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Spy Cam Ban

Jesse Walker | 10.23.2003 11:10 AM

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Reader JSM points me to a story about a gym in Seattle that has prohibited cell phones, for fear that the cameras frequently attached to them will be misused in the locker room. I'm not one for institutionalized exercise myself, but I gather that such bans have become rather common, both here and abroad.

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Jesse Walker is books editor at Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

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  1. JSM   22 years ago

    Hopefully cell phone bans will remain with the gym and not legislation. But, it only takes that one embarrassing pic of a law maker to throw it all out the window.

    As a thought, maybe its time for the world to shed clothes in public on a regular basis to take the “sex” out of plain nudity.

  2. Robert Nabors   22 years ago

    People need to get over themselves.

    -Robert

  3. boifromtroy   22 years ago

    This can be a problem in L.A.

    At the two gyms I have gone to, I would have been able to get pics of Justin Timberlake, Henry Waxman Greg Siff, Seann William Scott, Norm and Dan from the Real World and others. I am surprised my gym hasn’t banned them yet!

    (One name on that list just sticks out, doesn’t it?!?)

  4. Kevin Carson   22 years ago

    JSM,

    Yeah, that’s the first thing that popped into my head, too. Mobile phone cameras are taking the video revolution a step further, and making things like the Rodney King footage an even more likely threat for the average brutal thug in uniform. I wouldn’t put it past them to work up some kind of “public safety” angle in lobbying for a ban.

  5. JSM   22 years ago

    Good point, Kevin.
    Didn’t it become illegal in some parts of the country to video cops without their knowledge?

    If Monica Lewinsky had this technology, I would wager it would have been more than a stained dress she would have been saving!

  6. Anonymous   22 years ago

    “As a thought, maybe its time for the world to shed clothes in public on a regular basis to take the “sex” out of plain nudity.”

    Would certainly speed up boarding an airplane.

  7. N   22 years ago

    Madog, you realize that’ll never happen, yes? World World III and the annihilation of the species will occur before anyone on this planet becomes a highly-functional Homo technicus.

    As for the subject at hand, Robert sums it up.

  8. Ruthless   22 years ago

    Cell phone camera owners should adopt the battle cry of the gay community: We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!

    It would be: We’re here! We’re invasive! Get used to it!

  9. Citizen   22 years ago

    So does that mean there is also a ban on cameras?

  10. Madog   22 years ago

    Makes you wonder what they’ll do in 30 years when your eye implants are constantly connected to your home database, recording and analysing everything you see…

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