Filming up a lady's skirt or down her blouse in secret can get you up to six months in the calaboose, under a bill Gov. Gray Davis has signed into law.
Videos featuring upskirt and downblouse images often end up online, where anyone over 18 can see and buy them legally.
Such voyeuristic Web sites have gone from a small handful in 1996 to over 100 now, and rising, with one California-based business boasting its own team of prowling video voyeur-spies, according to published reports. or down their blouses could face up to six months in
The new law takes effect next year. ``It was time to put a stop to those who would victimize women by using the latest technology to invade their privacy and make a dirty profit,'' the bill's author, Republican Assemblyman Dick Ackerman, told the Associated Press Thursday.
Up to six months in prison and a thousand-dollar fine could result from videotaping or photographing someone under or through their clothing under this law. For now, there is only a ban on secret taping of people in changing rooms or rest rooms where privacy is expected.
How effective will the new law be? According to many privacy advocates, First Amendment watchdogs, and other observers, this and similar laws may end up doing very little to stop the video voyeurs.
Meanwhile, the Tampa (Florida) City Council has hit the video voyeurs from another direction, voting Thursday to close the Voyeur Dorm Web site.
Voyeur Dorm offers around-the-clock live video of six young women. But the City Council ruling is expected to trigger a legal brawl, according to published reports. Mark Dolan, Voyeur Dorm's attorney, says he will appeal the ruling on constitutional grounds.
The six women live in a house fitted with forty television cameras offering continuous, constant coverage of everything they do, according to Reuters. Subscribers are promised nudity for a $34 a month fee, with the women described on the preview page as "sexy" and "naturally erotic".
The site is run jointly by Entertainment Network, a Florida company, and Internet Entertainment Group of Seattle, which operates several adult Web sites, Reuters says.
The City Council ruling upheld a July vote by a zoning board that Voyeur Dorm violates local law against operating adult entertainment businesses in residential neighborhoods.
Dolan says the laws were written three decades ago, before the Internet even existed, and that Voyeur Dorm had "no impact whatsoever" on the neighborhood where the house is. "The public has never been on the premises," he argued before the City Council.
That didn't stop City Councilman Bob Buckhorn from calling Voyeur Dorm a virtual peep show, comparing it with Tampa strip clubs.
The women living in the house live rent free and have their college tuition and living expenses paid in return for appearing on camera, Reuters says.
Voyeur Dorm will continue operating, however, while the City Council ruling is appealed, Dolan says.
