For two years Terrible Pictures of a young girl’s death, Nikki Catsouras, have been haunting her parents and family because 2 California Highway Patrol dispatchers sent them over the Internet to family and friends, supposedly to detour their relatives children from joy riding and drugs.
What ever happened to right of privacy? Where do these CHP dispatchers get the right to release official documents to anyone without authorization?
The dispatchers, one quit shortly after the incident (due to an unrelated cause says his attorney) and one was suspended for 25 days without pay. You would think a 19 year CHP veteran would know better. Why wasn’t he fired?
It appears the web has become a place where cruel behavior has little consequences. Where pictures can go public in an instant without any respect for the feelings of others.
There needs to be some responsibility. Freedom of the press is important for honest and free information but there should be reasonable responsibility in any release of information or postings on the Internet.
Particularly from the governmental authorities that should know better.
Nikki’s family have been denied by the California courts any Survivor Rights and so far have been unable to get the pictures taken off the web. They have appealed the case and hope to have a new ruling by June 1, 2009.
This is just an example of how the web has gotten out of control. Young kids emailing obscene pictures of themselves and then being charged with child pornography. Mothers emailing their daughter’s classmates and harassing them until they commit suicide and getting away with it. Someone emailing Nikki’s father 3 days after her death with the pictures.
The web was suppose to be a tool, like the telephone. What does it say about Society that people get off on doing these horrible things. Have we lost all self respect and respect for others?
Before someone puts anything on the web they need to think about “What if someone was doing this to me or posting this about me?”. What if someone took cell phone photos of your wife in a public bathroom, your daughter in the gym locker room, your brother with a needle in his arm and posted them without regard for not only their (the ones being photographed) but the families feelings and exposure as well.
What if someone posted your private medical records on the web and you lost your insurance or job because of it.
Maybe then they would reconsider some of these postings.
For complete Newsweek story on Nikki Catsouras and her families battle go here:
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