Not even the lowly subway flasher can escape the scrutiny of citizen law enforcers wielding the increasingly powerful combination of cell phone cameras connected to social networking sites.

From a story in the Boston Herald:

Nay Khun, a mild-mannered, 29-year-old Hub legal clerk, was riding home on the Red Line at rush hour Wednesday when he spotted a white, middle-aged, goateed man allegedly exposing and fondling himself.

"I was mad. This was a public area," Khun told the Herald.

So Khun responded the way we've all be trained to these days when we see a crime (even a disgusting one) unfolding: He snapped a picture, right, and posted it to Twitter. Here was his his message: "#mbta pervert on 2nd car of red line going to Braintree just passed Charles help me report him in hat."

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You can see the full safe-for-work photograph here, and while not as dramatic as an airliner bobbing on the Hudson, it does serve to illustrate again the ubiquity cell phone cameras and willingness of owners to use them when motivated.

Khun's Twitter message was seen and distributed more widely on that network by Universal Hub, a Boston news-and-information site operated by former Network World stalwart Adam Gaffin. The Herald picked up the ball next and says it alerted transit authority police, whose investigation eventually led to the arrest of the perv perp.

As for those questioning whether the alleged flasher's privacy rights were invaded, a reporter for the Boston Globe put that question to transit system general manager Richard Davey.

"There's no expectation of privacy in a public space. That's pretty established," Davey said.

True enough, although some will continue to find it ironic that police officials encourage and enable the use of mobile phones to chronicle wrongdoing on the part of citizens and yet fight it - through the threat of felony charges - when that same technology is used to record the actions of police officers.

And Universal Hub notes that the MBTA itself isn't always welcoming of cameras when it is on the wrong end of them.

Hey, police brutality may go unpunished, but at least there will be fewer flashers on the subway.

(Update, Monday: Meanwhile, New York City isn't waiting for citizen photographers to do their thing; they've got thousands of new cameras to keep tabs of bad guys ... and, or course, everyone else.)

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