WOTY -- "upskirting"

[Christopher Philippo]

On Mar 6, 2014, at 2:24 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> The VVPA was considered and found not to be applicable, because there was
> no "reasonable expectation of privacy" on public transportation. To keep it
> in context, the law was intended to prevent secret video in the home, not
> in public.

The law itself gives no indication of that, so what documents establish a legislative intent that it was only intended to prevent secret video in the home?

Supposedly it was “designed to protect individuals from secret video recording or capturing of ‘improper’ images not only in private but also in public and semipublic settings where privacy is normally expected and where consent is not given.” Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment
http://books.google.com/books?id=bukotIWwdwIC&pg=PA712&lpg=PA712

If there can be a reasonable expectation of privacy in a gym changing room when one is in undergarments or naked, then surely the expectation of privacy that people refrain from taking photos of one’s undergarments on public transport while one is wearing clothes is even more reasonable.  Aside from that, is underneath a skirt or up a skirt really “public”?  I wouldn’t have thought so.  A person can’t take a seat under someone’s skirt.  Even taking the camera out of the equation: if someone were intentionally holding their hand between someone’s legs without touching the person, would that not be some form of harassment at least?  If the person were caught in the act, could they continue to do so over the victim’s objections?  If upskirting is legal, then presumably people are also permitted to dangle a small camera down the inside of someone’s shirt to take a photo, or up their shirtsleeve, or up the cuff of their pants, down their throat, etc.?

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