astro
September 30, 2006, 2:32pm
1
This thread re the IM’ing Congressman made me wonder how they parse that out.
Lets say the “asker” is in a state where the age of consent is 16 and the askee is in one where it’s 18. Or reverse that. Assuming the two participants are in different states with different AOCs how do the authorities decide which state law applies, or is it some federal thing?
It seems that it is a federal law. IANAL, but wouldn’t federal laws override most state laws? From this site and a lot more out there:
Federal laws have been enacted to protect children from people who lure or attempt to lure them into an offline meeting for the purpose of performing illegal sexual acts or coercing them to provide sexually explicit photos of themselves.
In April 2003, Congress passed a law that provides wiretapping authority for seven sexual offenses, including child pornography and the sexual exploitation of children. Part of a broader child-protection bill entitled the Protect Act of 2003, which also mandates the Amber Alert system for abducted children, this law expands federal law-enforcement agencies’ wiretapping authority to catch online predators before they strike.