taking pictures in public -- Texas news story

Jeff, I think Texas imposes a far stricter standard because of its vagueness. Not being a

lawyer I will posit a guess that one standard of review would be the 14th amendment

(leaving the 1st amendment out of it for now). If there' is a standard that is so vague that

it has to be interpreted in each instant anew, than how can it be applied equally under the

constitution. Further if its so broad in its scope, ie, photo of anything that is for sexual

gratification, than it is basically unlimited. So lets say a photo of people's feet may

inadvertantly get someone off who has a foot fetish. The government can always find a

nexus, I just don't think that's constitutionally sound.

 

However, when you look at the Patriot act and other actions by the man from, WOW,

Texas, can anyone wonder. It seems that unlimited and arbitrarily applied legal schemes

are now de rigour in this country in the name of protection. And yes these laws are all

being written and interpreted largely by wealthy, white, upper and upper-middle class

American men and that's a fact however anyone wants to interpret it. I don't see the Black

Caucus, or the Latino rights groups screaming about stopping the pervert photographers.

Instead, its the same basically conservative, wealthy, male, americans that also give us the

"Patriot" act, which allows government agents to arrest anyone, repeat, anyone, suspected

of engaging in any act that they assert is related to terrorism, without probable cause, and

to treat american citizens as "enemy combatants" without recourse to the legal protections

of the consitituion. In other words, suspend our bill of rights based on an asserted

suspicion and without need of any supporting evidence. Yes, sterotyping calls on all

ethnicities, but the fact is the angry white right has a lot more power in order to carry

there's out.

 

Maybe I'm pessimistic,but I see more and more unlimited power given to the government

to declare anybody they are afraid of, not sure of, or simply someone who's different as

either a deviant or terrorist arbitrarily and put them away, in some cases without a trial for

unlimited amounts of time.

for those crying 'restriction of our rights in public' and 'we can take pictures of you if we want in public' (i agree btw) here's a question: if the pictures in fact are all questionable (close up's of woments chest, crotch, children's crotch areas etc) should this be allowed or should the man face a penalty? after all, the subjects are in public, fully clothed and hey, he's shooting his 'art'. i say grill him.

 

tricky matter. the statute could use some re working i agree. and yes, come to canada. saskatoon is beautiful :)

saskatoon is beautiful :)

 

...you mean Totonto... :)

 

are you back or just logging on Matt?

just logging on eric. back in 2 weeks for a feature

"...Investigators said they found more than 12 photographs that depicted specific parts of women's and children's bodies on Vogel's camera..."

 

another vague comment...more than 12........hmmmm sounds like 13 to me. But, regardless............out of how many? (we'll hold on the thought of what is sexually gratifying for the moment). Well, this was an Octoberfest, and he apparently had a digital cam. Me, if I was shooting this for my own personal use, as my hobby, I'd probably have about 3 or 4 hundred pics by late afternoon (assuming that posted time of 5:17 pm is maybe an hour after it happen....a guess, but prob accurate). so it's possibly greater than 12 pics out of 400. Even if they were of butts, I wouldn't consider the guy a pervert......not at that per centage anyhow. If all he took was 13 pics.........then I'd question his integrity.

 

Personally, I think someone needs to take cases that border on the ridiculous (this may not be one.........still don't have enough info..........jeez, the guy could have be "hip shooting" and not even known what was on the cam)......on the ridiculous side and file suit against a few people. Would make them think twice about putting some (probably) innocent photographer thru a totally uncalled for legal hassle.

 

The problem with all this is that taking the picture (sans upskirting) is perfectly legal. It's what is done afterwards with it that can become illegal. That is what the authorities should be concentrating on with the laws and implimentation of laws. If this trend of mixing the legal act and the post (suspected) illegal act together....continues.......we will approach the condition of "thought police" very shortly.

 

shortly after that, LOOKING at another person could be constrewed as illegal. Yeah, that's the ticket.........get that pervert before he even thinks of using a camera. Get them while they're still thinking it. So............how do you know what a person is thinking? You don't. Until they act on it. Taking a picture is not acting on it. What happens later may well be, but taking the picture is not. Because you CANNOT prove what the person was thinking when they took it..........only when then do something later on with it can you prove what they were thinking.

 

Why doesn't any one get this very simple concept!?

May a Brit poke his nose in ?

 

Assuming that I may, I have to say I agree with nearly everything Michael Sebastian had to say. Read the law and the "and" becomes vital to an interpretation of it.

 

It is really somewhat pointless to speculate about this individual until some time in the future when the full facts ( or as near as you get to them in a court of law ) are made evident. If guilty as charged then he probably deserves all he gets but until then I would suggest we reserve judgement.

