We Don’t Need New Laws in California on Paparazzi

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Scheer
Executive Director
California First Amendment Coalition www.cfac.org

You know summer is here when hordes of paparazzi descend, locust-like, on southern California beaches, angering locals as they pursue money-shots of sun-tanning celebrities---while politicians, seeing an opportunity for self-promotion, promise new laws to tame the unruly photogs.

It has become a political rite of summer: Paparazzi behave badly, and elected officials suspend their reading of National Enquirer and X17online.com long enough to call for draconian legislation that would undermine free speech rights while doing little, if anything, to curb the excesses of the camera-wielding mobs.

Trendy Malibu is the setting for the latest iteration of this ritual. Confrontations between Paparazzi and Julia Roberts trying to exit the parking lot of the Malibu general store; between paparazzi and Pierce Brosnan outside a local eatery; and between paparazzi and local thugs claiming to protect fellow-surfer Matthew McConaughey, are among recent incidents that have generated interest in enacting anti-paparazzi laws.

Malibu Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich has reached out to former independent counsel (and Bill Clinton tormentor) Kenneth W. Starr---who knows something about investigating the private lives of public figures---to help draft an ordinance that would rein in the paparazzi (possibly by licensing them). Los Angeles City Councilmember Dennis Zine has proposed an ordinance that would, among other things, create a “personal safety zone” between paparazzi and their subjects.

Paparazzi are voyeurs with telephoto lenses, not First Amendment heroes. Still, efforts to legislate against paparazzi abuses are a bad idea.