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Cam with Cell Phone Advantage and Disadvantage

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”Hold it right there and Drop that camera”

''WHAT grabbed my attention,'' said Alderman Edward M. Burke, ''was that TV commercial when the guy is eating the pasta like a slob, and the girl sends a photo of him acting like a slob to the fiancée.''

The commercial, for Sprint PCS, was meant to convey the spontaneity and reach afforded by the wireless world's latest craze, the camera phone. But what Mr. Burke saw was the peril.

''If I'm in a locker room changing clothes,'' he said, ''there shouldn't be some pervert taking photos of me that could wind up on the Internet.''

Accordingly, as early as Dec. 17, the Chicago City Council is to vote on a proposal by Mr. Burke to ban the use of camera phones in public bathrooms, locker …show more content…

''What they've done is go to the extreme,'' he said. ''They've threatened the rights of the majority of people to try to control the conduct of a few, and that's just beyond the balance.'' He added that the only way to deter people from taking photos of others was to punish them for taking surreptitious pictures rather than banning the phones.

Des Peres, Mo., a St. Louis suburb, passed a more limited and specific law in September that bans taking photos of a person who is partly unclothed without consent in an area where they should expect privacy.

'The ordinance would provide the city with some teeth for the ability to prosecute someone,'' said Jason McConachie, the assistant city administrator, adding, ''I don't believe there is any way to proactively enforce it, like putting police officers in locker rooms.'' He said the city would help an aggrieved citizen pursue legal action against someone for taking pictures in a restricted area without consent -- an occurrence as yet unreported.

Some courthouses have extended existing bans on picture taking to include camera phones. Representative Michael G. Oxley of Ohio felt that the federal government should draft its own provision, so he and a fellow Ohio Republican, Senator Mike DeWine,

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