The City of Chicago: Profiteering From Irregular Yellow-Light Timing?

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By Adam Rouse

Anyone who has driven in a red-light camera city long enough has either witnessed the flash of a strobe light documenting another motorist being photographed for an alleged red light violation or experienced the feeling of dread and annoyance of seeing the strobe flash in his or her own rear-view mirror. City officials and red light camera vendors love to talk about how the cameras are all about safety and reducing traffic collisions. Opponents of traffic cameras will often state that it is all about the money – revenue generated for both the private companies and the local government. The truth, it seems, may lie somewhere in the middle.

It isn’t difficult to believe that cities like Chicago, which are facing tough budget decisions and looming debt, would turn to new sources of revenue to boost their income. Red-light cameras can be very lucrative for big cities especially in California where drivers pay a massive $480 fine for every violation. Chicago, which leads the nation in the total number of red-light camera enforced intersections, issues administrative fines for red-light camera citations in the amount of $100 per incident generating over $500 million in revenue for the City thus far. Chicago quietly changed its policy of issuing citations when the yellow-light interval was greater or equal to 3.0 seconds to issuing citations when the yellow-light interval was greater or equal to 2.9 seconds. While one tenth of a second may not seem an appreciable amount, consider that this change in policy generated an additional $7.7 million for Chicago in the just over half a year it was in effect.

The Chicago Inspector General’s office concludes that the City did not deliberately alter yellow-light times to generate tickets and the variances in yellow-light timing stemmed from power fluctuations in the traffic signals that were within the acceptable variance. The report from the Inspector General includes a document from PEEK Traffic documenting the acceptable actual display time for a yellow-light programmed to last 3.0 seconds is anywhere from 3.12 seconds to 2.89 seconds based on the fluctuation of power cycles in the timing circuits. There are reports that when independently tested, yellow-lights in Chicago can fall outside of the acceptable times noted in the Inspector General’s report. This video, produced by Barnet Fagel, an expert witness in many red light camera cases in Chicago, illustrates the issues with yellow-light times at the intersections generating the most income for Chicago. All of the intersections were timed with yellow-lights lasting less than 3 seconds, and some fell outside of the acceptable range mentioned above.

As questionable as the yellow-light times are in Chicago, municipalities in Florida were caught deliberately reducing their yellow-light durations after a change in language in state law allowed for a shorter yellow-light duration. Florida law bases the yellow-light duration minimums strictly on the speed limit of the streets that make up the intersection. Florida does not require the US DOT recommended traffic studies to determine the 85th percentile speed at which drivers enter the intersection nor the extra half-second interval addition for intersections with a high percentage of use by elderly drivers or trucks with loads—both of which require either extra time or distance to come to a complete stop. The result was predictably higher revenue from fines and outrage from Floridians who felt they were duped and unfairly ticketed.

Shortening yellow-light times to the minimum limits may be perfect for lining governmental coffers, but does this practice work for reducing accidents at intersections where red-lights are enforced by automated camera systems? The City of Chicago certainly wants people to think so; according to the data it released claiming that crashes at camera enforced intersections were down by 33% over a 7 year period since the first cameras were installed in 2005. At first glance a 33% reduction in crashes seems to suggest that the cameras really are increasing safety in Chicago.Figure 1

The problem is the misleading statistical data and methodology that the City of Chicago uses to draw the conclusion that cameras are increasing safety. When looking at the data, every intersection with a camera is included in the comparison of number of crashes in 2005 to the number of crashes in 2012. Figure 1 shows when all the cameras used to report crash statistics were actually installed. The vast majority of the intersections used by Chicago in its data did not have cameras installed in 2005 thus it is entirely possible that the intersections with cameras installed between 2007 and 2009 could have been trending down before the cameras were ever installed. Another huge problem with Chicago’s so-called analysis is the lack of any control data. An independent study suggests that accident rates were falling generally during the same time period that Chicago analyzes in its report. Thus, there is no reliable way based on the data presented by the City of Chicago to infer any sort of causal link between the installation of red-light cameras and an increase in traffic safety at those intersections. With the data presented, it is difficult to draw even a correlative conclusion between the red-light cameras and increased traffic safety.

Improperly timing the yellow-light duration can lead to more collisions at an intersection because drivers do not have enough time to safely stop. The Federal Highway Administration (“FHWA” part of the U.S. Department of Transportation) partnered with traffic engineers and safety experts to create a method to determine safe yellow-light durations. The following formula is a result of the research performed to determine a safe yellow-light duration at intersections: yellow-light duration (in seconds) = t + (1.47 x V85 / 2d + 2Gg). This formula seems complicated until the constants are filled in and explained. The variable t will almost always be 1 because the average reaction time of a driver to a change of a traffic signal is 1 second. This variable should be increased in areas where it is known that drivers have a longer reaction time to changing signals. The V85 variable is the speed at which 85% of the traffic travels on the streets that comprise the intersection assuming that traffic is flowing in an unobstructed flow. This 85% speed may or may not be near the speed limit of the streets, and can only be determined by a properly executed traffic study.  The average deceleration of a stopping vehicle is 10 ft/s2 and is the constant d in the equation. The last portion of the equation 2Gg deals with grades (up or down hill slope) at the intersection. Because most, if not all, intersections in Chicago have no significant grade and are relatively flat it is safe to assume that 2Gg will equal 0 in the flowing calculations. Thus, when simplified for Chicago intersections the formula becomes: yellow-light duration = 1 + (1.47 x V85 / 20).

Applying the formula to intersections in Chicago yields some very interesting results. Assuming that traffic is flowing through an intersection at the posted speed limit of 30mph then the yellow-light time would equal 1 + (1.47 x 30 / 20) or 3.2 seconds. Taking the variations in yellow-light duration produced by the variations in power supplied to signals noted in the PEEK report above, the actual time the yellow-light duration should be programmed for 3.33 seconds producing actual yellow light times of 3.20 to 3.44 seconds to be considered safe by the FHWA. For intersections where the traffic is flowing at an average approach speed of 35mph the yellow-light duration should be 3.57, or programmed for 3.69 seconds to produce yellow durations between 3.57 and 3.81 seconds. Based on the above formula and calculations the yellow-light durations are set below the correct safety standards recommended by the FHWA and traffic engineers.

Properly administered red-light cameras can have a positive effect on intersection safety provided that the crashes are caused by driver behavior that is able to be changed by enforcement measures. The FHWA notes that the best results are achieved by combing traffic engineering, driver education, and enforcement measures where needed. If Chicago was truly interested in improving traffic safety in the city perhaps the half-a-billion dollars collected from the red-light camera program thus far could be used to perform meaningful traffic studies to collect valid data and fund driver education programs to prevent red-light running and the associated crashes. Once Chicago traffic engineers had proper data and studies to work with they could adjust the yellow-light times to the applicable safe standards and implement other traffic engineering solutions that were designed to increase safety and not rely on red-light cameras that do little more than generate revenue for the city at the expense of its citizens.

Apple and Google Make the Next Generation of Smartphones More Secure

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By Adam Rouse

Apple recently announced that starting with the release of iOS 8 that device encryption would be enabled by default. On the heels of Apple’s announcement, Google also announced that it would be turning on whole device encryption by default with the release of its Android 5 operating system. Previously, on both Apple and Android devices a consumer would have to go in to the settings of the device and enable encryption. Apple and Google added that neither company would hold the keys to the kingdom by maintaining cryptographic keys capable of decrypting secured devices. Apple states that there is no longer a way for the company to decrypt a locked device, even if presented with a valid warrant from law enforcement personnel. Google also reiterated that Android devices have never stored cryptographic keys anywhere other than the encrypted device. Thus, Google also claims that it cannot decrypt an encrypted device for law enforcement, even when presented with a valid warrant.

Even though device encryption by default provides additional protection, a lock is only as strong as the key required to unlock it. Apple and Android devices (which make up 96.4% of the world cellular device market), as part of the device encryption, will ask the user to create some sort of passcode the first time the device is powered on. This passcode should be a strong password. All of the device encryption in the world can’t help you if all it takes to unlock your device is typing in “1234” to the PIN field. On average a 4 digit PIN on an Android device can be broken in just under 17 hours using a commonly available phone hacking tool. Interestingly, increasing the PIN to a 10 digit number ups the time required to brute force unlock the device to just less than 2 centuries. Apple iOS devices fare a bit better because they lock devices out for successively longer times after repeated incorrect PIN entries. Both Android and Apple iOS devices can also be setup to use an alphanumeric password to access the device. While an alphanumeric password offers better security for the device it is much less convenient to type a full password than to enter a PIN code.

