This week's winner in the contest to determine who can twist the fear of child pornography to the most ridiculous extreme goes to prosecutors in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, who have charged three teenage girls with producing kiddie porn by taking nude photos of … themselves.  In the interest of fairness, prosecutors have charged the recipients of the photos, the girls' boyfriends, who are also teenagers.

This week, prosecutors in Greensburg, Pennsylvania charged six teens ranging in age from 14 to 17 with creating, distributing and possessing child pornography, after three girls were found to have taken photos of themselves in the nude or partially nude and e-mailed them to friends, including three boys who are among the defendants.

The age of consent in Pennsylvania is ordinarily 16, except that if a minor above the age of 13 has sex with someone no more than 4 years older, it isn't a crime.  (PA Crimes Code 3122.1).  Therefore, these boys and girls are free, under the law, to violate one another in the foulest ways imaginable, yet sending photos to one another marks them sex offenders.

Authorities argue that bringing child porn charges against teens is designed to educate them about the dangers of creating and distributing such images, which could fall into the hands of commercial pornographers, pedophiles or others who might want to harm or exploit them.

Oh, so this will be an educational experience for the kids, like a visit to a prison for a "scared straight" program.  Only this may be a rather more realistic prison visit than usual.  That clears things up.

Of course, hard cases make bad law.  The result in this case may seem harsh, even ludicrous, but it's for their own protection.  Someone has to protect the children, even if that means protecting them from themselves.

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