The story went like this: A judge ruled that a sixty-one-year-old man who admitted to taking "upskirt" photos of a thirteen-year-old girl in a department store did not break any laws. (This happened in Portland, Oregon just this past week.) The knee-jerk comments after the story went something like this: The judge should be disbarred/pilloried, etc. Someone even suggested that the judge's family should be surreptitiously photographed just to see how he liked it. And, of course, there were those that simply blamed the whole thing on liberals. Strangely enough, there wasn't too much written about the actual perpetrator of the act who is obviously a creepy old dude. And while there was a rousing back-and-forth about how judges can only enforce laws that are on the books and not make up new ones--that is why the creepy old dude got off--nobody thought to wonder just why there were no laws already on the books to criminalize this kind of behavior. Follow me into the rabbit hole for my two cents.
Laws about photography are complicated, even more so in our modern world of omnipresent surveillance. If you ban unauthorized photos of people in public wearing clothing, you basically ban all public photography with people in the shot, as well as all security cameras. Laws concerning unauthorized photography have to be very narrowly written. Usually these laws mention "sexual" in the description of what kind of unauthorized photos are not permitted. That description usually means nudity. Taking a picture of someone's clothing is not considered sexual, even if it is the underwear of a thirteen-year-old. In reality that would be no different than taking a picture of a thirteen-year-old in a bathing suit. It is still a picture of clothing. How would you criminalize such a photograph? How would such a law be worded? No crotch-shots? Nope, that would ban all public photography. Everyone has a crotch. Nothing shot below the waist? Same thing. Nothing shot from a certain angle or from a certain perspective? We're getting closer but that would still ban a lot of perfectly innocent photographs, as well as a lot of advertisements.
But what about the intent? This guy was obviously a creepy old dude, right? Sure he was. Unfortunately, we are now straying into the realm of thought-crimes. One can look through any number of advertisements to find pictures of children wearing clothes. If a sixty-one-year-old man gets his jollies from looking at those pictures, that might make him a creepy old dude, but there isn't really any crime being committed.
Many of the comments I read mentioned the child as a "victim" or used word "abuse." These words were used as if they were settled facts. Remember, this was a fully clothed girl in a department store.
Now, before you all start to flame me for sticking up for the rights of the creepy old dude, let me make clear that that is not the point of this diary. The point is that there are not always easy answers to complicated problems. I didn't read all of the comments because they were becoming repetitive, and when one reads a comment thread far enough it is very likely that Godwin's Law will kick in. But the comments all seemed to just assume that there is always an obvious, easy answer, with no debate required.
My point here is not to ask if this girl is really a victim of anything, or how can we ban this behavior if she is. My point is to wonder why no one was asking those questions. Is it because anyone who did ask those questions would immediately be subjected to name-calling and flame? Is this what makes our politicians and media figures so averse to actually discussing any issues? Feel free to discuss. Or flame me. It will be interesting to see which rabbit hole we go down.