Congress needs to get off their asses and do something nationwide about the revenge porn that is ruining people’s lives on the internet. The current judicial system just doesn’t work or protect anyone’s identity or privacy. This nation can do better than simply say don’t take naked pictures or worse yet, have your nude body sent to a copyright office. Half the cops out there don’t even know what a twitter account is. Who can you call if you are a victim on the internet?

The Internet is a great source of information and lately essential to get any kind of research or work done but it is also a place where people communicate and meet and great. Just like a lone woman can be quite vulnerable in a crowded bar filled with men, women are out there unsafe on the Internet. Women are treated badly if they choose to play a video game on line with a chat room. Who is there to tell these rude guys to mind their manners on line? Things can get so out of hand that women are faced with rape threats or bomb threats or even somehow have their personal information like addresses posted on line. It is worse than your phone number being written on a bathroom stall.

How can you stay at home when someone posts that they will murder your family on line? Where could you possibly live?  On the space station? This problem is not facing just female gamers. Day to day harassment is happening all the time now. Women are getting death threats on their twitter accounts. Who is monitoring this besides no one? It happened to Amanda Hess in California a Contractor at Pacific Standard. The fact is that online harassment of women is rampart. The average number of sexually explicit or threatening messages per day is 100 for women and about 3 for men. Amanda called the police and he didn’t know about twitter on line.

Police can not investigate a crime if they do not even understand how or where it took place. Now there is the problem of revenge porn on line. If a woman in a relationship posts naked pictures to her on line boyfriend and then they break up what happens to those photos she wants back? Instead the revengeful ex sends the pictures to her employer and to the school where her kids attend. OUCH!  Before long her photos also appear on porn sites with her name and personal information without her permission. The horror of the situation has led some women to want to commit suicide. How can this stuff be stopped?

Currently there is NO Federal law against revenge porn. Only 23 states have laws to prevent this activity. In the other 27 states your options are limited. You could try to pursue stalking or harassment charges but those laws may not always apply or you may file a civil suit against the person who did it  but it is an uphill battle. Many lawyers want upfront retainers of thousands of dollars that women just don’t have in reserve for when their private parts are displayed on line. If you own the copyright to those photos you can tell the websites to take your photos down but most pictures are not registered. To register a copyrighted nude picture you have to send pictures of your nude body to the copy write office in Washington.

Yes, in order to stop strangers from seeing nude pictures of your body you have to send more pictures to more strangers of your naked body. INSANE! Victims are often told, What did you expect when you allowed naked pictures of yourself to be taken? Or Just turn off your computer, it will go away. These are not practical excuses to the problem. Sometimes these photos come from hacked web cams. The logic is all wrong too. So If I don’t want to get a burglary in my house I shouldn’t live there? If a woman seeks protection from the Internet there should be some protection available.

There is a plan to someday introduce a law to Congress called The Intimacy Privacy Protection Act of 2015. It is still a discussion draft. We need it to address non consensual porn.