Voyeur Web Sites(Fox News Network)

Voyeur & Voyeurism Web Sites

From: Fox Files (Fox News Network)  | Date: August 17, 1999  | Author: Jon Scott, Arthel Neville 

SCOTT: When you think about adult voyeur web sites, the Constitution is probably the furthest thing from your mind. But the two are related, as Arthel Neville found out when she met some people who were busted for sex on the 'Net.

LAWRENCE WALTERS, FIRST AMENDMENT LAWYER: What you have here is a new medium for disseminating information that nobody knows how to deal with, including the courts, the police, and the prosecutors. It's like the wild, wild West.

ARTHEL NEVILLE, FOX FILES: When our founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they weren't prepared for this.

And these are just the pioneers of this new frontier -- men and women appearing nude on the 'Net.

But now that freedom of expression is being challenged.

WALTERS: The first amendment is not there to protect the majority.

It's there to protect the rights of the minority to express themselves in controversial ways.

NEVILLE: Last year alone, adult voyeur web sites generated nearly $1 billion in revenue. As the adult voyeur web business explodes, so do the number of lawsuits. Take "Voyeur Dorm." It's an adult voyeur site where for $39.95 a month, you can peek in at six Florida co-eds. Forty voyeur cameras record their every move. The girls told us they get free college tuition, room and dorm.

The money comes from cyber-porn king Seth Worshovsky (ph) and a business partner.

AMBER, "VOYEUR DORM": To see every second of our life, you know.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

NEVILLE: But are these girls going too far? The city of Tampa thinks so. Authorities are trying to shut them down, claiming the "Voyeur Dorm" is an adult business and should not be run in a residential neighborhood.

ALEX, "VOYEUR DORM": They are basically trying to kick us out of our homes. And they're just trying to turn a morality issue into something else -- like a zoning issue.

NEVILLE: The community doesn't approve. What do their parents think?

AMBER: They have like a real misconception, like I was a prostitute. I'm living my life under a voyeur camera. I'm just same old me, just letting the whole world see it.

NEVILLE: Tracy and George Miller are critical care nurses in Phoenix, Arizona. In their spare time, they operate their own voyeur web sex site.

Tracy -- who calls herself Dakota Rae -- poses nude, while George shoots the pictures.

GEORGE MILLER: There's over 2, 000 picture of Dakota Rae that go anywhere from like a PG picture in a bathing suit through a hard-core X- rated picture.

NEVILLE: Tammy Robinson -- code name Becca Lynn -- and her husband, Herbert, started a voyeur sex site a few years ago in Polk County, Florida.

TAMMY ROBINSON: The response was phenomenal. One month, I may get 500 members, and another month, I may get 700.

TRACY MILLER: The last two months, we've made approximately $30,000, so it's pretty -- pretty good.

NEVILLE: Sounds like easy money, but for these voyeur Web babes, it comes at a high price.

Two weeks ago, George and Tracy's voyeur Web site got them fired from their nursing jobs at Scottsdale Healthcare for alleged violation of disciplinary and sexual harassment policies.

G. MILLER: Up until two weeks ago, nursing was 90 percent of our life. We gave everything we had to that job.

Rumors spread around the hospital that I had the adult Web site, and people, out of sheer curiosity were just pulling it up.

T. MILLER: I -- I don't think it's immoral what I'm doing. I think what everybody does in the privacy -- in the privacy of their own home behind closed doors is up to them.

NEVILLE: Of course, the question of the right to privacy may be a moot point once your boudoir voyeur photos appear on the Internet for anyone to see -- even children.

WALTERS: The key issue for the -- the courts and for the legislature to decide in the near future is how to best protect children from the Internet.

NEVILLE: Scottsdale Healthcare declined Fox Files' repeated requests for an interview about why they fired the Millers.

Meanwhile, adult voyeur Webmasters all over the country are keeping a close watch on Tammy's case in Florida. It could change the way they do business.

WALTERS: Based on our research, this is the -- the first obscenity prosecution against content on the Internet.

NEVILLE: Tammy and Herbert were arrested on an obscenity charge for operating their voyeur site.

ROBINSON: They've pretty much named me the poster child for the Internet voyeur pornography.

NEVILLE: While nearly 5,000 fans shell out up to $39.95 each a year to see Tammy, she does have her share of enemies. In December, she received a death threat over the Internet.

ROBINSON: He said he's going to rape my children, bash my son's head in, and not kill me, but come back and kill me when he came back the second time.

NEVILLE: Taking the threat seriously, Tammy called the sheriff, who became very interested in her voyeur web site.

WALTERS: Instead of investigating the threatening e-mail, he turned the focus of his investigation on Tammy herself.

NEVILLE: The court complaint alleges that Tammy helped underage neighbors to download her sexually explicit voyeur images.

If convicted, the Robinsons face up to five years in jail.

ROBINSON: What I do is totally legal. And if you don't -- if people don't like it, they don't have to look at it.

NEVILLE: But young boys do want to look. And unfortunately, it's almost impossible to kid-proof the adult Internet.

WALTERS: That's going to be the real challenge in the new century -- to try to keep children from accessing objectionable materials.

NEVILLE: Tammy vows to keep fighting. She says she'll do everything in her power to stay online.

ROBINSON: I want to stand up for my right. I'll fight them all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to.

NEVILLE: There are those who believe that the right to privacy ends once you put your personal pictures online. After all, the Internet is very, very public.

SCOTT: From the crossroads of America -- New York's Grand Central Station, I'm Jon Scott. We'll see you again next Tuesday for more of the stories and the people of Fox Files.