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"

[XLFD]

I have been regularly posting awareness literature down at the Waterfront Park restrooms to bring the City's illegal surveillance to their attention.  They haven't been lasting long.  If you are incensed about this intrusion into your privacy, there is some action being initiated to halt this perverse activity condoned by our City leaders.

[Willy]

The City is obviously getting legal advice from the "City Attorney" that makes them think the cameras and their locations are legal. Even though I disagree with having the cameras installed in the restrooms I can see one benefit they render and that is to keep the perverts in line. Child molester will think twice about messing with kids in those bathrooms. 

[XLFD]

I agree that the City Attorney (Wilson), backed by a strident Chief Barnett, has probably said it's fine to do this, valuing the presumed security value over the privacy issues, as officials usually do, unless it's their own privacy being invaded.  I think it's more likely that any pervert is on the other side of the looking glass, however.

[Willy]

I can't believe Shay stepped into it so deep. In the LDN weekend edition Shay's stated that the reason there will be a fee for you to see the recordings of the bathroom videos is because they need to review them to determine if anyone's privacy is going to be violated by you observing the people who used the restroom who may be changing clothes. I had to reread that to make sure I read it correctly the first time. Shay used that excuse to charge an outrageous fee to discourage the viewing and thinking smugly, I presume, that he had pulled a fast one on you. Being the egotistic person that he is, he really wasn't paying attention  when he made that statement to the LDN. He said people change clothes in the common area of the restroom so they must review the rercordings and sequestor those tapes from your viewing so people's privacy is not compromised and the cost of the previewing by City personal will be charged to you. He just admitted that the City knowingly record people in various stages of undressing. In my opinion he has stepped into a legal sandpit. He can not retract that statement without seeming to coverup an illegal activity the City has been practicing for years.

[XLFD]

John Shay and our City Attorney, both imports from other areas, are so amoral that they do not get the general idea of why this is so wrong.  The violation of privacy has occurred for probably thirteen years at this waterfront park restroom, and is willfully being continued as you read this.  My requesting it in the first place is to show that a crime has been committed-- but they want to edit out the 'private parts' so that I can't bring how bad the problem is to light.  Besides the obvious criminal surveillance involved here, we have a host of other issues come to light with John Shay's confessions.  Here is what he sent to the councilors, where he once again directly lies about the positioning of this camera-- but there will be a little surprise for all later tonight on this topic: