This Certainly Changes My Sunbathing Habits

But seriously, is there anyone on Staten Island who doesn’t understand what calamari is? I’m shocked:

When Jeanmarie Ritger’s 10-year-old daughter swims with friends in the family’s backyard pool in Dongan Hills, the children are captured on a video camera posted on a neighbor’s roof.

There is nothing Ms. Ritger can do about the unwanted surveillance of her yard, her life and her daughter, say officials.

That’s because the camera is not trained on her bedroom or bathroom window — places where New York law says a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and such surveillance would be illegal.

“I’m stuck and I’m very uncomfortable and I’m concerned,” Ms. Ritger, an elementary school teacher, said during a recent interview in her yard under the watchful eye of her neighbor’s camera. “When does surveilling someone’s property become an invasion of someone else’s privacy?”

Not when it’s in a homeowner’s back, side or front yard.

Ms. Ritger’s video-taping neighbors defended their rooftop camera, saying they are protecting their yard and in-ground pool, not spying. They accuse Ms. Ritger and her brother, who lives in the house next-door, of throwing worms, berries and calamari (squid) into their pool over the last few years. Ms. Ritger has flatly denied those claims, calling them “ridiculous.”

“It’s watching my yard and her yard,” the neighbor, Peter Malvagna, said of his camera. “It’s legal and I can’t get in trouble for it.”

. . .

William Smith, a spokesman for the Richmond County District Attorney Daniel Donovan, said the Staten Island office was the first to win a felony conviction in the state under Stephanie’s Law. A retired firefighter was convicted here in 2004 of secretly recording his girlfriend’s teen-age daughter undressing in his home.

Before the enactment in 2003 of Stephanie’s Law, which was created after a Long Island woman was secretly recorded by her landlord undressing in her apartment, there were even fewer protections from prying eyes.

“In plain language, New York State law defines unlawful surveillance as recording someone, without their permission, at a place and time when a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, specifically a place where a person believes he or she could disrobe in privacy. This law has not been interpreted to cover the outside of a residence, especially in an urban or suburban environment like Staten Island,” said Smith.