Therapists in California can be required to report patients who have looked at child pornography on the Internet despite the therapists’ claim that their clients are entitled to confidentiality and pose no threat to children, a state appeals court ruled Monday. Full Article
I don’t know why I am constantly surprised by short cited constitution ignoring judges.
Yet again, another law and interpretation of the constitution that only hurts those trying to do the right thing and encourages those that are a true danger to kids to continue to be a threat.
So why stop there? Why not make all illegal activity (drugs, fraud, tax evasion, etc) that is harming others required to be reported by therapists and clergy? Otherwise, it’s a clear case of violating equal protection too. Only sex offenders can’t seek real treatment?
Do they really think the best solution is for therapists to have to tell their clients not to disclose their problems or they have to report them to the cops? That’s just dumb, both to the legislature for making the laws and the judges for allowing them.
ab
Guest
January 10, 2017 11:03 am
No court in the United States today would dare begin setting precedent for changing reporting laws concerning admitting viewing and/or possessing child pornography under almost all circumstances. Perhaps the only available option for preemptively revealing previous viewing or possession of child pornography without getting into trouble is by hiring an attorney just in case a person might be worried about future prosecution. Even then there are likely limits and someone should find out what limits exist before telling everything.
DavidH
Guest
January 10, 2017 11:04 am
wonderful logic–so now people who have a bone-fide addiction who want to seek help ( what the State would ordinarily claim is the standard someone would be held to “why didn’t you seek help?” ) they prefer someone to not share this information to seek treatment. Our laws and their interpretation have become draconian indeed!
Tired Of Hiding
Guest
January 10, 2017 12:01 pm
So they could go for help to a doctor…admit they just looked at an image online that might be 50 years old at this point and the therapist is still required to turn them into the police?
How does this help anyone? Answer: It doesn’t…
Except the government by locking up just another person for a totally victimless “crime” and add one more to a list that death is the only way of getting off of!
Only in America – and shame on California for not leading the way instead of continuing to operate in the dark ages!
Stephen
Guest
January 10, 2017 2:43 pm
one step backwards.
Shaking my head
Guest
January 10, 2017 3:40 pm
This feeds the mentality of fear. Drug addicts can be helped, wife beaters can find treatment, but sex offenders are beyond help and require punishment only, no mercy, no sympathy. It’s a sad state of affairs. How can we stop these crimes from ever happening if no one is allowed to speak? Might as well start sending everyone who has had an impure thought to prison right now.
Agamemnon
Guest
January 10, 2017 4:26 pm
So, it wasn’t like a contingent of concerned patients were pleading for their sessions to remain confidential, it was the THERAPISTS imploring the state to preserve patient confidentiality for the SAKE OF PUBLIC SAFETY, and the state STILL shot them down.
That is beyond absurd.
The Unforgiven
Guest
January 10, 2017 5:09 pm
If viewing child porn got a person in trouble with the law and lead the person to therapy and for therapy to work, the person has to admit to the crime…then are they in trouble again?? LOL, what a joke.
Timmr
Guest
January 10, 2017 6:05 pm
Catch 22. Damned if you go to therapy. Damned if you don’t.
Anonymous
Guest
January 11, 2017 12:17 am
When “seek help” and “go to prison” are synonymous, everyone stays silent. Well done, intellectual pillars of society we call judges.
I can’t help but believe this pattern is a deliberate attempt to keep the prisons filled.
The human cost of these laws is too high. The greatest tragedy of the planet, more than that of global warming, but coupled with that of constant war and turning a blind eye to poverty, will be that we sat idly by, content with the distractions of the immaterial and the inconsequential, while these bastards we call our elected officials sold their last ounce of humanity for a few votes, a padded expense account and a couple decades of imagined power.
Anonymous
Guest
January 11, 2017 10:28 am
A person who is ordered to a sex offender treatment program now has the ability to argue against the treatment since doing so would put them in direct conflict with the right not to self-incriminate by proxy of that treatment providers’ requirement to report suspected criminal conduct.
Anonymous
Guest
January 11, 2017 10:30 am
Also, is this a precursor to mandatory more therapy?
