Guard Arrested Over Illegal Surveillance

A state corrections officer at Gouverneur Correctional Facility placed a surveillance camera in an ornamental birdhouse in his home's bathroom to view guests in the room, state police allege.

WOMAN CATCHES VANDAL ON SURVEILLANCE VIDEO

A repeat car vandal was finally caught after the owner installed a surveillance camera outside her home.

The woman who owns the Honda minivan claims her car has been repeatedly vandalized for several years, including broken side windows and a hole punched into the car's hood.

Less than a month after the surveillance system was set up, she caught the culprit.

The suspect actually got up on a chair and took down the camera in an attempt to confiscate the tape, but the footage was being recorded to a computer system inside the home.

Lionel Colon, 25, of Lawrence was arrested Friday after he was caught on camera and identified by the woman as a friend of her former brother-in-law.

Lawrence was charged with trespassing and larceny of property.

How Google put Bill's grief on show

Losing his best friend in a freak boating accident was bad enough.
But Google's Street View has made a bad situation worse for Bill, from Victoria.

Bill - not his real name - had been drowning his sorrows over the weekend after the Friday funeral of his friend and felt worse for wear when a taxi dropped him off at his mother's home early on Monday February 4.

Feeling ill, he lay on the grass, and fell asleep.

The next thing he knew was being woken up by police in the morning.

He wasn't aware that Google's camera-equipped car had driven by earlier and snapped his picture.

Last week when Google launched its Street View tool for Google Maps, that picture was on display for anyone with an internet connection to see. It has since been taken down after it was flagged by users.

On Using a Hidden Camera in Your Home

Our agency occasionally gets calls about setting up covert cameras in the home. The reasons for the requests vary from personal belongings missing, a new baby sitter or nanny being hired or concerns that children may be misbehaving.

Setting up a covert camera in your home is legal in all 50 states. This refers just to the video aspect. Providing sound along with the pictures is a different matter and falls under a separate law.

Do You Feel Safer With Big Brother Watching?

Chattanooga is expanding its surveillance network. They already have more than 20 cameras in the downtown area along the riverfront. Now the plan is to place them in unmanned police cars.

The cars look like ordinary police cars, but inside a camera will be watching your every move. It even has night vision. And it can zoom in on activity as far as four blocks away.

Long Island Teachers Protest Cameras in Class

As Riverhead teachers demonstrated against camera surveillance at their high school Friday, fresh complaints surfaced in other Long Island districts that electronic monitoring also is being used there to track teachers' conduct, not simply to provide security.

In the Connetquot district, the teachers' union is protesting district plans to install cameras later this fall in the high school gym and auditorium. A teacher's representative there told Newsday that staffers grew worried about the potential misuse of cameras when a high school teacher was reprimanded last spring for behavior recorded by an electronic hallway monitor.

Bedroom Surveillance Suspect to Stand Trial

A Ferndale man accused of installing a surveillance camera in the bedroom of a married couple who live next door was ordered Thursday to stand trial on felony home invasion and eavesdropping charges.
Police say Andrew N. Kaminski, 39, broke into the couple's home to install the wireless camera and was arrested after he broke in again Aug. 17 to retrieve the camera from the bedroom.