 

I have a few personal beliefs about a lot of modern lawmaking ( wherever it is enacted ) :-

 

1. Too much of it is a knee-jerk reaction to sometimes isolated events

 

2. Many of the law makers do it for their own personal aggrandisement rather than any real interest

 

3. Much of it is left vague deliberately, perhaps to widen it's scope to cover areas that would have been rejected if they had been fully specified

 

4. Many politicians will utilise a public outcry or a state of fear to enact rules that they believe will make it easier for them to govern us pretty much regardless of the consequences

 

Vent over.

 

On a lighter note - as the US would appear to be a dog loving society would you like to have a lap-dog ( the one mentioned previously ) sent over ?

"...will make it easier for them to govern us pretty much regardless of the consequences..."

 

exactly

"in publicly accessible places such as bathrooms and changing rooms, in public hospitals, etc., etc., there is an expectation of a right to privacy."

 

The issue was being in public in general, not about merely being in a place the public can access.

jenna:

 

you sound more and more like maria at time. :-)

 

generalisation is never a good way to observe or understand our life, regardless if you have any specific experience with certain group of people. there is no argument there, i hope. being a chinese who couldn't speak the proper english at time (still can't) living in mississippi, i had encountered some pretty dramatic events including once chased down by three cowboys in a beat-up pickup truck wide open on the street, during day time while riding my bike to school. another time taking a drop of a water baloon from a balcony in the student union by two white boys. i could easily say that i have seen them all and all whites are...(fill in what you think).

 

and now i married to a white girl who originally came from maine and grew up in cincinnati.

 

i also have encountered an opposite and lived in chinatown in nyc for a period of time. some of them are pretty suspicious of just about everything. we are talking about the poorest population on this side of the world and certainly they are non-white.

 

i am not a big fan of gated suburban population myself and i live in a city slum with largely black population today. but i try everyday to not categorize my neighbors and the neighbors next community over.

 

you can never have enough personal experience to really nail down a concept in a general way about certain race or class.

 

just some food for thought...

tom sullivan - "It's what is done afterwards with it that can become illegal. That is what the authorities should be concentrating on with the laws and implimentation of laws. If this trend of mixing the legal act and the post (suspected) illegal act together....continues.......we will approach the condition of "thought police" very shortly."

 

i am absolutely with you there, tom.

<i>Even if they were of butts, I wouldn't consider the guy a

pervert</i><p>

 

I'm having a laugh on that one Tom.. can't help it... just sounds

funny. ;)

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3599952-md.jpg">

Which one?

We don't have enough facts to know what Mr. Vogel was up to. If he was shooting up-skirts, then no one here (I'm hoping) is going to condone or defend that.<br>The Texas law is ridiculously vague - how the hell do you find grounds for probable cause, given the multitude of ways in which different people can get off, unless the nature of the shots is patently obvious? So that ends up leaving a huge amount of discretion with the cops.<br>And here's where I kind of agree with Jenna. In my experience, primarily relating to Seattle and its suburbs, the cops in the wealthy suburbs, where crime tends to be low, often just aren't that bothered about exercising their discretion and interpreting laws in the spirit they were intended. It's well known here that the Medina police (Bill Gates' neighbourhood) are absurd sticklers for the law. This is a hugely expensive neighbourhood with about zero diversity, income-wise at least and, frankly, I just think the cops don't have much to do and are bored out of their skulls. I also suspect that they're trying to keep the neighbourhood the way they imagine its residents want it. Two of the state's key constitutional cases come from these neighbourhoods - no soliciting in Medina - because they didn't want strangers in the neighbourhood, and whether the cops had probable cause to arrest a guy because ... he was on foot and not driving, and not white, in a neighbourhood where, well, you can guess.<br>I don't have the same qualms about the cops in Seattle - they have more important things to occupy them, and seem less inclined to get involved with something frivolous. So when I'm in these neighbourhoods, I'm uncomfortable about the cops in ways that I'm not in Seattle. I'd definitely think harder about shooting there than I would in Seattle.<br>And Bill, on the lap-dog issue (speaking as a Brit living in the US), let's keep Tone out of the US. Bush is (well, let's be kind here) not the most manifestly intelligent, articulate or informed individual, and people still voted for him. People here drool at Blair's ability to make a good speech, without notes even! But it's the agendas which are scary.

Wow -- what a long thread. I am also appalled at how a vague law (or several, in this case) can be mis-interpreted by the authorities and how that affects us as photographers. However, I would like to point out that there are people out there, who do photograph women especially, for sexual reasons. When I lived in Japan, it was not uncommon for male Japanese photographers to take pictures of women, especially foreign women, for what I would consider "dubious" reasons. And they were not street photographers. These were guys with serious glass in the 300-500mm range who would hide in the bushes at the beach to take pictures of me and my friends in our swimwuits (bikinis), and I've seen guys get into corners of crowded tourist spots to take plenty of photos of tall, usually blonde, well-endowed women and teenagers of which they were totally unaware they were being photographed. I've actually confronted a few of these guys and they get really shame-faced and slink away -- not the behaviour of someone with good intentions. Here's another interesting story concerning the Japanese women's Olympic swim team:

 

"OSAKA (Kyodo) Descente Ltd. said Friday it has developed swimwear material that remains opaque when filmed by an infrared camera.

