I think I could possibly support this...
Posted on 05/11/2004 10:15:48 AM PDT by Pan_Yans Wife
Cell phone cameras are useful for the unusual moment that demands a picture, like when a congressional aide pulled one out of a pocket to get a snapshot of Michael Jackson strolling the halls of Congress.
Some people, however, are using them for nefarious purposes, such as taking pictures beneath women's skirts and posting them on the Internet. Lawmakers want to make taking such surreptitious photos and other illicit uses of video technology a federal crime punishable by up to a year in jail.
"No one should have to go through the embarrassment of being secretly taped by an electronic peeping Tom, or seeing those pictures turn up on the Internet," said Rep. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, a former FBI agent who is an advocate for the bill.
While there are no official studies on the intrusive use of camera phones, lawmakers and anti-crime advocates say "video voyeurism" is a serious crime that deserves a serious response by the government.
Simple voyeurism, secretly photographing or videotaping someone in a compromising position or in a private place, already is against the law in most states. The proliferation of tiny cellular telephones that can take pictures silently has facilitated the taking of illicit photos in public places such as grocery stores, sidewalks and restaurants.
In December, a Sammamish, Wash., man pleaded innocent to a charge of voyeurism after being accused of using a cellular telephone camera to take photographs up a woman's skirt. Jack Le Vu, 20, was released on $25,000 bail.
A witness told investigators the man pretended to scan a grocery store's shelves as he followed a 26-year-old woman in a supermarket. He periodically crouched with his camera phone extended beneath her skirt and snapped photos.
"Discovering you've been a victim of video voyeurism puts you in fear and unrelenting anxiety, and you are suspicious then everywhere you go," said Susan Howley, public policy director at the National Center for Victims of Crime.
Oxley said he's heard numerous stories "about how individual privacy has been violated in locker rooms, dressing rooms and even homes." And Internet surfers can easily find Web sites with camera phone pictures of those individuals posted for the world to see.
Even when a person finds out about a peeping Tom, the hodgepodge of laws around the nation sometimes let criminal cases avoid prosecution. "Victims will go to the police and be told that `We'd love to arrest this person, but it's not technically against the law,'" Howley said.
Currently there is no federal law protecting citizens from secret and intrusive videotaping in public places, Oxley said, and some prosecutors have had difficulty making cases.
"That's why we wanted to make a specific crime so there would be no misunderstanding which law applies," he said. "This is a case where the law is trying to catch up with the +technology+ or the misuse of technology."
The bill before Congress would make it illegal to videotape, photograph, film, broadcast or record a naked person or someone in underwear anyplace where a "reasonable person would believe that he or she could disrobe in privacy."
The legislation also would make it illegal to sneak photos of a person's "private parts" when "their private parts would not be visible to the public, regardless of whether that person is in a public or private area."
A person convicted under the law could face a fine and as much as a year in jail.
The bill passed the Senate by voice vote without dissent. The House Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) is expected to consider it before the August recess.
The bill is S.1301
This is torture on the scale of Abu Ghraib!!!
Amendment X:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Funny, I don't see anything in my copy about cell phone cameras...
Betcha they could have cured him REAL quick by kicking his face in when he was caught.
Oh, I'm sorry, that's right - we have to have "lawyers" to interpret reality for us in this instance.
I think I could possibly support this...
Why?
Why is this a Big Stupid Federal Government issue?
Some might say Article I, Section 8, Clause 3, the "commerce clause."
What is the nexus, what is the connection to interstate commerce of posting a picture on the internet?
Some may argue that the IPS that an individual contracts with for internet access is the nexus for commerce clause jurisdiction.
Well this is an extremely slippery slope to justify federal legislative jurisdiction.
By the same logic, because most individuals borrow money from a mortgage company to occupy a home and the mortgage company makes money from the interest that is paid during the payback interval, this activity being commerce, coupled with the fact that the mortgage company is most likely involved in interstate commerce, than there is federal legislative jurisdiction within the house that you occupy, preventing you, for example from discriminating against whom you let into that house.
Federal anti-smoking laws would also have jurisdiction, as well as federal air pollution laws, safety laws, American with Disabilities laws, etc.
Yes, I would agree that a State legislature may have jurisdiction for such a law, but I am not convinced there is constitutional federal jurisdiction for such a law.
Confused, would the dozens of times Manhattanites are video taped daily through security cameras fall under this law? And how does a mobile phone camera differ from a wifi security camera?
If this passes expect NYC lawyers to start suing private corporations with street security cameras. "My constitutional right to wear hip huggers voids your constitutional write to freedom of the press."
No wonder I get so many Google hits for 'deaf Korean women upskirt'.
No matter who does it, including the government.
Exactly! Of course there is a gathering Horde of Islamofascists planning the destruction of Western Civilization, but Congress can't be expected to pay attention as long as somewhere, some lonely guy wants to peek up a woman's skirt....
HAH!!! It's okay for the government, from the city/county, up through the state and onto the federal government, to videotape us in public, just about anywhere they want (and in some cases quite secretly).
The irony is rich.
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