A recent article on Salon on "upskirting" creeped me out. It wasn't the fact that there are guys out there using small cameras to take pictures up women skirts that bothered me -- every woman knows there are sick jerks out there -- but rather the blase response of civil liberties experts and scholars.

For example, John Morris, general counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology -- an organization that generally seems to deal thoughtfully with the tension between privacy and open information -- was quoted as saying, "If you don't want to be photographed walking the street, don't walk down the street -- it's a public street."

And, according to the article, University of Massachusetts (Lowell) Political Science Prof. Susan Gallagher observed, "Privacy is based on an expectation and, in general, people don't have an expectation of privacy in public."

Now I don't expect a lot of privacy in public places -- which is why I tend to comb my hair and put on a clean shirt even to run to the mailbox -- but there are limits. And one of those limits is that no one is entitled to view the parts of my body that are covered by clothes! If I'm wearing a skirt, what's underneath that is nobody else's business.

I fail to see the difference between someone reaching a hand under my skirt -- which would clearly be assault and probably sexual assault -- and someone reaching between my legs with a camera.

I'm a lawyer -- though I don't practice anymore -- and I find it hard to believe that any halfway competent prosecutor can't find a way to prosecute someone for upskirting. Texas has a law -- and not a particularly new law -- that makes it a felony to photograph someone without their consent "to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person." That law may have been passed to deal with hidden video recorders, but it certainly seems to include upskirting.

I'm a civil libertarian. It's fine with me if some guys get their kicks looking at pictures of naked women -- or even just female body parts, though that is exceedingly creepy -- so long as the women who posed for the pictures gave their OK.

I like to take pictures too, so I can understand that it's OK to photograph people on a public street. But it's not OK to maneuver to take a picture of a portion of someone's body that they have deliberately covered with clothes.

And don't tell me that I should wear slacks if I don't want this to happen -- that's just another example of blaming the victim. Also don't bother to mention women who dress with an eye to showing off various parts of their body; if a woman wants to expose her crotch or her boobs, that's her business. I'm talking about the creeps who photograph those of us that aren't putting ourselves on display.

I suspect the underlying attitude about this is simply "boys will be boys." But upskirting isn't normal male behavior; I doubt seriously that most men -- even the ones who read Playboy for the pictures -- would do something so creepy. We need to quit excusing offensive behavior by genuine perverts just because most men like to look at women's bodies.