So, no doubt you are reading that headline and expecting me to be coming out in favor of perverted, privacy invading photos taken up a woman’s skirt with neither her knowledge nor approval. Naturally I am not, but I am still glad that the Massachusetts Supreme Court did not ban such illicit photography. In fact, the court did exactly what it should have.
Earlier this week the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that these disgusting upskirt shots are not illegal.
Last year a man in Boston was secretly taking video and still shots underneath women’s skirts on the city’s public buses and trains. He was using these photos for a sexual purpose, of course, posting them online for other perverts to see.
It’s a disgusting practice that is clearly a breach of an unaware woman’s privacy–not to mention prurient and perverted–and should clearly be outlawed.
Yet, the Mass. Court ruled that the photos were legal. Why do I celebrate that ruling? Because it was the right thing to do. It really was.
You see, the high court ruled that the law prosecutors were trying to invoke to convict the pervert, the state’s peeping-Tom law, did not apply. That law was created to stop secret photography in bathrooms and changing rooms, it was written to prevent photos of “partially nude” women or women who are undressing in a closed room. It was meant to prevent both a perverted action as well as to protect women’s privacy. On the other hand, an upskirt shot is of a woman who is “fully dressed” and walking around in public. Clearly, by the letter of the law, this peeping-Tom law does not apply to an upskirt shot. The law as written doesn’t work to stop upskirt photography.
Still unclear why I am supporting the Court’s decision?
Because–for a change–the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled based on a strict reading of the law and not a search for any “penumbras” or “emanations”–as courts usually do these days.
Shockingly, the Court did not write law from the bench by summarily extending coverage to something new and unheard of. The court did not create new categories and rules out of whole cloth–like they usually do.
This was the right way for the Court to work. This is the way every court should work.
Today, the Bay State’s legislature announced that it is looking into a new law that would outlaw upskirt photography (as well they should). This is also the proper way to handle this case. If the current law is unsatisfactory on a particular point, the legislature should not be relying on the courts to summarily change laws. The legislators should get to work and make the change themselves. That is what they were hired to do!
So, good on Massachusetts for a proper approach to this pervert’s photos and the outlawing of his invasive proclivities.
