peeping photographs 'freedom of speech'

[thir]

Photographing up peoples skirts is 'freedom of speech' and not a crime nor a misdemeanor..is that ok??

Photographing cruelty to animals is a crime..

Is something seriously wrong here?

I cannot for the life of me see how peeping up a skirt with a camera is 'freedom of speech' - where does the speech come in??

[thir]

http://www.care2.com/causes/court-says-secretly-taking-a-photo-up-a-womans-skirt-not-a-crime.html

Sorry, forgot the link

[thir]

I am baffled to know how the taking of pictures is held to be covered by the right of free speech. Publishing them, yes, fair enough, but how is taking them "speech" in any possible interpretation of the law? Where did that weird precedent come from, and why hasn't anyone challenged it?

[leo9]

I would love to know where that weird precedent came from and why nobody has challenged it yet. It seems on the face of it to make no sense legally or semantically.

Going back to basics, free speech is about communicating information. Getting information is a completely different process, and while there are strong arguments either way about how and where it should be free or controlled, they are all completely irrelevant to the question of free speech.

In European law there are strong defences of the right of privacy, specifically inspired by the problem of prying cameras (though usually in the hands of paparazzi rather than private voyeurs,) and I'm pretty sure (IANAL) that a case like this would be settled on that basis. The fact that this has to be balanced against the right of free speech is an ongoing debate, but nobody to my knowledge has ever argued here that taking pictures is free speech.

[thir]

I think I now see where the 'freedom of speech' idea came in:

It's called "revenge porn" — the posting of nude or sexually explicit photos or videos online to degrade or harass someone, usually a former spouse or lover.
And states from Arizona to New York are racing to make it a crime.


"This is a delicate issue," says Lee Rowland of the American Civil Liberties Union, who says the legislation is "spreading like wildfire." "The ACLU is concerned both with the protection of privacy and free speech rights."

"But the reality is that revenge porn laws tend to criminalize the sharing of nude images that people lawfully own," says Rowland, a lawyer with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "That treads on very thin ice constitutionally."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/03/06/286388840/race-to-stop-revenge-porn-raises-free-speech-worries

Revenge porn is apparently under debate as to whether to forbid it, or if forbidding it is tampering with freedom of speech. It is not the same thing, unless those photographing under skirts also post their pics on the net. As I see it, intruding on someones privacy can not be included in freedom of speech.

[leo9]

But that still leaves open the question of how taking photos can be a free speech issue. And this looks like the usual excuse to rush some more online censorship onto the books.

[js207]

But that still leaves open the question of how taking photos can be a free speech issue. And this looks like the usual excuse to rush some more online censorship onto the books.

I don't think the ruling was so much "this is freedom of speech, so it's protected" (though it does seem the defense lawyer tried to argue that) - rather, the laws currently protecting privacy there refer specifically to places where you remove clothes such as bathrooms and changing rooms, so upskirt photos don't actually break the law as it currently exists.

Legally it seems correct: the law prohibiting "covert photography in bathrooms and changing rooms" clearly doesn't apply to upskirt photography in other places, so the people shouting at the court are misguided: this seems to be a matter for the legislature to amend the privacy law to cover this, rather than demand that judges pretend it does already despite saying otherwise.

[js207]

(Sorry if this shows up duplicated, my earlier post seems to have disappeared into the ether)

As I understand it, the ruling was not that it was protected free speech, just that it wasn't prohibited by existing law - the nearest they could find was a law banning covert photography in places like bathrooms and changing rooms where people undress. Since those laws didn't apply in this case, there was no prohibition on upskirt photography - and changing that would be a job for the legislature, not the courts. (The defense lawyer did try to argue it was protected as free speech, but I don't think that got anywhere - that didn't matter, though, since there was no law against upskirt photography anyway.)