A bill to make video voyeurism on federal property a crime has passed the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Senate passed a similar bill recently, and indications are that any minor differences between the two versions will be resolved quickly and sent to President Bush.
The House bill’s author, Rep. Mike Oxley (R-Ohio), told reporters the House limited it to federal property in order to serve as a model anti-voyeurism law for states to craft their own. The House bill includes maximum $100,000 fines and up to a year in jail for offenders.
The bill has strong support from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which says the Internet, cell phone cameras, portable handheld devices, and other miniature lens devices, have turned surreptitious video capturing into a sport for voyeurs.
The pro-privacy group said cyberpeeking focuses in particular on fetish imagery drawn in cameras posted to places like shoetops, labels, and hats, as wel as standbys like bedrooms, bathrooms, public showers and locker rooms, and tanning salons – sources for millions of images hitting the Internet in recent years.
“For the victim, it’s embarrassing and degrading to be photographed in a compromised position,” Oxley said in a statement on the House floor before the vote. “It’s an invasion of personal privacy.”
Oxley introduced the bill in 2002, but at the time it drew little interest from fellow lawmakers, according to a published report, until cell phone cameras exploded in popularity and practices like facial image alteration became more widespread.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a similar bill in July, with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) amending it to include cyberpeepers transmitting streaming video online and simulcasting of surreptitious images online.
