A Washington, D.C., judge has dismissed a case against a man for taking photos up women’s skirts at the Lincoln Memorial. It was not an invasion of privacy, the judge ruled.

“This Court finds that no individual clothed and positioned in such a manner in a public area in broad daylight in the presence of countless other individuals could have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” Judge Juliet McKenna wrote in her ruling dismissing the case against Christopher Cleveland.

McKenna wrote that in this case, Cleveland didn’t have to go to “extraordinary lengths” to take the pictures.

“The images captured were not ‘incidental glimpses’ and in fact were images that were exposed to the public without requiring any extraordinary lengths whatsoever, to view,” she wrote.

I note the development not only for salaciousness. Arkansas, thanks to then-Rep. Donna Hutchinson, passed a law in to punish “upskirt” photographers back in 2007 and stiffened it in 2009.  I’m not aware if the law has ever been used. As Talking Points Memo notes in reporting the D.C. case, the laws have encountered objections elsewhere.

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