A decision from the highest criminal
court in Texas is the latest seeking to define the line between privacy and
constitutionally protected speech. Last
month, the Texas
Court of Criminal appeals struck down a portion of a state law that
prevented people from taking “upskirt” pictures, holding that the law was
unconstitutional on its face because it violated free-speech rights and
penalized people’s thoughts at the expense of trying to protect people from
harassment. The case involved a Texas statute,
which made it a felony crime to photograph or record someone without the other
person’s consent and “with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of
any person.”
The Texas court
found this statute to be unconstitutional under the Texas Constitution, and the
U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment’s right to free speech and individual
thought. The law was meant in part to
protect against predatory
photographers who covertly take pictures under women’s skirts or down their
blouses than then post them on the Internet. Complaints of such incidents have become
common across the nation as mobile phones equipped with cameras are on the
rise.
