Apparently, upskirt photos are legal after all

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last updated 8 January 2015

Last November, Michael Robertson appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court that the upskirt photos he took of unsuspecting women on Boston's T line were protected by the First Amendment. According to his lawyer, Michelle Menken, Robertson did not violate the state's "Peeping Tom" law because his subjects were not nude, and she argued that his case should be thrown out.

In a depressing turn of events, the state's Supreme Court ruled today that the law in question did not apply to Robertson's victims, since they were fully clothed and in a public place. "At the core of the Commonwealth's argument to the contrary is the proposition that a woman, and in particular a woman riding on a public trolley, has a reasonable expectation of privacy in not having a stranger secretly take photographs up her skirt. The proposition is eminently reasonable, but (the law) in its current form does not address it," the decision read.

If you're wearing Spanx, a thong, or other undergarments that could constitute being "partially nude" beneath your skirt, you're entitled to legal protection, but women who favor granny panties are out of luck. Good to know.