something scary

[Guest jsekamore]

I saw something real scary on the news last night. Some hotels are placing tiny surveillence cameras in their guest rooms. Supposedly they doing this to monitor employee theft. More outrageous is the fact that this is legal. Now I have to wonder each time I see an escort, if I am being watched. It makes me think twice about hiring anyone anymore.

[Casteran]

I would NEVER stay at a hotel that did this, ask when you check in. Who cares about hiring or not, but it certainly does impose on ones civil rights.

[Guest trekker]

>I would NEVER stay at a

>hotel that did this, ask

>when you check in.

>Who cares about hiring or

>not, but it certainly does

>impose on ones civil rights.

 

I wouldn't either, if I knew or could find out. But if it's legal for them to do that surreptitiously then I suspect that they don't have to tell you that they do it and can lie if you ask. Besides, the desk clerk will probably say "I don't know" and will pretend that only the manager would know that.

 

(And it seems that it *is* legal under current law. I remember seeing something about that a while ago and the practice was upheld and ruled not a violation of privacy rights. Audio bugging, phone tapping and the like would be, but it seems the law does not apply to video, as long as there is no sound with it. Just another crazy place where the law has not caught up with technology.)

[Guest 7Zach]

I have heard of this but one time, and that was a motel in Texas that did it so that the manager could watch people in the rooms, i.e., sex. The legal judgement was big.

I have no idea how this is supposed to be legal absent their informing you and getting your consent. But I don't know everything about 1st and 4th amendment law. Clearly the voice element requires an expectation of privacy, and if there, u can't record. But I have never seen anything saying that video could be used in a room. Would appreciate insight on this, or a link to the article. Tks.

[Guest Fin Fang Foom]

UGH!

 

Now some of us have yet ANOTHER reason to be worrying about how our hair looks!

[Guest EvilSwine]

This whole thing with cameras is getting ridiculous. I was watching a show on MSNBC one night where they were talking about the proliferation of cameras and one of the guests was from the UK, where they have millions of cameras on public streets.He said it was originally sold to the public by the government as a way to help catch terrorists, but now they justify it by claiming it reduces crime. Apparently it DOES reduce crime. It does it by forcing the criminals into someone else's neighborhood which doesn't have cameras.

 

This whole world seems to be getting so PC-ish and 1984. You can't say certain things because you might offend. People sue over things that 30 years ago would have been laughed out of court and win. Well-meaning people basically are trying to turn the government into a babysitter for the public by getting new laws passed instead of strictly enforcing the ones that exist.

 

One of the most popular arguments given by law enforcement for this camera stuff is "If you aren't doing something wrong, then you won't mind.". Well..I DO mind. It's no one else's business WHO I talk to, WHERE I go, WHEN I go there, or WHAT I do once I'm there. I can understand having a camera in a convenience store or something, but it's all getting damned ridiculous.

[Guest trekker]

>I have heard of this but one time, and that was

>a motel in Texas that did it so that the

>manager could watch people in the rooms, i.e., sex. The

>legal judgement was big. I have no idea how this

>is supposed to be legal absent their informing you and

>getting your consent. But I don't know everything about 1st

>and 4th amendment law. Clearly the voice element requires an

>expectation of privacy, and if there, u can't record. But

>I have never seen anything saying that video could be

>used in a room. Would appreciate insight on this, or

>a link to the article. Tks.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know much more.

It was probably about a year or two ago, and the more I think about it the more I think it was on one of those TV magazine shows like 60 Minutes or Dateline, because I have very clear visual images in mind. As I recall they were talking about a case in New Orleans or nearby. And I think they also brought in another example which involved a landlord and tenant, but maybe I'm mixing that up with something else. Anyway, I'm not sure if the victim (female) was able to sue or not on some kind of grounds, but it was stated that it was not illegal to have the camera there and record from it. And it was stated that it would be illegal to bug or eavesdrop or wiretap without a search warrant, but that the same doesn't (or didn't then) apply to visual snooping. It may have something to do with the way the law was written in that jurisdiction, or it may be more general. And why it doesn't come under "peeping tom" statutes, I don't know. It would seem to any rational person that it should be against the law, but I don't pretend to understand how some of these bizarre legal intricacies arise.

 

Of course, there are surveillance cameras in lots of places, but I suppose those get away with it by being in "public places", although some of them aren't so public. Also a lot of places that use them have signs saying that they are being used, and sometimes even monitors so you can see yourself on TV. But if hotels are putting them in surreptitiously and getting away with it and it has appeared in the news, it must not be illegal, or else there probably would have been a suit about it.

 

Also, there are paparazzi, PIs and just ordinary people who take pictures and make videorecordings with telephoto lenses and such from a great distance, often through windows - not just outside shots, and that is obviously legal, in spite of the fact that it's an obnoxious invasion of privacy.

 

A fairly recent item along these lines, but somewhat more in the gray area, concerned a guy who was arrested for growing pot (Washington state, I think). They got him by using infrared equipment and finding that part of his house was much warmer than the rest from the grow lights, and on that basis got a search warrant. No warrant for the infrared, but it was argued (and I believe upheld) that it was legal because it was "hands off" from outside and therefore didn't constitute an invasion of privacy.

 

Big Brother, anyone?

[Guest]

Is there a piece of equipment one can buy that can detect cameras, just as there are sweepers for voice bugs? I feel I need to get one of those, if they exists!

[Guest EvilSwine]

I wouldn't worry about the cameras and voice bugs. Don't you know they have a device that beams a low-intensity laser at window glass and allows them to listen to a conversation by translating the vibration of the glass into a sound signal? It's TRUE! Also, there are cops who drive around neighborhoods or fly above in helicopters with heat sensors looking for houses that put out more heat than is normal. They are doing it as a way of searching for people growing pot indoors with grow lights because of all the heat that's produced. It's TRUE! Bunch of invasive bastards...

[Guest BH]

It may be "legal," but only in the sense it is not per se illegal. It is not a crime for hotels to install cameras in the rooms. And it is not a crime for them to watch their employees on camera when in the room. Depending on the state, it may not, without more, be a crime to watch what's going on in the room when patrons are in it. (Department stores put two way mirrors in dressing rooms to catch shoplifters, and that's not a crime either.) But, if the hotel employees watch guests in the room engaging in intimate sexual acts and get caught, they (and the hotel company that employes them) are going to be subject to civil liability. I suspect the prospect of a pissed off jury is enough to cause any hotel operator who uses cameras to limit employee access to video monitors. One department store chain got tagged by a jury for a peeping tom security guard who liked to watch female patrons change clothes.

[johnnysneakers]

I do not swallow this at all. I cannot believe for one minute that hotels are monitoring what I do in the privacy of the room I have rented. This is an invasion of privacy, no question about it. Give us some proof.