Indecent Exposures: Ludington Police Invade Your Privy

[XLFD]

The Law

 

Michigan prohibits camera installation in private areas, defined as areas in which people have an expectation of privacy. This expectation is a legal one. The following places are protected:  Private homes, public changing rooms, hotel rooms, rental homes and apartments, bedrooms and public and private bathrooms. 

There are some exceptions. For example, you have an expectation of privacy in your own home, but if you leave your drapes open, you shouldn't expect that no one will look in. You have no legal expectation in this case. Neither do you have an expectation that you won't be filmed — if the person filming is standing where it's legal for her to stand, such as on the street or sidewalk. If she's on your property, she's trespassing and the expectation stands.

People, including government agencies without proper warrant, cannot use footage or knowledge obtained from unlawful surveillance.  Film obtained this way is “fruit of the poisonous tree.” meaning that the fruit — the video recording — is poisoned by the manner in which it was obtained and, therefore, is inadmissible in court.

Michigan law MCL 750.539d expressly prohibits a person's use or installation of anything that observes, photographs, or eavesdrops on the behavior or conversation of others without their knowledge or permission in an area where privacy is expected, such as a public bathroom; violation of these laws is a felony.  A “Person” for this law can mean any individual, partnership, corporation or association, such as an incorporated city.

 

The Lawbreakers

 

Previously, I have pointed out that the Ludington Police Department (LPD) have set up marina cameras in a way that defies security principles and were violative of the privacy rights of marina slip renters that have cameras pointed at their business 24 hours a day in this thread.  With a rational placement of the marina's five $4000+ surveillance cameras, the full perimeter of the marina could be observed, and the death of Ling Yan Zou in June of 2012 would be less of a mystery than it turned out to be.  But training a camera on marina slips can lead to a debate about whether the slip is actually a 'private place', since any passerby of the public might look at the slip at any time.  In this case, I think a reasonable person could assume either way, depending on their own bias about privacy rights.

 

But the law and precedent has been very clear in Michigan as far as setting up surveillance cameras in public rest rooms, as well as the other private places previous mentioned.  That is why I have become so perplexed by the cameras inside of the rest rooms down at the Marina Waterfront Park operated and monitored by the LPD.  I will comment exclusively on the men's rest room and its camera, the other is off-limits to my own investigations, but I encourage any ladies to conduct similar research to my own in their domain. 

 

 

When you walk in either the south (like the above picture) or north entrance of the men's room you will notice no signs telling you that you are under surveillance.  At the end of your experience, you may notice a small sign in the bottom corner of the mirror above the sink that says "surveillance camera", without any explanation. 

 

So if you are just getting out of the public eye to scratch an embarrassing itch, check the fit of those woman's undergarments you're wearing, air out the equipment, or check to see how bad you crapped your pants-- it's all on film at the LPD.  And you can do these things and more at the sink area, the urinal, or even the toilet stall and still be caught by the camera!  Here's a view you might have once you have taken a well deserved pit stop at the urinal, and prepare to zip up your fly:

 

 

You may question:  Is there people looking right now at your little fellow?  Did those people see you shaking it more than once?  Or even, did they catch that 'tramp stamp' you picked up on a lost weekend when you pulled down your shorts to let loose?  These are questions that you shouldn't have to consider when you're alone in a bathroom.  This picture was taken from waist-height, directly in front of the urinal, and you must know that if you can see the camera lens, then the camera lens can see you. 

And if you feel you may be safe and have privacy in the toilet stall after closing and latching the door guess again.  You pull down your pants, and sit on the toilet, and then if you look up you may see this reminder that you're being filmed.

 

 

I actually went very low with my own camera to get this picture, about two feet off the ground, as you might be able to gauge from the height of the assist bar at the far right of this picture, which is three feet off the ground.  I'm a tall guy and I must note that another thing that is just slightly over three feet off the ground is my butthole and my penis, two things that society deems I keep private or face legal consequences.  So when I can still photograph the camera lens at two feet off the ground, I can presume they can see my 'privates' were I to stand there.

 

Now having them film your penis or your derriere is bad enough, but let's consider what else they will be filming at times. 

 

People's facial expressions as they crap, such as this constipated fellow -->

People wiping their butt afterwards.

People doing a wide variety of activities that they often do when they believe they are in a room by themselves that may be embarrassing, illegal, or just something they want kept secret.