Smartphones suffer from the same security dilemma that all computing devices do: securing the device and data within often makes for an inconvenient end user experience. On average people check their smartphone or other mobile device 150 times a day. While Apple and Google could require complex passwords for lock screens to greatly improve security the consumer backlash could very well be crippling. It’s doubtful that the average consumer would want to type “dR#41nfE” on a smartphone keyboard 150 times a day just to check email or retrieve a text. There is a middle-of-the-road solution that could bridge the gap between effortless convenience and good security practice.

Apple and Google could require a unique, strong, password to decrypt the device when it powers on, but allow for a more convenient PIN or password to be used for a screen lock. Another feature could be added to the devices that would automatically power them down if an incorrect password or PIN was entered 10 times in a row. This feature would make it much less likely that someone could guess or brute force the screen lock password or PIN. Thus forcing even complex forensic programs to brute force attack the more complex and secure power on password. Incidentally, it would take about 14 years to brute force guess “dR#41nfE” on a computer capable of trying 2.6 million passwords per second. Any 4 digit PIN would take less than a second on the same computer. Thus, while the transition to decryption by default is a wonderful leap in the right direction for privacy minded consumers; the addition of the ability to have complex power on passwords separate from the lock screen credentials would help protect privacy while not being so inconvenient  that people will do nothing but disable the security feature.

While moving to whole device encryption is commendable for Apple and Google, there are two security features that should be avoided in their current state. These features are little more than security theater; you may feel secure by using them but there are fatal flaws with each that could leave you exposed to the snooping eyes of the government.

The first security feature to avoid is Apple iOS’s (as well as some upcoming Android devices) option to use a biometric lock with a thumb or fingerprint. Besides the problem of the sensor technology being defeated by gummy bears, there is a legal issue with a fingerprint lock on your device. Recently, a court in Virginia issued an opinion that stated that because fingerprints are non-testimonial in nature, police can legally require a detainee to provide their fingerprint to unlock a device.

A federal judge in the Eastern District of Michigan held that a password is testimonial in nature and thus protected from forced disclosure to the government by the Fifth Amendment (which applies to the states via the 14th Amendment). Justice Stevens in U.S. v. Hubbell distinguished between someone being forced to provide a key to a lockbox and being forced to reveal the combination to a safe. Providing a key to the government is a physical act, the key exists independently of the mental processes of the person who possesses it. Conversely, a password exists exclusively in the realm of a person’s mind and thus becomes testimonial in nature and protected under the 5th and 14th Amendments. Justice Stevens also stated in Hubbell that the act of providing physical evidence such as forcing someone “to put on a shirt, to provide a blood sample or handwriting exemplar, or to make a recording of his voice” was wholly separate from compelling someone to provide testimonial knowledge.

Thus, passwords and PINs appear to be protected by the 5th and 14th Amendments as being testimonial in nature because they exist as the exclusive result of your own mental process. You may, however, be required to provide your physical attributes such as finger prints, voice sample, or photograph to the police, who could then use the sample like a key on a biometric lock as suggested by the court in Virginia.

The second security feature to avoid is Android’s pattern unlock feature. This option displays 9 dots on the screen and allows you to draw a pattern connecting between 4 and 9 of the dots. This pattern serves as the method to unlock the phone in place of a typed PIN or password. The pattern lock appears to cause the government problems when trying to access data on a pattern locked phone. The issue is that Google can simply reset the lock pattern on the phone when presented with a court order requiring them to do so. Thus, while the pattern may initially stifle prying government eyes from peering into the locked device, the protection is lost when a warrant is issued with an order for Google to reset the pattern so the device can be unlocked. Google cannot reset a PIN or password the same way.

Of course, all of the device security in the world can’t protect your data in the cloud from snooping eyes. Most cell phones today store various amounts of data in the cloud automatically without any user intervention. For example, when creating contacts on Android phones you have to option to associate them to the Google account on the phone. This option is great if you switch phones or otherwise lose access to your original phone. This also means that the government doesn’t need to take or unlock your phone to see your contact information. They can simply show up to Google with a warrant and you may never know that they were there. In fact, Apple and Google are perfectly able and willing to hand over cloud stored data to law enforcement, sometimes proactively.

You can disable the cloud storage features of your Apple or Android device entirely, or simply choose what you are willing to store in the cloud for convenience and what information you wish to remain truly private. Overall the decision of both Apple and Google to enable device encryption by default in the new operation systems is a great step forward in the struggle for privacy in the digital age, but the consumer also needs to do their part and use smart, strong, passwords to help protect their privacy.

