Sour Grapes

If Congress treated video voyeurism like it did SPAM...

In September, the House approved S.1301, the "Video Voyeurism Prevention Act of 2004," which led Declan McCullagh to write a very sarcastic post to his Politech list. The fact of its passage in itself didn't strike me as particularly noteworthy, even though the Senate had already approved it.

But then Al Donaldson followed up with an amusing observation of what that bill might look like if Congress had treated its subject like it did SPAM in the CAN-SPAM Act [text version, PDF version].

If Congress were consistent, and if they had treated "Video Voyeurism" the same way they reacted to the "Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing" back in '03, they would have:

Asserted the rights of US voyeurs to capture images of anyone's "naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast", at least once;
Required US voyeurs to notify those unsuspecting persons whose images they've captured, and provide an opt-out address for subsequent intrusions;
Provided civil penalties for any US voyeur who fails to notify the subject, or subsequently captures an image of the subject after the subject has opted out;
Provided criminal penalties for anyone who drills more than 25 holes in ceilings, walls, floors, or other partitions during any month in order to capture such images.

I would then expect Senator Schumer to leap into the fray with an amendment requiring the FTC to manage a "Do Not Capture Images of My Naked or Undergarment Clad Genitals, Pubic Area, Buttocks, or Female Breast List".

Original post by Hugh at 10/05/2004 01:40:00 PM Eastern time :: 0 comment(s) :: links to this post

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