

Is Michael Clasen first person charged under new revenge porn law? - h4pless
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2014/07/michael_clasen_revenge_porn_arrest.php

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h4pless
My biggest problem with this? As a resident of Colorado, I have never heard of
this law.

The article suggests that the law was passed like many Colorado criminal
statutes exclusively in the state house, never being asked for, voted on, or
necessarily seen by any Colorado resident who doesn't have direct involvement
with the law. Furthermore, LexisNexis: "Official Publisher of the Colorado
Revised Statutes" has no record of a C.R.S. 18-7-107 code even existing.
([http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/Colorado/](http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/Colorado/))

Regardless of subjective arguments of morality, how can people be charged with
criminal laws that they have no way of knowing exist?

~~~
esbranson
As a fellow resident, as a _person_ , I agree about the access to law issue.
Its such a problem that there is an entire political movement dedicated to the
issue: the Free Access to Law Movement. (That website is not free; the notion
that my rights[1] are worthless is quite offensive to me.)

[1] [http://www.lexisnexis.com/terms/](http://www.lexisnexis.com/terms/)

~~~
h4pless
I think you hit the heart of my concern, even with access to the law, most
people need a lawyer to translate the laws into something that can be
understood.

Not to mention that the comments to the article prove that when many see one
case where the defendant was quite obviously being an asshole and see a law
like, "prosecute people for posting nude images to hurt a person without their
consent" would just say, "Hey yeah, screw those assholes!"

But there is no mention of the civil and constitution rights quagmire that a
law like this can create. Not to mention that most people would likely read
this and think it only applies to revenge porn and doesn't have implications
to content published in a mutually consensual nature, where the consent was
later revoked. Or where a person has their data hacked and leaked and the ex
jumps to the conclusion that the content was posted by the creator to hurt
them.

It's nice that they protected minors by only including people over the age of
18 in the definition, but to me, the issue is that laws like this allow for
potential abuse by former romantic partners and prosecutorial abuse if charges
are ever pressed and that isn't at all clear in the way the law is written.

And the article also doesn't stipulate that the damages guaranteed by this law
are not only the fines of up to a $10,000 which just goes to the court but
also the right of the victim to file a civil suit with a minimum $10,000 +
legal fees. So basically, they have created a major incentive for unscrupulous
people to turn former lovers in regardless of whether or not they have
actually been harmed in any way or had given consent to post the content or
whether or not the person charged was even involved with the distribution.

In this case, yeah, the guy needs some reform. But in any other case, all that
would likely be needed for a conviction is a sexually explicit video that
features both parties with a profile with the picture of one party and the
other as the crying victim.

Sir William Blackstone said, "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than
that one innocent suffer." I believe laws like this are designed to harass
innocent people, whether intentionally or not.

