This is just the "tip of the iceberg". Remember the film "Sliver"?

"Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song..."
--Leonard Cohen "Tower of Song" I'm Your Man

It's big business supplying your private moments to the insatible emotional vampires.--Jana

Spy camera found in restaurant restroom
Saturday, June 30, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific

Spy camera found in restaurant restroom
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134312376_pottycam30m.html

A tiny camera hidden above a women's toilet in a Edmonds pizza parlor could
be either a case of video voyeurism or internal intrigue within the
restaurant's management, police said.

Police learned about the camera at Romeo's Pizzeria Restaurant on Thursday,
the day after a Seattle television-news crew ran a segment about it, said
Edmonds police Detective Don Kinney. It wasn't clear how long the camera had
been in place, he said.

KIRO-TV received a tip about the restroom surveillance, and a television
crew found and removed it Wednesday, Kinney said. The camera lens, about the
size of a pencil eraser, had apparently been positioned above a small hole
punched into a ventilation grate.

Bill Loukas, who helps run the restaurant owned by his father, said he
hadn't known about the camera installed above one of two women's stalls at
the restaurant, in the 21100 block of 76th Avenue West. Neither he nor the
restaurant's manager was present when the television crew shot its footage,
he said.

Loukas said he had installed about a dozen other surveillance cameras all
over the restaurant because of a continuing theft problem involving former
employees and managers. Images captured by those cameras were viewed on
three monitors in the restaurant's office, Loukas said.

He believes he was set up by disgruntled former employees or somebody
involved with his divorce proceedings, Kinney said.

The police investigation could be difficult, however, because the camera was
removed before officers arrived. "Police wish they could have seen it in
operation, but police saw nothing," Kinney said.

Loukas and Seattle attorney Chris Benis, who represents the restaurant's
owners, both expressed dismay that KIRO may have destroyed evidence by
pulling down the camera before police were notified.

"After they did that there was no way to tell what it looked like, what was
there. Everybody touched it; they can't take fingerprints," Loukas said.

Helen Swenson, KIRO-TV's news director, yesterday said the news crew had to
take apart the vent to confirm the camera's existence.

"It's not like it looked like a camera," she said. "We actually had to take
it out to see what it was."

Kinney said all that remained of the camera set-up when police arrived was
about 50 to 75 feet of cable that apparently had connected the camera with
the monitors.

Even if police determined the camera was installed to spy upon women using
the restroom, authorities might not be able to prosecute the case.

The state's 1998 voyeurism law, passed after a Kingdome electrician was
arrested for planting a camera in the Seahawks SeaGals changing room,
requires proof that the camera was installed "for the purpose of arousing or
gratifying the sexual desire of any person."

"We would look at it and then we would send it up to the (Snohomish County)
Prosecutor's Office and try to figure it out," said acting Edmonds Police
Chief Greg Wean.

Diane Brooks can be reached at 206-464-2567 or dbrooks@s...

Copyright C 2001 The Seattle Times Company