Invasion of privacy or protected First Amendment right of free expression? Seems pretty obnoxious but should it be illegal?
If it is made illegal does this make a “privacy right” explicit vs being implied and potentially affect other “shaming” strategies (used primarily by law enforcement) such as posting pictures of petty thieves and prostitute “johns” in the local paper or the ability of investigative or photo journalists to take pictures of people without their permission?
How horrific. What amazes me is these people claim to be “christians.” Don’t remember Jesus ever screaming hell-fire at “sinners” and posting their pictures on the net.
I sure as hell hope it will be banned, but I do not believe the internet can ever be effectively censored. The other issue is that these anti-abortionists are not campaigners, they are terrorists. Legal action/fines/imprisonment will only make them martyrs to their cause.
I think its great that these people read the minds of everyone walking into a clinic and know immediately what their business there is. Perhaps they are pharmacutical salespeople? Copier repair people?
I suppose in their minds even if all you do is repair the copier you are still an accessory.
As is my understanding, the Constitutional right to privacy protects against government intrusion, not that of individuals. Unless you could establish that the cameramen are “state actors,” there’s no Constitutional claim against them. (This wouldn’t prevent a separate private right of action under tort law, however.)
There’s a countervailing concern here, though. Some pro-lifers who stand outside clinics use camera and videotape for liability protection. That is, false claims of trespass or harassment do get brought against people who keep off the property and aren’t doing anything inherently harmful. The videotape creates a clear record of their defense that it didn’t happen. So I’d advise caution here: a law the prohibits ALL video or photography at an abortion clinic would probably go too far.
It seems supremely hypocritical to condemn rude but legal behavior around abortion clinics, but not the abortions themselves.
And I don’t think Jesus would have been thrilled at having facilities dedicated to killing unborn children. Something about abortions and the 5th Commandment just don’t jibe.
I think someone should take pictures of the picture-takers, then put them up on a website called “Judgemental Anti-Christian Shitbags With Nothing Constructive To Do With Their Time Except Bother People Seeking Legal Medical Procedures.”
Come to think of it, I own a digital camera. And a couple of domain names.
Judgmental Anti-Christian Shitbag sounds like a bit of a judgement to me.
And what is so ‘Anti-Christian’ about not being in love with abortion? Pro-choice, my ass, some of you people are just ‘pro-abortion’. You forget about the other choices available.
What’s so Christian about the following statements:
“You’ll have nightmares about this day the rest of your life.”
“Shame enough women into realizing that eternal damnation awaits them if they murder their baby and the abortionists won’t have any work to do.”
“Mr. Horsley . . .also says he hopes to start adding the women’s names and addresses. Some postings already show license-plate numbers.” [NB: Horsley also runs the infamous Nuremberg Files site, which shows the photos, names and addresses of abortion providers with red lines through the ones who are murdered by other good folks like Horsley.]
I think the point he was trying to make was that, while they often profess to be christian, they generally act nothing like it. Judge not, he without sin, etc, etc.
(To an degree, I am playing Devil’s Advocate here. I don’t have strong feeling about abortion, in general).
Then we get into a never-ending loop. He judges others, therefor he is a bad person. Whoops, since I just judged him, I am bad person. Etc.
But ignore who is judging who and look at the root acts: On one hand, women aborting their pregnancies. On the other hand, people shouting nasty things and taking pictures. Surely you cannot equate having an abortion (which many people don’t think should be legal) to shouting ‘sinner’ or taking pictures. (Which people having abortions don’t think should be legal).
My point with my little rant at the end was that it seems to me that many people who are ‘pro-choice’ are not really about a womans ‘right to choose’, but rather, about defending abortion. Period.
When HHS elected to extend medical benifits to not only poor women, but to their unborn children as well, the ‘pro-choice’ crowd should have been ecstatic. Now, if a woman chooses to NOT have an abortion, she knows she will get free medical care during one of the most important periods in a childs life. Of course, the ‘pro-choice’ crowd flipped out, and to be honest, I don’t know why. But it does go to prove that ‘pro-choice’ is not exactly an apt name for many people that profess to be so.
Only in private. As long as you’re on public property (even if you’re subject isn’t) you can photograph anything you want. And publish it. Or where would photojounalist be?
On the other hand if you publish it libel and defamation laws come into play. I believe there was a case where they used a picture of a black guy in a suit, taken on the street (perfectly legal) and captioned it something about the New Black Yuppie. He sued on the grounds that he wasn’t a damn yuppie. I believe he won.
So if they publish a picture and say this woman is getting an abortion and she wasn’t, that would be libel. If she is, and they call her a “homicidal mother”, I think that could still be called libel, since abortion is not legally homocide. If she is and they just say her’s a woman going for an abortion- I’m not sure. And of course the government is not in a position to say if “she’s going to hell” is libelous or not. But I don’t think defamation HAS to be libelous to be considered defamation.
Yep, us pro-choice people are so pro-abortion that we’re actively out on the streets campaigning to enforce pro-abortion laws on the community at large. And we’re actively out there on the streets insisting that women have abortions (whether they want to or not) and denying them contraception or appealing to our legislators to do so in order that we can enforce our morality on the rest of the world.
In fact, why don’t we just set out webcams outside of places which “pro-lifers” are known to frequent? Because of course they all have the same opinions and they all look the same, and you can just tell that they were at their local church or their local conservative politician’s office for a specific reason…
I realise that I have relied heavily on the sarcasm in making this post. I hope that the prolife people and pro “free speech” people on the SDMB know that my barbs aren’t aimed at them or their beliefs but at a practise I find totally reprehensible.
Maybe I’m getting my laws confused, but out here in California (and perhaps other states), there’s a law that says a person has the right to determine how his/her image is used, public or otherwise. E.g., I cannot camp outside the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, snap some photos of Julia Roberts, and then plaster them all over creation, because I didn’t get her permission to do so.
Presuming I haven’t mangled my shoddy memory of the law here, wouldn’t something similar apply if anti-abortion protesters in California started snapping photos of clinic visitors and started distributing/posting them?
Under common law, there are four types of acts which constitute invasion of privacy, and these particular acts could fall under “public disclosure of private acts.” There’s a Michigan case (Doe v. Mills) that’s right on point. In that case, anti-abortion protesters were found liable for publicizing the names of women who were to undergo abortions. If he obtained the information from sources that were not public (i.e. stole records, dug through the garbage), then he would also be liable for another form of invasion of privacy, “intrusion upon seclusion.” If you’re famous (as in betenoir’s example) or committing a crime (as in astro’s example) that situation differs slightly. There is definitely a strong tort suit, though I don’t know whether there are any possible criminal charges. Unfortunately, the women who are victims are unlikely to be able to afford to bring suit.
The Wall Street Journal article yesterday seemed to lay out the abortion protesters’ position fairly well.
The abortion protesters are claiming that they are journalists and use the pictures to accompany copy on the websites.
I had never heard the argument framed in that way before. It will be interesting to see how the tort claims proceed, damages (as always with claims like the “intentional infliction of emotional distress”) will be hard to prove.
At least in my opinion, the winners are always the same–lawyers.
Chula
How is walking into a public place a private act? Getting an abortion may be a private act but walking into a clinic seems to be a public act and there is no expectation of privacy. This seems very clear cut to me regardless of whether one is pro or anti- abortion.