There was a story on the news last night about this effort to ban cellular camera phones that is being introduced in the Colorado Legislature. There is however one problem (ok really more than one). But the big one can be found in the Bill of Rights under the section labeled "Amendment 1".

Pommer's bill would make the use of cell phone cameras in areas like locker rooms a misdemeanor. As the bill hasn't been introduced yet I haven't read it yet. However, cellular camera phones are but one of the many small devices that would make it possible to take pictures in a locker room. What if the locker room has no lockers? Shall it be a crime to use your own phone to take a picture of yourself in a new outfit in a changing room at the local department store? There are plenty of PDA's and small cameras that are also capable of taking the picture if not transmitting it instantly.

Getting back to that little issue of the First Amendment to the Constitution let's look at a scenario. Say a member of the fourth estate, perhaps one with a blog, walks into a locker room and sees something untoward happening. Maybe it is an improper search, somebody stealing from a locker, or maybe it is a frustrated mother who hits a child... the scenarios are many. The point is that they can all be newsworthy (although the First Amendment doesn't have a newsworthy test in it).

So there end up being several reasons, technology, personal rights and freedom of speech and the press that make such a law a poor idea. We are, as we are so often forced to do, required to depend upon the common decency of people. When we are failed by people's common decency, we use the legal system to seek redress. It's not the simplest of situations. There will likely be many small claims and county court cases in the years to come while some people inappropriately use their new found technology. These are the trade offs that are a part of living in a free society.