"Upskirts"

[crfriend]

Well, well, well. It's now illegal to photograph up womens' skirts in Massachusetts. I wonder what the fallout from this will be.

On the surface, I agree with the concept, but, as always, the devil is in the details, and the details that I have heard so far don't line up well with the act. Two years' worth of holiday for the perpetrator in a minimum-security "facility" seems rather a waste of taxpayer money for the thing. Better would be the confiscation of the technological bits used and a hefty fine.

I haven't yet found the actual text of the law, which apparently managed to get through the legislature in near-record time. This, of course, means that it will have flaws in it -- potentially allowing the practice of shooting the same photos of men who wear skirts whilst criminalizing the practice when done to women. (By the by, I read "leagalese" quite handily.)

Further commentary if I can find the actual text of the law. That is, of course, assuming it's not "secret" (We have a lot of those here at the moment, with likely more to come).

On the separate concept of secret laws, I am rather drawn to the final moments of the classic motion picture Dr. Strangelove where the "doomsday device" was kept secret (to (later) be revealed as a "birthday present" to the Leader).

[crfriend]

Well, that was surprisingly easy, as it turns out that it wasn't secret at all. The full text of the law is available on-line and, by the simple omission of the word "woman" or "women", thereby includes the act of (attempting, as any guy will likely punch out the perp if he catches the miscreant) "sexual surveillance" of a man. (I really thought they'd blow that one. Really.)

Of course, the obligatory disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer. I don't even play one on the telly.

If anybody wants a good hard laugh over things, the section of Massachusetts General Law that covers "CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY, DECENCY AND GOOD ORDER" (I am not making this up!) is an hilarious read and points up just how screwed up the USA (or at least my little corner of it) is when it comes to things of this nature. You'd think the place was Pakistan. Fortunately, most of it isn't enforceable.

Fornication? Blasphemy? Adultery? How quaint.

[Hemitom]

you know, if a woman thinks she will be up-skirted at anytime wearing a skirt or a dress...just wear a pair of bike shorts, that way there wont be anything to see. unless they want their panties to be exposed...just my .02 on the subject....

[Tor]

Interesting. I (in my morbid curiousity) took a look at the law, and the online text includes the option of a mathematical interpretation of the maximum sentence time that is, shall we say, disconcerting:

...shall be punished by imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than 21/2 years or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Note the lack of space or other separating character in the (one would tend to think, and I believe is customary) mixed number. Read as an improper fraction, though, twenty one halves is 10+1/2 years. Ouch. Hopefully the real text makes it clear what the real term limit is and this is an error introduced by character set conversion/limitations.

That said, this one looks quite well written and reasonable to me, covering a real offense rather than invented "crimes" that hurt no one.

As for simply suggesting bike shorts or the like, there are reasons (as we here particularly note) to prefer not to, especially at various times. As long as enforcement of this is mostly on the basis of complaints made by real people with an eye towards weeding out unreasonable claims related to micro skirts that may show things during ordinary activity, I'm inclined to think this is a good thing.

[Caultron]

On the one hand, paparazzi can certainly be offensive, and I can certainly sympathize with someone whose brief accidental exposure ends up in the tabloids or magazines.

On the other hand, sorry, that's how you appeared in public, and whenever you're in public you're liable to get your picture taken.

How much does the upskirt photo have to show in order to be illegal? Hopefully not just a bit of thigh or underwear, which implies that the plaintiff was going commando, which is cool, but sorry, no sympathy.

Cameras shooting straight up from beneath sidewalk gratings, of course, would be another matter.

in any event, if the plaintiff's face wasn't clearly visible, the offense would be difficult to prove.

And how could you convict the photographer without also convicting the subject of indecent exposure?

[r.m.anderson]

Well this is nothing to write home about - TSA trumps all in this regard !

And now what about the attempting to incite a riot without a supporting clause in you underwear contract !

Any restrictions on how long the skirt/dress has to be to be eligible for a court date ?
I mean you are wearing something at the knee - not much a chance of overexposure here !
But a mini-skirt or better yet a micro mini-skirt with a 8-10 inch hem well there ain't no upskirt here !
More like a eye level infraction and a no contest issue.

Then what about the Marilyn types just asking for it over a ventilation duct - I sense entrapment here !

Leave it to the legal beagles to get rich on another silly wild goose law !

[STEVIE]

In the good old U.K. no such questions, there have been successful prosecutions of "upskirt" photographers.
Admittedly, all the targets were women and girls but I'd reckon on a similar result if a guy was the victim.
The closest so far is a guy who filmed men relieving themselves in a public toilet. He was placed on the sex offenders register.
Apart from being named and shamed ,that does mean that he will be watched quite closely.
Steve.

[Taj]

Without pointing fingers there are a couple of comments that suggest the woman being upskirted somehow shares responsibility for the act by her appearance. Nonsense! Neither would she be responsible for any other assulting act by another. People know that they need to keep their cameras and hands to themselves. I can't condone. "blame the victim."

[Caultron]

Without pointing fingers there are a couple of comments that suggest the woman being upskirted somehow shares responsibility for the act by her appearance. Nonsense! Neither would she be responsible for any other assulting act by another. People know that they need to keep their cameras and hands to themselves. I can't condone. "blame the victim."