New Person
Guest
January 11, 2017 10:58 pm
More fear-mongering decisions rather than actual researched based decisions.
If no privacy is absolute, then why should there be any privacy at all? Why have lawyer-client privileges if “nothing is absolute”?
This is a very slippery slope these three judges cannot foresee. Oh wait, they’re just following what Justice Roberts did. smh
I don’t know why I am constantly surprised by short cited constitution ignoring judges.
Yet again, another law and interpretation of the constitution that only hurts those trying to do the right thing and encourages those that are a true danger to kids to continue to be a threat.
So why stop there? Why not make all illegal activity (drugs, fraud, tax evasion, etc) that is harming others required to be reported by therapists and clergy? Otherwise, it’s a clear case of violating equal protection too. Only sex offenders can’t seek real treatment?
Do they really think the best solution is for therapists to have to tell their clients not to disclose their problems or they have to report them to the cops? That’s just dumb, both to the legislature for making the laws and the judges for allowing them.
No court in the United States today would dare begin setting precedent for changing reporting laws concerning admitting viewing and/or possessing child pornography under almost all circumstances. Perhaps the only available option for preemptively revealing previous viewing or possession of child pornography without getting into trouble is by hiring an attorney just in case a person might be worried about future prosecution. Even then there are likely limits and someone should find out what limits exist before telling everything.
wonderful logic–so now people who have a bone-fide addiction who want to seek help ( what the State would ordinarily claim is the standard someone would be held to “why didn’t you seek help?” ) they prefer someone to not share this information to seek treatment. Our laws and their interpretation have become draconian indeed!
So they could go for help to a doctor…admit they just looked at an image online that might be 50 years old at this point and the therapist is still required to turn them into the police?
How does this help anyone? Answer: It doesn’t…
Except the government by locking up just another person for a totally victimless “crime” and add one more to a list that death is the only way of getting off of!
Only in America – and shame on California for not leading the way instead of continuing to operate in the dark ages!
one step backwards.
This feeds the mentality of fear. Drug addicts can be helped, wife beaters can find treatment, but sex offenders are beyond help and require punishment only, no mercy, no sympathy. It’s a sad state of affairs. How can we stop these crimes from ever happening if no one is allowed to speak? Might as well start sending everyone who has had an impure thought to prison right now.
So, it wasn’t like a contingent of concerned patients were pleading for their sessions to remain confidential, it was the THERAPISTS imploring the state to preserve patient confidentiality for the SAKE OF PUBLIC SAFETY, and the state STILL shot them down.
That is beyond absurd.
If viewing child porn got a person in trouble with the law and lead the person to therapy and for therapy to work, the person has to admit to the crime…then are they in trouble again?? LOL, what a joke.
Catch 22. Damned if you go to therapy. Damned if you don’t.
When “seek help” and “go to prison” are synonymous, everyone stays silent. Well done, intellectual pillars of society we call judges.
I can’t help but believe this pattern is a deliberate attempt to keep the prisons filled.
It warrants constant and vocal repetition that we are at stage 6 of the 8 stages of genocide: Preparation.
http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/8StagesBriefingpaper.pdf
The human cost of these laws is too high. The greatest tragedy of the planet, more than that of global warming, but coupled with that of constant war and turning a blind eye to poverty, will be that we sat idly by, content with the distractions of the immaterial and the inconsequential, while these bastards we call our elected officials sold their last ounce of humanity for a few votes, a padded expense account and a couple decades of imagined power.
A person who is ordered to a sex offender treatment program now has the ability to argue against the treatment since doing so would put them in direct conflict with the right not to self-incriminate by proxy of that treatment providers’ requirement to report suspected criminal conduct.
Also, is this a precursor to mandatory more therapy?
More fear-mongering decisions rather than actual researched based decisions.
If no privacy is absolute, then why should there be any privacy at all? Why have lawyer-client privileges if “nothing is absolute”?
This is a very slippery slope these three judges cannot foresee. Oh wait, they’re just following what Justice Roberts did. smh