Don't get too complacent, though. Even in the worst cases, the chem labs always send you home to mommy in a finite real number of small boxes. That...isn't always true... after certain classes of mathematics accident.

Generally speaking, in the U.S., it is already illegal to publish photographs of people for profit without their permission.

I agree that you should be able to take photographs of public places and of people in those public places, though. I am sure there is a line there too, but I'm not sure exactly where it is. Maybe (just speculating), if the photograph is mainly of a public place, and the people in it are just incidental. If the picture is primarily OF a person, though, I think you should normally need permission.

But what about the news? There are definitely gray areas. I'd like to know what current law is. I know it varies from state to state.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Now you're proposing to pass a law against "thought crime", based on somebody else's thoughts. That would be completely impossible to enforce in practice:

"Honest officer, no I wasn't wearing any underwear but I didn't intend to uncross my legs. I just forgot. Throw the pervert in jail!"

You might think that's a silly example but I assure you it's not. It's not possible for the photographer to know in advance what the other person "intends". You would be setting the stage for lots of people to go to jail for something THEY didn't intend to do (violate someone's privacy according to the law).

You can't base laws like this on what someone intends. For the simple reason that it is impossible to determine what they intended. People lie.

So, as I said before: somebody is walking in public so you can't take their picture without explicit consent? Well, nobody will be taking pictures of the Washington Monument anymore. Or those nice little pictures of downtown scenes. Or about 1000 more things I can think of just off-hand. Definitely no more pictures of police brutality. Do you honestly expect them to give you permission? Not to mention security camera videos of crimes taking place. "No, your honor, I had to throw the video away because the subjects did not give me permission."

If it's in public, it's photographable. With very few exceptions. It HAS TO be that way, if you want to have anything like a democratic society.

No, they're not. Cases should be tried "on an individual basis" only when there is no reasonable alternative. As someone else in this thread posted (quoting the Supreme Court): laws are intended to be specific precisely because that tells people what is acceptable behavior, what is not, and precisely where that line is... so they don't cross it.

When you make laws such that nobody knows where the line is, people will step over it. Always. They do. Simply because they weren't clearly told not to.

Even in this specific case, vagueness is rampant. According to Mass. Supreme Court: "A female passenger on a MBTA trolley who is wearing a skirt, dress, or the like covering these parts of her body is not a person who is 'partially nude,' no matter what is or is not underneath the skirt by way of underwear or other clothing..."

Now, that's what I call vague. According to this, a woman in a miniskirt with no underwear is not 'partially nude'. Now, don't try to tell me "But... but... it says 'covering these parts'" because if it is covering those parts adequately then they can't be photographed anyway.

I repeat: yes, rational people DO draw lines. All the time. That's why we're "a country of laws, not of men". Drawing lines is exactly what laws are all about. If you're not willing to draw a line, don't try to make it a damned law. Because then you're being a hypocrite.

The same way it's decided in defamation and libel cases. The courts already have a way to do it.

This is so vague as to be unworkable. What did the subject "choose" to do? ("Honest officer, she was flashing me on purpose!") What constitutes "permission"? Written permission? (There goes the evening news.) Police arresting somebody? (There goes protection against police brutality.) Etc. and so on, ad nauseum.

If you really want to pass a law, you have to draw a hard line somewhere. You can't leave it up to the whim of either the subject being photographed, or the photographer. Vagueness is societal poison when it comes to laws like this.

Currently, in most places, if it's in public it's photographable. It's really hard to make the law otherwise, and make it stick.

I remember in the late 60s, when the Berkely Barb put a picture of a woman in a miniskirt and no underwear on their front page. There was a lot of debate about it, as you can well imagine. The consensus was that while it showed bad taste on the part of the Barb, it was public so nobody had any genuine reason to complain.

I'd be careful about trying that if I were them. The "perve", as you say, could just as easily (and plausibly, these days) say taking the film or photo was your own idea, to tease your boyfriend or something.

"Public shaming" can work both ways.

States around here have similar laws. In one state nearby it is completely legal for women to go topless anywhere men can go topless. Judge in a widely followed indecency case: "State law forbids the exposure of genitals. A woman's breasts are not genitals and so exposing them is not prohibited by law. Further, if it were, I would have no choice but to strike down the law as being unconstitutionally discriminatory."

In another nearby state, nudity is allowed unless, as in Texas, it is intended to "shock or disturb". Thus, technically it is perfectly legal to go downtown naked, as long as you don't try to enter stores that require shirts and shoes. And if you did, that would be a violation of trespassing laws, not "indecency" laws.

I don't think it's absurd at all. Because there is no place you can draw a solid line. You could say, "Well, yeah, in the picture my vagina was clearly visible, but I WAS wearing shorts!

At what point do you draw the line between flashing in public then trying to sue the photographer, or just a little nip slip that you don't want published? Answer: there is no such point. It's too arbitrary. Wherever you try to draw that line, somebody is going to get in trouble over something they didn't intend to do.

The only rational place you can draw a line is to say: if you don't want it seen, don't hang it out where it can be seen.

My take on it is very simple:

(A) If it's visible in public, it's fair game. (This is the only way really to square this with so many other free-speech issues.)

(B) Given (A) above, if you're not a public figure, someone else should not be able to publish those photos without your permission.

I think this is a fair balance between fairness, civil rights, and privacy. If you don't want it seen, don't show it. If you are out flashing it in public, you have no reason to bitch about it later.

If your cynical like that... A slightly less cynical scenario: Thief steals an iPad but finds it is locked. Now by bad luck the thief's mother dies and leaves him everything in her will. The thief goes to Apple with the stolen iPad, claiming it belonged to his dead mother.

It has entered this thread quite late, but there is a big problem: If the old lady hadn't died, and had forgotten her Apple Id and password and went to the Apple Store, Apple wouldn't just reset the iPad. They would want some serious proof that it is really hers, and that she isn't trading in stolen iPads. That's the point of "Find my iDevice". Making it hard for crooks to access stolen iPads, which is unfortunate if the legal user forgets his password.

Now even with will, death certificate, and solicitors, the heirs can at most prove that they have the rights to the iPad that the mother used to have. But that might still mean no rights at all, if the iPad was stolen. They'd still have to proof that their mother was the legitimate owner in the first place.

I know this is going sound like an attack, but congestion is due to a number of factors. In my area the congestion has increased rapidly. One factor I have seen is that there are once again many trucks and SUVs on the road. In 2010, with gas prices usually around $4, I saw a decrease in the number of these large vehicles. Now gas is back down to around 3.50, which is what is was back in 2007. Cheaper gas not only means people can afford to drive more, it means they can afford less efficient cars.

Less efficient not only in fuel consumption, but also in road consumption. A while back Texas A&M did a road study on how traffic is effected by these large trucks. One finding is a stop lights they take about 1.5 times a long to transverse as a car. Check which cars make you miss the light next time you are trying to go through an intersection.

Right. I wasn't saying they shouldn't... just that it was really the question at hand.

I'm confused about who you mean there. The Venezuelans, or the Obama administration?

"Open Source" doesn't mean "Work For Free". Lots of money changes hands.