 

Frankly, there is no justifiable reason for the LPD to install these clandestine cameras in the men's bathroom other than for their own perverted purposes.  An outside camera would catch the theft of any bathroom fixtures, and unlawful intruders. 

 

An inside camera, installed in violation of State law, may catch a vandal, a graffiti artist, or even a molester in the act of doing something bad, but let's remember the "fruit from a poisonous tree" argument.  The footage and the facts gleaned from it cannot be legally used in court, and any vandal, molester or other wrongly accused person can come right back and sue the City for violating their rights by surreptitiously filming them in an area that should have been private, and hopefully, the Mason County Prosecutor would finally get involved in holding local officers accountable and seek felony convictions on those who place these cameras in places such like this, like he would for you or I if we placed a surveillance camera in the bathrooms at our schools or businesses.

 

Admission of Invasion of Privacy

Back in July, I requested video files from the City of Ludington by sending them a FOIA request to see how intrusive these cameras were into the public's privates.  After providing the placement of both cameras, I asked for "Unedited Video footage of both these cameras over this latest weekend (July 13 and/or 14) during the daytime hours. If for some reason, one or neither of the video cameras were working these days, please supply footage of the last previous day they were used."

 

John Shay responded later that week:

 

And included this Form.pdf explaining it was partly denied due to privacy concerns:

 

 

This response is very enlightening and an admission of guilt to the crime of installation, placement, or use of device for observing, recording, transmitting, photographing or eavesdropping in private place, the felony previously mentioned.  He admits that:  The recordings exist in VHS format, showing that these are not just 'dummy' cameras, they record continuously as noted by the time it would take to review them, the City is aware that the people on tape may have their privacy invaded on the release of an unedited version of these tapes.  But somehow, the caught-on-tape people's privacy is kept intact by having someone review their supposedly private activity on these illicit tapes for six hours?   

The police chief and the city manager once again show they are bereft of basic morality and ethics by their placement of these cameras and their attitude that they can circumvent the law however they feel like, and not be held to account for it like the rest of us.  What gives them the power to intrude on people's privacy in this manner?  Absolutely nothing does, and they want to charge the public $140 for the privilege of seeing how our City's resources are being used.  But I had to get one final piece of the picture.

 

One early August night just after darkness, a man with a ladder and his own camera headed down to the Waterfront Park and entered the bathroom.  He set up his ladder under the surveillance camera, ascended it, and put his camera in front of the other, at the same angle and height and snapped a picture.  This was that picture: 

 

 

This, conceivably, would be what you would see in the recordings when the bathroom is empty.  It gives a fair view of what would happen at each of the bathroom's fixtures.  Imagine yourself here not knowing about the camera and taking a leak at the urinal.  Your private part has likely been filmed without your knowing it.  Maybe your young boy or your old father wasn't able to make it to the bathroom on time and so you locked the doors and helped him through the embarrassing situation, before discovering that you were on film the whole time.  Perhaps you went through a difficult bowel movement, or a difficult wiping exercise, and got to the sink before you saw the small surveillance camera in use sign. 

Depending on what has been recorded in these bathrooms over the years and how the recordings have been used, the City of Ludington may face a variety of violating not only State of Michigan offenses, but a host of Federal offenses, including such things as manufacturing child pornography, among infringing various other rights of people guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

 

These episodes and others illustrate why privacy is to be expected here, and why the LPD and the City of Ludington need to be held accountable for their illegal activity.  But first, these cameras need to be taken out of the rest room, in accordance with the law and common decency.

Check out the Ludington Police's new song: "Every 'Rest' You Take"

[Willy]

Excellent work X. You made a terrific point about "child pornography". If they are recording children using the bathroom facilities and the camera is pointed at the angle you suggest then I would say that someone is in deep trouble for videotaping partially nude children. This could end up being a very serious situation. How do we know that these cameras were not deliberately set up to view kids. Someone has a lot of explaining to do. And Shay had better get off his high horse and quit fooling around with these insane fees that he wants to charge you because this entire situation could end up blowing up in his face. I believe a criminal investigation is warranted for not only  the act of video recording kids but for viewing the recordings of children. If this camera setup is the same  in the women's  bathroom as well then we may have ourselves a full blown pedophile conspiracy going on here. 

