Broadside: Mass. Lawmakers Make ‘upskirting' Illegal

(NECN) - "Swift" is not a word often associated with action on Beacon Hill, but Thursday happened to be the exception.

The Massachusetts House and Senate sprang into action to pass a bill outlawing the taking of secret photographs up the skirts of women in public.

Wednesday, the state's highest court ruled that a man who took cell phone photos up the skirts of female passengers riding the MBTA in Boston did not violate state law.

State Rep. Paul Brodeur began pushing to fix Massachusetts' Peeping Tom law two years ago.

"The original law said that only photographs of nude or partially nude sensitive areas, let's call them, couldn't be photographed. Those are the only things prohibited under the law as it existed. This law changes or broadens that definition to include, we've said, sexual or intimate areas and it broadens the scope so that even if that area is covered, by say an undergarment, the conduct is now also prohibited, pending the governor's signature on the bill," the Melrose Democrat said.

Brodeur says he filed the bill about two weeks after joining the legislature in 2011 out of "anticipating the ... loophole regarding a requirement that the pictures had to be of nude or partially nude parts of the body."

Copyright NECNMIGR - NECN
Contact Us