Digital Sexual Assault: A Disturbing Trend

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By Colleen Canniff

“Hopefully the Class of 2018 is paying attention, because otherwise the UEA is going to have to rape harder…”

In the fall of 2014, the incoming University of Chicago freshman class and the wider University of Chicago (UC) community were targeted and threatened as an anonymous hacker group, UChicago Electronic Army (UEA), posted the name of a sexual assault survivor and activist, purportedly in retaliation of the posting of The Hyde Park list.  The Hyde Park List, posted to Tumblr, was compiled by and for UC students and contained a list of UC students who, according to the list, are “individuals we would warn our friends about, because of their troubling behavior towards romantic or sexual partners.”  The original purpose of the list was to “[keep] the community safe—since the University won’t.”  One could argue that the UEA’s actions were out of a concern of denying due process to the students named.  But their method—threatening rape, and naming and identifying a victim of sexual assault—is a prime example of a troubling trend on the internet: using threats of sexual violence to silence individuals with whom a group of people doesn’t agree with.  As threats go online, the law is racing to keep up.

The UC incident is just the tip of the digital-assault iceberg.  Other reports of online sexual assault such as the iCloud hack, theft, and online release of dozens of celebrities’ personal nude photos, YouTuber Sam Peppers’ videos of sexually harassing women on the street, and the continued threats against Anita Sarkeesian, founder of Feminist Frequency (a website where she discusses and critiques female representations in videogames), exemplify the pervasiveness of online sexual violence against women. Continue reading →

The Cold Truth, Revisited: Egg Freezing as an Employee Benefit

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By Nadia Daneshvar

Faced with attracting women to join their predominantly male workforce, Facebook decided to offer an usual benefit: up to $20,000 in coverage toward egg freezing procedure and storage costs for female employees. Apple similarly has plans to offer both full- and part-time female employees the same coverage starting in January 2015. While many say the companies have taken a step toward gender equality in the workplace, others see it as a step in the wrong direction.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s recent revocation of egg freezing’s “experimental” status has caused an increase in the number of women opting to freeze their eggs for social or nonmedical reasons before they reach “advanced maternal ages.” But egg freezing does not come without risks and stigma. Nearly all stages involve risks (e.g., hormone injections and extraction, transfer, and gestation) and after two rounds of egg retrieval, the chance of live birth is just over 20% if eggs are harvested at or before age 25 and decreases with age: only 16% of women who underwent two rounds of egg freezing at age 30 will have live births. Other considerations include the increased risks associated with pregnancy in older ages. Continue reading →

DRONE SEASON: Can You Shoot Down a Drone That Flies Over Your Property?

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Michael Holloway Liberty Image 12.12.13 CC_smallBy Michael Holloway

As unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – drones – become an increasingly common sight, more and more people wonder whether they may legally shoot down a drone flying over their property.  The question is not confined to a radical fringe: at a 2012 Congressional hearing on drones, U.S. Representative Louis Gohmert asked, “Can you shoot down a drone over your property?”  Separately, conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer offered: “I would predict—I’m not encouraging—but I predict the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring a drone down that’s been hovering over his house is going to be a folk hero in this country.”

Traditionally, under the ad coeium doctrine, a property owner had control over his property “from the depths to the heavens.”  According to Black’s Law Dictionary, “Cjust est solum, ejus est usque ad coelom et ad inferos – to whomever the soil belongs, he owns also to the sky and the depths.”  But that changed with the advent of the airplane.  In 1926, Congress passed the Air Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C. § 40103(a)(1), which gave the federal government “exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States.”  In United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 261 (1946), Justice William Douglas wrote that the ad coeium doctrine “has no place in the modern world.”  Rather, with the advent of air travel, the national airspace is akin to a “public highway.”  But despite this, a property owner retains exclusive control over the space he or she can reasonably use in connection with the land, and may be entitled to compensation if the government encroaches on this airspace.  Similarly, as the Ninth Circuit pointed out in Hinman v. Pacific Air Transport, a person may become liable to a property owner for trespassing on this space.

Nor are these merely idle threats: a group of animal rights activists in Pennsylvania has repeatedly had its drones shot down while aerially videotaping “pigeon shoots” at a private club.  In April 2014, the town of Deer Trail, Colorado, voted on a proposed ordinance to issue drone hunting licenses; the ordinance offered a $100 bounty for shooting down drones and bringing in “identifiable parts of an unmanned aerial vehicle whose markings and configuration are consistent with those used on any similar craft known to be owned or operated by the United States federal government.”  The initiative ultimately lost badly, with 73% of voters opposed.

