Girls, make sure you wear jeans if you go to Texas!

chayton

aka LooHoo
webmeister
PABnonaccred
CAG
Joined
Jun 5, 2006
Location
Edmonton Canada
I just heard the most ridiculous thing - In Texas, if some douchebag conceals a camera on his cowboy boot to take pictures up and under women's skirts, he is now protected by a court ruling stating his photo antics are "Protected freedom of speech" :eek2: WTF?????

The state's highest criminal court on Wednesday tossed out part of a Texas law banning "improper photography or visual recording" - surreptitious images acquired in public for sexual gratification, often called "upskirting" or "downblousing" - as a violation of federal free-speech rights and an improper restriction on a person's right to individual thoughts.

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It's not often I'm shocked into speechlessness but seriously...I'm just...wow.
 
Doesn't surprise me coming from the State with the highest amount of executions and a Governor who believes the world is 6000 years old - whad'ya expect :rolleyes:
 
This is madness - no infringement of privacy to be protected then??
This ruling is as crazy as some we'd expect from the EU loony-tunes in Strasbourg or the right-on judges in the UK. So far magistrates have let off a Polish migrant for slapping women's bottoms in the UK as he claimed it was 'normal behaviour' back home, a Jamaican was let off for racially abusing whites in Gloucester as he claimed it 'was words of his culture'...

What next? Let off the muslim paedophiles under investigation in Rotherham on the grounds that muhammed took a 9 year-old bride?

Unbelievable. A pervert's charter in Texas.
 
CM,


Definitely not a cool thing to post about my home state. I get it that you don't believe in the death penalty and that you don'tcare for our governor but you have a lot of members here that are Texans and dang proud of it.

Since I know know what your opinion is quite clearly, please close my account.
 
CBS morning news covered this story today, essentially reporting the Texas appeals court ruled the law unconstitutional. The basis for that finding being that the law was "too broad" and "overreaching." To be sure the State of Texas should be reworking the law post haste.

This crap never happened while there was a female governor, sheesh! :mad:
 
I wasn't trying to bash Texas or Texans with this post Anniemac, I only included Texas in the title because that's where it happened.

My issue with this ruling isn't that it happened in Texas, it's that that it happened AT ALL. Because they're quoting FEDERAL free-speech laws, there's a possibility this could set a precedent for other states as well.
 
Let's face it, in the United States we are forced to put up with all kinds of loony tunes right now. There is a judge in the mid west who does not believe you can be raped if you have already had sex. He said in reality, if a woman has already had sex, there is no harm done and some men need to have this power and fear to be sexually gratified. So he said in his court he would have to weigh the needs of the accused with the harm to the victim and in most cases he sees no harm. Pack your guns ladies and hope for sensible juries wherever you live.
 
Seriously, can we not have a topic of conversation around here anymore without someone getting bent out of shape?

I am from Illinois...........close to one of the most poorly run states in the country.

Got any nasty comments about Illinois? Go ahead.......... I can probably give you some worse ones !


It seems this forum has changed and people are getting worked up for (what I think) silly reasons.

Everyone has their own opinion about anything and everything........

and that is their right......... lets not blow crap out of proportion.
 
CM,


Definitely not a cool thing to post about my home state. I get it that you don't believe in the death penalty and that you don'tcare for our governor but you have a lot of members here that are Texans and dang proud of it.

Since I know know what your opinion is quite clearly, please close my account.
Geeze relax. I wasn't knocking Texans, just poking a jab at things that happen there. I'm from California and live in Germany. You could make an endless list of things effed up about those two places. And you could make an endless list of things that are great.

I may think your governor is whacky, but I like you. :D
 
Seriously, can we not have a topic of conversation around here anymore without someone getting bent out of shape?

I am from Illinois...........close to one of the most poorly run states in the country.

Got any nasty comments about Illinois? Go ahead.......... I can probably give you some worse ones !


It seems this forum has changed and people are getting worked up for (what I think) silly reasons.

Everyone has their own opinion about anything and everything........

and that is their right......... lets not blow crap out of proportion.


Gotta be because of slots withdrawal, yeah that's it. Slots withdrawal. :D
 
Let's not get started about California, the true anus of the world :)

The real question is, did I just see tennis_balls posting?
 
So, if photography is now protected as free speech, there is nothing to stop people expressing their constitutional rights in the front row of the cinema when the latest blockbuster is premiered. Their camera is their pen and paintbrush, so they can't be stopped from doing this any more than a film critic can be stopped from watching a film with the intent to write a review for some publication or web blog.

Somehow, I can't see this ruling staying unchallenged by the big Hollywood interests, and they have the power to make the legislature bend to their will, and they have demonstrated this on previous occasions both in the US and here in the UK (we have internet censorship here, same as China in many respects, just that it's a different type of "information" that we are not allowed to view). We even have a censored variant of Google that suppresses some results of our searches.

This is the problem with the law being an ass. It can make a decision on one case, and open a whole can of worms as other actions that use to be illegal can suddenly be argued legal by using the same legal logic. This then means that a hole has been blown in the intent of the legislation, and it needs to be filled by replacing the law that was excised, whilst in the mean time advantage can be taken, as with this case leading to some others similarly convicted considering appeals.
 