In recent years state legislatures in the US have passed a raft of these kinds of laws: very narrow focus but caught up somehow in "traditional" values. Here in Arizona a lobbying organization called the Center for Arizona Policy has formulated about 150 of these laws and managed to get them passed.

The reason they do is this is because contributors are willing to fund the effort. Generally, these are the same sorts of contributors who fund the more radical factions of the Republican party. In many cases, the laws are so narrow and difficult to prosecute that their effective impact is zero. But nevertheless, backers are willing to fund their passage in the name of legislating morality, and lobbyists are grateful for the business.

So here's this new law in Massachusetts that says if someone lewdly exposes themselves in public, it's a crime to take their picture. And it strikes me that the photograph can only be illegal if the public exposure is illegal, and this would make it very hard to prosecute the photographer without also prosecuting the "victim." But I suppose it might matter whether the exposure was intentional or not.

Also, it seems difficult to prove the identity of the "victim" unless their face was visible in the photograph. And I can't imagine a camera angle that would capture both the person's face and the view up their skirt.

So why pass such a stupid and worthless law? Because the lobbyist makes money by pushing it through, and because the legislators are afraid their backers will switch to funding their opponent in the next election.

Sorry if this is too political, but it seems to be the process that resulted in this law.

[dillon]

I guess that woud be the "Girls Gone Wild" law? Good luck enforcing it on college campuses.

[skirtyscot]

So here's this new law in Massachusetts that says if someone lewdly exposes themselves in public, it's a crime to take their picture.

No, that is precisely the opposite of what it says. It says that it is illegal to photograph a person's body or clothing if a reasonable person would think that they were not meant to be on public display. Expose yourself lewdly and this law won't help you.

Also, it seems difficult to prove the identity of the "victim" unless their face was visible in the photograph. And I can't imagine a camera angle that would capture both the person's face and the view up their skirt.

Maybe the identity of the victim is not important, so long as it photo is clearly an upskirt shot.

So why pass such a stupid and worthless law?

To act as a deterrent?

Because the lobbyist makes money by pushing it through, and because the legislators are afraid their backers will switch to funding their opponent in the next election.

Or because the existing law did not make upskirts illegal, and the Court reluctantly had to acquit, so the legislature decided to change the law PDQ. Not a lot of cash for the lobbyists there.

[Milfmog]

So why pass such a stupid and worthless law?

To act as a deterrent?

Or because the existing law did not make upskirts illegal, and the Court reluctantly had to acquit, so the legislature decided to change the law PDQ. Not a lot of cash for the lobbyists there.

This was certainly the slant of the stories I read on this. The legislature were embarrassed by a court decision based on the law as it stood, so they changed it.

If you want to blame anyone for the new law, I suggest that you should consider the following:
The people who created the law it "fixes"
The lawyers who exploited the law that is being fixed
The Press that has the legislature so frightened of being pilloried that they felt the need for a knee-jerk change of the law.

I would not blame lobbyists for this one; it was over too fast for them to make any useful money out of it!

Have fun,


Ian.

[crfriend]

To Ian's list above, I would also blame the first judge that tossed the initial complaint out the window thereby ensuring that a furore would ensue. That is compounded by the fact that the various legislatures are there to make laws not properly maintain them; this ensures that stupidity passed in the heat of the moment remains enshrined for decades.

The usual method of dealing with "bad behavior" that may not be explicitly criminalized is summed up as "disturbing the peace", is a misdemeanor, and punishable by a fine. This should have been the avenue that the first judge took, not to throw the entire case out. Also, photography is prohibited on the MBTA by rule; they are allowed to do so by virtue of it being a privately-owned (albeit by the government, aka "the people") space. (I ran afoul of that back in the '80s when I was still heavily into photography and got myself a good talking to -- and this was pre "9/11". I guess that it's OK to shoot voyeur-smut on cell-phone cameras but not to photograph things like trains using real cameras that are tough to hide. Go figure.)

In any event, the entire need for a special law to deal with this is, I think, silly. With short -- especially very short -- skirts, some level of exposure is pretty much guaranteed, and that's where underwear comes in. There is altogether too much "celebutard" behavior going on nowadays. If it's visible to the casual passer-by, it's safe to assume photographs will be taken of it. In the words of the Boy Scout motto, "Be prepared" (and stop whining). Before anybody takes me to task for "blaming the victim" I'll say this in my defence: "Both perpetrator and victim share some of the blame for this." The "perp" will get the most heaped upon him, and I view that as OK: bad behavior is bad behavior, and popping pictures of other people's private parts -- even if on display in a public setting -- is considered gauche. Don't do it.

So Massachusetts has yet another "morality law". Oh, joy.

[dillon]

They must honor the tradition of "Banned In Boston"!

[Taj]

It seems that the definition of what constitutes an "up skirt" photo is unclear. The word surveillance seems to imply clandestine activity. Someone having things openly visible wouldn't require sneakery. That would seem to be the issue. Thus could differentiate whether there is a victim. Still, seeking out those kinds of photos says something about the one taking the pictures. Or at least asks, "why?"