One of the more bizarre legal outcomes relating to privacy last year had to be a Washington state’s ruling that two men who pointed cameras up women’s skirts in public places were not guilty of violating the state’s anti-voyeurism laws.
The men had surreptitiously used video cameras to film women and girls at a shopping mall and at an outdoor festival. They were charged with violating anti-voyeurism statutes, but a state court ruled that the law governing such crimes did not ban such practices in public places.
Washington State Rep. Patricia Lantz told Reuters,
In the previous (anti-voyeurism) bill, we didn’t consider the remote possibility that jerks would go around filming up the skirts of women.
. . .
As nasty as it is to the victims, standing over my desk and looking down my blouse is not a crime. But this bill makes it clear you have a reasonable expectation of privacy about your body and a person’s ability to film intimate areas of your body.
Source:
Law targets ‘up-skirt’ filming. Reuters, January 17, 2003.