New upskirt photo policy for students???

Because I don't have much of a social life . . . I think the case of a local suburban student caught taking upskirt photos presents an interesting array of problems.

Shawnee Mission School District administrators had already been working on changes to the district's cell phone policies, but an alleged incident of a boy taking pictures up a girl's skirt gives the district more to consider.

Prairie Village Police say it happened at Mission Valley Middle School on April 17. A 12-year-old boy had apparently used his cell phone to take pictures up the skirt of a 13-year-old girl. Three pictures were found on the cell phone, police say. Next month the Shawnee Mission School District may approve changes to the cell phone policy . . . Police say they have sent the case file to juvenile authorities to consider possible charges.

If all of those cheesy 50's movies I've watched on cable TV over the years have informed me correctly . . . Dumb, pervy students have been looking up skirts since the beginning of time and it hasn't been a matter for the police, but if you add a camera and a small hard drive on the cell phone that seem ubiquitous for most suburban students out of kindergarten . . . Does that make it child pornography? Think that's ridiculous? It seems like the equivalent of prosecuting a troubled 15 year-old girl with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography for taking nude photos of herself and sending them out online.

My point here is simple and it's been noted countless times: Technology is rapidly changing every day situations and impacts almost every single interaction regardless of whether or not authorities want to distinguish between a portable hard drive or one on a desktop and what privilege is granted to one set of juveniles over another . . . When the ability to instantly broadcast any kind of content to a worldwide audience falls into the hands of (mostly privileged) children then the way a society views itself is going to be inexorably altered.

At the very least, we're probably in for a few laughs regarding the insane things that parents say to their offspring: