Technology definitely progresses faster than the law and the perves are taking advantage of the loop holes. Snapping a picture with a cell phone up a woman's skirt ("upskirting" ) or down her blouse ("downblousing") has become a world craze. Japan now requires cellphone cameras to come with a shutter sound to announce a picture is being taken.
Salon reports:
A keyword search for "upskirt" on the photo-sharing site Flickr turns up 36,368 hits. One user has taken 48 candid shots of women's stockinged rears walking up stairs in the Paris Metro subway station. The vast majority of these photos, however, are not upskirts at all, but close-ups of women's body parts taken in public places like the subway, parks and street corners. Some Flickr members specialize in these types of shots, many with a particular area of expertise: breasts, bums, nipple slips, whale tails (the top of a thong peeking over the waist of a woman's pants), camel toes, legs or feet. Amazingly, one user has amassed 1,455 photos of disembodied, hastily framed shots taken with a cellphone camera of various body parts -- feet, breasts, butt and legs -- that could belong to any woman, really.
This is creepy and unsettling stuff that has yet to be resolved by U. S. lawmakers.
The question of where to draw a line between artistic street photography and fetishistic candids that reduce a woman to her toe cleavage is like that ever-unreliable definition of pornography: I know it when I see it. John Morris, general counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology, puts the reality simply: "If you don't want to be photographed walking the street, don't walk down the street -- it's a public street."
It's a tough issue to define while respecting art and first amendment rights, but seriously, they can't figure out a better way to defend the privacy of an individual than, "don't walk down the street... " What are we, in Saudi Arabia?
In the meantime, watch out for the new cellphone sex operators.
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Photo/Salon