An extreme invasion of privacy
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An extreme invasion of privacy
High-tech equipment allows video voyeurs to set up almost anywhere.
By Genevieve Marshall
It is not known how many so-called video voyeurism crimes occur each
year,
but anecdotal evidence suggests it has become more common in the past
three
years, according to the National Center for Victi
June 5, 2005
Of The Morning Call
At first, the six women of the Alpha Sigma Tau sorority house at
Moravian
College thought little of the teddy bear that appeared in their shared
bathroom.
The stuffed animal allegedly belonged to Stephen J. Galgocy, the
26-year-old
boyfriend of one of the girls, who had been staying at the house.
But over the course of two weeks in February, the bear reappeared in
different locations, at times facing the shower, toilet and other
corners of
the second-floor bathroom at 1118 Main St., Bethlehem.
It wasn't until Galgocy's girlfriend wanted to tape a TV show for her
sorority sisters that she noticed something suspicious - an
unfamiliar tape
in the videocassette recorder. She pushed the play button, and images
of her
bathroom filled the screen.
A tape featuring not much more than 10 seconds of video of the sorority
house's unoccupied toilet, allegedly filmed from a hidden digital
camera
inside a teddy bear, is now evidence in a criminal case against
Galgocy.
Using increasingly smaller and more affordable high-tech spying
equipment to
catch unsuspecting victims in private acts has become an ever more
popular
''sport'' among young men, according to several experts. The problem,
which
is exacerbated when pictures and videos migrate to the Internet, can be
occurring at colleges throughout the nation, according to one expert
who has
helped uncover hidden cameras in dorms and other places where students
expect privacy.
Meanwhile, only 19 states have laws that specifically target video
voyeurism, which is becoming a societal issue and not just on campuses.
Half
of those states, including Pennsylvania, do not ban the practice on
public
property. And Pennsylvania's law has not kept pace with emerging
technology.
''There are a lot more cases now with a combination of digital cameras
and
the Internet,'' said Robert Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal, a
Providence, R.I., publication devoted to privacy issues. ''It's become
sport
for a lot of young males to videotape people in compromising positions
and
post it on the Internet, or show it to their friends.''
All it took were wires, a small camera and a VCR for a 42-year-old
Palmerton
man to set up a private peep show in his own house.
Thomas G. Grey admitted last month that he installed a hidden video
camera
and taped 21 people over two years. It wasn't until October that
someone
else living at 752 Mauch Chunk Road noticed a hidden camera pointed
toward a
toilet and sink. GreyOver the past decade, the technology behind
photography
has become miniaturized, dropped in price and hit the regular
marketplace,
Smith said.
''You can get everything you need at your local home electronics
store,'' he
said.
Law hasn't kept pace
Compared with the fast pace of technological advances, the law has been
slow
catching up with high-tech voyeurs.
At the end of 2004, President Bush signed into law the Video Voyeurism
Prevention Act, but it only bans the practice on federal property.
Pennsylvania's anti-Peeping Tom law went into effect in 1998, making it
a
misdemeanor to watch or photograph anyone who is nude or partially nude
without that person's knowledge.
The state law is limited to places where a person has a reasonable
expectation of privacy, such as a dressing room or bathroom.
But advances in technology have made it necessary for states, including
Pennsylvania, to expand their definition of the crime to include
digital
cameras used to take sexually gratuitous photos or film images of a
person
without his or her knowledge, or distribute them over the Internet.
A new bill in the state House would strengthen laws against high-tech
voyeurism.
''There's nothing in the existing law that would prohibit using certain
devices,'' said state Rep. Russell Fairchild, R-Snyder/Union. ''This
specifically points out camera phones, hidden cameras and other hidden
gadgets.''
The bill, which is in a House committee, also would ban surreptitiously
taking pictures or taping or filming ''the intimate parts of another
person,
whether or not covered by clothing or undergarments,'' if the person
doesn't
grant his or her consent.
Facing charges
Bethlehem police have charged Galgocy, the suspected teddy bear owner,
with
invasion of privacy under the Peeping Tom law. His attorney has said
that
Galgocy denied doing anything wrong.
Northampton County District Judge James Stocklas postponed Galgocy's
preliminary hearing on April 5. A new hearing has not been scheduled.
The parents of the women involved said they pressured Moravian College
and
Bethlehem police to pursue charges.
The daughter of Charles Baselice of West Chester lived in the sorority
house.
