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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTexas ‘Upskirt’ Law Ruled Unconstitutional
This country has lost its mind! An appeals court in Texas has ruled that its OK to take upskirt photos as they are protected by the 1st amentment! I am simply speechless.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday struck down a part of the state penal code that banned people from taking photos or videos up womens skirts in public. The states highest criminal court, in an 8-1 decision, said the statute violated the First Amendments guarantee of free speech by criminalizing photos taken for sexual gratification.
In her summary court opinion, Judge Sharon Keller said the First Amendment protects expressive speech -- in this case a persons purposeful creation of photographs and visual recordings. She called the camera essentially the photographers pen and paintbrush.
http://www.ibtimes.com/texas-upskirt-law-ruled-unconstitutional-anti-creepshot-privacy-statutes-face-legal-1691321
silverweb
(16,402 posts)[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Peeping Toms with cameras. It's free speech!
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)it's clear that the law is too broad, too vague and has too much leeway in interpretation:
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/txstatutes/PE/5/21/21.15
It's up to the Texas state legislature to draft a more specific, narrowly-tailored law
Archae
(46,327 posts)It would have outlawed taking pictures of kids, filming police, and so on.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)Lancero
(3,003 posts)How shocking, I mean who could have ever expected that Texas would do this!
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)yuiyoshida
(41,831 posts)"Sorry about that Chief!"
littlemissmartypants
(22,656 posts)Another idiot, self righteous, religious zealot, republican with a very bad track record. I'm sure she wouldn't stand still for a crotch shot.
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)...in the lady justices' restroom in the Texas Supreme Court building.
ps. Don't search for 'toilet cam' unless you are prepared to be thoroughly disgusted. I have never follow any of the search results but a friend was looking for visual evidence that water drained counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere...and was, uh, surprised at the results (at least that's the story he told me).
salin
(48,955 posts)So folks - you have no right to assume that what is underneath your clothing - if you are wearing a skirt or dress - is private - even when your dress/skirt covers all private areas. Those private areas are not private in the face of a resourceful photographer. And the rights of the photographer trump yours.
Not a ruling by a single judge - but by 8 of 9 judges.
So the only protection - if you where a skirt or dress, and don't want your privates/underpants exposed - wear an extra layer of clothes such as shorts. 8 of 9 judges declared this as law. The clandestine and spying photographer has rights that trump yours. Perhaps these judges are suggesting that if we don't wear Burkas... that we are asking for such violations and having those violations become public?
Yikes!