Last week I wrote about an article run by Salon about "upskirting" and "downblousing" using a quote from John Morris at the Center for Democracy and Technology that certainly set off some alarm bells.
From my post,
Unfortunately, the debate that ensues is a question of whether or not your privacy is being violated since you are on the street and as a public place is free to be photographed with all participants or as John Morris, from the Center for Democracy & Technology, says in the article, "If you don't want to be photographed walking the street, don't walk down the street -- it's a public street."
I have a friend that works at CDT and felt this was a bad characterization of the goals and values of their organization and brought it to the attention of the Director and CEO Leslie Harris, who has released this statement.
The recent Salon article, "Porn in a Flash," contains a quote from our General Council John Morris that was taken out of context. John's quote: "If you don't want to be photographed walking the street, don't walk down the street -- it's a public street," spoke to the broader, general question of whether someone has an expectation of privacy in a public place. Placement of the quote, however, made John sound unsympathetic toward "upskirting" and "downblousing." Of course these practices are wrong, and of course there is a difference between a snapshot on the street and this sort of invasive voyeurism.CDT is a strong advocate of personal privacy and commends the steps states have taken to criminalize these nefarious practices. Federal privacy laws were passed before the majority of today's portable technologies existed outside of Dick Tracy comic books. That's why CDT is pressing Congress to rewrite the privacy laws and bring them up-to-date with today's technology and provide the sorely needed protections missing from the law as it stands today. We fully believe that state invasion of privacy laws can, if carefully drafted, adequately address these upskirting and downblousing practices.
Leslie Harris
President & CEO
Center for Democracy & Technology
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Well done, Samhita.
good for you, Samhita!
As for this guy- I really don't see what the distinction is between his comment and the "context" the spokesperson put it in, and I think this apology doesn't really help things. Yeah, there is not a total expectation of privacy on a public street. But that's not what he said. He said "If you don't want to be photographed walking the street, don't walk down the street..." in reference to the topic: upskirting. Seemed like a pretty specific comment to me, and a pretty condescending and dismissive one at that! If that doesn't represent their organization, they need to try harder to make me believe it.
Reading between the lines, the organization has said that what this guy said is not the organization's position. "Taken out of context" can be a media euphemism. It's possible he was actually taken out of context, talking about public security cameras and the like; but it's also possible he got his leash yanked. Either way, the org is now clear on their position that nonconsensual upskirt photos are wrong, and it looks like they are saying it should be prohibited by law.
That's true, I do appreciate the direct comments the CEO made about the issue. I guess I just assume that when people say "it was taken out of context", that they will print the full sentence or paragraph to show what the exact context was that shows he was misunderstood. The "context" she provided didn't really convince me that he meant otherwise. But I do appreciate that SHE at least understood why that was a messed up idea, whether he meant it or not.
He said "If you don't want to be photographed walking the street, don't walk down the street..." in reference to the topic: upskirting.
I don't the topic was upskirting when he made that comment, and that's what this clarification was addressing. That is exactly the "out of context" they are talking about. They have taken a general comment about privacy rights in public places (which he has accurately paraphrased), and positioned it in the article in a manner that implied he was defending upskirting.
It sounds like he might've just been explaining current privacy laws. Like, "As the law currently stands, your privacy is not protected in any public place. In other words, if you don't want to be photographed walking the street, don't walk down the street - it's a public street." Because as I understand it that is how federal privacy laws now work. And if that was the case, I would say his comment was taken out of context, since he was just explaining the legality of upskirting, not agreeing with the practice. Of course, there's nothing to indicate that that was actually what he was doing. I just get that impression from the apology.
Either way, as Thomas said, the apology clarifies their position. And I do hope they're actively working to change these laws, as their CEO implied in the apology.
I can understand concern about upskirting. But where do you draw the line? How about videos on YouTube of women just walking down the street? No crazy angles, or intense zoom-ins. Just women walking.
Or how about videos of women on the beach? That's as scantily clad as people can get, and we all know on the beach every body worth checking out gets checked out.
Creepy, yes. But what can you do? Ideas anyone?
Are you for real? What can you do? How about, what not to do: don't take pictures up women's skirts or down women's blouses. Like rape, all you have to do to avoid doing it is just sit there.
And please, spare me any comments about how oppressed you are for being prevented from snapping snatches.
I think this is more about the legality of the issue, how do we construct laws that forbid this while not taking it too far.
