Specter: Privacy laws don’t address concerns

March 30, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA

Broadening wiretap laws to include videotaped surveillance could either safeguard privacy or thwart efforts to recover stolen property, a U.S. senator was told Monday at a hearing not far from a school that’s being sued for trying to find missing laptops by activating their webcams.

Sen. Arlen Specter, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, said at a field hearing of a Senate subcommittee that he believes existing wiretap and video-voyeurism statutes do not adequately address concerns in an era marked by the widespread use of cell-phone, laptop and surveillance cameras.

Among those testifying at the hearing, from a statement read into the record, was Blake Robbins, the Harriton High School student who sued the Lower Merion School District.

“My family and I recognize that in today’s society, almost every place we go outside of our home we are photographed and recorded by traffic cameras, ATM cameras, and store surveillance cameras. This makes it all the more important that we vigilantly safeguard our homes, the only refuge we have from this eyes everywhere onslaught.”