Publication Date
2014
Abstract
In September 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 606, criminalizing attempts to photograph or videotape a child if the reason for doing so was because the child's parent is a celebrity or public official. Not surprisingly, the measure garnered significant support from Hollywood's elite, including legislative testimony from actress-moms Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner. Against the outcry of the California Broadcasters Association and the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the California Legislature approved the measure, which raises current penalties for first-time offenders to one year of incarceration and/or a $10,000 fine (up from a maximum of six months of incarceration and/or a $1,000 fine). The law, which will likely be challenged as an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech, separates out a class of children to be protected based on their parents' status as public people based on their employment. Such a distinction-like the current distinctions between public and private plaintiffs in defamation and invasion of privacy cases-proves problematic in the age of the Internet for a variety of reasons
Recommended Citation
Sanders, Amy K.
(2014)
"Fast Forward Fifty Years: Protecting Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open Debate After New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,"
Georgia Law Review: Vol. 48:
No.
3, Article 8.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol48/iss3/8