CHICAGO --

FeedRoom

Video Voyeurs Watching You?

You wouldn't invite a stranger to peer in your window. You wouldn't give your housekey to a burglar or expose your children to peeping Toms. At least, you wouldn't do those things on purpose.

"But that may be exactly what thousands of unwitting consumers are doing every day, when they flip the switch of a popular device: the wireless video camera, commonly known as a nanny-cam," said Target 5 reporter Lisa Parker.

"The implications are very very frightening," said Prof. Clifford Fishman. "People don't realize how much of their privacy they are potentially compromising when they use them."

Parker said she wanted to see the "electronic eavesdropping" with her own eyes. So she bought three cameras, "the kind you find pitched all over the Internet," she said.

Parker said the cameras cost about $100 each and are advertised as "cheap security."

"Need help watching your children?" one of the ads asks, but Parker asked, in return, "Who's watching whom?"

The technology, installed in thousands of homes around the country, is pretty basic, Parker said. The wireless camera sends a video signal to a receiver, so it can then be viewed on a computer or TV. Easy reception -- for both the camera owner and anyone with similar equipment who wants to eavesdrop.

The Hauser family agreed to help Parker test the cameras, and Parker set out to "peep, with permission" on the Hausers and their four children.

The three wireless cameras were mounted on an armoire in the living room, on a wall in the playroom, and at a high vantage point in the kitchen.

Then, Parker's Target 5 team set up shop in a van across the street.

Using only the equipment that came with the camera, Parker said, a Target 5 team easily intercepted and recorded video from all three cameras inside the Hauser's home -- images of kids in the basement, havng snacktime in the kitchen, and young girls playing with dolls in the living room.

The images that the Target 5 team managed to "steal" made Katie Hauser cringe. She said it was an invasion of privacy that seemed to run counter to the idea behind the cameras.

"It's kind of creepy," she said. "To think that they could be watched by a complete stranger and how easy it would be for a complete stranger to know what was going on inside the house. I would never put a camera up."

Privacy expert Clifford Fishman said it doesn't take much know-how to peep on people this way.

"It's not something that only the geeks can do," Fishman said. "It doesn't take a lot of know-how. It doesn't take expertise. It just takes the willingness to invade other people's privacy."

Fishman said the law is murky when it comes to "video voyeurs," and people who use such cameras to peep do so with very little risk.

"It's appalling that it's not a crime," Fishman said. "And, again, the law probably does not protect us from this type of surveillance."

Parker said the camera manufacturers don't appear to warn consumers about the possibility of peeping, either.

"Whether in this manual for the X10, the kind we bought -- a best seller," Parker said. "Or on the many Web sites that offer these kinds of cameras: Consumers get no warning about possible interception and eavesdropping."

The companies don't have to give warning, though, Parker reported. While the Federal Communications Commission is aware of the problem, she said. a spokesman told her it is an "untested" area where policy "gets real gray."

But, Parker said, the black-and-white video images of a crib, a back yard, or a business -- images that the Target 5 team picked up randomly on streets around Chicago -- leave some with a "tainted view of this techno-gadget."

"If there's a camera in here and somebody -- anybody could drive by and pick that up," Katie Hauser said. "That's disturbing."

Parker reminded viewers about a recent case in DuPage County where a family inadvertently recorded video of their neighbors allegedly beating a foster child in their custody. The video was recorded on their home monitoring system. That case is still in court.