It's a very fair point. While it is undeniably 'icky', the fact is that an ill intentioned pervert taking photographs of clothed kids doing innocent things doesn't actually cause the kids any physical or psychological trauma.
It can be difficult to discuss the issue rationally when one side argues logic and the other argues emotion. I agree that the thought of a pervert taking a photo of someone child must be very distressing. I worry that our (as I perceive it) tendency to take such things as valid reasons for regulating behavior (or, to put it more bluntly, suppressing civil liberties) is increasing.
Generally, there are definable and verifiable dangers to society or to individual civil liberties of others before the courts are willing to restrict liberties.
Yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater is the premier example. One has freedom of speech, yet yelling 'fire' is easily understood to create a risk of panic and subsequent death-by-trampling of patrons running for the exits.
So where is the clearly-defined society-threatening danger here? I have heard vague references to notions that a pervert might take photographs of children in order to come back later and kidnap a particular child. I can certainly understand that fear, but how likely is that to happen, or has it ever happened? In what other way would a child be placed in danger by someone not their relative taking their photo?
I understand that no rights are absolute, and I'm no fan of sickos taking photos of children for their twisted reasons. I understand that such things happen - one has only to Google for arrests of upskirt photographers and bathroom videographers and the like. And where a legal expectation of privacy exists, such as up a person's skirt or in a bathroom, etc, I can easily understand the validity of laws against such behavior. When a person is in public, where the courts in the US have consistently stated that there is reasonable expectation of privacy, I think it is over-reaching to try to stop people taking photos, even for reasons such as the often-stated fear of pedophiles taking photos of children.
Treading on civil liberties is serious business. It ought only be done when a very clear threat is set forth and actually exists, to the extent that it threatens the civil liberties of others or the safety of society in a very definable way.
