At 11:09 AM -0700 7/3/01, Steve Schear wrote:
Although the ruling only appears to apply to one's home it does raise questions whether citizens may have the right to prevent their observation while in public. After all one is permitted tinted windows on autos.
Not in many places. At least here in California, and probably in many other states, there are restrictions on which windows may be tinted, and by how much. Despite certain city/county ordinances why not masks or helmets with tinted faceplates. My motorcycle helmet has a tinted faceplate. Very darkly tinted, in fact. (So dark that the vehicle code requires it be removed at night and replaced by a clear plate, or lifted up.) The whole issue of "going masked" is a murky one, legally. We have had many discussions of this over the years. Women wearing veils, men wearing beards, sunglasses, Halloween or other party masks, etc. I believe that a major constitutional challenge to "going masked for the purpose of going masked" laws would, by a court faithful to the U.S.C. and the Founders, be struck down. The need of a traffic cop to check for a valid driver's license, for example, can be met in much less restrictive ways than throwing someone in prison for wearing a wig which some judge deems to be a "disguise." (Not that there are many, if any, people sitting in prison today for the crime of "going masked for the purpose of going masked." Time to take the laws off the books, though, lest they be applied to cyberspace or to public camera countermeasures, as we are discussing here.) --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns