Bath Time Photos Prompt Child Porn Allegations

[Andrew Horodysky]

You've got to read his story: about a family, in Arizona, whose kids were taken away pending an investigation to alleged child pornography for having photos made during the kids' bath time.

A 1-hour photo lab employee at Wal-Mart alerted the police and as a result the family's life was ruined. They are now suing the pants off everyone involved, including Wal-Mart and the Arizona State Attorney General's office.

These kinds of witch-hunts still exemplify the puritanical, if not completely uneducated, uncultured, and ignorant society we live in. You can't say or do anything without the the authorities jumping all over you. Where the hell is a normal, cultured person (with his family) supposed to live nowadays? It's sick...

Read the entire article:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/arizona-c...hotos-prompt-wal-mart/Story?id=8624533&page=1

This should make for a lively discussion...

 

[SuzanneR]

I saw this story a few days ago, and the sense that these parents are somehow harming their children by making bath time pictures is ridiculous.

This overzealous protection of children these days is doing far more psychic harm to them than the boogie man or or even parents could ever inflict on them.

 

[Ian Grant]

My guess is almost every family new & old has similar images amongst their photos.

It's not the first time it's happened in the US or UK and well known photographers have been caught up in these witch hunts too.

There's normal family snaps, common sense and child porn and authorities seem to lack the common sense when they behave in these ways.

Ian

 

[Andrew Horodysky]

I must admit something hilarious... Every time my mother-in-law looks through new photos of our daughters, and sees a nude one, she immediately takes it out and hides it. So, just for laughs, I keep adding more, just so that I can revel in her prudishness. I'm so naughty.

 

[Leighgion]

See what happens when you patronize Wal-Mart? Evil!

 

[Marco B]

What's the next step: a law enforced rule that forces every family to acquire a Robocop "baby / child washer robot" on the day of giving birth to a newborn???

How on earth can they think a couple taking care of their children is involved in child pornography? (they should be grateful these parents do... considering the number of problems with children left to roam the streets all day because the parents don't care...)

Marco

 

[removed account4]

this has been going on for years.
it happened to acquaintances when i lived
outside of boston ( 12 years ago ).
it was a well known pro lab that got the police involved.
it has nothing to do with walmart, it has to do with other things ...

 

[arigram]

Can they charge you with child pornography for displaying a picture of yourself as a baby in a bathtub?
(guess what crossed my mind )

 

[Sirius Glass]

Over reaction by the police. The hard line by the city will be very costly once this is sorted out. The tax payers will be pissed.

Steve

 

[Ian Grant]

John makes a good point, photo labs may have an important place in combating/detecting child porn but this is diminishing because of digital.

Nearly all of us will have known & come into contact with people who have or will later commit major crimes, regardless of the type of community we live in or its affluence. Even the apparently nice people we know can hide something darker, I had a teacher who murdered his wife & 2 children, before committing suicide.

The problem is pedallers of child porn and worse live amongst the general community, but there seems to be no proper guidelines etc for how the police and authorities behave when tipped off, and a real lack of common sense nad as mentioned double standards in the media etc.

My guess is that almost every member of APUG was photographed as a kid playing naked at some time or other by their parents, and that those with kids & grand children have taken similar images.

So go on Ari post your picture then we can get your Dad locked up and you can take over his business

We had all this with the Sally Mann Exhibtion in the UK a year or so gao and the other mother, I'm forgetting her name, who photographed her daughter.

Ian

 

[ozphoto]

I worked in the photo lab industry for over 13 years. During that time we printed hundreds of rolls of film depicting "bath-time" - and none could possibly be construed as "kiddie-porn". What did concern me during those 13 years was the knowledge that a lab close by was keeping pictures of children in their own private "stash"; but nothing ever came of reporting this.

Yes overzealous employees will and did cause me headaches; in the end, any reporting had to be sanctioned by me and my immediate superior - the cost of reporting innocent images was way too high for my liking. Destroying a family's happy home life was not on the list of things I had to undertake during my time as a lab manager. It comes down to common sense and gut feeling - remove those two and you get a big, ugly mess.

