Musings on Privacy and Legality
Jan. 18th, 2011 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
This morning an LJ friend of mine linked to a website with some paparazzi shots of Scott Caan, an actor in the new Hawaii 5-O TV series. Mr Caan is a surfer, and like thousands of surfers every day, he stands by his car and wraps a towel around his waist while he peels off his wetsuit and changes into dry clothes. As Mr Caan is now a Hot New Actor, unlike the others, he was being watched by a photographer who figured out that with the right camera angle and timing, he could grab a shot or two where the towel briefly draped open and Mr Caan's genitals were visible. These photographs are now available to anyone who cares to browse the internet for them.
I've been musing on this through the day, and my really big question is - why isn't this illegal?
There are voyeur laws to stop me from spying on my neighbour and taking pictures like this. There are stalking laws to prevent me from following someone around and making unreasonable intrusions into their lives. So why are those laws abandoned the moment the voyeuristic stalker has an expensive camera and a 400mm lens?
Sure, you can say, Mr Caan will have known photographers were around that day. He had the option of going to the bathroom to change instead of risking the towel. But why should he have to do that? The bathroom may be a mile down the beach. Why is Mr Caan not entitled to do what thousands of other people do every day, without his genitals being opportunistically exposed to the entire world?
There's an easy fix for this, surely. Pass a law making it illegal to publish photos of parts of anyone's body that are not considered acceptable to expose in public, without that person's written consent. People selling or publishing such photos will be fined a minimum of five times any profit they have made from the pictures. Anyone who wants to pose for Playboy can sign the form, and nobody's freedom of expression is impeded. Meanwhile, Mr Caan can dress in peace. The law would have the added benefit of putting a stop to the scumbags who publicise naked photos of their ex after a breakup - the photos may have been taken consensually, but no sticking them on the internet without written permission.
Who would object to that law, apart from the scuzzbag tabloids? So why doesn't it exist?
I've been musing on this through the day, and my really big question is - why isn't this illegal?
There are voyeur laws to stop me from spying on my neighbour and taking pictures like this. There are stalking laws to prevent me from following someone around and making unreasonable intrusions into their lives. So why are those laws abandoned the moment the voyeuristic stalker has an expensive camera and a 400mm lens?
Sure, you can say, Mr Caan will have known photographers were around that day. He had the option of going to the bathroom to change instead of risking the towel. But why should he have to do that? The bathroom may be a mile down the beach. Why is Mr Caan not entitled to do what thousands of other people do every day, without his genitals being opportunistically exposed to the entire world?
There's an easy fix for this, surely. Pass a law making it illegal to publish photos of parts of anyone's body that are not considered acceptable to expose in public, without that person's written consent. People selling or publishing such photos will be fined a minimum of five times any profit they have made from the pictures. Anyone who wants to pose for Playboy can sign the form, and nobody's freedom of expression is impeded. Meanwhile, Mr Caan can dress in peace. The law would have the added benefit of putting a stop to the scumbags who publicise naked photos of their ex after a breakup - the photos may have been taken consensually, but no sticking them on the internet without written permission.
Who would object to that law, apart from the scuzzbag tabloids? So why doesn't it exist?
