War on photography update: NJ Assembly wants to ban taking pictures of children in public

Your vacation pictures could be illegal. The NJ Assembly is considering a bill which would make it a crime to photograph children without first obtaining written permission from their parents.

The bill would ban photographs or recordings of children when "a reasonable parent or guardian would not expect his child to be the subject of such reproduction."

Ah yes, the "reasonable person" standard. Because sure as shootin' what we have in the country is an overabundance of reasonable people.

The rush to action was, of course, precipitated by a creepy guy caught taking video of a middle school swim meet.

Last summer, a 63-year-old man was seen taping children at a local swim meet. Police say when confronted he told them he found girls 8 to 10 sexy.

For the record, ewww. But we don't need to make everyone a potential felon just because of one weirdo. This dude was arrested on trespassing and disorderly persons charges, which somehow were later dropped.

Then along comes an over-excitable (yet, presumably reasonable) mom and, there oughta be a law!

"Our town is in an uproar," said Amy Conklin, who was on vacation when the incident occurred. Otherwise, she said, her own children would have been there. "He is free to do as he wishes because these innocent 8-year-old girls were not naked when he videotaped them."

See what I mean about that "reasonable" thing? Her kids weren't even there and she's still having a cow.

Careful grandma, that graduation photo you just snapped could land you in the slammer. Apparently even if the Conklin family happens to be a thousand miles away at the time.

Let's introduce a little sanity into this discussion, shall we? University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds:

Trying to block photography in public places is not only heavy-handed and wrong but, thanks to technology, basically useless. With the proliferation of cameras in just about every device we carry, digital photography has become too ubiquitous to stop.

For every creep you see holding a camera there's probably two more you don't see. Plus, contrary to what Excitable Mom might think, most of us out there taking pictures are focused on our own kid and we don't really care if your little brat is in the shot or not.

Then there's that pesky Constitution which, you know, gives us the right to take pictures in public.

Legally, it's pretty much always okay to take photos in a public place as long as you're not physically interfering with traffic or police operations. As Bert Krages, an attorney who specializes in photography-related legal problems and wrote Legal Handbook for Photographers, says, "The general rule is that if something is in a public place, you're entitled to photograph it."

Let's keep it that way, OK?

UPDATE 06 May 2011 14:21:
Linked at The Rhetorican. Thanks!

UPDATE 07 May 2011 11:41:
Also linked by Theo Spark, because he's Da Man!

Posted at 10:10 by Chris Wysocki   [/tech]   Comments | Perm Link |
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