Sweden: Filming your neighbour having sex is legal

[Aptrgangr]

Filming your neighbour having sex is legal

As long as you are not caught in the act it is legal to film your neighbours naked, or even having sex. That is the conclusion reached by prosecutor Bo Birgersson, who has just dropped the charges against a 20 year old man accused of filming 20 of his neighbours in various states of undress.
"It is not possible to be molested without one's knowledge. And even if you find out after the act that somebody has been peeping at you it is not enough to bring about a conviction," Birgersson told Sydsvenskan.
In 2004 young woman in Malmö caught the filmmaker red-handed and alerted the police. But a failure to find any films featuring the woman in question meant that there was no concrete basis for the charge of molestation.
"That's when I think I lost the case," said Birgersson.
Other neighbours first realised that they had been filmed naked when police found video footage in the man's apartment.
In most cases they are captured in everyday situations, watching television or making dinner. But the man also filmed neighbours having sex.
"I find it objectionable that somebody can commit what one might call a virtual invasion of domestic privacy in this way," said professor of media law, Hans-Gunnar Axberger, who would like to see fresh legislation introduced to protect the victims.

http://www.thelocal.se/5501/?PHPSESS...aad85e19fe80d4

[Menydh]

One of many cases where laws are not enough and freedom becomes a bad excuse for what should not be tolerated.

Even if you argue that you are having your privacy invaded if a neighbour is filming you in your house from his house, couldn't you argue for an invasion of your privacy if you are filmed while walking on the street?

That's the feeling I get when I realize that there is a camera.

[Susi]

Maybe they could get really thick, heavy drapes or something?

I don't think that's exactly healthy.. I mean why would you film your neighbours having sex? That's not exactly a "film project". I think that's more of a "mental problem"...

Maybe it should be specified that you are not allowed to film people without their consent? Of course now what about CCTV? I remember reading somewhere it was illegal to have them in Sweden but now I'm not so sure..

[Menydh]

Susi, under the current system it should be easier to defend the right of the offender to exercise his freedom to film from his home, than to defend the right of the offended to his privacy.

All it should take is some legal subterfuges, which could go as far as to say that the man filming did not break into their home but he did it from his own home, and that the people who were filmed had their curtains open therefore exposing themselves to public. Or something along those lines.

In Spain there used to be laws more open to interpretation, like the ley de vagos y maleantes (law of vagrants and villains). True that it was abused sometimes. But also true that decent people and society in general was safe and protected.

[Susi]

Maybe they should reinstate this law. "ley de vagos y maleantes"...

Isn't law mostly interpretation anyways?

[Menydh]

You are right. Laws are to be interpreted:

The Interpretation of Judicial Norms

"To apply the law and other judicial norms it is necessary to interpret them. The interpretation is the verification and understanding of the sense and impact of the norm.

With the interpretation the meaning of a norm is researched, of all and every judicial norm: which means that, on the one side, all norms must be interpreted and not just the law in general, and, on the other side, that it is necessary to interpret all norms, and not just those which are not clear of of difficult understanding, but also those which look clear at first sight; it is erroneous the sentence in claris non fit interpretatio.

The end of the interpretation is to find out the meaning and the impact of the norm; the object is the text of the norm; the means are the elements or the data that lead to that end."

Xavier O'Callaghan - Magistrate of the [Spanish] High Court. Chair of Civil Law.