''Maybe I'm wrong, but when you have a Peeping Tom using a computer to
spy
on girls, that's a pretty nasty violation of their rights,'' Baselice
said
in April. ''We're asking the college to step in and do something so
that
this kind of thing doesn't happen in the future.''
Baselice and several other parents met with Moravian's dean of student
life
immediately after Galgocy's preliminary hearing. The parents complained
that
the college didn't respond promptly to the womens' complaints, and that
the
woman who dated him was not disciplined for letting him stay in the
house
for weeks.
The woman Galgocy was dating at the time told him to leave the sorority
house on Feb. 13 after discovering the videotape of her bathroom,
according
to a criminal complaint the women filed.
When Galgocy left, he took the teddy bear and the tape with him, police
said. The same night, they said, he was seen running away from the
house by
one of the women, who later found a videotape dropped through the
house's
mail slot with a note of apology.
When asked by officers to produce the bear and his videotaping
equipment,
Galgocy said he destroyed it all, including the tapes, according to the
criminal complaint.
''He said he destroyed the other tapes, but I don't buy it,'' said Alan
Speicher, the father of another one of the sorority sisters. ''If
compromising tapes of these girls ever got out there, it could ruin
their
careers. Most of them want to be teachers.''
The women declined to comment after the hearing. Attempts to reach them
over
the phone and at the sorority house were unsuccessful.
The sorority sister who let Galgocy live in the house was told to leave
soon
after the parents complained, Baselice said.
Galgocy was never a Moravian student, according to college officials.
According to police, he officially lived at 2303 Fleur Lane, Bethlehem,
not
at the sorority house.
Moravian College restricts overnight guests to a maximum of 48 hours,
said
spokesman Michael Wilson.
The first time the college learned of Galgocy's living arrangement was
when
the women reported the video voyeurism to campus security, Wilson said.
''Our students are mature adults, but we have these restrictions to
make
sure someone would not stay longer than a brief time,'' Wilson said.
''In
terms of enforcement, we rely on a complaint from someone living
there.''
Widespread problem?
Another area college said it has had little experience with video
voyeurism.
Ed Shupp, the police chief at Lehigh University, said he hasn't
investigated
a case involving high-tech spying in his 25 years at the Bethlehem
school.
''It's not something I'm aware of,'' Shupp said. ''But if we had any
suspicion whatsoever that something like that was happening, we would
investigate it.''
According to James Atkinson, who owns a counterintelligence company
that
specializes in sniffing out surveillance equipment, most college
officials
are not aware of how easy it is for their students - or staff - to
spy on
unsuspecting dorm dwellers.
Among the many cases the Granite Island Group, Atkinson's
Massachussetts
company, has investigated is the case of an Ivy League school that
suspected
women's shower rooms were being watched by concealed video cameras.
Atkinson's investigation found cameras hidden in eight women's showers.
''There's not a major university in the United States that doesn't have
this
problem,'' said Atkinson, who says his company has performed dozens of
camera ''sweeps'' on college campuses. ''A lot of it has to do with
hormones.''
Sometimes staff or faculty are the perpetrators. In those cases,
Atkinson
recommends the employee be fired immediately. Some schools are
reluctant to
call in law enforcement for fear of negative publicity, he said.
It's not uncommon for schools to handle incidents quietly in-house when
only
students are involved, according to Atkinson.
''They treat [video voyeurism] like the modern version of boys looking
though a crack in the wall into the girls' showers,'' Atkinson said.
''It's
more damaging, but a lot of people tend to treat it like a prank.''
Fear of being watched
Katelyn Lau, 19, lived this year on an all-female floor of a co-ed dorm
at
Moravian College, where opposite-sex guests routinely spent the night.
The junior-to-be art education major admits that having men around made
her
paranoid about wearing only a towel on her way to the shower. She often
thought about the possibility that someone had hidden a tiny camera in
the
dark, open vent above the shower stall in the women's bathroom.
''You hear a lot about that stuff on 'Oprah,''' Lau said. ''Technology
is
just everywhere. You don't know who is watching.''
The idea that someone could be watching her is ''creepy,'' she said.
But Lee Emeni, 19, said he does not worry about someone taking a photo
or
filming him in the shower. Yet he can understand why women worry.
''As a guy, I don't really think about a girl doing that to me,'' said
Emeni, who will be a sophomore in the fall. ''But for a woman, having a
compromising photo of you being distributed all over the Internet could
cause a lot of problems.''
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Copyright © 2005, The Morning Call