U.S. Congress - H.R.414 Camera Phone Predator Alert Act
H.R.414 - Camera Phone Predator Alert Act
To require mobile phones containing digital cameras to make a sound when a photograph is taken. view all titles (2)
All Bill Titles
- Official: To require mobile phones containing digital cameras to make a sound when a photograph is taken. as introduced.
- Short: Camera Phone Predator Alert Act as introduced.
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Displaying 1-30 of 33 total comments.
Since the cameras on mobile phones are all electronic cameras, so there’s no possible mechanical shutter sound available. The sound required needs to be generate from the mobile phone software that controls all the mobile phone behaviors. And it is extremely simple for somebody to mute the sound. This makes this bill totally unrealistic to enforce. Thus, this bill will be just wasting your time and our money.
Really, why does congress spend my money on these frivolous bills? He should be fired just for even thinking of this. This could be hacked with some “tape” and don’t forget about the 100 million phones already out on the market. We better send all the photos we take to him so he can check them before we publish them.
This bill is ridiculous and is a waste of time. Seriously, does he even understand how a mobile phone works?
Congressman Peter King. How dare you waste valuable time and taxpayer money on this GARBAGE! This bill shows how completely useless Congress has become, and more directly, how utterly and absolutely TOTALLY useless the Republican party has become.
I guess the dumb stupid bastard got nothing better to do, the economy is great, crime is down and the war in iraq has been won, time to tackle the tough and politically dangerous third rail of noisy phone cameras. I guess he wants to hear the sound if he ever gets caught molesting young boys or having sex with somebody else wife or husband.
It’s not dumb. Seems the only thing dumb here are the other commentators above me. I was shopping in our local grocery store, when I noticed a teenager following various women around the store. He had a camera phone and was silently snapping pictures of their backsides. One young blonde especially caught his attention and he followed her right out of the store. I called the officer on duty in the store over to point this out. He took care of kid with a stern warning. It goes on allot here. I don’t want my wife or daughter stalked and photographed by pervs. Only oblivious people (see above) and pervs (see above?) would object to this bill. I’m for it. Peter King how can I help?
Complain to your local grocery store and have them put up a policy that says, no unauthorized use of camera phones. Every gym I’ve ever been in has the same rule; plus why didn’t your say something to the perv taking the pictures? This bill is a waste of time.
This bill wouldn’t stop anything. If people really wanted to they’re going to buy older phones that were made before this bill. This is only going to complicate everything.
So now all of a sudden the U.S. government is concerned with the privacy of its citizens?!? What a bunch of BS! They aren’t concerned with privacy issues with red light cameras, or CCTV cameras on city blocks, or wire-tapping, etc. There’s no doubt that the U.S. government listens in on some cell phone conversations. And now they’re worried about privacy. What a bunch of BS!
What the * are you talking about?
The US Gov’t isn’t some giant monolythic right-wing monster. It’s made up of many variations of Democrat and Republican as well as Independant and Socialist people, INDIVIDUALS, many of whom have always cared about privacy, have fought for privacy rights- their own as well as their supporters.
Just cause this guy wants to make it manditory that a “click” noise be heard when a photo is being taken doesn’t infringe on anyones rights, except all the pervs who upload dressing room, toilet time, and various opportunistic up-the-skirt photos of womens crotches to their and their perv friends websites. THAT IS an infringment of peoples privacy, when your private parts are made public without your concent.
Grow-up and stop dumping your brain poop on this site.
Uh, What?
Why is this a government issue?
This is retarded!
Most small digital cameras could be used to circumvent this law, and they would take better pictures. The obvious solution for the bill would be to extend the law to cover all cameras. This would suddenly create a huge issue for many photographers, including a lot of professionals.
There are a lot of situations (besides prurient pursuits) that require silence. Photographing wildlife, candid shots, or even places with multiple photographers are all situations in which the clicking sound would be annoying and would not contribute to the overall well being of the world. It is not a good idea to make every moment to be remembered to sound like a press conference.
There is no definition of reasonable that would stand up to a test of reasonable in this case. Is the click supposed to be heard at a reasonable distance in a quiet locker room, a shower, a dance floor, a closet, etc? Each of these has a different ambient noise level. 40 dBA may be sufficient in an open area or a quiet room, 80+ dBA may be required on a dance floor.
A better solution would be to require a camera serial number to be embedded in each photograph and to bar software from removing that field. It would not be visible, would not interfere with the photograph or quality, or the moment, but should an illicit photo show up, the serial number could possibly be employed to determine the camera and photographer. The serial number would also permit professional photographers to verify that they did indeed take a picture and enforce their intellectual property rights over pictures.
