what is our society coming to, when wealthy, cultured white people can be accused of committing crimes over something so insignificant as naked pictures of 8 year old children?

i think kodak online must have a better policy than eckerd's (i'll remember to never shop there if i'm in their area), as i recall i sent them pictures of my 2-year-old niece and nephew wading diaperless into a lake. had the eckerd's employee never managed a water-logged diaper? all children under five swim naked, don't they? of course, the other pictures showed my sister and her husband swinging the kids around and teaching them to swim (much as yours showed camping), so i guess kodak employees have a sense of context.

i'm glad your families made it through this, and it's too bad you had to endure it.

Eckard has a job waiting for you. See how many lives

you can screw up with your tight-assed, right-wing,

whacko, accusatory bullshit.

These families have been to hell and back, all the while

fighting to protect their kids from a system that clearly

isn't working due to a complete lack of common sense, and

a whole lot of people like you.

One interview with both sets of parents was all that was

needed to figure out that:

1. The MOTHERS of these children knew their children were

off camping with their fathers.

2. This was 2 dads - not ONE lone pervert with someone else's kids -

but two dads with their own children.

3. All children were happy and accounted for.

4. No prior record of child abuse, sex abuse, or anything else.

Stay unconvinced you stupid fuck.

There IS legitimate need for child advocacy, and there are predators out there, including parents, unfortunately. But the fact that some untrained minimum wage numbskull can single out someone for investigation is the real problem.

Drug stores in general seem to attract that element of society that pries into our personal lives. Pharmacists feel that they can pick and choose whose medical needs get to be filled, based on what God is whispering in their ear. The high-school dropouts at the photo desk with nothing better to do label their neighbors as pornographers and get their rocks off at the same time. This is a vestige of small-town America that shouldn't be glorified - it's ignorant, small-minded America at its worst.

I say, boycott Eckerds. They have no business geting involved in our lives. And yes, by all means, get a digital camera.

I think the LW got what he deserved. I have never seen a normal family photo album that showed anyone other than babies nude. It also strikes me as deeply inappropriate for a 3 year old girl to be the lone female out in the woods with two adult men and several older boys, all nude, especially in an environment where alcohol is being consumed. Although none of that is illegal, maybe it should be. The L/W had a wakeup call. He should thank his lucky stars the outcome wasn't worse.

You can have zero tolerance for [child pornography, child abuse, violence in schools, terrorism] or you can have people investigated only when it's obvious they're guilty. You can't have both.

It's just that simple.

No one wants to be the one who made the wrong judgment call. Do you want to be the photo lab technician who learns years later that a kid was being molested and didn't report the warning signs? Do you want to be the DCFS worker who has to explain years later that they gave a free pass to a child abuser?

Most of the time, pictures of a naked kid are just embarrassing family photos. Most of the time, the kid did fall down the stairs. Most of the time, the kid with the pocketknife is just bringing it in for show and tell, and the guy with one on an airplane is using it to trim his nails.

The question it always come down to is: How much of a failure rate are you willing to tolerate?

If overzealous photo lab technicans manage to save one kid from a child pornographer, while at the same time turning the lives of nine other families upside down, is it worth it? How about nineteen other familes, or ninety-nine or nine hundred ninety-nine?

More importantly, who wants to be the politican to come out and say that people are being too zealous in investigated suspected child abuse?

If you want to rescue every child who's being molested, you're going to end up investigating a lot of innocent parents whose only crime was to be a little foolish, a little unlucky or in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On the one hand, this talk of poor decisions is nonsense. Those kids were in no harm whatsoever until their family was put through this misery. The act of taking a picture of a child naked is not inherently hurtful. Not all parents get off on naked pictures of their children, in fact most don't. Babies are "cute" even when they're naked, so at what age is this no longer acceptable? There is no uniform or objective standard for this, it depends on the family. "Normal" and "wierd" are relative. As for the child, why should the fact that they are being photographed when naked seem out of the ordinary? They are obviously comfortable already with the thought of being naked around family members and close friends, what difference does it make if Dad is snapping a picture? These children are not being harmed by the taking of a picture.

That said, nude photographs of children can be a sign of abuse, even though more often they are not. A store clerk should make a judgement call, and should err on the side of caution, since they are not experts. Only an expert should be able to dismiss a case before an investigation simply by looking at the photographs. Too many actual cases of child abuse might slip through the cracks otherwise. Any person has the right and obligation to raise concerns when they notices suspicious behavior, but their word alone should not lead directly to an all-out investigation. The author even suggests that while store clerks should be able to call in a complaint based on suspicion, a trained expert ought to have a look at photos first to determine whether or not an investigation should proceed.

Overzealous protection can cause just as much harm as it prevents, so no matter what the offense we wish to prevent, we must always allow some leeway so as not to bring about more harm than we seek to prevent. Bad things happen all the time, and no matter how hard we try, bad things will continue to happen, but we are simply foolish when we do bad things to prevent bad things from happening.