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posted by Fnord666 on Friday November 24 2017, @09:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-everything-bigger-in-Texas? dept.

(Update: The Capitol Police are investigating the release of the photo.)

Texas Congressman Joe Barton has confirmed that an explicit image circulating on social media shows him exposing himself. Barton claims to be a victim of "revenge porn", which was outlawed in Texas in 2015:

Sarah Dodd of Dodd Communications, who is helping Barton respond to the image, confirmed that the image is of him and on Wednesday the Congressman apologized for not using "better judgment" while separated from his wife and in consensual relationships with women. "While separated from my second wife, prior to the divorce, I had sexual relationships with other mature adult women," Barton said in a statement first reported by The Texas Tribune. "Each was consensual. Those relationships have ended. I am sorry I did not use better judgment during those days. I am sorry that I let my constituents down."

[...] Wednesday evening, an unnamed woman came forward to The Washington Post [archive], telling the newspaper that Barton sent her lewd photos, videos and messages when they had two sexual encounters over the course of five years.

In a 2015 phone call, Barton allegedly confronted the woman over her communications with other women, including her decision to share explicit materials he had sent, the Post reported. The woman shared that secretly recorded phone call with the paper and, according to the Post, in that call, he warned her against using the explicit images he had sent her, in a way that would negatively affect his career -- vowing that he would go to the Capitol Hill police over her actions. The woman told the Post she took that phone call as a threat, and she never had any intention to use the materials to retaliate against Barton.

Barton, in a statement released through a spokesman, says it was to stop her from publicly releasing the images as "revenge porn." Revenge porn -- when sexually explicit images are posted online without consent -- was outlawed in Texas in 2015.

Revenge porn is defined by Texas as "visual material" depicting a person's exposed "intimate parts" or engagement in sexual activity, distributed without a person's consent and causing them "harm", and created under circumstances in which the person had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The depicted person's identity must also be revealed for the defendant to be held liable, but the bar for this is low and includes any information provided by a third party in response to the disclosure of the material.

The city of Washington D.C. also has a revenge porn law. In April, a man was convicted of five misdemeanor counts under the Criminalization of Non-Consensual Pornography Act of 2014. The crime rises to a felony if more than five people viewed the image/video.

The image of Rep. Barton was censored by the Twitter user (⚠ Warning ⚠: contains the image), which may cause it to not be considered revenge porn under the Texas law. The user reportedly claims to also have videos of Barton masturbating.

Here is a guide to revenge porn laws in other states.

Related: MPAA Opposes Minnesota "Revenge Porn" Draft Legislation
Facebook to Fight Revenge Porn by Letting Potential Victims Upload Nudes in Advance


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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:30AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:30AM (#601570) Journal

    That's exactly it. The state puts the burden of proof on citizens to demonstrate they have the right to vote, when it should be the other way around. The state further picks ID methods that favor likely Republican voters, Like, a hunting license of all things is considered acceptable proof. But the voter registration card that the state hands out to voters is NOT enough to get a voter admitted. Why on Earth not? The entire exercise of "registering to vote" is another hoop designed to screen out potential voters, completely unnecessary when there are so many ways to determine residence, and useless for its stated purpose if they refuse to use registration to establish residence and the right to vote.

    It's hard enough getting people to the polls at all. The beauty of swarm intelligence is that the collective decision making really is superior to that of even the most well informed individuals. But the Republicans especially seem anxious not to leave election results to the choice of the people, but instead resort to lies, propaganda, and cheating to nudge elections their way, meanwhile brazenly accusing everyone else of cheating at the polls. They just don't get it that such manipulation queers and worsens the decisions of the voters, and for that reason should not be done at all. That is a sophistication that the Republican Party is no longer capable of understanding and accepting. Also, that cheating is digging yourself into a hole that just keeps getting deeper. To win future elections, cheaters have to pull it off again, and again, keep covering up more and more.

    There was a time, in the days of Eisenhower, that the Republicans were the party of hard nosed, scientifically founded pragmatism and it was the Democrats who were the misty eyed, impractical hippie dreamers. The Republicans were the Party of Lincoln. Now the Republicans have completely flip-flopped, and sunk to barbarism. I mean, wow, mocking and dismissing science itself? "I love the poorly educated." Under Kennedy and Johnson, the Democrats took the path that Martin Luther King opened, and ended Jim Crow. And what did the Republicans do in response? The freaking Southern Strategy. Rather than stick to their Eisenhower and Lincoln principles, they swooped in and embraced all those racist bigoted voters the Democrats had dumped. Lincoln must have turned over in his grave.

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