State Senator: New York Law Against Revenge Porn Should Be Tougher Than Calif. Law
BAY SHORE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A New York State Senator who is seeking a statewide ban on revenge porn said this week that a similar law in California does not go far enough.
It is supposed to be a private photo or video moment shared between two people, but New York State Sen. Phil Boyle (R-Bay Shore) said when the relationship fizzles, some exes take revenge by putting those moments on the Internet for all to see.
"I mean, the usually psycho ex-husband or ex-boyfriend who just can't get over the relationship or whatever, what they find that they've been doing is actually sending the picture of the new employer of the woman," Boyle said.
State Senator: New York Law Against Revenge Porn Should Be Tougher Than Calif. Law
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a revenge porn bill into law on Wednesday.
Boyle said unlike the new California law, the New York measure includes pictures or videos taken by victims.
"If a young woman takes a picture of herself, sends it to the boyfriend, a couple of years later he's posting it, that would be included under our legislation and that's a very significant improvement in the law," Boyle told 1010 WINS' Mona Rivera. "Remember, 80 percent of these pictures are 'selfies.'"
The violation would be punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Another bill before the state Assembly would impose a $30,000 fine.
Similar laws also exist in Florida and Texas.
As CBS 2 reported back in February, some women have described the experience of having their private photos sent without their knowledge and consent – and put up by someone they once loved.
"I think I stopped breathing for a while," said Holli Toups, a victim of the revenge porn trend.
Toups found her most intimate photographs posted on a pornographic Web site -- put there by a former boyfriend, she said, as an act of revenge.
"It was humiliating, to say the least," Toups said. "I didn't want to go anywhere."
Toups, of Texas, told reporter J.D. Miles of KTVT-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth that she walked into a store one day and was told, "Hey, you're the girl from that Web site."
She was among 26 women who sued a Texas-based revenge porn website and its owner.
In Colorado, another young woman – Sarah -- also saw her personal pictures, originally taken for her boyfriend, on a revenge porn site.
"I wanted to throw up," Sarah told KCNC-TV, Denver. "I couldn't even understand how something like that could become public."
Another woman, Caitlin, told KCNC she found her private photos on the same site. Caitlin had taken nude photos to share with her girlfriend but did not intend them for public consumption.
"This has nothing to do with free will. Those were my personal photos reserved for me privately and somehow they were taken and now they are all over the Internet for anyone to see. It's an invasion of privacy and it's disgusting," Caitlin told the CBS-owned station.
Boyle told CBS 2's Carolyn Gusoff that the women on these websites are being victimized by former romantic partners.
"These women do not ask to be victims. They are made victims by their psycho ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands and it ruins their lives, potentially," he said.
Legislators in New Jersey, Florida, and Louisiana are drafting similar laws.
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