Pixiq

Among other things, it seems to me that every business with a security camera would have to disable those cameras lest they photograph children. And that doesn't even begin to cover the situations outlined in the linked articles.

Another proposal in the articles would make it illegal to photograph a child's genital area, even if he or she is clothed. But how does that cover someone who takes full-body photos and then goes home and uses Photoshop or other software to isolate the genital area?

So in New Jersey, these photos would make Henri Cartier-Bresson a criminal?

Wow; what a horribly-written law. 1st Amendment concerns aside (and it should/would be struck down on those grounds alone), it's so vague that it'd effectively make photography in public illegal as it is. I just went through the photos I took on a recent vacation (not to New Jersey), and a good 1/3 of them contain an image of someone under the age of 18 who I'm not related to (and I suspect that the proportion would be higher if we'd not gone to a public garden and taken a lot of photos of interesting flora; those kind of skew the sample).

Yeah, I'm all for making sure that pedophiles don't have a chance to harm children... but this isn't the way to go about it.

Reminds me of another saga in New Jersey.
No, not the Sopranos, something much more sordid.

Kyeligh somebody died in a car accident and her relatives introduced Kyleigh's Law, proposing minors
(under 21!!!)would have a red tag on the car or be fined.
Of course the Governor went along with it because it involved a) minors and b) safety. To go against it would be political suicide. So it passed. One problem--
everyone (except the cops) hated the law. The teens hated it because cops were hassling them, the moms and dads hated it because pervs could stalk their teen daughters, but it was very difficult to "Undo" this law. Moral of the story--don't pass a law just because you think it's Politically Correct. It may cause a great number of problems for society in the long run.

All I can say is it's about time we get proactive about child predators.

Calm down folks, I don't think it's THAT badly written. Cut it short a bit...

'For the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire...'

OK, so the prosecution have to PROVE a particular purpose beyond reasonably doubt; that's a damn high bar to cross.

'..uncovered breasts, buttocks, genitals, anus or pubic area..'

OK, so it's only concerning complete or partial nudity, parts of the body that would normally remain covered.

'... circumstances in which a reasonable person would expect to be safe from such visual surveillance...'

In other words, places where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy - changing rooms, locker rooms, public restrooms etc. It wouldn't affect any clothed photographs of children, and it wouldn't affect nude photographs of children in public - your average bare-assed baby photos on the beach would be fine, since no-one can expect privacy there.

Translation - it allows prosecution of proven perverts who try to look at OR take photos of kids private parts while they're getting changed, nude in their homes, or using public restrooms. It doesn't allow prosecution of anyone else.

I don't think it's too bad, as a first approximation to a law. My only surprise is that this wasn't already illegal under some other statute! It seems an attempt has been made to draw it as closely as possible, required for first amendment strict scrutiny.

They *might* have a harder time justifying it on 'harm' grounds; I sure as hell wouldn't be pleased if some perv was photographing MY kids private parts in a place where they should have expected privacy; in fact I'd probably do some damage to the perv. But I'd have a rather sticky time describing exactly what articulable *harm* had been done by the photography...

Mike

You think this is bad? A council in the UK banned parents from playing with their kids because they hadn't undergone criminal checks. This is old news, but it is still abhorrent.

http://colinseymour.co.uk/council-bans-parents-from-playing-with-their-kids

http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2010/07/08/school-sports-day-ban-dad-crimina...