The Never Ending Battle (Part Twenty-eight)

Wanda silently sank into the nearest chair and picked up a discarded drink, draining it in one gulp.  ”So … whomever put the damn thing in here pretty much knows about us, then.”  She studied the empty glass and, setting it back down, picked up another one that was half full.  ”The only questions left are ‘who’ and ‘what will they do with the information?’ ”

Well, “they” turned out to be a cable news agency and their subsequent legal battles over the bugging of our house made for some lively legal debate around the country.

At one time in America, as I understand it, privacy was a simple legal matter.  Every man, woman, and child was entitled to privacy … period.  Nobody tried to violate the privacy of politicians or celebrities …  heck, there’s a famous story from back in the twentieth century about when the most famous sex symbol of their time was caught leaving the White House by the press corp, she giggled and said something to the effect that she’d made the President’s back feel better (indicating that she’d at least massaged it) … and it never made the papers!!

I know, astonishing, right?  The press respected the privacy of the President of the United States and a movie star!

That changed around fifty or so years later, when anyone in the public sector became fair game.  Photographers did the damnest things, including breaking the law, to get whatever exclusive photos they could of public figures.  There was, and I’m not making this up, an actual sub-specialty that specialized in those kind of photos, men and women who were willing to climb trees, hide on rooftops, rent helicopters to fly over and disrupt actual family affairs (such as marriages and, in at least one memorable instance, funerals) … pretty much do anything if it meant they got the picture they were after.

Okay, I know this means – now – that they’d be arrested the minute they tried to sell the photograph, but – back then – the public was practically rabid for those sort of pictures, so magazine and newspaper publishers hid behind “the people’s right to know” and “the Freedom of the Press” to justify publishing pictures of public figures in the nude … as if the people had a right to know what their favorite movie star looked like naked or that the famed Freedom of the Press somehow covered blatant violations of privacy.

The publishers argued, when sued, that they didn’t violate any laws.  Maybe the photographers did, but not the publishers.

The entire matter came to a head when some enterprising young dolt managed to bribe one of the White House cleaning staff to hide an early model of a video dot in the President’s bedroom, creating the first internet Presidential porno video.  Now, many people believed that the fact that the married President – who was the first ordained minister elected – was filmed engaging in relations with an aide (a male aide at that), somehow justified the act.  As you might remember, the photographer’s legal team – half paid for by the opposing party and half by the ACLU – made that the centerpiece of their defense.

As the case blazed across the screens of homes across the country, scores of copycat entrepreneurs descended on the homes of the famous with handfuls of the barely noticeable video dots.  Bribing servants whenever possible, pretending to be telephone or cable repair personnel when needed, or indulging in outright breaking and entering where nothing else worked.  Suddenly, the internet was flooded with video clips (all of which, of course, led to sites where one could buy the entire, unedited, videos) of everyone from the starting guard on your favorite basketball team to the highest paid actress to the head of The Christian Coalition!

When the director of the ACLU was informed in the middle of a press conference, one where he was defending the actions of his agency, that he (and a young woman reported to be an underage babysitter) had been filmed as well … then the chuckling network reporter was informed by the guy next to him that he’d made the net, as well!

By the end of the year, nobody was safe.  Governors, mayors, aldermen, county commissioners; every level of politics was represented by at least one dirty movie.  Movie stars, television stars, internet personalities, authors, writers, singers, painters … then, while the country was still laughing, it was the common man’s turn.  Policemen, firemen, principals, teachers; anyone and everyone who had at least one person who either wanted to see them naked or wanted to embarrass them was hit.

Within one year, “America” became synonymous with both “voyeur” and “victim.”

The spate of laws that were passed following the deluge were impressive and incomprehensible.  One state wanted to regulate cameras of all types much the same way they used to regulate the purchasing of firearms.  Another passed a law, if you can believe it, that made any website that displayed any videos or picture, of anyone or anything, illegal within their borders.  A third made the possession of any photography equipment a terrorist act.

Finally, the federal government stepped in and passed a few rare sensible laws.  The first, of course, reestablished the rights of every man, woman, and child to privacy … within their own home, any room or domicile they rented, and their personal vehicles.  Those rights extended to visitors and guests.  Once out in public, however, they were fair game once more.

Any reporter or photographer who violated their privacy would automatically be fined one million dollars, no exceptions, and would lose his or her copyright to any material that came from that violation.  Any publisher who used any material that resulted from such violation would also be fined one million dollars and be shut down until such time as he or she could prove that it was accidental.  If they were not able to prove so, their business would automatically be handed over to the injured party as recompense.

However, none of these rights extended fully to members of government.  It was decided, after the impeachment of the President, that the public had a right to know if the men and women they elected exercised moral turpitude.  (Which always struck me as somewhat unfair; the man who cheated on his wife of twenty years with sheep somehow had the right to know that the Senator he voted for was a decent man?)  So those who were elected to government were not covered by the new laws while working … however, they were not required to expose themselves to the world at large.  A new agency was established, one that routinely made spot checks on the morals of those elected and reported their findings.  Any elected government official who was caught making goo-goo eyes at an intern was quickly tossed out of office and fined his (or her) entire salary.

Moreover, the fact that elected officials were excluded from the privacy laws meant that photographers and their ilk could, if possible, bug their private areas.  Not any area that the official might use for work, mind you, since various security acts and laws prohibited that sort of thing, but bedrooms and bathrooms (provided they were for the exclusive use of the elected official and only when he or she was doing their job) were fair game.  Their private residences out-of-state, however, were off limits, as were the spouses and children of the elected official.

As a result, the average Washington politician’s D.C. home was better protected than most military bases and their staff the most loyal in the country.  It also meant that the elected were – while in Washington, at any rate – a boy (or girl) scout … at least sexually.  Oh, they could still engage in power politics and underhanded activities all they wanted, provided that their nocturnal acts were limited to their lawful spouses and fairly vanilla acts at that.

Which is what the cable news agency tried to use when it splashed the fact that Wanda, Daniel and I were indulging in cohabitation across the screens of Americans the next morning.  Their defense was that I, being the head of a massively powerful agency, was the moral and legal equal of an elected official and, therefor, fair game.  They also used the fact that they were a foreign-based and owned corporation to try and sidestep any possible prosecution.  Finally, they asserted that, since the story was based on a recorded statement and did not include any photographs or videos, it did not fall under the laws as passed at any rate.

The court case wasn’t finished by the time the nuclear bomb was detonated under the White House, so none of us ever did find out how it all ended up.  I’d like to think that we would have ended up in possession of one of the largest cable news agencies in the world, but – well – what can you do when the bomb goes off in your face, eh?

As it was, all we knew was that our private arrangement was no longer private when Daniel turned on the kitchen monitor the next morning.  Wanda cried a bit, while Daniel ranted, and I tried to comfort them both.  I finally pointed out that it wasn’t like we were anyone famous, elected, or even more newsworthy than a quick flash in the pan to cover a slow news morning, which made us all feel much better.  Then we called an old friend who happened to be a lawyer (who also happened to be waiting for the call) to start legal action against the cable network, which also made us feel much better.

Then, wanting to know if I should wear a raincoat or jacket, I peeked out the front window and discovered the entire fourth estate camped out on our lawn.  To this day, I believe that I saved many of their lives by insisting that we exit out the back door and fly, at top speed (all but invisible) to the office via the tunnel and parking garage.  Seriously; I think Wanda would have killed the prissy Fox reporter for sure.