If it were just “nude photos of women” no one would care. But apparently these are nude photos of fellow soldiers, some number taken without permission, posted with their full names, ranks and locations and shared in a Facebook group and google doc with an audience of 30k.
https://www.revealnews.org/blog/hundreds-of-marines-investigated-for-sharing-photos-of-naked-colleagues/ has a truly disturbing story of a marine following one woman on base to sneak photos, posting them then getting horrible comments from others in the group about what they’d like to do to her. Even after the Marines knew and shut down the accounts, the photos of that woman were posted in the group. That particular Marine has been discharged from active duty.
Looks like members of the group were form all military branches.
I’m waiting to see what the punishment is for this. I think about my D’s friend at West Point…
This sort of thing happens in all walks of life. I imagine the reason fellow marines (women) are involved is because the picture takers had access. I guess I should be shocked, but given today’s headlines…no. If anything, as technology expands, so does the opportunity for stuff like this. How long before mini-drones with cameras/microphones could be ANYWHERE?
It is unacceptable on many levels. But I also agree with @Trisherella that with all the outrageous stuff that hits the headlines day after day after day these days, becoming a bit numb to all this outrageous stuff is beginning to feel like a reasonable coping mechanism. What a sad world we live in.
I cannot think of another situation in which thousands of men shared nude photos of their female coworkers. With names/ranks/addresses, which sounds to me like pretty serious intimidation. Did I somehow miss one?
Agree. But this struck me mostly because of the scale of it, and how what was shared online turned to real life stalking and apparently was intended to.
Yeah. This is pretty serious. These men represent US, and to so grievously harm their fellow service members is just sickening. I will not be numb to that kind of behavior. Dishonorable discharge should be the least of it, with possible criminal charges when the level rises to terroristic threats.
It is disgusting, and I am glad someone exposed the secret facebook page that contained the many, many photos and lewd comments. Hopefully facebook will prevent these kinds of “secret” groups from forming again. My point is,these days I hesitate to turn on the news or look at my phone to see what latest outrage is going to hit the headlines. Its beyond the pale.
As a former Marine I feel these guys deserve to be punished and discharged from the Corps. There were two Facebook groups, and this one stole the other one’s name. The other group actually changed their name because they didn’t want to be associated with this kind of horrible behavior any longer.
A Marine has a responsibility to make sure his fellow female Marine never comes under harms way. You either understand that and feel it deep down in your soul, or you are not deserving of the title.
It is disgraceful that the smarmy group somehow stole the first group’s name (“Marines United”), but perhaps when he original group chose to change their name, they might have considered distancing themselves a bit more, rather than just calling themselves now “Marines United together”. Understand that they perhaps didnt want to lose their “brand” and wanted legit marines to find them, but perhaps a name like “we are the original and now even more importantly marines united” or something along those lines, might have made a statement. Just a thought.
I truly hate reading about this kind of thing, in particular the fact that it is happening to military women, and posted by other military members, potentially people that they know and serve with. I have a much harder line on those who took the pictures, posted them and named the women. Not only a dishonorable discharge, but court martial and jail time if they are found guilty.
However, I disagree with dishonorable discharges for people writing comments. If that’s going to happen to people writing inappropriate comments on the internet and you could track it all…you’d have a severely depleted military. Look at all the stuff on the internet now, it is out of control, and particularly when people think they are anonymous, they will write anything. Should everyone be fired from their non-military jobs and have a record that will follow them for the rest of their lives for a stupid comment? Or should just military members be punished for that? You take guys who are sacrificing a tremendous amount for their country, sometimes at extreme personal risk of their own lives, and you’re going to give them a dishonorable discharge for a rude comment and have a record that will follow them the rest of their lives and withhold all future benefits? I think many people would be shocked at the kind of extreme locker room talk that happens in a military environment, though a specific threat should be followed up by the police.
Perhaps not a dishonorable discharge, but I wish they could do something to everyone who didn’t bring this to light earlier. I know it’s a pipe dream, but it’s my pipe dream.
I just cannot fathom what possesses people to do this- especially to their fellow soldiers who would willingly give their lives to protect them. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting- and I do hope the ones who posted face nice long prison sentences.
