Clandestine Filming Ban Broadened

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger added the bedroom Tuesday to the list of places where it is illegal to film or photograph someone without their knowledge.

Working his way through hundreds of bills awaiting his signature or veto before Sept. 30, the governor signed legislation making it a misdemeanor to secretly videotape people in their bedrooms, whether or not they are clothed. Violators face punishment of up to a year in county jail, a $1,000 fine or both.

Laws already on the books make it illegal to film people in bathrooms, dressing rooms, tanning booths or any other area where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

“Technology is always improving,” says a Senate analysis of the bill, SB 1484, by Sen. Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine). “Unfortunately, there will always be those who will use it the wrong way. This bill updates the penal code to protect Californians from those who use technology to invade the privacy of others.”

The governor also signed legislation to crack down on Internet piracy, a pressing issue for Schwarzenegger’s industry colleagues in Hollywood. The bill, SB 1506, requires anyone sending movies, video games or music through the Internet or in other electronic ways to more than 10 people to include their real e-mail address. Violators would face up to a year in jail and $2,500 in fines. The bill was backed by the Motion Picture Assn. of America, the Screen Actors Guild and major studios, including 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures and Paramount.

It was opposed by civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.

“Federal copyright law is already very stringent,” said foundation legal director Cindy Cohn. She noted that legal action was already being taken against people who illegally download music on computers.

“We already have the recording industry destroying thousands of people’s lives,” she said.

“The industry needs to find a way to harness its fans’ enthusiasm,” she said, “instead of penalizing its customers for embracing the music.”

The governor also signed a bill that attempts to help parents flag violent video games. It requires stores that sell video games to post signs telling shoppers that the games have been rated by the industry based on violence and sexual content.

What Schwarzenegger signed -- AB 1793 -- is a much weaker version of legislation originally drafted by Assemblyman Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), a child psychologist.

Yee sought an outright ban on the sale of ultra-violent video games to minors, including those that depict the murder of women, minorities, the elderly and police officers. But his bill failed to get the support of fellow Democrats, who called it an infringement on free speech rights, and Republicans, who argued that parents -- not the state -- should control which video games children play. Lobbyists for the entertainment industry fought hard against the original bill, but Yee vowed to try again next year.

“This is a rather modest and simple step but at least it’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “We will sit down with the industry, we will sit down with the governor’s office, we will sit down with some of the other critics and work out a bill that’s agreeable to everybody.”

In other bill action, the governor:

* Signed a bill to speed up by two years the nation’s first ban on flame retardants known as PBDEs. Former Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill last year to halt the use of two types of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, and all products containing them, by 2008. The new law, unopposed by industry, starts that ban in 2006. The toxic compounds, which have been showing up in high levels in the breast milk of American women, have been widely used to reduce the flammability of foam in furniture, bedding, carpeting and some electronics.

* Signed a bill to ban, starting in 2006, the sale or distribution of thermostats containing mercury, a metallic element linked to brain, spinal cord and kidney development problems. According to bill author Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), roughly 8 million room thermostats are sold each year nationwide, 10% of them containing mercury, although less toxic alternatives are available.

* Vetoed legislation that would have banned public schools from using the term “Redskins” for school teams, mascots or nicknames. Schwarzenegger said schools should make such decisions on their own and that the bill, AB 858, would be a distraction that would take “more focus away from getting kids to learn at the highest levels.” Bill author Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) has attempted for several years in a row to ban public schools from using Native American team names. She calls such names demeaning to Native Americans.

* Vetoed legislation that would have allowed a parolee from the Youth Authority who is caught committing a nonviolent drug offense to get drug treatment rather than be sent back into confinement. He said the bill, SB 519, contravened the idea of drug treatment established by Proposition 36 to apply to first-time offenders. “Existing law currently allows the Youth Authority Board to order community drug treatment programs for wards on parole, in lieu of confinement,” wrote the governor in his veto message.