tbmaddux's Journal: "Pro-Environment" Streisand Sues Coastal Photo Database

Ken Adelman, operator of the California Coastal Records Project, a website featuring thousands of digital aerial photographs shot from a helicopter offshore of the coastline of the state of California, has been sued by Barbara Streisand for $50 million: "Streisand claims the photograph, one of more than 12,000 on the site, invades her privacy, violates the anti-paparazzi statute, seeks to profit from her name, and threatens her security." Streisand is well known for taking politicians to task for their policies on environmental issues, which is ironic since the site itself has been used by coastal environmentalists to protect beaches from pollution and destruction. Other stories about this here, and here, and you can see the offending photo here or mirrored here. The site was featured previously on Slashdot.

This pisses me off, and not just because Streisand is proving herself to be another fair-weather "environmentalist" who is really just a NIMBY. It's also not just because she's just like the people fighting wind power off of Cape Cod because they don't want to see windmills from their million-dollar Martha's Vineyard summer homes, and not only because her house is probably built on an eroding bluff that she'd like to bury behind concrete at some point. No, it is mainly because I have surfed in the waters just offshore of where she lives, and that whole section of the coastline is jealously guarded against access by "outsiders" (read: people who don't live there). Despite that, California law still permits me access to that beach and the right to surf it, and I cheer a rich guy like Adelman who is willing to waste a lot of time and money to take pictures of the coastline and won't give in on principle. If he wasn't already so damn rich I'd happily contribute to his legal defense fund.

(First paragraph submitted as a story to yro.slashdot.org at 8:30 pm, Friday 5/30/2003) (Update: rejected, damn) (Update: Appeared as part of this story on Tuesday, 6/3/2003)