 

[gr82bart]

Can they charge you with child pornography for displaying a picture of yourself as a baby in a bathtub?
(guess what crossed my mind )

An aside - related personal story. So my avatar is a pic of me when I was like 4 or 5 years old. It was taken by my Mom using Kodachrome with her Leica. I have the original slide. I use that avatar everywhere on the net. Anyway, I am also a member of several 'let's call them model' sites where they have strict over 18 only policies. Well guess what? My avatar was banned in several of them! At first they cited the no images of people under 18, and then they cited copyright infringement - to the laughter of my Mom. She reminds me I owe her more in royalties for other infringements. All but one conceded after I protested. Rules are rules when thinking is banned, right?

Ari, I have the same thought. That's all. Carry on.

Regards, Art.

 

[bsdunek]

Ah, yes, we can have TV shows and movies that exploit children, but can't take a cute photo of our own kids. Common sense is just so uncommon.

 

[wiltw]

'lack of common sense' and 'over protectionism' both come to mind

 

[removed account4]

you would be surprised what disgusting stuff gets sent
to labs to be printed, now and before the whole d-thing ...

 

[Thomas Wilson]

you would be surprised what disgusting stuff gets sent
to labs to be printed, now and before the whole d-thing ...

That's an interesting point.

I just read a story yesterday about a local idiot who was arrested for growing pot in his backyard. He lives in a row house.

 

[dpurdy]

I tend to think that we shouldn't be mad at the regulations and law enforcements, we should be mad about the fact that there is a lot of child pornography going on which is causing drastic measures and protective attitudes. But then I wonder is there really that much going on? I have never personally encountered the industry or anyone involved with it. I have only encountered the news of it. Is it to some extent another scare tactic? And to what end?
Dennis

 

[BetterSense]

I just read a story yesterday about a local idiot who was arrested for growing pot in his backyard. He lives in a row house

Is it the pot this is disgusting to you, the fact that he was arrested for growing it, or the row house?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Knowing Baltimore, 90% of its citizens live in some kind of rowhouse. It takes a special kind of fool to grow pot in his backyard where at least two dozen neighbors will be able to see it out their kitchen windows, especially in today's legal climate of zero tolerance for these things. All the stoners I knew in college had at least the presence of mind to either grow it in the basement or just buy it from someone else.

Now, as to what that has to do with child porn being submitted to the local minilab for printing, I'm not quite sure.

 

[arigram]

Now, as to what that has to do with child porn being submitted to the local minilab for printing, I'm not quite sure.

Well, if you weren't smoking that joint, you would have made sense!

 

[hec]

in the wise words of the late Bill Jay:

"So, someone, somewhere is stimulated by otherwise innocent photographs. So what? If someone is excited by s shoe catalog does that make it pornography?"

Besides, we all can be pretty sure that child pornographers do not print at walmart, or any lab at all, in the news they always get them by what is in their hard drives...

 

[removed account4]

Besides, we all can be pretty sure that child pornographers do not print at walmart, or any lab at all, in the news they always get them by what is in their hard drives...

don't be so sure of that ...

 

[PVia]

Remember the flap over Sally Mann's photographs of her children? Much ado about nothing but it caused much trouble at the time...

 

[Thomas Wilson]

Is it the pot this is disgusting to you, the fact that he was arrested for growing it, or the row house?

None of the above.

You missed the obvious, Basic stupidity.

 

[Uncle Goose]

A normal thinking person long knows that the real kiddie porn jerks long gone digital by now, who would risk it to bring in a roll of film with kiddie porn while you can do it all secluded in a dark computer room. Like all witch hunts they are always targeting the wrong people. It reminds me on an article of a guy who had 7 million!!! kiddie porn photographs on his computer, these guys all went digital a long time ago. Time to face that fact and leave normal families alone.