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Representative Mike Oxley is pushing a new law that would throw people in jail for up to a year if they’re caught using cameraphones for upskirting or voyeurism. As CNN reports:
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.”
Now, on the surface, this makes perfect sense: Voyeurcamming is a huge invasion of privacy. That’s why it’s already against the law to spy on people with hidden cameras, actually. So why the new law? Apparently the existing laws are a hodgepodge that change from state to state: “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,’” said Susan Howley, public policy director at the National Center for Victims of Crime.
What I wonder, though, is about the abuses of such a law. I wrote a couple of days ago about the rise of “sousveillance” — the use of cameraphones by individual citizens to record and publicize injustices by corporations, governments, and the powerful. If the new anti-peeping law is too broad, I could easily imagine it being used to shut down the use of cameraphones for activism and whistleblowing. I can just see a CEO, a security guard company, or a government agency getting pissed off when they see activists using cameraphones, and cracking down by claiming they were voyeuring the place.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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