A stranger is watching ...(voyeur peeping toms)

From:Cosmopolitan  | Date: February 1, 2000  | Author: Marshall, Mary Ann

Armed with itty-bitty cameras, perverts are videotaping women in dressing rooms, bathrooms, even in their own homes. Could you be the next victim?

* Kathleen Miller, 23, couldn't believe her luck. She had just found a great apartment in her hometown of Springfield, Virginia, that cost only $360 a month and was right around the corner from where she worked as a dental hygienist. The place had a huge bedroom, enhanced by two floor-to-ceiling mirrors directly across from one another. "It was outrageous, just the ultimate dream place," she remembers. Her landlord, a kind man in his 50s named Leroy Blakey, even helped her move in.
But a few days later, Miller's dream place began to transform into The Twilight Zone. After returning home from work one night, Miller noticed that her TV had been moved a few inches to the right, Thinking she must have done it herself accidentally, she pushed it back to its regular position. But the next day, it had been shifted again. Then one night as she was lying ill bed, Miller saw a blinking light that seemed to be coming from one of her big wall mirrors. Again, she dismissed it. "I thought I was going crazy," says Miller. Three months after moving in, Miller returned from work to find a porno magazine on her bed, opened to a photo of a nude brunette, blue-eyed model who bore more than a passing resemblance to her. "I knew someone had come into my bedroom," she says, "and it probably wasn't the first time." A few days later, she moved out.

What she didn't know at the time was that it was her landlord who had left the porn magazine on her bed. And that's not all. A detective phoned Miller several months after she'd moved out to tell her that a woman in another of Blakey's apartments had discovered a camera behind a two-way mirror in her bathroom. The detective asked Miller to come down to the station and see if she could identify herself on some of the 136 edited videotapes that had been confiscated from Blakey's apartment. Miller watched in horror as the detective played a video of her putting lotion on her legs before going to sleep. (Blakey had repeatedly moved her TV set so that the camera he had placed behind the full-length mirror would get a better view of her bed.) Another shot, taken with a zoom lens from behind her medicine cabinet, was of Miller inserting a tampon. Based on the videotape evidence of seven different victims, Blakey was arrested and spent six months in jail.

In this technologically advanced era, Miller isn't the only unsuspecting woman who's been taped. Today's Peeping Tom has an arsenal of equipment at his disposal. "Miniature video cameras have armed a whole new group of voyeurs," says Lauren Weinstein, moderator of the Privacy Forum, a Web site devoted to privacy issues. Though it's impossible to guess how many video voyeurs exist, one thing is certain: Men who normally wouldn't be so brazen as to spy on women are now being enticed by the ease of peeping electronically.

The video voyeur places tiny hidden cameras in people's homes, public bathrooms, dressing rooms--even inside toilets. Some watch the tapes themselves, as did Jeffrey Autrey, a 21-year-old student at the University of Connecticut who was arrested for installing a video camera in one of the shower stalls in a women's dormitory. But that's not the only danger: Others are now taking advantage of the information age by posting their handiwork on the Internet for fellow intruders to enjoy. "They do it because of the excitement," says Andrew Drake, vice president of Pixis Interactive, a controversial company that runs a voyeur Web site called upskirt.com. "It's the thrill of the hunt. Some people kill deer; this is their sport." Psychologists offer different theories. "Video voyeurs tend to,have problems with women and low self-esteem, so they feel like the only sexual excitement they can get is through a video-camera lens," says Michael Mantell, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in San Diego who has treated both voyeurs and their victims.

When it comes to protection against such predators, the law has not kept apace with technology. Although a federal statute makes it a crime to record conversations, it doesn't mention videotaping. Only about 20 states have laws against placing hidden cameras in private places. So it's not surprising that when a voyeur records outdoors, as one man caught filming up women's skirts in Disneyland in 1998 did, he hasn't even broken the law in most parts of the country. As for the Internet, there are currently hundreds of sleazy sites that charge low monthly fees for computerized peep shows and tire completely unregulated. (One site brags: "Amazing digital camera shots from inside a women's tennis club shower area! See them soaking and soaping themselves!")

occupational hazards

Despite these facts, few of us worry about having our privacy invaded. Jessica Paterson, 24, certainly didn't. In 1998, Paterson was working as a reporter for the Apalachicola Times, a small weekly newspaper in Apalachicola, Florida.
One day, a coworker asked Paterson if she thought it was strange that their boss, a general manager named John Lee, seemed to rush into his office and close the door whenever a woman walked into the bathroom. Paterson did think it was strange, so she started snooping around.

"I found a video camera in the air-conditioner vent just above the toilet," she says. "It was two-inches square, with a tiny fisheye lens the size of the end of your pinkie." The police discovered that the camera was directly wired to a TV in Lee's office. "I totally trusted my boss," says Paterson. "I felt horribly violated."

