A few days after the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts issued a letter-of-the-law ruling which allowed a man accused of taking “upskirt” photos to avoid prosecution, the legislature changed the letter of the law.
Governor Deval Patrick signed the bill Friday, and made it illegal to secretly take photographs or videos under someone’s clothing, Techhive reported.
The old law prohibited people living in Massachusetts from “photographing, videotaping, or electronically surveilling a nude or partially nude person.”
And the “nude or partially nude” part of the description in the law was what convinced the court that the man accused of clicking an upskirt photo couldn’t be penalized for the image he took on his smartphone camera of female passengers on an MBTA trolley, since they were wearing underwear.
According to the Boston Globe, the bill signed by Patrick changes the wording of the law to “the sexual or other intimate parts of a person under or around the person’s clothing.” (ANI)