On 6/28/05, Tom Reese <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Frank Theriault wrote: > > "Defining a telephoto lens would be quite easy. Choose a number. "any > lens longer than 90mm (35mm equivalent, as applicable to other > photographic formats)"." > > What about zoom lenses? The proposed rule was ludicrous. The fact that > the law was ever proposed makes a sad statement about how little > Americans value freedom. Any legislators who were associated with it > should have been immediately recalled. > > "If it's not in the law, all you need is > judicial interpretation. A judge will either throw the law out due to > it's imprecision, or interpret "telephoto" and stick a number in that > will now follow the law around by legal precedent (that's all case law > is)." > > That means legal fees and months and months of procedures. The cops will > have all your equipment in the meantime. > > "Of course, this California law we're talking about here was likely > passed as an Anti-Paparazzi or Anti-Stalking law (assuming it was ever > passed at all)." > > No doubt you're right but it was still a bad law. > > "So one doubts that guys walking along Venice Beach > with a big lens would be harrassed by California's finest..." > > You greatly underestimate the willingness of police to abuse the rights > of the citizens. >
I wasn't defending the law, Tom, I was just saying that it would be easily enforceable is all. Of course, I too would be dead set against such an infringement of personal freedoms. And, WRT your last comment, yes, the enforcement authorities have a way of taking a law that was enacted for a particular purpose (but you can't state the purpose in the statute itself), and using (or abusing) it to their other ulterior purposes. The sad thing, of course, is that such anti-pap and anti-stalking laws (if they've even been put on the books yet) are brought into being with the noblest of intentions. Surely stalked women have a right to privacy, as do celebrities (I suppose <g>). The laws are a response to very real abuses out there. The problem is that these lawmakers haven't thought enough about the consequences, in their haste to satisfy what they perceive as the public's clamouring to "protect" certain "victims". cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
