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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Jan 2, 2014 12:52:59 GMT -5
An obviously guilty person gets off? In America? NOOOOOO! "Obviously" guilty? I cannot wait to see all the evidence you have of this guy's guilt. |
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Post by James Fabiano on Jan 2, 2014 14:05:29 GMT -5
Oh I misread/didn't read carefully enough. Sorry.
/Our justice system is screwed up more often than not, though.
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Post by Hit Girl on Jan 2, 2014 14:37:34 GMT -5
It's not a crime to visit a waterpark and take pictures of children's asses?
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Post by Red Impact on Jan 2, 2014 14:58:15 GMT -5
It's not a crime to visit a waterpark and take pictures of children's asses? Nah, you can't make it illegal to take someone's picture out in the open, unless you're doing something to invade their privacy. You can imagine all the intended side effects of that law, like making it impossible to take pictures of your own family in any crowded place. |
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Post by Hit Girl on Jan 2, 2014 15:03:05 GMT -5
It's not a crime to visit a waterpark and take pictures of children's asses? Nah, you can't make it illegal to take someone's picture out in the open, unless you're doing something to invade their privacy. You can imagine all the intended side effects of that law, like making it impossible to take pictures of your own family in any crowded place. Reasonable judgements could be made to distingush a person taking pictures of their family in a public place, and someone who's behaviour is suspicious and who happens to have a specific collection of photos of children's asses. |
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Post by Red Impact on Jan 2, 2014 15:25:19 GMT -5
Nah, you can't make it illegal to take someone's picture out in the open, unless you're doing something to invade their privacy. You can imagine all the intended side effects of that law, like making it impossible to take pictures of your own family in any crowded place. Reasonable judgements could be made to distingush a person taking pictures of their family in a public place, and someone who's behaviour is suspicious and who happens to have a specific collection of photos of children's asses. It doesn't really work that way, institutional gray areas (what you're calling reasonable judgement) only ever cause more problems than they solve. Leaving it to an individual to decide whether someone looks suspicious just legalizes profiling and prejudice (even moreso than is done now), which is the exact opposite of what the law should do. So as it stands, the content of a photo can be illegal, the method of obtaining a photograph can be illegal (invasion of privacy), but the act of taking a photo can't be legal for one person and not another, at least without due process. So the answer is no, it's not illegal. Creepy as all hell? Yes. And he probably did have illegal things on his computed based on the story, but the original arrest was a violation of his rights. You must be doing something explicitly illegal under the law to be legally arrested, not just because one person doesn't like what you're doing. I'd probably have had no problem with a parent punching this guy in the face and breaking his phone, but the courts really had no choice on this matter. |
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Post by Hit Girl on Jan 2, 2014 16:08:57 GMT -5
It wouldn't be profiling or prejudice to regard a person as being suspicious if they are clearly doing something out of the ordinary for behaviour one would expect at a certain location or situation. A guy taking pictures of children's backsides would certainly warrant further scrutiny if it was noticed.
Why wouldn't taking photos of children's asses at a water park where they are likely to be in a state of some measure of undress be illegal for everyone?
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Post by Red Impact on Jan 2, 2014 17:29:09 GMT -5
It wouldn't be profiling or prejudice to regard a person as being suspicious if they are clearly doing something out of the ordinary for behaviour one would expect at a certain location or situation. A guy taking pictures of children's backsides would certainly warrant further scrutiny if it was noticed. "It's illegal, but only if someone is suspicious." Yeah, I can see how there's absolutely no room for prejudice or profiling to slip right in. He got extra scrutiny, he was arrested for it, that's the height of added scrutiny. Added scrutiny is not the same thing as an arrestable offense. He was arrested despite not doing anything illegal, which is why the conviction was thrown out. But you don't write a law to stop one person from doing one thing, you write a law that affects everyone. Allowing police or citizens to make a judgement call in something legal is now illegal opens up every door for every problem that can occur. Why wouldn't taking photos of children's asses at a water park where they are likely to be in a state of some measure of undress be illegal for everyone? Because it's not that easy. Don't get me wrong, it'd be great if we could write a law and just say "use common sense when enforcing this please," but more often than not, these laws end up being so poorly written that they have broad implications that their authors should have seen coming, or just get thrown out after costing tax payers a bunch of money because they're unconstitutional. You're trying to stop someone from taking a photo of someone else in public, where the courts have already determined that there's no right to privacy. And even then, there's a thousand questions you have to consider because how you word this law determines whether you wasted your time writing a law that was too narrow to protect anyone, or so broad that it tramples peoples rights and will be quickly overturned. Would you ban every photo of a child from behind, or photos just zoomed up? If it's the former, what's to stop someone just zooming in on at home? People who do that sort of thing would surely figure out the loophole. So do you ban every photo of a kid from behind? No photos of your kids swimming? You've banned the ability of parents to record memories of their kids because one guy was caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. Of course, water parks aren't the only place kids wear bathing suits, so to prevent the guy from going elsewhere, you'd have to ban every place. So no photos of your kids at the beach? What if you're taking a photo and someone else's kid runs in? And obviously it's not just bathing suits you'd need to consider if it's photos of children's backsides. Ballet recitals, parks, those times your grandmother watched you as a child and took photos. All, and more, would need to be considered. If these seem like stupid questions, that's what writing a law is, figuring out how every possible little thing can be interpreted, because if you don't think that someone will interpret a law that way, you're wrong, there are more people than lawmakers. So how exactly do you write a law that is narrow enough not to be thrown out, broad enough to actually protect someone, narrow enough to not put a bunch of people at risk of being labeled sex offenders, and different enough that courts won't throw it out because they determined that you can't be private if you're out in public? It'd be a fine idea to make it illegal, but in practical terms, it's not nearly that easy to make it illegal to take a photograph in public, hence why this guy got off. It'd be easy if we could write these laws and just rely on common sense and good judgment, but that's not the case. We live in a world where every loophole gets found out and exploited, and where what many people find suspicious often is just someone who looks differently. |
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Post by rapidfire187 on Jan 2, 2014 20:59:28 GMT -5
I am confused. It does not actually say what evidence was collected after the warrant was improperly appropriated. Did he have child porn on his computer and was only caught because he was acting extremely creepy in a still-legal manner? I'm thinking it couldn't have been that because child porn is very illegal and he would have certainly been charged for that crime. |
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Dr. T is an alien
Patti Mayonnaise
Knows when to hold them, knows when to fold them
I've been found out!
Posts: 31,351
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Jan 2, 2014 21:15:29 GMT -5
I am confused. It does not actually say what evidence was collected after the warrant was improperly appropriated. Did he have child porn on his computer and was only caught because he was acting extremely creepy in a still-legal manner? I'm thinking it couldn't have been that because child porn is very illegal and he would have certainly been charged for that crime. It is very illegal but if they learned about it through an illegitimately obtained search warrant that does not matter. He can be on their radar for the future, but that is it. |
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Post by rapidfire187 on Jan 2, 2014 21:45:44 GMT -5
I'm thinking it couldn't have been that because child porn is very illegal and he would have certainly been charged for that crime. It is very illegal but if they learned about it through an illegitimately obtained search warrant that does not matter. He can be on their radar for the future, but that is it. Yea, I thought of that after I posted. Good looking out. |
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