June 27, 2006
SAY CHEESE, YOU SLEAZE!
Camera phones are becoming the frontline defense for women to stop subway perverts in their tracks, experts say, reports The New York Post via Alan Reiter's Camera Phone Report.
"Self-defense pros say the power to humiliate flashers and gropers by exposing their overexposure with a snapshot is an even more powerful weapon for women than a can of Mace or kick in the groin.
A plan proposed by City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. consists of posting photos of convicted gropers and flashers inside subway."If it were up to me, I'd expose these sleazy riders to the third rail," Vallone told The Post. "But since exposure is what they want, that's what they should get. There should be a public wall of shame on every subway line."
... But while many say technology could turn the tide against this age-old crime, others aren't content just to take pictures.
"Why do that?" asked Diana Tavarez, 23, of Manhattan, waiting on the platform at the Rockefeller Center station. "Just punch them like a true New Yorker would."
Other vigilante schemes:
-- Mothers recruited as camera phone vigilantes - Mothers armed with camera phones are helping Manteca Police (California) collar young vandals trying to trash Woodward Park
-- Holla Back The Holla Back NYC website encourages women to photograph sexual harassers and post the photos for the world to see.
-- Harlow council uses MMS to catch vandals - The town is encouraging people to take pictures of anti-social acts on their mobile phones and then text them to a special number along with details of where the vandalism has occurred.
-- Snap a picture of a traffic offender - The Transport Ministry of Malaysia invited the public snap pictures of traffic offenders and send them to the Hall of Shame section of a newly launched road safety website.
Good reading:
-- Cell Phone Vigilantes - A well written and well rounded article by Bennett Gordon from Understanding the next revolution on cameraphones, citizen journalism, the privacy issues surrounding localisation and the availability (for a fee) of cell phone records.
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