well, Dave H.

On 7/19/2006 04:30:34
Bjorngrímnir wrote

Good Point

Perhaps the answer should be standardized guidelines that everyone has access to, so that they will at least understand the legal and common definitions of abuse, combined with stiffer penalties for deliberate, false accusations? I know that wouldn't answer all of the problems, but it might cut back at least a little on the mire that officials have to wade through. With smoking around kids, to be honest, I think it should be illegal. Knowing what we know now, the damage it can do to kids as well as adults in passive form, I think smoking around kids is ridiculous. I'm speaking as someone who, until this past January, smoked a pack a day; so it's not like I don't understand the smoker's side of the issue. As a smoker, I knew I was poisoning myself, and I knew I was poisoning those around me. Although I may have buried that fact under a veneer of indifference, often saying that my little cigarettes weren't nearly so harmful as billowing clouds of automobile exhaust, I knew on more than one level that my logic was flawed and that I was still poisoning myself and others. Ultimately, I didn't need laws to encourage me to stop. My father, on the other hand, smokes at least two packs per day and has no consideration for where he smokes or around whom. The only exceptions to this are that he doesn't smoke where it is illegal for him to do so (he smacks on the stop smoking gum for such situations). So I think the laws against exposing kids to cigarettes are appropriate, in that they may encourage smokers to at least be more mindful of the kids they are exposing to that stuff.

On 7/20/2006 00:13:25
Rubicon wrote

"When will buying your child a "Happy Meal" earn you a trip to the slammer?" well jail is a little harsh. In my opinion, if you feed your kids happy meals then you deserve at least a fine. A fine for being stupid and lazy. Fast food is an abomination and does nobody nor the environment a lick of good; especially children.

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MacRaven
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