A Florida bill would criminalize that. [Lowering the Bar, Volokh]
Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
Cato Institute
Individual liberty, free markets, and peace: the world's premier libertarian think tank. Publishes Cato at Liberty, where I blog on contemporary policy issues.
Schools for Misrule
Get your copy today! My new book tackles the question of why so many bad ideas come from the law schools. "Cutting-edge commentary, hard-hitting, witty, astute." -- Publisher's Weekly. "Excellent... A fine dissection of these strangely powerful institutions" -- Wall Street Journal.
{ 4 comments }
I’ll have to see if this bill passes before I worry about it.
A few years ago I took a picture of a graphic on a truck that caught my eye. As I remember, the driver yelled something at me but I couldn’t be bothered with him and got in car and drove away. Later on the man who works the gate where I live said the FBI came looking for me and left a card. Apparently the d’bag got my license number and turned me in as a, well, I don’t know what but you can’t just take pictures of anything you want anymore.
I called the agent and he said he was inclined to toss the file in the circular archive but he had to check it out and he made me, over the phone, raise my right hand and swear I wasn’t up to no good. He had a sense of humor about it but he left the card on Friday so I had all weekend to wonder what the FBI wanted with me.
I really never had any idea that taking photographs of things like a truck could get you in trouble. It hardly makes sense, but with the way technology is going I can see a lot more similar kinds of laws having to do with privacy and copyrights bring made.
So is Google Earth going to be a criminal enterprise?
It doesn’t encompass only photography.
Claude Monet’s “Haystacks (sunset)” would have been malum prohibitum under this statute.
Comments on this entry are closed.