Norma says, "All you’ve done is whine about the system as it exists. What’s your solution?"

Two were provided in the article itself, if you had read carefully. To paraphrase:

1) a full-blown investigation (i.e., home searches, teacher/employer notification and interviews, etc.) MUST be first authorized by a trained lawyer or a public official with specific expertise in child pornography; this is a no-brainer, and would have avoided the entire ordeal and mis-appropriation of resources

2) relatedly, the law should be amended to grant immunity to those who in good faith deem a situation not to be child abuse or pornography. That way, those who report cases of abuse of questionable merit, simply to err on the side of mandatory reporting laws, might feel less pressure to do so.

Norma says, "Well, that depends on what's in the photos, of course, but let's just note that this is your example, not mine. I'd prefer to stick to the facts at hand."

Odd, considering the hypothetical kiddie-porn-posting example was actually your own straying from "the facts at hand". Obviously, my extension of your example would refer to the exact same photos. Nice sidestep, though.

Norma says, "People certainly are hot under the collar about this article, with most of the heat expended on behalf of this idiot author who, as a putative grown-up, should have known better than to put his family in this stupid situation."

As well they should be. And speaking of vilification, your irrelevant attacks on the author's person and actions ("stupid", "idiot", etc.) do nothing but distract from any point you're attempting to make.

When I wrote the first letter to say, "something here just doesn't sit well with me," I was quite shocked to see the wall of vitriol in defense of what I thought on the author's part was stupidity at best, and perhaps a wee bit too conveniently contrived coincidental story at worst. I still feel the same...all those silly red herrings notwithstanding. As you said, let's stick to the facts at hand. Otherwise we're off in "and if pigs had wings they could fly" territory.

The system could be improved; what system wouldn't benefit from some streamlining? But we need to remember the system is the only thing in place to defend those too young to defend themselves. And as long as we're dealing with facts, we need to remember the vast majority of documented cases of child abuse occur from someone the child knows, including family, friends, coaches, teachers, etc. Not "the guy who breaks in, steals the family photo album, and posts it on the net." Not even the clerk at Eckerd's...who, by the way, did his job well.

I re-read this piece and I think: if I had nothing to hide I know I wouldn't be nervous one bit, not even calling teachers, friends, and employers to testify, not meeting with police or social workers. I still have my doubts.....

I just emailed this article to several friends who also have small children. For me, this is a wakeup call - we live in a society ruled by conservative, fundamentalists thugs. We all must be careful.

But you got to love this country. Here, in order to protect our youth, authorities threaten to break-up families over pictures of unclothed children enjoying a camping trip or over a photo capturing a mother breastfeeding her child.

Yet, we completely fail to protect our children with adequate daycare needed while their single mothers must work menial jobs as a part of welfare "reform". We fail to protect children from crumbling public schools with outdated texts and no physical education, music, or art programs.

And let's not even get started on the dearth lack of college grants and scholarships needed to protect our older children from a life of dead-end, low-paying jobs.

But, let's not worry, because with our country’s religious police patrolling our photo labs, we're free of child pornography or some clueless, paranoid version of it.

L. Kneedler

Now this is getting fun. Hearing libs make comments like:

"if I had nothing to hide I know I wouldn't be nervous one bit"

And then to hear them scream "BushHitlerNazis!" when, say, defenders of the NSA wiretapping use the same type of reasoning to protect us against the terrorists. Bit of cognitive dissonance, mais oui?

Who said I was a Lib?

And if you don't know the difference between a social services investigation in its nascent stages and the NSA illegally wiretapping your phone, then you're too retarded to bother with.

Have a nice day.

When I wondered what Jody Jenkins might have written for Salon if the photo shop clerk had posted the photos on a kiddie porn site instead of calling the cops, I was not saying anything one way or another about the parents' "liability" (which again, would depend on the content of any particular set of photos; this particular set featured naked young children in the woods, in the company of adult males exposing their genitals). I was suggesting--not clearly enough for some literal-minded readers--that the author, instead of bemoaning his victimization at such length, might instead have bemoaned his (and his children's) violation and portrayed the child protection system in a different light. Yes, that was a hypothetical proposition, offered for the purpose of making a point; it's a well-known rhetorical device.

What's really interesting here is the circular firing squad that has sprung up on this thread. I suspect that most of us, as readers of Salon, see pretty much eye to eye on most major issues. If this were a right-wing site, we would probably be ganging up on the system, on or sexual predators, or on some other "external enemy," rather than attacking each other over ever-finer distinctions.

As for my so-called personal judgments about the author, he chose to put his story out there, and I'm free to comment on it. Because it is principally a story about his own behavior--without his choices and judgment, there would have been no story at all--I'm also free to draw (and state) the conclusions to which his behavior leads me. On the basis of what he himself has divulged, I think he is an asshat.