Schuylkill Women in Crisis Executive Director Sarah T. Casey hopes new legislation will provide a way to punish those who post intimate photos of another person without permission on the Internet.
Senate Bill 1167, sponsored last year by state Sen. Judith L. Schwank, D-11, is designed to amend Title 18 - Crimes and Offenses - by creating the offense of intimate partner harassment.
"The problem is that once you post something on one of these sites, it's there for eternity," Casey said. "You don't have to post them 15 times for someone to access them."
In a memorandum to all Senators on Sept. 25, 2013, Schwank said intimate partner harassment is "where a person posts sexually explicit photos or videos of an ex-spouse or lover online, typically accompanied by abusive comments, identifying information that includes the victim's name and/or where they live or work, and even links to the victim's social media accounts. One woman even found photos of her posted to her new name after she had changed it to separate herself from the images."
Schwank continued, "The nature of these acts is particularly personal and malignant, and the abuse can be devastating to victims, who nationally have lost jobs, had relationships with family and friends severely damaged and found themselves stalked by strangers. Unfortunately, it is not illegal to use them in this way. In Pennsylvania, for example, even harassment charges apparently would apply only if there is a repeated course of conduct despite the reality that a single Internet posting can result today in an infinite number of viewings. Website operators, meanwhile, are largely protected by federal law from responsibility for material posted by third parties."
Casey said that the harassment not only involves the actual posting of images without permission, but also using such images as threats to control the other person.
"For years, we have had cases where women are intimidated or coerced by the perpetrator, their former partner usually, to do or not do something that he wants, with the threat that if she doesn't comply, he will post the pictures or information on the Internet or give them to her parents or someone like that," Casey said. "In some cases, these photographs have been taken even without the victim's knowledge."
Casey continued, "I started to notice the increase in it about eight years ago as we had calls from teenage girls who were trying to break up with boyfriends who were abusive, and in a couple of the cases that I personally worked with, the young women did not even know that their boyfriend had taken the photographs of them. The boyfriend would say, 'If you break up with me, I'm going to send these pictures to your parents, I'm going to post them.' "
Schwank's bill is to "close the loophole in our law by making it illegal to distribute or post a photo or other recorded images of an identifiable person who is naked or engaged in sexual activity, unless the subject has given authorization to do so or the images were recorded in circumstances where a reasonable expectation of privacy or confidentiality did not exist."
Bill 1167 passed the Senate on Jan. 28 in a 49-0 vote and was sent to the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Judiciary Commission on Jan. 30 for consideration.
The Senate bill defines the offense when, "A person commits the crime of intimate partner harassment by exposing a photograph, film, videotape or similar recording of the identifiable image of an intimate partner who is nude or explicitly engaged in a sexual act to the view of a third party for no legitimate purpose and with the intent to harass, annoy or alarm the person depicted."
The offense would be considered a misdemeanor of the second degree, unless the victim is a minor, then it would be a misdemeanor of the first degree.
Casey said that even when laws are passed, there still has to be due diligence by support groups to make sure that they are enforced.
"What is hard in this work is that very often when laws are passed or enacted, you almost need groups like ours that are advocating to make sure that they are implemented and that the police are familiar with them," Casey said. "We have so many things that we're working on, and it's only been in the last year of so that other states have really started to act on this. I really have to credit survivors because it is they who have come forward to talk about how it impacts them."
Casey said that the victims are becoming more vocal about dealing with the issue.
"We're seeing more and more that some of the provisions under the Violence Against Women Act enables young women who were victims of child pornography can go and sue those perpetrators civilly," Casey said. "I really believe it getting women to go to the legislators and ask them to try to do something to protect them."
As for the legislation, Casey said that Gov. Tom Corbett has indicated that once the bill passes in the House, he would sign it.