Upskirt Photographer Acquitted

[bmattock]

With reference to our local discussions on street photography, privacy, and other such issues...more grist for the mill.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=local&id=3360786

Up Skirt Photographer Acquitted

August 18, 2005 - A man found to have taken a photo by aiming his mobile phone camera up a woman's skirt has been acquitted of invasion of privacy.
A Cumberland County judge says the law hasn't caught up with technology advances, and he notes that there's a bill in the Legislature that would change this.

But the judge did find 41-year-old Robert Sullivan of Alexandria, Virginia, guilty of disorderly conduct. District Attorney Skip Ebert says he will seek a tough sentence on the disorderly conduct conviction, which is punishable by up to a year in prison and a 25-hundred dollar fine.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

 

[XAos]

Advances in technology? Other than ease of detection, how would this be different had he used a film camera?

 

[dmr]

Advances in technology? Other than ease of detection, how would this be different had he used a film camera?

On "another network" this question was asked by me a while back when a thread occurred on a proposed ban on cell phone cameras in various places, such as restrooms.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group...read/thread/e23d7cd10192e9f2/65b5087199db1b33

That link should work (hopefully) if you want to see it. 🙂

 

[XAos]

Let me resplain myself. The judge made a lunkhead out of himself by refusing to apply existing law to lock up this pervert because the camera was either digital or disguised. I know it's a cell phone camera, but we all know that digital is no different in the eyes of the law, so the only complicating issue here is that it was a disguised camera - which is not new, nor new legal ground. I in no way wish to imply that it's futile to try to stop these people. Judge dropped the ball on this one rather than the gavel.

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

I say "burn the monster..." the judge and the perp/perv.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Lock up? Burn? Come on: how serious a crime is this compared with a barroom brawl which leaves people physically injured (or any other common assault); or vandalism; or a bunch of yobs racketing around and frightening people; or many other minor crimes that are normally punished with a fine? It's pretty damn' trivial. You want to discourage it, sure, but let's keep a sense of proportion.

First, you can't lock up everyone. There aren't enough prisons; people aren't prepared to pay the taxes needed to fund them; and how much useful effect is prison likely to have anyway? Without a death penalty -- abandoned, for good or ill, by most civilized countries -- prison is useful for keeping dangerous criminals out of circulation, and it may be a modest deterrent to career criminals.

Second, certainty of punishment is vastly more effective than severity of punishment. People will risk very severe punishment if they judge that the chances of getting caught are slender enough, but they won't risk even a small fine if they know they're almost certain to get caught.

The one piece of good that could be extracted from this is 'perverts don't use real cameras'; it would be useful to get it into the public perception that someone who is openly using a real camera is probably an enthusiastic photographer, non an up-skirt merchant.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[RML]

Hear, hear!

Lock up? Burn? Come on: how serious a crime is this compared with a barroom brawl which leaves people physically injured (or any other common assault); or vandalism; or a bunch of yobs racketing around and frightening people; or many other minor crimes that are normally punished with a fine? It's pretty damn' trivial. You want to discourage it, sure, but let's keep a sense of proportion.

First, you can't lock up everyone. There aren't enough prisons; people aren't prepared to pay the taxes needed to fund them; and how much useful effect is prison likely to have anyway? Without a death penalty -- abandoned, for good or ill, by most civilized countries -- prison is useful for keeping dangerous criminals out of circulation, and it may be a modest deterrent to career criminals.

Second, certainty of punishment is vastly more effective than severity of punishment. People will risk very severe punishment if they judge that the chances of getting caught are slender enough, but they won't risk even a small fine if they know they're almost certain to get caught.

The one piece of good that could be extracted from this is 'perverts don't use real cameras'; it would be useful to get it into the public perception that someone who is openly using a real camera is probably an enthusiastic photographer, non an up-skirt merchant.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[bmattock]

Folks:

I posted this news story as an interesting aside from a discovery I made the other day.

