“A man landed in hot water after police say he hid a tiny camera in a shampoo bottle to watch two of his female roommates as they took showers. A male roommate, called police after finding wires protruding from the back of the bottle and discovering the camera tucked inside, police said. The camera recorded through a pinhole, and the images were sent to Steven Thibodeau’s television, police said. Thibodeau, 25, had placed the camera to record the women showering and made video of one of them changing clothes, according to police. Thibodeau initially told officers he was filming himself in the shower. After a polygraph, he admitted he had recorded his two female roommates, police said. Thibodeau was arraigned Wednesday on 15 counts of voyeurism and one count of evidence tampering, which alleges he tried to delete some images… Thibodeau allegedly told police that the camera’s transmitter sent images to his television, where he could record them onto videos and save them on his computer. Police said Thibodeau made a compilation video of one of the women, but they have no evidence he transferred the files to the Internet. It wasn’t yet known how long the shampoo had been wired.” — WCBSTV (US)

Video voyeurism is a common crime nowadays. People like to look at other people, and now that there are so many nifty types of video technology, people like to record people too. It’s that simple. And that is also to say that the voyeurism in this case is not particularly noteworthy. It’s vaguely funny that the guy chose a shampoo bottle to conceal his camera. How could he have ensured that no one would try to use it? Did he play the psychotic roommate and threaten them? “Touch my shampoo and you’ll regret it!” It was a bottle of Pantene, if anyone cares. Pretty much it’s a ho-hum tale.

The remarkable thing, though, is that the guy confessed after a polygraph examination. What’s with these pervs? If these guys were going to go buy a laser printer, they’d spend a month researching it on the internet. But when they do something for which they can go to jail, they just blunder into it like pervy little Candides. Wake up, creeps! If you want to dabble in illegal activities — which of course you shouldn’t — then at least you ought to have some idea what to expect if you get caught. The polygraph, for example, is not a genuine lie detector. It is a machine to intimidate you into confessing. You cannot be forced into taking a “lie detector” test, often its results are inadmissable in court, and there’s always the possibility the thing can be tricked out.

So while you’re cruising the net trying to figure out how to build a waterproof spycam, pause a while on some pages that explain your civil rights, police interrogation techniques, and the like. It could be the only thing separating the shower you want to tape from the shower in the prison — and you certainly don’t want to end up there.

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