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New Law Will Require Camera Phones To "Click"
An anonymous reader writes "A new bill is being introduced called the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, which would require any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken with the phone's camera. It would also prohibit such a phone from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone."
And because it's a law, there will be no way to circumvent this.
Next will have complaints from parents whose children's recitals are marred by clicking cell phones, newlyweds whose vows were interrupted by the same, etc., etc.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
What next, requiring digital camcorders to make that old 8mm sounds while recording?
I was worried that congress had stuff to address that actually matters.
I recall that Japan has a similar law, to prevent photos being taken of. . . things that Japanese men want to take pictures of, I guess.
Ninjas and pirates. How piquant.
So the state can secretly monitor everything we do, but we are not allowed to do it ourselves?
c++;
This requirement is actually already in practice in Japan. In fact, Apple recently had to adjust the Japanese iPhone software to accommodate this. http://cultofmac.com/to-prevent-upskirts-japanese-iphone-3g-always-alerts-when-taking-photos/2356
Expect to see a lot more ads for: "UPSKIRT SHOTS OF DEAF CHIKZ!1one." They should really require a strobe light to go off at the same time as the shutter sound.
Probably a rare occurrence, but this means bystanders won't be able to photograph crimes in progress without alerting criminals.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Wait, the "Video Phone Predator Act" is in preparation, it requires all video-capable phones to make a government-mandated "heavy breathing" noise when filming.
Next, the "Spy Glass Predator Act" will make it necessary for any hidden camera to marked with blinking red/blue LEDs and make a "pshooost!" sound each time it takes a frame.
And finally, we have the bi-partisan "Window Predator Act", which requires all Glass Windows to be painted in black. This bill was sponsored by the Ink Manufacturers Association of America (IMAA).
Happily Obama has promised "transparency", so the windows are probably safe.
My blog
I, as the wiley "bad guy", press the button telling the camera to make the clicking noise when taking a picture.
Oh wow, you're advanced. I would have just made clicking sounds with my mouth.
Nevermind that, you could open up the phone and cut the wire to the speaker! So not only does this leave a large area to interpretation, it's easy to circumvent with a little determination.
And then I could also cut the wire to the earpiece speaker, and then my phone also wouldn't have to play those annoying "mother/wife/boss talking" sounds.
Like many other bills die a quiet death, but nonetheless expending taxpayer dollars and making sure there is no time to read the earmarks of major bills.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
TFA even has a link to the bill's page at Thomas (which is the server that Congresspersons use to keep track of legislative business, and is open to the public). Current status is:
Also note that the bill's sole sponsor, Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY), does not sit on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The most likely scenario is that this bill will sit in committee until it quietly dies (a very common fate, I would add).
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
If you click the link, and then click the link on that link to the actual source, it's a bill introduced by Rep Peter T. King [NY-3] introduced 1/9/2009 with no cosponsors; referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Most bills submitted to committees never get out of committee, espercially the ones with no co-sponsors, buried under the press of other stuff that congress can do which they think will actually get them votes. By introducing the bill he can tell the constituants that were lobbying for this "I introduced a bill in Congress to solve that very" and make it sound like he actually did something.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
For one thing, this law would do NOTHING to alert deaf victims they are being photographed! Some of them could be kids!
At which time, I, as the wiley "bad guy", press the button telling the camera to make the clicking noise when taking a picture. After the mean ol'cop has left
I had a "friend" once who had a similar button in his car that would disable his brake lights. He made a living for a few years by getting "accidentally" rear-ended. Always managed to flip 'em back on by the time the cops showed up.
Of course, said friend later died in a shootout with the police at a meth lab so I guess he wasn't born into the deep end of the gene pool.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Godzilla?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Ahhh - That's what they tried to do with handguns, and actually did in Massachusetts. They couldn't get gun control laws passed, so the AG declared guns to be under the jurisdiction of the Mass CPC. The stuff that required was "interesting" from a safety standpoint - hidden serial numbers, requiring that all handguns pass a "temperature" test (800F, so no Glocks, et al.)
So now the federal CPSC is going to regulate how cell phone cameras work, NOT to protect the user, but to protect everyone else FROM the user.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
My worry is what the cop will do after he hears your phone click when you catch him beating the shit out of somebody. Makes it a little hard to conceal that you just caught him in action.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Is there actually something that Japanese men don't want to take pictures of?
In similar news, lawmakers will require all horseless carriages (we call them "cars") to periodically whinny like a horse. (Ford Escorts do that anyhow after it rains, although I don't know if it's intentional.)
Table-ized A.I.
I wish this were much more common and lots of people did it. Maybe that's what it would take for people in general to understand why a good following distance is important. No, really, you're supposed to drive in such a way that something like this would never make you have an accident. People who refuse to do that are unfit to use a shared resource like the public roadways and I do not recognize their right to pose an unnecessary hazard to others (and why should you?).
Ever notice those people who tailgate you until you approach a traffic light? Then they back off because they know you may have to slow down or stop and they know that their following distance is unsafe for that. Their arrogance is that they think they will always know when you have to slow or stop, that there is no such thing as deer or dogs or pedestrians or impatient drivers who suddenly create hazards and that everything always goes smoothly the way you intended with no unforeseen complications.
I think this mentality also has something to do with the amount of debt that the average person (in the USA) carries and why so many people live from paycheck to paycheck when most of them have other options. That is, it's the unthinking "leaf in the wind" mentality, again, where people don't realize that they are living in such a way that leaves them open to what appear to be sudden and surprising events. The only amazing thing about the situation is that people can be so wide-open to these problems for so long before something finally does happen. That is no excuse for denial of what should be plainly true, but if someone wants to be in denial, this alone can help prevent them from seeing the cause and effect.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Ahhh - That's what they tried to do with handguns, and actually did in Massachusetts.
They must have already passed that in Missouri too -- all of our handguns make a noise when they are fired. They seem to be permanently set on the 'car backfiring' setting too. I tried changing mine to 'birds chirping' to be less conspicuous, and all I ended up with was a bunch of dead birds.
What we need is a car analogy. I don't have one. How about a motorcycle analogy?
My step-dad rode an old BSA (British bike, leaked oil) when I was a kid. It had a minor fault -- the required (in California) stoplight button on the rear brake pedal didn't work, and he never bothered to fix it. In those days and that area, cops would randomly pull over bikers ostensibly for safety checks, but actually to check their id and registration, run the plate, and generally look for trouble.
Step-dad would be required to demonstrate that the rear stoplight function worked. So he'd get in the bike, steady himself with his left hand on the handlebars, push the rear brake pedal down while simultaneously squeezing the front brake lever, which did turn on the stoplight. Ran it like that for years, was stopped many times, cops never caught on.
This is a feel-good law. I can't imagine that the people writing it really think it'll work. At most it'll nail a few people on false positives, but the true hard-core perverts, and the geeks who can't resist a challenge, will figure out work-arounds in next to no time. It's just software, after all. If you can jailbreak a phone, you can probably figure out how to temporarily turn off a mandatory feature.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It's safer here."