 

The material will be used by Japanese swimmers at the Athens Olympics, which open Aug. 13.

 

The material, dubbed Video Proof, will be used as lining in swimwear and is intended to ease concerns by female swimmers over being shot by infrared cameras, which can make regular swimwear appear transparent, the Osaka-based sportswear company said.

 

"Since there are some competitive swimmers who can't concentrate on swimming (due to the situation), with their results adversely affected in the competition, we hope to back them up as much as possible (with the new material)," a company official said.

 

I don't want to make generalizations here, but this is something that has happened to me more than once, and I hope that most of the male posters on this forum realize how being photographed secretly (albeit in public) affects women. I wish it didn't -- but it's a reality. I work in a public place (a museum) where we get photographed all the time, and then those photos (sometimes)get posted or printed in questionable manner in magazines or websites. As a result of all this, I've become much more sensitive as a photographic subject, which frustrates me because if everyone acted the way I did, I'd never get any shots as a photographer!

"Bush is (well, let's be kind here) not the most manifestly intelligent, articulate or informed individual, and people still voted for him."

 

This is trashing the majority of the American voting public as idiots, IMO.

 

Historically (US, Europe, elsewhere), the people who voted for a leader (knowing full well what their agenda is beforehand) is spared and the elected leader made a scapegoat if anything goes astray.

 

Bush is a very smart and intelligent person and has proven that he can wage successful campaigns to be elected- not once but twice.

Vivek: as they used to say in a now defunct empire, "res ipsa loquitur"

"Bush is a very smart and intelligent person and has proven that he can wage successful campaigns to be elected- not once but twice."

 

didn't Bush put his campaign boxing gloves on with rolls of pennies clenched in each fist? I prefer a bic lighter, personally.

"didn't Bush put his campaign boxing gloves on with rolls of pennies clenched in each fist? I prefer a bic lighter, personally."

 

did he also take all the vote boxes home to count the votes? oh, nevermind. i see this tread going down now...

sorry...

Gosh, this is an interesting discussion that hits close to home. First, I am a Southlake taxpayer and have owned a business here. I think the reaction to Jenna's comment about (I'm paraphrasing) "upper middle class being 'more' conservative" was just a description -- I don't think she meant that they are more conservative and paranoid than any other race...they could be 'more' conservative than poor white people or the people in Seattle and Canada, for that matter (I don't know!). So, the comments made about this being racist was a bit of an over-reaction. I guess if I saw someone robbing a bank, I would just have to describe them as, uh, "well, officer, it was a "person" that robbed the bank". I couldn't mention gender, or what color hair or skin or comment on weight, lest someone would take offense. Ok...I'm off my soapbox.

 

I think there are MANY laws that are vague -- they're written that way to leave room for the laywers to argue their point in court! Southlake is definitely an upper-income conservative community and, interestingly, at least 75% of the residents are from out of state/country...California, New York, Midwestern, etc. It's rather "transient" as people move in and out within 2 to 3 years...mainly because executives are transferred in and out. I'm a rare bird here, being a native (that's native Texan!) So, the local government is voted in by non-native Texans and will be the ones supporting or complaining of the city services. Other communities are under the same Texas law, right? So, this situation isn't necessarily a "Texas" thing...it is a community thing.

 

That being said, this situation DOES concern me because I was just photographing the homecoming parade. I'll have my eyes and ears open about this story. It is quite possible the officers noticed something suspicious and that this guy was being very selective in who and what he was photographing (maybe he was doing "other" things that caused concern)...they may truly have had probable cause. We don't know. It's still disturbing, either way!

 

BTW, don't speed driving through Southlake...they won't care what color you are or how much money you have in the bank!

 

Paula

Straight from the great and intelligent man's own mouth:<BR><BR><i>"I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves."<BR></i> Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2003<BR><BR>

 

<i>"I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." <BR> </i>as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War <BR><BR>

 

<i>"We need an energy bill that encourages consumption."</i><BR>Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002<BR><BR>

<i>"Do you have blacks, too?" </i><BR>to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001<BR><BR>

 

<i>"The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."</i> <BR>explaining why high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy, Annandale, Va., Aug. 9, 2004<BR><BR>

My apologies for going OT. Vivek said "W" was intelligent and I couldn't resist.

Folks, I was not being sinical or ignorant. I think what i said was clear enough and I do not want to elaborate on it.

I did not mean to be insulting Vivek and hope you didn't take it that way. You and I merely disagree on W's intelligence. I find him barely literate.