Jeff, will you please consider deleting posts?

[Anonymous]

In the off-topic forum, under the "Head of IMF taken off plane and questioned for sexual assault" thread, page 8, there are posts (an OP and subsequent quotes) that link directly to a site which identifies the alleged victim. While the posts do not name the woman, I do think they violate the spirit of the law of our land which is designed to protect alleged victim.

[jsteele]

The US doesn't actually have laws against publishing the names of sexual assault victims. Most media outlets choose not to publish those names. I'm not sure that anything is accomplished by removing the posts to which you refer. The same information can be easily Googled. Also, it appears that multiple names and photographs are circulating. Who knows if the link even goes to correct information?

[Anonymous]

Correct. The only laws we have, which are more recent that you might think, are the rape shield laws, which are intended to stop defense attorneys from bringing up every sexual escapade of the victim in an effort to prove that she "must have asked for it." In some cases even those laws do not prevent that kind of an attack from the defense. I'm on the fence, myself, about the media policy. On the one hand, they encourage victims to come forward. On the other, they treat rape as something to be ashamed of and different from, say, a violent mugging. Until we acknowledge that rape is a crime of violence and doesn't have anything to do with sex, I think women will continue to be ambivalent about reporting it in a way they would not be if they were mugged. The media policy hasn't helped the woman, either. According to CNN, she is in hiding, so the media is hounding her even though they are not printing her name.

I am not a fan of legal hyperbole, but her lawyer's comments, as printed by CNN, really drive home what happened and how she is being revictimized all over by the media and her fear that, because this guy is who he is, she may even be killed or harmed in some way because she reported it. She didn't know who he was when it happened, they say.