Summary: A new law has been passed in Illinois against revenge porn and some advocated for victims call it the strongest so far in the country.
On Monday, Illinois passed what could be the strongest anti-revenge-porn legislation in the country, according to The International Business Times.
There are 16 states in the country that make it illegal to publish revenge porn, which is sexual video or images of a person without their consent. The new law in Illinois will take effect on June 1.
A lawyer from New York, Carrie Goldberg, represents victims who have had their privacy violated by technology. She told the International Business Times the following in an interview:
“I’m very pleased with the legislation,” Goldberg said. “It was a hard-earned battle that was in legislation for a long time. It’s a testament to [state] Rep. Scott Drury [a Highwood Democrat] who was a real champion.”
To read more about revenge porn, click here.
The law in Illinois will protect victims who are violated with videos and images taken of them by someone else and if their intimate selfies are disseminated without their consent. Images protected under the law in Illinois do not need to be nudes. They can include pictures of sexual activity without showing intimate body parts.
The law will also target people who publish intimate pictures or videos even if received secondhand. The crime is a Class 4 felony that comes with one to three years in prison, restitution to victims and potential for a $25,000 fine.
The law does not limit the reproduction of “voluntary exposure in public or commercial settings.”
Goldberg said, “So much is said about how laws butt up against free speech, but if we lose the expectation of privacy in taking images meant only for someone we trust, then we lose another valuable form of speech: our private speech. There is nothing wrong with taking pictures of yourself that are meant only for another person you trust.”
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Goldberg continued with, “There are so many people who do this. We think of this in classic form as something an ex does to get revenge after a relationship goes sour, but that’s not always the scenario. Some people don’t even know the victim, as in hacking cases.”
What shocks some people out there is that revenge porn is not a federal crime. The revenge porn king, Hunter Moore, was prosecuted federally on hacking charges. He paid someone to obtain the images and videos that he then posted on his website. He was not prosecuted for publishing the images.
To read more about Hunter Moore, click here.
“People often say, ‘Go after the website,'” Goldberg said, “but you can’t. State criminal law doesn’t trump the CDA. There would have to be a new federal criminal law to make a real dent.”
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