{"id":3758,"date":"2008-09-03T09:17:12","date_gmt":"2008-09-03T14:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=3758"},"modified":"2008-09-03T09:17:12","modified_gmt":"2008-09-03T14:17:12","slug":"this_certainly_changes_my_sunbathing_habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/09\/this_certainly_changes_my_sunbathing_habits.html","title":{"rendered":"This Certainly Changes My Sunbathing Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"

But seriously, is there anyone on Staten Island who doesn’t understand what calamari is<\/a>? I’m shocked:<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

There is nothing Ms. Ritger can do about the unwanted surveillance of her yard, her life and her daughter, say officials. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

“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?” <\/p>\n

Not when it’s in a homeowner’s back, side or front yard. <\/p>\n

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.” <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

“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.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62,44,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dude_thats_so_weird","category-followed_by_a_perplexed_stroke_of_the_chin","category-need_to_know","category-staten_island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3759,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3758\/revisions\/3759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}