Kids in a bathtub = CHILD PORNZ!!!1!!eleventy!

I am getting so sick and tired of all these wild-ass child porn accusations being flung left, right and center, usually to end up with something that no sane or reasonable person could ever label as kiddie pornography. Pics of naked kids in a bathtub = CHILD PORN. Personal-use home video featuring naked kids running innocently around the house = CHILD PORN. Any inch of flesh exposed = CHILD PORN, basically. It’s utterly ridiculous. You’d expect people to be able to distinguish between cute photos, and actual child porn – but then, expecting most people to be reasonable about anything these days is just stupid.

Here’s just the latest example of this child porn hysteria. An Arizona couple took a few innocent photos of their three little girls during bath-time – a crime that probably 99% of parents in the world are guilty of – and later went to have the pics developed at Walmart.

You can imagine what happened next:

Lisa and Anthony "A.J." Demaree's three young daughters were taken away by Arizona Child Protective Services last fall when a Walmart employee found partially nude pictures of the girls on a camera memory stick taken to the store for processing, according to the suit.

The Peoria couple's attorney said Walmart turned the photos over to police and the Demarees were not allowed to see their children for several days and didn't regain custody for a month while the state investigated.

Neither parent was charged with sexual abuse and they regained custody of their children — then ages 1 1/2, 4 and 5 — but the Demarees claim the incident inflicted lasting harm.

[…]

Richard Treon, the lawyer for the Demarees, said the images of the girls were part of a group of 144 photographs taken mostly during the family's vacation in San Diego.

There were seven to eight bath- and playtime photos of the girls that showed a "portion or outline or genitalia."

"There was nothing sexual about it," Treon said. "This is a parent's worst nightmare."

Thankfully, the parents have decided to sue, but I don’t think Walmart is the right target to aim their rightful furor at. After all, it’s not the retail giant that took their kids away and accused them of creating child porn, but the idiotic Arizona Child Protective Services. They’re the ones who should sizzle in the frying pan of courtroom justice for a while over this travesty.

In the end, though, these two should probably count themselves lucky, considering how much worse things could’ve turned out.

(via The Agitator)
Technorati tags: child porn · photos · injustices · Arizona · Child Protective Services · Demaree