THE Political Issue of the Decade

No more easy taking "up the skirt pictures' this sucks, back to hanging out in the park....

The text of the bill is short

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...and here it is: 'VOTE 2 BAN SLNT CAM FONEZ NOW!!1!!'

This is real. The predation, I mean.

High school girls use it to humiliate other girls about their body image. Adults take covert pictures of people, underage and otherwise, and trade them around on the Internet. I've been known to patronize, ahem, "mature", forums, and these human stains have become sources of great contempt and controversy. It really is a dangerous technology that, as advancement continues, threatens to extinguish privacy.

So I support the spirit of the law, at least. I'm not sure the logistics are practical, but if it's worth controlling access to firearms, it's certainly worth controlling access to silent stealth cameras, because they're only going to get smaller and stealthier as time goes on, and I don't want to be on live video for someone else's amusement without even knowing it.

I suspect the regulation will only apply to devices manufactured going-forward.

nevada said:

Quote Redacted...no this is not a conspiracy.

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Oh come on. Make a cell phone non-silent won't stop anyone. The bill is frivolous.

Yet another "let's punish EVERYONE for the antics of a FEW" broadstroke solution that is way off base.

relax.

Obama's on the job.

all will be well.

Dateline Washington, DC, January 29, 2009 -- The Nanny State mentality is still alive and kicking.

nevada said:

<a bunch of stuff that is now deleted that will render my post useless but whatev lol>

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Who said anything about getting rid of regulations?

We're just tired of forcing EVERYBODY into a certain mold because of a few sick fucks.

Go after the people who are actually doing this, and when you catch someone, string them up and make a huge example out of them. The people who do this, who get caught, get a slap on the wrist.

And let's face it, this isn't going to solve the problem. They can change the technology all they want, but these people will always find a way around the technology. This isn't a solution. This is a waste of time and money.

This looks like yet another attempt to use technology to solve a morals problem.

This has as much chance of happening as Britney Spears has of winning the Nobel in Literature. This guy is a complete fool. Amazing as it may seem, there are a few of them lurking in the halls of Congress; every so often one of them, owing to hormone imbalance or something, decides he/she needs some publicity for the home folks, and comes up with some braindead proposal like this. It always gets a news story, and a laugh. Devoting anything other than the energy of ridicule at it is a waste of time and neurons. Next week we'll have a new one to laugh at.

caw

So if the bill passes, and and you hear a click from a camera, what are you going to do, tackle the person?

I see the other side here too, very strongly. It's not a clear-cut issue to me. Like I said, I'm not sure the logistics of the proposed law are practical, and I certainly won't want folks ending up in jail for refusing to upgrade their phone.

A healthier approach than restricting the technology might be to make taking a picture of someone in a private area like a shower (or from a "private angle") [EDIT: without their consent, of course] an automatic sexual harassment charge. This also gets around Diana's issue of "you hear the click, what do you do?"

I certainly think a non-public locale should have the right to say, "taking pictures of people on my property without my consent is a crime." The property-rights libertarian sorts should be as all-over that as liberals, if you think about it right. And then you could just extend that to schools and school administrators.

My primary point was just that this really happens, and it's a growing form of sexual (and non-sexual) harassment, not just a joke.

Contemplative said:

A healthier approach than restricting the technology

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There is no such thing.

might be to make taking a picture of someone in a private area like a shower (or from a "private angle") [EDIT: without their consent, of course] an automatic sexual harassment charge. This also gets around Diana's issue of "you hear the click, what do you do?"

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And how would you prove consent?

I certainly think a non-public locale should have the right to say, "taking pictures of people on my property without my consent is a crime." The property-rights libertarian sorts should be as all-over that as liberals, if you think about it right. And then you could just extend that to schools and school administrators.

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Restricting on right upon basis of another is not what libertarians are usually about. And then you could extend it to all government building, then commercial businesses, then city-wide, then county-wide, then state-wide, then nation-wide. While I don't like cigarette smoke, that is the problem I have with the anti-laws.

My primary point was just that this really happens, and it's a growing form of sexual (and non-sexual) harassment, not just a joke.

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Yes it does. Limiting technology is not the way to go about it.

When you limit technology the butterfly effect can be tremendous. It may sound simple to you that the sound is turned on....but that loss of option can limit the phone in other ways as well.

Plus the slippery slope of blaming the technology NOT the user.

Tirjasdyn said:

And how would you prove consent?

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We get along okay with consent-based rape laws.

Well, okay, we get along terrible, and they're all fucked up, but that's not a reason to legalize rape.

Ditto dirty-talking and sexual harassment.

Tirjasdyn said:

Restricting on right upon basis of another is not what libertarians are usually about. And then you could extend it to all government building, then commercial businesses, then city-wide, then county-wide, then state-wide, then nation-wide.

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The policy I was proposing is that the owner of a property should control how cameras can be used on it, not the state should legislate it everywhere. But for schools... yeah, I have absolutely no problem with the state banning or regulating cameraphones in all public schools.

Tirjasdyn said:

When you limit technology the butterfly effect can be tremendous.

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I actually agree with this, strongly. I'm very against DRM, for example. I'm very conflicted about this, which is why my second proposal was not to limit technology, but to expand sexual harassment laws to more adequately cover a new kind of harassment enabled by new technology.

I think that expanding existing laws to keep up with technology-based social change is very necessary, personally, and not always fast enough.

ColoradoGuy said:

And from a Republican, no less. I thought that was impossible. Now, about those handguns . . .

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The modern PASC (Politically Active Social Conservative) Republican has never been much interested in freedom of individual behavior. Look hard at the rhetoric, and you'll see it centers around reducing or eliminating restrictions on commercial enterprise and corporate activities. It's been that way since at least the Reagan days. This frothbrain Congressman is nothing more than a dopey example of that kind of thinking.

caw

ColoradoGuy said:

And from a Republican, no less. I thought that was impossible. Now, about those handguns . . .

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Come and get 'em, sucka.