Law professor Greg McNeal writes that a person shooting down a government or commercial drone would violate constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 32, which states that anyone who damages or destroys any aircraft in flight in the United States has committed a crime punishable by up to twenty years in prison or a fine of up to $250,000.  McNeal’s analysis assumes that drones constitute “aircraft” within the meaning of the statute, but that has recently come into question.  In March 2014, a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) administrative law judge set aside the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s first-ever fine against a commercial drone operator, finding that the small drone at issue was only a “model aircraft,” and not an “aircraft” within the FAA’s regulatory authority.  The drone’s operator, Raphael Pirker, had been hired by a promotional company to shoot aerial video over the University of Virginia campus.  According to the FAA’s complaint, Pirker operated the drone recklessly, including causing one pedestrian to take “immediate evasive action” to avoid being hit.  The FAA fined Pirker $10,000 for operating the drone “in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another” in violation of 41 C.F.R. § 91.13.

The ALJ tossed the fine, pointing to a 1981 “advisory circular” on model aircraft issued by the FAA, which provided model aircraft operators with voluntary advice such as to maintain distance from populated and noise-sensitive areas, fly below 400 feet, and cooperate with nearby airports.  In the ALJ’s view, the advisory circular represented a binding statement of policy by the FAA that model airplanes were exempt from its general regulatory authority over “aircraft,” a position it could not change later without going through a notice-and-comment period and implementing formal regulations under the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. §§ 500).

There are problems with the ALJ’s decision.  It ignores that Congress, by the statute’s clear terms, in 5 U.S.C. §§ 500, gave the FAA the express authority to regulate all “aircraft,” defined expansively in 49 U.S.C. § 40102(a)(6) as “any contrivance invented, used, or designed to navigate, or fly in, the air.”  Ordinarily, when a statute’s terms are clear, it is considered improper for a judge to engage in more subtle acts of interpretation, and the statute here could not be clearer.  While the ALJ considered it a “risible argument” that someone could face FAA enforcement for flying a balsa wood glider or paper airplane without the FAA’s permission, such is the power Congress gave to the FAA in 1926.  The case is currently on appeal before the full NTSB.

In any case, whether or not shooting down a drone could result in a 20-year prison term or a quarter-million dollar fine, it is certainly a bad idea.  As the FAA has stated, shooting down a drone “could result in criminal or civil liability, just as would firing at a manned airplane.”   Expressing your concerns directly to your friendly neighborhood drone pilot is surely a better remedy.

Proposed Chicago Data Sensors Raise Concerns over Privacy, Hidden Bias

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By Michael Holloway, John McElligott

Beginning in mid-July, Chicagoans may notice decorative metal boxes appearing on downtown light poles.  They may not know that the boxes will contain sophisticated data sensors that will continuously collect a stream of data on “air quality, light intensity, sound volume, heat, precipitation, and wind.”  The sensors will also collect data on nearby foot traffic by counting signals from passing cell phones.  According to the Chicago Tribune, project leader Charlie Catlett says the project will “give scientists the tools to make Chicago a safer, more efficient and cleaner place to live.” Catlett’s group is seeking funding to install hundreds of the sensors throughout the city.  But the sensors raise issues concerning potential invasions of privacy, as well as the creation of data sets with hidden biases that may then be used to guide policy to the disadvantage of poor and elderly people and members of minority groups.

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The Cold Truth Behind Employer-Covered Social Egg Freezing

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By Nadia Daneshvar

Salary. Health insurance. Long-term disability insurance. Flex benefits. 401(k)…and “baby insurance”? With the advent of egg freezing, women can have children practically whenever they want and with whomever they want, by simply having their viable eggs frozen while they’re still young. Imagine if your employer decided to cover the cost of preserving some of your eggs for you as a part of its benefits package. Some law firms are doing just that for their female employees. Testing, monitoring, and retrieval of eggs can cost anywhere from $6,500 to $12,850, and annual storage fees of retrieved eggs are typically between $400 and $600. But the costs don’t stop there. When a woman decides she is ready to use her eggs, they must be thawed, fertilized, and transferred to a woman’s uterus, which costs anywhere from $4,500 to $7,000. At Specialists in Reproductive Medicine and Surgery, a woman could pay a total of $21,558 if the eggs are stored for only one year. These procedures are rarely covered by health insurance and vary from clinic to clinic, making employer-covered egg freezing a financially enticing option for many women. After all, one-fifth of American women between ages 40 and 44 do not have children, among whom half regret their status wishing they had children. Egg freezing is thought to offer the option to younger women to avoid such future regrets.