We had been cussin' and discussin' law and liability from the point of view of street shooting (candid photography) and I held forth at great length, pounding my chest and so forth. Well, some mea culpas are in order.

I got a book in the mail the other day, "Legal Handbook for Photographers: The Rights and Liabilities of Making Images" by Bert Krages, Esq. A real eye-opener (no pun intended).

While most of my diatribe was actually correct (sometimes not for the reasons I assumed, but still correct) there were some interesting differences, and this is one of them.

As it turns out, 'candid' photography when described as simply 'street photography' is generally not illegal anywhere the public is welcome - even in the restaurant where the original poster mentioned, unless the owner/manager does not give permission. But it varies from state to state, even from city to city in the USA, and it is up to every jurisdiction to make their own laws regarding candid photography.

Some states apparently have laws against photography from concealment - meaning that the candid shots that Walker Evans took on subways with a camera hidden under his coat would be illegal now. This is not true everywhere, however.

As to 'upskirts', they are generally held to be illegal, but before you excoriate the judge in this case, consider that a lot depends on how the law is written where they are located. If the law is vague, or even if it is too precise and makes reference to 'cameras' as devices that record on film and make no mention of digital media, then perhaps a 'phone/camera' that uses digital media instead of film might not fit the narrow definition and therefore would not be illegal. A judge cannot find guilt just because 'there oughta be a law' even if common sense dictates it. A judge has to follow the law as written and understood.

You can see by reading the article that the judge was disgusted. He obviously wanted to find the man guilty, but the law didn't permit it. So, he found the man guilty of disorderly conduct, and will go for a max penalty. Who knows? That might be even more punishment than he could have given under the other law.

Anyway, I have learned a lot from reading this book, and it is pretty cheap, so I recommend it if you're in the USA and you're at all curious about the legal dos and don'ts regarding photography. The author also discusses the ethics of photography - arguing that sometimes even when you're in the right legally, you should refrain from shooting. I didn't agree with all he said, but it was fascinating just the same.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[dmr]

Not to start a battle of the sexes here, but ...

Lock up? Burn? Come on: how serious a crime is this compared with a barroom brawl which leaves people physically injured ... It's pretty damn' trivial.

No, it is not trivial! It's assault! It may not fit the legal definition of assault, but to somebody who has been the victim of such a prank, it sure is. 🙁

Part of the problem is that even now in the 21st. century, stunts like this are still not taken very seriously. 🙁 Voyeurism is (and it's almost always one-way, sorry, guys) still tolerated to an extent.

The one piece of good that could be extracted from this is 'perverts don't use real cameras';

It could also be said that those who use real cameras tend to not be perverts. They usually have a life and don't result to such juvenile endeavors.

 

[satbunny]

Calm down. I have to say that we seem to obsess as US/UK societies about trivial crimes and jump to revenge based punishment rather than assessing the real damage and the correct mix of punishment, disapproval and rehabilitation.

And, in the meantime, we start guerilla wars in Iraq for reasons that still seem blindingly unclear. IMHO get some perspective.

This guy was a pest, but he didn't actually hurt anyone.

 

[bmattock]

Not to start a battle of the sexes here, but ...

No, it is not trivial! It's assault! It may not fit the legal definition of assault, but to somebody who has been the victim of such a prank, it sure is. 🙁

Part of the problem is that even now in the 21st. century, stunts like this are still not taken very seriously. 🙁 Voyeurism is (and it's almost always one-way, sorry, guys) still tolerated to an extent.

It could also be said that those who use real cameras tend to not be perverts. They usually have a life and don't result to such juvenile endeavors.

Let me stir the pot a little bit and ask a question...

If a person claims injury because of the embarrassment they feel when they are identified in an 'upskirt' photo, I can certainly understand that.

But you can't be embarrassed if you don't know a) the photo exists or b) the photo is of you. So how can you have been damaged in any way? If I take a photo of you and use photoshop to cut the head off and stick it on a super model's body and stare at it longingly for hours on end, have YOU been damaged if you don't know I did it? How could this be possible?

I submit that the reason such things are illegal is NOT because of the act itself, but rather because we are shocked and angered to know that someone else gains gratification from it. If we don't know or if they don't gain kinky gratification, then it is not assault.

Let me put it this way. You know that your neighbor has a photo of your wife that he took at a recent picnic. He took a lot of photos of all the neighbors and put them in a scrapbook that he keeps on his coffee table for memory's sake. Does this bother you?

Now, you find out that that same neighbor spends a lot of time gazing at your wife's photo above all others. He may be gaining some kind of kinky gratification from that photo of your wife. Does THAT bother you?

It's the same photo. Taken by the same person, on the same day, under the same circumstances. But the use to which the photo is put bothers you, doesn't it? Hey, I'm not throwing stones, it would bother me too.

So what we're saying as a society is that a person is 'assaulted' if the photograph is viewed in a way which we find disturbing. It's not the photo, it's the way people view it that matters.

In the case of upskirt photography, it involves kinky people who get their jollies from looking at photographs of women's underclothes. It means more to them that the photo was taken of the woman unaware than that the photo depicts a female (usually clothed) crotch area. YOU COULD SEE MORE AT THE PUBLIC BEACH! The same women who we say is assaulted by the photo taken up her skirt without her knowledge would NOT be an assault if she were wearing a bikini at the beach and we used a long telephoto lens to achieve substantially the same result.

So, I have to conclude that she is assaulted because of the way certain kinky people look at the photo, not because of the photo itself, in which an individual cannot be identified.

And to conclude - I have no interest in upskirt photographs. I am plenty weird, but my kinks don't go that direction.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

And here we have an upskirt photographer arrested for invasion of privacy. Ironic how he was caught - by a hidden camera in the store!

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/12350619.htm

Posted on Wed, Aug. 10, 2005

Man charged for upskirt cell-phone picture

By LINDA MAN

The Kansas City Star

Jackson County prosecutors today charged an Independence man with invasion of privacy after he allegedly stuck a camera cell phone under a woman’s skirt and secretly took pictures.

Authorities allege that on Aug. 1, Daniel Thurman, 30, crouched near a woman browsing clothes at Independence’s Cargo Largo and took several mini-videos. Authorities said the light from the cell phone could be seen through the woman’s skirt.

Police learned of the incident after a store security camera followed Thurman throughout the store.

 

[djon]

Only a pervert would "excoritate" a judge.

Is there no end to perversion? 😀 😀 😀

 

[bmattock]

Only a pervert would "excoritate" a judge.

Is there no end to perversion? 😀 😀 😀

You would be amazed to learn what people get up to. The world is full of the sickest little puppies you could imagine!

As comedian Larry Reeb (Uncle Lar') says, "It's a sick world, and I'm a happy guy!"

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Roger Hicks]

It might actually technically be an assault, which has been defined in English law as 'putting another in fear of a battery' -- which has in turn been defined as 'the least touching of another in anger is a battery' though obviously people are normally not held to quite this standard.

But plenty of much nastier assaults are punished with quite modest fines, community service, etc. All I'm saying is that 'lock up' and 'burn' are hysterical over-reactions.

In fact, I have often argued that we need no crime of rape. Either it's an assault -- the fear of battery -- or it isn't a crime. Think about it.

And by the way, I totally agree with satbunny.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[cp_ste.croix]

But plenty of much nastier assaults are punished with quite modest fines, community service, etc. All I'm saying is that 'lock up' and 'burn' are hysterical over-reactions.

In fact, I have often argued that we need no crime of rape. Either it's an assault -- the fear of battery -- or it isn't a crime. Think about it.

Roger

Upskirt photographers and their ilk while maybe not deserving of being burned alive are participating in a very different kind of assault than the barroom brawler. One could argue that getting punched in the face in a bar, unless the assault is particualrly aggregious, will leave nothing more than a bruise or two. Those that are 'disfiguring' are certainly not punished by mere fines. The upskirt photographer on the other hand creates a climate where not only is half of the population devalued and dehumanized, contributing in my mind to sexual assaults and other violence; but he also instills fear and mental trauma in his victims (who, it can be argued, are all women rather than the specific person he took the photo of-who may be unaware of the photo).

Rape is not the fear of battery, it is the actual battery itself. It is also a touchy subject for most men I know to discuss. While this maybe isn't the space for me to get into a long debate with you over the minutia of law (of which, i've no doubt you are better versed than I) I will claim that rape is a unique and specific type of assault which necessitates a legal understanding which differentiates it from your typical barroom punch up.

This is far more political than I usually get arround here, but sexual assault is my former area of research and is close to my heart. And no, I don't hate myself or other men 🙂

 

[kiev4a]

It might actually technically be an assault, which has been defined in English law as 'putting another in fear of a battery' -- which has in turn been defined as 'the least touching of another in anger is a battery' though obviously people are normally not held to quite this standard.

But plenty of much nastier assaults are punished with quite modest fines, community service, etc. All I'm saying is that 'lock up' and 'burn' are hysterical over-reactions.

In fact, I have often argued that we need no crime of rape. Either it's an assault -- the fear of battery -- or it isn't a crime. Think about it.

And by the way, I totally agree with satbunny.

Cheers,

Roger

It's easy for a male to call snapshots up a woman's dress "trivial" I suspect many women have a different view.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Chris,

It's an interesting question whether it is a battery, or whether the fear of battery creates the illusion of consent and therefore no battery. I'd argue strongly (with you) that it's a battery but I'd also charge assault in case battery failed.

Worse than a barroom brawl? Depends on the rape and the brawl. I have friends who have suffered the former and other friends who have sought out the latter. But is rape worse than (for example) systematic torture not ending in death. Hardly, I'd argue.

The maximum penalty for aggravated assaults is about the same as the maximum penalty for rape in most places: ABH and GBH (actual and grievous bodily harm) can carry very stiff sentences and it would be hard NOT to argue ABH in most rapes.

In other words, there are assaults that are worse than almost any rape -- lifelong mutilation, such as cutting off both arms, for example -- and it is principally masculine possessiveness, the treatment of women as property, not as individuals with their own right to remedies, that leads to its being regarded as a unique crime.

Extremely nasty, yes. Unique, no.

And as for the argument that many women will think differently, well, so will many men. But most of the women I have discussed the above view have agreed with me. The only woman with whome I have discussed the posting, my wife, also agrees, but added "But I don't think they will understand what you are saying."

Cheers,

Roger

 

[RML]

It's easy for a male to call snapshots up a woman's dress "trivial" I suspect many women have a different view.

I know I shouldn't get involved but... in the grant scheme of things these snapshots are trivial. I loath these sneaky upskirters but things are getting blown much out of proportion here. Women are degraded by these kind of shots? Perhaps, perhaps not. But women are much more degraded in other ways which we take for granted: being paid lower salaries for similar jobs, being denied control over their own bodies (and what's growing inside), being excluded from education and/or health care, being denied access to the vote, etc.

A pervert is pervert, whether this was a juvenile act or not, and the man should be brought to justice but definitely in a civil suit. Defamation or such charges would cover it. IMO it's pretty difficult to find a criminal case here.

OK, I'll stop now. 🙂

 

[Roger Hicks]

One other thought: I don't regard bar-room brawls as trivial, but equally, I had friends in my youth whose idea of a good time was 'a f*** or a fight on a Saturday night."

My wife agrees with me that she's rather have someone take photos up her skirt than beat up (according to age) her boyfriend/lover/husband. That gives you a much better sense of what 'trivial' means in this context, in her view.

Cheers,

Roger