[XLFD]

With the thousands of people who used these restrooms during the recent "Rhythm and Dunes" concerts, one could imagine they may have some sort of 'private tape' circulating among themselves called "Rhythm and Nudes"

Here's a news report out of Texas (video doesn't embed here), which has a lot laxer laws on recording video and audio than Michigan, which has an attorney claiming it is beyond the law to install cameras in bathrooms-- and in this case, it is very clearly noted to patrons of the restaurant it happened in.

[Dave]

Wow, just wow.

If a normal person didn't question what the city officials are doing before, they should after reading this little piece. Who ever told them that placing the cameras in the bathroom was a good idea is an idiot... I mean it should be completely obvious that that is not acceptable. This is one of the reasons why when you go to a place like Walmart that there are no cameras looking down into the changing rooms when people are trying clothes on, quite obvious that this would be an invasion of privacy.

It might be one thing if they clearly stated on the door in a reasonable size poster that the interior of the restroom was under surveillance but a little sticker on the mirror just isn't going to cut it, a lot of people don't even make it to the mirror until after they have done their business.

[XLFD]

And the sticker on the mirror may lead them to believe there is a camera behind the mirror, which there may be for all I know.  Once you morally justify the power of watching people while they poop and pee, you can basically morally justify just about anything. 

You can bet that if this were done by Walmart this would be big news followed by multiple civil actions and investigations into the extent of the matter, but it really should be bigger news that not only is our Ludington Police Department doing this, it has tacit approval of our City's chief executive officer, John Shay, in doing so.  An officer who is only willing to part with these tapes produced with public resources for an extortive fee.

[Dave]

I've mentioned this story on my Facebook and a few people of course are more then a little concerned about the course of action the city has taken. Posted the picture taken from the perspective of the camera there as well a few minutes ago, think when people see that that they will be even more bothered by the whole situation.

[XLFD]

Thanks Dave, and feel free to share or post a link to the article that goes with it.

[Willy]

Eye

I like your suggestion to post X's photo over the urinal. That would make a great candid camera shot watching someone trying to figure out what the photo was about and then realizing it is a photo of their location.

[XLFD]

Our local police cannot be bothered with monitoring registered sex offenders like state law mandates (foisting that responsibility on area landlords), the LPD are now found to be guilty of what some of those sex offenders did that got them on that list. 

As the most principled police chief I ever met would say:  "Interesting." 

And that picture-posting idea is a good one; I had thought along those lines earlier to post the camera-angle shot with little tear-away strips at the bottom with the LPD's number on it, and putting it in the men's room.  If you put "X's photo" over the urinal, you'd probably scare away most of the customers.  Men don't like looking eye-to-eye with someone else while they urinate. 

[Johnny]

After reading this posts and the comments, I still and confused how this is Ludington Police Departments fault and how LPD is invading your privacy, other than everything Tommy doesn't agree with, not saying i agree with the cameras, is the police departments fault.  Also, who is to say that the picture you took is the view of the camera.  How do we know if its pointing at the sink and the door to the south area.  Tommy jumps to the conclusion that its pointing and zoomed right at the toilet.  Typical

[easymoney]

Over the years there has been many law suits for invasion of privacy  , for inappropriate camera's. Not one place of business I know of has cameras in rest rooms.

If they are in the mens room, you can bet they are in the ladies also.

Now, what sex views which camera's??

[XLFD]

E Murph,

I think the fault can be squarely put on the LPD because they should be getting the feed from these security cameras, but it can also be squarely put on the City Manager too, of whom the police chief answers to, and who gives the nonchalant reply copied and pasted above about the situation.  The people who installed the cameras in the first place should also be held to account, and I will be trying to figure that out in the upcoming weeks who that was. 

As far as my picture, it was taken with my Nikon with the back of it squarely on the front of the restroom camera lens.  The only difference between the two would be that their lens was an inch or so farther back than mine.   If you review the footage yourself, you could probably tell me what day I did it, and whether I did a good job of it.  As for me, I will have to rely on another FOIA request.

Other than that, I hope you can better proofread your posts in the future, I have a hard time understanding where you're coming from.  Do you like showing your stuff to strangers?

[XLFD]

I brought up this issue tonight at the Ludington City Council meeting.  Even though Chief Barnett, John Shay and Mayor Henderson, and Mayor candidate/former LPD Chief Wally Taranko  were there, they failed to comment anything on it.  But, John Shay thought it was very funny for some reason, when I was talking about it.  When the tape's available it will definitely be shared.