If one of the users of the site was a FSA cadet subjected to the FSA honor code*, s/he would be considered in violation of that code by not reporting this and if academy issues choose to pursue it, would view the cadet just as guilty as those who posted those photos/made comments even if s/he did not actively participate.
In a West Point cheating scandal of the early '50s, many cadets who were caught up in the scandal and EXPELLED weren’t necessarily active cheaters/facilitators of cheating, but those who knew the cheating was going on and failed to report it to academy officials.
Honor code applies to FSA cadets by virtue of their status as such....thus it applies whether they're on the FSA campus or home on leave.
Depends where you (non-military) are viewing the site. At my work, you will be fired for accessing run-of-the-mill pornography while at work and this is more extreme than run of the mill since it is illegally obtained.
Were any pictures underage? If they are only co-workers, I’m guessing not but a review will determine that.
It is illegal to view, in the privacy of your own home, nude images that are illegally obtained and that you know are illegally obtained? I don’t know the rules on that. Not really something I need to know…
I would think that a court martial might be indicated, in civilian life these days there are laws on the books about posting nude pictures of other people without their permission, whether revenge porn or not, and I suspect that the military has similar laws. More importantly, I seem to recall the military can file charges for actions that are are felt to compromise the workings of a unit or the branch of service as a whole that could lead to a court martial and discharge. In this case, posting nude pictures of fellow soldiers can cause all kinds of issues, the people whose pictures were posted no longer would trust their fellow soldiers, which is a major, major issue to any military group, it also can lead to the things that the military has had so many problems with, especially with sexual assault of women soldiers, having a nude picture out there could very well cause some yahoo to think he has carte blanche (and I deliberately use he, cases of female soldiers sexually assaulting another woman appear to be nonexistent or small from what i can tell). For me the lost of trust and causing fear of fellow soldiers is not trivial, and if I were in the military office I would try and find every charge to dump on them to send a message.
Is it fair they would carry this into civilian life? Heck, yeah, you assault an officer, you get caught with drugs, you get arrested for theft, you get court martialed and it goes on your civilian record, why should this be different? If the military wants to stamp out the culture of sexual harassment and assault that sadly is present, this needs to be treated seriously.
Among other things, this kind of thing gives weight to those who oppose women being in the military in combat or sensitive positions,and they could use this as an argument that women are susceptible to these kinds of things, that they cause disruption, etc, basically the argument being if women weren’t there to ‘tempt’ men, these kinds of things wouldn’t happen, rather than throwing the book at the men who seem to have grown up not understanding basic human decency or what they tried to teach in basic training, that the soldiers around you could save your life one day and there are enough people like this around with all kinds of hangups that not throwing the book at the soldiers involved will enable those opposed to women serving.
The article said active duty and retired, not cadets. Are you actually claiming that if a cadet viewed this and didn’t report it, the military would court martial, jail and give them a dishonorable discharge just as they might the actual instigators? I think not. As ridiculous as some of the honor codes as applied can be, they aren’t that ludicrous.
It is obvious to me that there should be many levels of punishment to this, as appropriate. From letters of reprimand or discussions with commanding officers, to jail time. But trying to make everyone equally guilty would make many men dislike having women in the military even more. You can’t punish to the extreme for every dirty magazine, crude comment, and picture viewed…and punish those who witness such actions equally. You can’t ask soldiers to sacrifice their lives and limbs, sometimes for poverty wages, and throw them away the second they start slobbering over women. We just don’t have enough eunuchs willing to serve.
The instigators should most assuredly face grave consequences. The people who viewed them should be ashamed, and those who posted threatening comments should be criminally investigated.
While I haven’t heard of female soldiers sexually assaulting other women, male soldiers are most assuredly raping other men. One of the dirty little secrets you don’t hear about, and that is probably more underreported than women who are raped. Sexual assault in the military of both men and women is a huge problem, and it makes me ill that they have to deal with it. I would imagine that most people don’t know this fact:
quote The term “active duty” means—
(A) full-time duty in the Armed Forces, other than active duty for training;
(B) full-time duty (other than for training purposes) as a commissioned officer of the Regular or Reserve Corps of the Public Health Service;
(C) full-time duty as a commissioned officer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and b full-time duty as a cadet or midshipman at the United States Military Academy, United States Naval Academy, United States Air Force Academy, or the United States Coast Guard Academy.**