So, if photography is now protected as free speech, there is nothing to stop people expressing their constitutional rights in the front row of the cinema when the latest blockbuster is premiered. .

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure that applies. Public and private venues are two different beasts.
 
Anniemac! Lighten up, I'm British and proudly so, but I'm the first to laugh at some of the fruitcakes we have produced and elected here! If we had the electric chair, we'd never use it because some judge would rule the power hadn't been generated within EU carbon restrictions or if by injection the condemned man had a 'needle phobia' so his human rights would be violated..........:D
 
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure that applies. Public and private venues are two different beasts.

Well, the case in question seemed to be a swimming pool, where presumably one pays an admission charge for entry, much like a cinema. The issue is that they have likened the camera to the pen and paintbrush, making it no different from someone who writes a report on the film they have just seen, or draws an illustration of their experience on canvas or paper. All three are now classed as "mediums of speech".

You could probably still get ejected from the cinema by it's owners, just as they can refuse entry to a film critic they feel is going to write a negative review. The problem is that they may not be able to go beyond this right to refuse admission and have the camera user detained and arrested as is the case now. In most cases, the filming is clandestine, so it's a matter of what happens on those occasions they get found out.

Curiously, here in the UK it is NOT actually illegal to take pictures or film anyone, and if you are doing so from a public place, there is nothing much that can be done by someone who doesn't like it unless they can demonstrate that the problem is something other than someone "just taking pictures". However, there is no overriding protection from a constitution, so there are some places where filming has been dealt with by separate laws, such as videoing the film in the cinema, which is dealt with by copyright law, and there is no "constitutional right" that will get in the way here in the UK.

In a private venue, such as a leisure centre, they can use terms of entry to ban filming in certain areas, but it's a civil matter, they can throw you out, but they can't confiscate your equipment or have you arrested unless again it's more than a case of "just taking pictures" which is covered by other legislation.

The error seems to have been the way the Texas law was drafted, and it has taken until now for some clever lawyer to spot the weakness and attack it. It seems it doesn't rely on the nature of the picture itself, but the thoughts and intents of the photographer when taking it. This can never be proven to a criminal degree of certainty, what is being used as "proof" seems to be an interpretation of what the photographer might be thinking based on the thoughts and desires of others, and convicting on the basis of what others think his thoughts and intentions were.

In the case, he was filming children in a pool, children who were properly clothed and in full view of the general public using that facility. No one got into trouble for being there and looking, he got into trouble because he was filming, and it was presumed he did so for a "sexual reason", making the filming "improper". The problem is that when it comes to art and freedom of expression, these cannot be defined by such conventions. Artists can get away with all sorts of works, some rather offensive in nature, but "it's art" they say, and pretty much anything goes. It seems that this formed the basis of the attack by his lawyer, and it worked.

I am not entirely sure how this would be dealt with here in the UK, other than that he would probably be at least questioned by the police, and probably banned by the operators of the pool involved from coming back. If any criminal case was to be made, it would be under the child pornography laws, which have been adapted to cover "images of children" in the context of the digital age. However, it wouldn't be so much the courts he would have to worry about, more likely the local community once they found out about it. Problem is, if he could show that he was genuinely an artist, and that it was part of a work of art, no further action would be taken.

I bet there are quite a few "professional photographers" who are probably using this "occupation" as a cover story in order to take liberties that would not be acceptable to the community were they to have a different occupation. Same goes for "model agents" too, many of whom will offer "free shoots" to young girls with no real intention of producing a portfoloio with a view to getting them modelling work.

We might have to be careful though, because we might end up having to get a "camera licence" in order to take snaps of anything, so that the public can be assured that anyone brandishing a camera within a mile of their kids playing in the park has been properly vetted by the police, and is not going to have "dark thoughts" as he peers through the viewfinder.
 
CM,


Definitely not a cool thing to post about my home state. I get it that you don't believe in the death penalty and that you don'tcare for our governor but you have a lot of members here that are Texans and dang proud of it.

Since I know know what your opinion is quite clearly, please close my account.

Every now and then there's a judge/politician that fucks up and other people will make fun of the place where you live. Here we have a doctor that killed both of his young kids with a knife (stabbed them 21 times) and he's now walking free because the judge ruled it was temporary craziness and the poor guy just needed help. At the same time, a woman is getting life in jail because she stopped on the highway while ducklings were crossing the road which caused an accident and a guy on a motorcycle died.

You need thicker skin Annie. :)
 
So, if photography is now protected as free speech, there is nothing to stop people expressing their constitutional rights in the front row of the cinema when the latest blockbuster is premiered. Their camera is their pen and paintbrush, so they can't be stopped from doing this any more than a film critic can be stopped from watching a film with the intent to write a review for some publication or web blog.

That's actually inaccurate. In the U.S., the Supreme Court has held that copyright law is a constitutionally permissible speech restriction. Copyright law protects the expression of an idea in the presented form. If you film or take photos in the cinema, you're copying the protected expression fixed in the copyrighted work (the movie).

Based on U.S. Supreme Court decisions, "the First Amendment does not shield speech that infringes another's copyright. Copyright is an "engine of free expression" because it supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas."
 
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