Naked Marine Photo Scandal Update: Alleged Victims Slam Revised Rules As 'Weak'

Two alleged victims of a U.S. Marine Corps' nude photo-sharing scandal slammed military officials Thursday calling the revised rules as "weak." Former Marine Erika Butner, 23, and active duty Lance Cpl. Marisa Woytek, 22, spoke out in Oceanside, California, alongside their attorney Gloria Allred.

The victims, whose private photos were secretly shared on an invitation-only Facebook group called Marines United, said the new regulations imposed by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps last week doesn’t go far enough. The new rules officially barred service members from distributing nude photos without the consent of the individual depicted in the photos. The posting of illicit photos without consent will now be considered a crime.

The women said that the standard should be "written consent" that could be as simple as a text message, which would serve as some type of explicit proof the subject agreed to share his or her private image.

Read: Naked Marine Photo Scandal Update: Nude Pictures Being Sold On Dark Web

"If it's open to interpretation, that's not very strong," Woytek told the New York Daily News. "They're just saving face."

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps' revised rules, which are categorized as interim until the official new edition of regulations is printed, went into effect immediately in mid-April. They prohibit any service members from posting intimate images which are described as "any visual depiction, including by electronic means, that includes another person who is identifiable from the depiction itself or from information conveyed in connection with the depiction; depicts that person engaging in sexually explicit conduct or depicts the private area of that person; and taken under circumstances in which the person depicted had a reasonable expectation of privacy."

In Thursday's press conference Alred released a letter from the House Armed Services Committee responding to her request to allow victims to testify. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), said in a return letter that a subcommittee plans to hold a future hearing with "survivors" whose cases "have been fully investigated and adjudicated."

Alred had called out the Chair of the House Armed Services Committee when the victims of the nude photo scandal were not allowed to testify at a recent hearing that included Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller.

"Why does the committee only want to hear success stories?" Allred asked Thursday. "Who are they really trying to protect and why do they not want to hear the truth from any survivor brave enough to testify?"

Butner also said Thursday that she recently learned that the explicit images "appear to be for sale in an online criminal marketplace with ties to Russia." She fears victims in the photos "could now be vulnerable to blackmail or worse," and she called for a "full investigation of the Russia connection."

Earlier this month, reports claimed that the illicit photo moved from the Facebook group to other social media platforms, including Instagram, Snapchat and also the dark web. The Daily Beast found that many of the sellers on the dark web were not connected to the military.

“The dark web is kind of like a street,” Stephen Pearson, digital crime and digital terrorism professor at Utica College, told the Daily Beast at the time. “You’ve got houses with addresses and houses without addresses. The ones without addresses, nobody knows anything about those places. But it’s still on the same street, still on the same internet and connection and hardware, but the places are difficult to find. And without knowing the network encryption you can’t get there.”