Easy, FrumB. I'm talking about what can we do about it as people just going about our daily lives, walking around wearing whatever. I'm not attacking or defending anyone, just curious about what readers out there think.
I'm a little unsure where I stand myself. Just this summer two women on the beach shouted me out, asked me to come over to their towel for a minute. I walked over and saw they had a little camera going, which kind of turned me from being friendly to kind of being a little creeped out. But just a little.
They had clearly been drinking, and they didn't seem threatening, but what could have been a fun and enjoyable encounter for all involved was ruined by the presence of the camera. THEY were clearly enjoying themselves, though. So I said my polite goodbye, and left to parting whistles and catcalls.
Bad form on their part? Yeah, but no charges were pressed. And I have watched videos of candid women on the beach, so I've no moral high ground on the issue. Just trying to sort through my own experience with some added insight from posters.
I think you have a completely legitimate question.
The article mentioned women who were photographed wearing tight pants- no one's questioning their right to wear pants of any tightness they choose, but can a law be crafted to stop photography that is contextually disturbing?
If I'm in public wearing my uber-tight jeans and I bend down to tie my shoelace, and a creep zooms his camera in on my (fully covered) rear end... I'm not sure how to ban that. Photography with sexual intent?
Every 'obesity in America' special on the news features the clothed lower body of some unfortunate large person. I doubt those people gave consent, but the context wasn't sexual. I hope a better legal mind than mine is on this.
No one is talking about photos taken on the beach. There is an obvious distinction between photographing a person walking on the street and shoving a camera between her legs to photograph underneath her clothing. The law can easily make that distinction. This is NOT a slippery slope.
Maybe in your example there is a clear distinction, but what about a woman sitting on steps in a skirt and carelessly showing her panties while someone takes a shot of that?
This is most definitely a legal nightmare that could easily start seeing ridiculous prosecutions as a result.
The key is education and changing social attitudes - not legislation.
Oh, give me a break. So you write the law using a reasonable person standard - anything that is visible to your average person walking down the street is fair game, and anything that you have to do something unusual and/or invasive to get a picture of is not. We do this all the time when it's possible for someone to make an honest mistake.
Out of curiosity, what other forms of sexual assault do you think should be left up to 'education and changing social attitudes', rather than outlawing them?
Actually, Zac, there isn't anything prohibiting people from taking photos in such places as those are public places. There actually are laws that pertain to photography in public places and what you can and can't do. You can photograph the following: People in public if part of a general scene or crowd. (individuals needs to sign model releases if you're focusing on them) Children with the parent/guardian's permission.
You cannot photograph things such as Government or other nationally restricted property, inside private property without the owner's permission (although you legally can stand on a public sidewalk across the street and photograph the outside), children without permission, individuals without a model's release or recorded verbal permission, or anywhere you know has a policy against being photographed or recorded (i.e., breaking the rules such as in a museum, etc.).
So for example, I could stand on the street and photo or video people walking by, yes. I can take snapshots of crowds. These rights are similar in Canada, and a quick search on Google for Photographer's rights will bring up a couple documents about rights/laws and privacy issues written by some lawyers. This being the best one for the USA.
However, when it comes to the topic of upskirting/downblousing, you are talking not about just photography, but two major issues. The lesser of which is photographing an individual without their written release, and the greater of which is the violation of bodily integrity. Use those two charges, and I'm pretty sure the law will be on the side of the person who was photographed.
I don't mean to nit-pick, but you don't need a model release to photograph someone in public. You only need a model release if you're planning to publish the photograph in a commercial context. The model release is required because people have a right called "the right of publicity" which says that they get to control whether or not their image is used to promote things. So you couldn't take a picture of Ice T and put it on your bottled iced tea so that Law and Order: SVU fans would buy it unless you had his permission.
The photographer's rights sheet you linked to (which I highly recommend) makes no mention of needing a model release. The fact that model releases aren't needed for the photographing is actually a very good thing in some situations because otherwise if you saw a cop abusing their authority, you wouldn't be allowed to photograph or videotape them without their permission. But at the same time, someone can't take your picture and then use it commercially without your permission.
Thank you for clearing that one up; I had been confused.
Also, Ice-T iced tea nearly made me snort coffee out my nose. I always wondered why he didn't capitalize on that, like a bad-ass Paul Newman.
Good for you, Samhita!