Paterson was eager to press charges, but the cops couldn't find a statute prohibiting video cameras in bathrooms. "I think Lee researched it," says Paterson, who promptly quit her job. "I think he knew it wasn't against the law." Two months later, the publicity surrounding the incident prompted the passage of a bill that outlawed videotaping someone when that person is in a "dwelling, structure, or conveyance and such location provides a reasonable expectation of privacy." But it was too late to nab John Lee. Unlike, Paterson, he kept his job.

dressing-room danger

In June 1998, Wanda Hopkins was trying on some lingerie in the fitting room of a store in San Diego when she saw a red light and a video camera lens peering under the door. She screamed and rushed to get dressed, but by the time she did, the suspect had vanished. Martin Ammerman, a 21-year-old married college student--and serial voyeur--was later apprehended. His method? Trolling different stores with a camera in his bag, ready to film at any time.

An increasing number of store employees are also being tempted by the proximity of nearly naked women. And unlike Ammerman, they don't have to do the taping themselves. In most states, even ones with anti-videotaping laws, stores can legally use cameras in dressing rooms and aisles under a separate set of laws governing merchants. Those tapes sometimes fall into the wrong hands. When a bootleg copy of a woman undressing in a department store in Boca Raton, Florida, came to the attention of Florida state senator Kendrick Meek, he was revolted. "A security guard had taken the video home to show to a friend, who later brought it to the attention of the police," says Meek. The Miami senator showed the shocking video to state lawmakers, who immediately outlawed videotaping in dressing rooms in April 1999.

New Jersey state senator Raymond Zane has also taken up the Cause after cameras were discovered in a variety of mall stores. "It's common practice, even in chain stores that told us they didn't do it," says Zane. "My staff found secret cameras, holes in the walls." The New Jersey legislature is ill the process of passing an anti-taping law, but even Zane admits that it would be hard to tell if stores are complying because there's not nearly enough manpower to enforce it.

up your skirt--and on the web

No thrill is too cheap for your average electronic voyeur. Jen Watson, 29, caught one filming up a friend's skirt on elevated steps outside a restaurant in New York City last summer. "Three girlfriends and I noticed he had been following us, but we did not think much of it," says Watson.

As Watson and her friends were checking out the restaurant's menu, she noticed a lens sticking out of the man's video-camera bag. "The lens had no cap on it, and it was pointed up my girlfriend's skirt," says Watson. She yelled a warning to her friend and the culprit ran, so she chased after him. "I called out for help to two men along the way, and they joined in rite chase." The three cornered the suspect in a parking garage and called the police with a cell phone.

But when the police arrived, they informed Watson that videotaping in public places was not against the law in New York. But since the voyeur touched the victim's leg twice in the process, they were able to charge him with two counts of harassment. The cameraman, 39-year-old Paul Stewart, pled guilty and served 15 days in jail. "Otherwise lie would have just walked away with his video camera, which had footage of 30 to 40 women," says Watson angrily. All of which he could easily have posted on the Internet at any time. Andrew Drake of upskirt.com claims that anonymous voyeurs upload images on his site for free and that about 300,000 customers pay $6.95 each a month to see the footage. Drake also admits that he uses models in at least 25 percent of the content in order to "keep it interesting. Not every woman's rear end is that good to look at."

Voyeur sites often block out women's faces, which makes it hard to prosecute for illegally obtained video since State laws require victims to identify themselves on tape in order to press charges. "If they have an obvious trait like a birthmark or tattoo, we do a touch-up so that they're as unrecognizable as possible," Drake says. Where do his people take the photos? "Look under your desk," says Drake. "Cameras are everywhere."

After seeing the tapes her landlord made of her, Kathleen Miller now thinks they're everywhere too. Even though she moved from Virginia to Rockville, Maryland, she still peeks regularly behind her bathroom mirror in the apartment she shares with her fiance and checks all ceiling vents before she uses public rest rooms. (Though there's no way to predict where a voyeur may prey, the best advice is just to trust your gut when you think something's amiss.)

"It haunts me still," Miller says. "I have flashbacks of the bedroom and bathroom at Blakey's. I've become really self-conscious; I feel like I'm being watched. It sounds crazy, but when I shut my eyes at night, I actually feel like someone is hovering above me."

spy supplies

These hi-tech gadgets give voyeurs the upper hand.
* Cheap thrills. Scaled-down spycams can be bought for under $100 at camera stores. Since many are smaller than a lipstick, they can be hidden in smoke detectors, telephones, or drop ceilings. More bad news: Wireless capability means no visible connections between the hidden lens and the voyeur's monitor.
* Camouflage-cams. Everyday items such as a clock radio ($500), baseball cap ($200), jean jacket ($350), and eyeglass case ($200) all do double duty as covert wireless cameras and are available at specialty shops.
* X-ray vision. If the chosen victim is dressed, he can whip out an "Infrared See-Through Filter PF," a camera attachment made in Japan and sold on the Web for $140 that can penetrate some types of clothing. (Think: Pierce Brosnan's sunglasses in the latest Bond flick, The World Is Not Enough.)