Associated Press reports a story originally reported by WCSR in Michigan:
A prosecutor plans to subpoena cell phone records of students in Hillsdale and Branch counties as part of an investigation into widespread sharing of sexually explicit photos.
Assistant Hillsdale County Prosecutor Megan Stiverson told WCSR for a story Friday (http://bit.ly/oxUWS1 ) that the original “sexting” incident involved two female students at Hillsdale High School and a male student at Quincy High School.
She said at least a dozen others are involved with some students taking explicit photos of themselves and sending them with their cell phones.
[…]
Stiverson said sending a nude photo of a minor is a felony, even if the minor is sending it.
Is a subpoena the right requirement here, or should it be a warrant to search their cell phones? And are we (again) criminalizing youthful indiscretions?
The cases I mentioned earlier this week from Baltimore raise different issues – including uploading material to the Internet of people who neither knew they were being taped nor consented to it. In this case, if teens are voluntarily sharing nude photos of themselves, then however stupid or dangerous we think such behavior might be, do we really want this all handled as a criminal investigation? This is where we should try education. What have the schools in Michigan been doing to teach teens about privacy?