But this center has a serious issue with phrasing... "Placement of the quote, however, made John sound unsympathetic toward "upskirting" and "downblousing."
He SHOULD be UNsympathetic toward "upskirting". He should be SYMPATHETIC towards the VICTIMS of "upskirting". I strongly urge this center to run all written statements by the nearest English teacher before printing.
I wonder if there's a legal difference between 'upskirting' and 'downblousing'. If someone places a recording device under clothing obviously meant to cover a portion of the body (like a skirt), it seems patently illegal. However, if someone's clothing falls in a manner that exposes their body in a public place and it is photographed, I'm not sure that is quite the same. It's disgusting and creepy, but I'm not sure it's illegal. A friend of mine had a man try to surreptitiously photograph her while she was breastfeeding on a train.... eugh.
Also, if individuals are required to sign model releases, how paparazzi allowed to photograph celebrities? I'm not being snitty, I just don't know.
Zac,
I think you're right. Your question really gets at an issue that almost got raised on the last post about this...
You can't govern sexual intent. If men go to the beach and ogle women (or vice versa) there's no law stopping them. They can do it all day, everyday as long as they don't engage in any sort of harassment.
The issue with not wanting to be photographed shouldn't be framed as "I don't want men to jack off to an image of me." Yes, it's a disturbing thought. But framing the issue in that way is sort of a dead end. After all, if men want to jack off to anyone's Facebook photo, they most certainly are capable of doing so. In fact, a lot of people willingly post photos of themselves at Halloween that are easily jack-off material and there are message boards devoted to snatching up these photos that have been signed, sealed and delivered to the universe by uploading them to the web. Is it wrong for men to use them sexually? Sure. Is masturbation something you can govern? No.
The issue is a privacy issue. There's something wrong with photographing a women's erogenous zones without permission and the law needs to reflect that. The law can't govern male sexual desire. But it can change the way the concept of privacy works in the law.
I'm glad/surprised that you posted this.
Feministing have several times in the past nefariously misquoted/misinterpreted people's quotes(Summers and Scalia), and it restores some credibility when you offer retractions or allow rebuttal from the party in question.
no one misquoted Summers. he spoke plainly; he feels women are not as smart as men--in dem dare brains of them dar women folks. no evidence, no problem:-) dem womens too stupid to know dars no evidence.
now, for all this worry over a man who thinks it may or may not be OK to snap a pic of a woman's boobs on the street, i will point you all to a much bigger Boob! Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post. The guy actually wrote: Palin Does Georgia!
Question is??? Will Feminsiting cover this??? hmmmmm??
And what is hilarious:
Femisex.com called Wapo and got them to admit if this porno insult was said in workplace it would be sexual harassment!
I hope Feministing will cover this story on Wapo Sexism even if you've committed ur own against Palin. in the meantime, check out the Femisex story.. a good laugh!
Go find the transcript of what he said.
While I don't think what he said was perfectly right, you have to make a substantive leap to translate what he said into "women can't do science"
Jill b, there is a place to submit ideas for posts – this thread is not it. And try to remember that Feministing is not your personal blog and as such they are under no obligation to post on every topic you think they should cover. Feel free write your own posts on the Community page (that’s why it was created after all) instead of disrupting threads with off-topic rants.
Shelbywoo has rules. (is Shelbywoo the site or a reader?)And she can BSlap quite well to boot!
rules:
1. no replying to the qwerty's comment about Summers and Feministing misquoting Summers.
2. no suggestions for links to a sexist story that needs serious attention!
shall you write my post for me? that way i will be sure not to rant, go off topic, or annoy you in anyway. i so want to be a good girl.
poor dear qwerty-- i was there! i know exactly what was said.
i don't mean to condesend but if you can't process what Summers said then i am sorry for your innately crippled brain.
Oh, sure, out of context. It's still exactly the same thing as saying to a man "You don't have the right not to be photographed in an office building" as an excuse to take a photograph of him using the toilet in said office building.
No, there is no expectation of privacy on a street. Yes, there is an expectation of privacy inside clothes.
Swish! Exactly.
What about the issue of magnification? For example, a woman in a bikini at a beach obviously doesn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy if people choose to photophraph her bum.
But a lot of cameras (I don't know about phones) have zooms where, from a distance of ten metres, it would be possible to take a shot showing every dimple and hair follicle: the kind of thing you could only *see* if you were sitting on her beach towel.
Now this *seems* wrong, but probably not according to you definition. Suggestions?