‘Peeping Toms are jumping for joy’: Upskirt pics are legal, Massachusetts’ top court rules

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/05/peeping-toms-are-jumping-for-joy-upskirt-pics-are-legal-massachusetts-top-court-rules/



‘Peeping Toms are jumping for joy’: Upskirt pics are legal, Massachusetts’ top court rules
By Reuters
Wednesday, March 5, 2014 15:55 EST

BOSTON (Reuters) – A man who snapped secret pictures up women’s skirts on a Boston subway train – a practice known as upskirting – did not violate the state’s Peeping Tom law, Massachusetts’ top court said on Wednesday, pointing to a loophole in current legislation.

Massachusetts law prohibits secretly filming or photographing a person who is nude or partly nude, but that does not apply to people who are fully clothed, according to a Supreme Judicial Court decision written by Justice Margot Botsford.

The ruling comes in the case of a man who was arrested by transit police in 2010 for using his cell phone to take pictures and video up women’s’ skirts on the subway and who fought to have the charges of voyeurism dismissed.

The law “does not apply to photographing… persons who are fully clothed and, in particular, does not reach the type of upskirting that the defendant is charged with attempting to accomplish on the MBTA,” it said.