Video Surveillance from a Legal Standpoint

From a home security standpoint, disclosure is often an effective deterrent against crime.  Aside from the poor resolution of many of these models, depending upon the legal statutes in your city the footage may be inadmissible in a court of law even though a crime has been committed.

Please note that the following states have passed legislation making it illegal to record speech: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.

In relation to monitoring or recording conversations, if you do not have a Court Order or are not in law enforcement it is illegal to monitor conversations you are not participating in.  This is considered a wire-tap or electronic eavesdropping and is a Federal Crime.  Also of particular interest is the fact that according to most Federal Statutes individuals should have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” when having a conversation.  For this reason businesses must provide a verbal warning “this call may be monitored or recorded for quality control purposes.”  A posted warning sign that a premises may be visually and audio recorded should be clearly visible. 

In some instances civilians use audio monitoring equipment.  Some examples would be criminal investigators, journalists, professional mystery shopper organizations as these groups use audio collection as a legitimate means of conducting business.  On the other hand some audio collections are blatantly and flagrantly illegal.

Here are some examples where video/audio monitoring would be disallowed:

* Bathrooms
* Bedrooms
* Clothes changing areas (i.e. Locker Rooms)

In January 2008, the Protect America Act was extended.  Surveillance devices used by the NSA copy all Internet traffic that passes through their domain, in addition to traffic between telecommunication carriers like Sprint and AT & T.  This means that not only are international conversations monitored but domestic private conversations as well.  This comes as a result 09/11 and Homeland Security being put into place.  So much for freedom of speech many Americans take for granted.