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Why Reporters Need to Learn Cryptography

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Lori Head Shot 2014 v.2 smallBy Lori Andrews, JD

Julian Assange, Feb 27th The Media Consortium conference, Chicago, IL

Julian Assange Skyped into the TMC conference to discuss “The Use and Abuse of Whistleblowers” with Juan Gonzales, Democracy Now!; Gavin MacFadyen, Centre for Investigative Journalism; and Bea Edwards, Government Accountability Project.

They use burner phones as they cross borders.  They buy old Lenovo computers because there are fewer backdoors into those computers that allow surveillance.

They are not spies or criminals.  They are investigative reporters trying to get on-the-ground stories to help us understand and sometimes change our world.

Last week, The Media Consortium and IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law joined forces to describe the challenges that reporters face in an era when intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency and corporations such as Google spy on what each of us is doing on our digital devices.  At the joint workshop, Josh Stearns of Free Press and the Freedom of the Press Foundation reported on how many journalists had been killed and jailed in last year.  And it’s not just a problem abroad.  According to the World Press Freedom Index, the United States has slipped to number 46 in a ranking of countries on how much freedom it gives its reporters, well below even countries such as Ghana and Uruguay.  amalia deloney of the Center for Media Justice described how surveillance in general disproportionately affects people of color.  She showed a slide of a police tower that one might have guessed was situated in Guatemala or another oppressive nation.  Instead, it was in a primarily African-American neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina.

What information is the NSA collecting about activists, reporters and you?  The NSA gathers the phone numbers, locations, and length of virtually all phone calls in the United States.  It collects records of nearly everything you do online, including your browsing history and the contents of your emails and instant messages.  It can create detailed graphs of your network of personal connections.  It can create phony wireless connections in order to access your computer directly.  It can intercept the delivery of an electronic device and add an “implant” allowing the agency to access it remotely. Continue reading →

Egg Donation is Made to Look Easy, but Questions and Health Risk Remain

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By Ryann Summers

Recently, a former co-worker and his romantic partner sent me a text message that left me reeling.

It essentially read: Hey, can I have ur eggs? Thx.

Few couples would be better equipped to raise a well-loved child than these two men, and I fully supported their decision to start a family.  But I wondered how we had arrived at the point where this request has become so casual that it can be communicated in fewer than 140 characters.  At least take me out to dinner.

I don’t fault my co-worker; his question mirrors how the issue is presented in our culture.  As a woman in her early 20s, I am bombarded by advertisements seeking my eggs.

Recently when I was riding the T in Boston, I found myself staring at the face of a smiling baby, and a dollar amount.  It seems, well, easy.

Egg donation payments range anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000; some solicitations offer amounts as high as $20,000, or even $100,000, for donors with specific characteristics.  I could definitely benefit from thousands of dollars, and hey, I probably have eggs to spare, right?

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California’s Revenge Porn Statute: A Start but not a Solution

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By Lori Andrews

Susan, a professional woman in her 30s, met a man she thought she’d ultimately marry.  Their relationship was sufficiently intimate that she sent him a naked photo of herself.  When she caught him cheating, she broke up with him.  He took revenge by posting that selfie on a revenge porn website, along with her name, the name of her town, and her social media contact information.  She received messages from complete strangers asking for more naked photos.  As she went about her daily life, she was afraid that one of those men would stalk her.  She worried that her co-workers might have come across the photo.  She knew that if she applied for a new job, that nude photo would come up in a Google search of her name.  She’d been branded with a modern Scarlet Letter.

Across the Web, thousands of people attack their exes by posting disgusting comments about them, warnings not to date them, or nude photos of them.  On October 1, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill criminalizing what has become known as revenge porn.  The law assesses a thousand dollar fine in a narrow situation.  It is a misdemeanor for a person to photograph “the intimate body part or parts of another identifiable person, under circumstances where the parties agree or understand that the image shall remain private, and the person subsequently distributes the image taken, with the intent to cause serious emotional distress, and the depicted person suffers serious emotional distress.” Continue reading →