With the current economic crisis and 2 ongoing wars, do we really need to debate this type of furious stuff in Congress? Even if this was made into law, someone would come up with a software hack to defeat it. Please, let’s move on to the more important topics facing this nation.
Think about what you are doing! You can’t stop VIDEO and every camera phone has one. Are you going to make the VIDEO make a noise when recording? This is another example of our elected representatives not keeping up with technology and not knowing how it works. If you make the camera click then the child predator will just use video. We need to stop trying to use our children to create laws that make no sense.
The reason this is NOT STUPID is that all the OTHER STUFF gov’t is supposed to be doing is secondary to protecting it’s citizens. That was and is it’s primary duty, not running the big daddy/mommy welfare state. This IS pertinent for privacy rights. And for a hundred years photos were taken of animals just fine with a “click.” The video arguement against this is the best so far. Encryption on the image is a fair but pretty weak solution. Who records serial numbers and programs personal info into all their equipment so it could be traced?
What to do about this?
Raise kids not to be deviants. Confront inappropriate behavior as it occurs. Encourage a weak and pathetic population to stand-up and callout those who are messing it up for everyone else by forcing lawmakers to create more restrictions and boundries in society to control the lowest common denominator amonst us.
While I fully understand the rationale, I just don’t see how it’s feasible to make something like this that sticks for anyone but the already innocent.. For every feature of this nature to ever be added, there would minutes after its release be a bulletin board pop up somewhere sharing how to hack/crack it..
Just another step forward to the Big Brother approach of government. They don’t care about average joe citizen. And privacy there is none…Big Brother knows everything you do now.
This is a ridiculous bill and the sponsor obviously has no clue about today’s technology. It will do nothing to protect women since it can’t be enforced.
Another case of government involving itself where it shouldn’t be involved.
I see nowhere in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution where Congress has the power to force companies to make their camera phones make a noise. Even if it /was/ there, it’s still ridiculous.
Rep. Peter King should be ashamed of himself.
These are the kind of bills that make our government inefficient. Lets focus on the important stuff. This is clear proof the government does NOT know best.
Waste of time. There’s a way around everything in electronics. All you’d have to do is get an inductor to mimic the inductance of the speaker. The board wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. A complete waste of money, and probably covering for a protectionist measure to boot (I wonder if there’s a phone that does this that’s made domestically..).
From the text: “A mobile phone manufactured after such date shall not be equipped with a means of disabling or silencing such tone or sound.”
Umm, would that make Duct tape illegal? Since it seems like a little bit of duct tape over the speaker would cut down on that shutter sound.
There are always going to be creeps out there – some of them will have cameras – that’s the world — live with it.
Really?!??!? There is nothing more important than this, right? It’s the camera phones not the user.
Is there anyone out there that has had a photo take of them without their knowledge that they were upset about when they found out that it was taken. That is the issue! It’s a matter of privacy.
I do agree that this should not be a government issue, the dang phone manufacturers should have done this on their own. But they are motivated by sales…obviously to people that are supportive of people being able to photograph others in embarrassing or otherwise undesirable situations, that people that respect other’s privacy and the right to know if you are being photographed.
As for duct taping the speaker…well, if someone has a camera phone in my view with duct tape on it, I’m going to be wondering what’s up. Thats pretty suspicious when phones are dirt cheap or free.
There are a lot of things the government is doing that is dumb, but this is one thing that they need to do because the citizens have pitiful ethics and the phone manufacturers only care about making more money.
What does sales have to do with anything? Most phones have the option of turning a sound on. People leave it disabled, just as some people disable it on digital cameras. Holy crap we live in a world of choice and personal responsibility.
This bill sounds like it is a cover for when you take pictures of the police and other governmental people. They would have complete knowledge of who and when and could then easily remove any honestly negative publicity they now get. This so much like our congress to sell something that sounds good but in reality is something bad!
BINGO!
“When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” * Thomas Jefferson
You’ve got to be kidding? What an ass this guy is.
I oppose this bill because of the principle involved. The government should not try to force cellphone manufacturers to alter the designs of phones.
I agree that there are perverts who take pictures with their cell phones that they shouldn’t be taking, happens all the time in the college I go to. However, it is up to the cellphone companies to do this if they want to. Forcing them to is an assault on civil liberty.
In addition to this, I think that parents should just not let their kids have cellphones because kids don’t really need them anyway. And this is primarily a problem amongst teenagers etc in school.