Camera in bathroom at methadone clinic?
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Sega420
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well give a little indication as to the location of the cam. is it right above where u piss, in front of u above the urinal, or what?
and it probably is legal, seeing as its a methadone clinic and it would be a deterrent to any addicts to shoot up in there.
over here, at most Macdonalds branches, they have blue lights in the bathrooms, to stop the junkies going in at night and shooting up (cant see their veins under it)
no offense meant by the junkie term, but over here, 90% of users are the stereotype of the junkies you see in movies.
so yeah, its probably legal, i would ask the clinic though.
i would only imagine youd be asking as you feel its an invasion of privacy.
all comes down to how MUCH of an invasion it is.
and it probably is legal, seeing as its a methadone clinic and it would be a deterrent to any addicts to shoot up in there.
over here, at most Macdonalds branches, they have blue lights in the bathrooms, to stop the junkies going in at night and shooting up (cant see their veins under it)
no offense meant by the junkie term, but over here, 90% of users are the stereotype of the junkies you see in movies.
so yeah, its probably legal, i would ask the clinic though.
i would only imagine youd be asking as you feel its an invasion of privacy.
all comes down to how MUCH of an invasion it is.
juniortha3rd
Greenlighter
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so I'm guessing this particular bathroom is where you take your piss test at the clinic?
@lterEgo
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does this clinic collect urine or other toxicological specimens? the manner of collection varies from state to state, but there are some overarching federal guidelines:
(emphasis added)
www.medicalassistedtreatment.org
this site (www.guidelines.gov) confirms video surveillance is an option for opioid treatment programs (OTPs)
so yeah... it looks like this is legit if you're in a clinic. the federal laws give individual states some leeway as far as the observation methods and pennsylvania (or at least this one clinic) have chosen to use video camera.
personally i think video is preferable to direct observation (i.e. some staffer standing right there staring at you while you piss) but that's just me.
(emphasis added)
www.medicalassistedtreatment.org
this site (www.guidelines.gov) confirms video surveillance is an option for opioid treatment programs (OTPs)
so yeah... it looks like this is legit if you're in a clinic. the federal laws give individual states some leeway as far as the observation methods and pennsylvania (or at least this one clinic) have chosen to use video camera.
personally i think video is preferable to direct observation (i.e. some staffer standing right there staring at you while you piss) but that's just me.
CocksuckerNJ
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i still don't think that's legal. even if they are there to prevent people from shooting up. i mean if they are right on top of the toilet then it's completely illegal i think. but it they are by the door, to sort of see all that goes on by the sinks and stuff then i think it's fair game.
Sign says males must face camera while you piss. Don't think it has anything to do wit shootin up. Y would u shoot up at clinic that fuckin stupid. Mainly so you don't bring piss in to pass your UA!! Doesn't seem right they can tape you with your cock out pissing a person at door I can understand
CocksuckerNJ
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that's just wrong on so many levels man. i don't care if it's just to make sure people don't slip in some clean urine. that's just wrong.
exactly
My point exactly no way they should be able to video that's an invasion of privacy. The nurses are these fat nasty hogs they prob take videos home and get off to it
My point exactly no way they should be able to video that's an invasion of privacy. The nurses are these fat nasty hogs they prob take videos home and get off to it
CocksuckerNJ
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i would def. call a lawyer and see if some law is being broken.
@lterEgo
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or you could read and see that video is a perfectly acceptable method of surveillance according to the federal standards for sample collection 8)
and don't flatter yourselves guys, i have many a nurse friend and exactly zero of them are getting off to films of your opiated schlongs.
and don't flatter yourselves guys, i have many a nurse friend and exactly zero of them are getting off to films of your opiated schlongs.
jspun
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A method they used to use to prevent false UAs at a clinic I went to in San Jose was taking temp of urine. That was fraught with problems, the equipment wasn't always accurate a the staff didn't bother with calibration. This was a county clinic. In San Diego, you would piss and then bring the sample in a room unsuppervised and put it in a pile. That place didn't even test for benzos. But they didn't watch you and I had 6 take homes and they didn't check temp so I would save piss when I was clean- urine has to have methadone metabolites, keep it in the fridge, and bring a tiny amount in my pocket during pick up day when it was that time of the month to be tested. the urine smelled rank, was full of sediments, and looked like I had a UTI, but that trick allowed me to keep my take homes for 2 years of chipping on top of the juice. On the days I would use dope I wouldn't take my methadone so if I did need to kick would tripple up on dose (46 mg at that time)= so 138, then double than usual dose. The nice thing is that I was able to develop a strategic stockpile of many 100 mg for unforseen events. Now they have changed their practices- started testing for benzos before I left. Incidentally when I was ready to get off tapered off successfuly from 46 mg over 6 months- no withdrawl just got to do it slowly.
xor
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if you refuse to piss in front of the camera they refuse you at the clinic lol
at my clinic theres just a small camera in the wall behind a small glass/plastic window at mid level behind the toilet. it was weird at fisrt, but now i dont even notice it anymore.
when you join at the clinic, they make you fill out some small paperwork and one of the terms you have to agree to is leaving a supervised urine sample... and at our place the supervised means recorded. the womens washroom also has a big window they can see through from the next room also. i guess if the cameras arent working or something..
this is in canada though, dunno about US or other countries
at my clinic theres just a small camera in the wall behind a small glass/plastic window at mid level behind the toilet. it was weird at fisrt, but now i dont even notice it anymore.
when you join at the clinic, they make you fill out some small paperwork and one of the terms you have to agree to is leaving a supervised urine sample... and at our place the supervised means recorded. the womens washroom also has a big window they can see through from the next room also. i guess if the cameras arent working or something..
this is in canada though, dunno about US or other countries
DiscobiscuitsA.C.
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ha i was so weirded out when i saw this to! i live in south NJ, and they recently added cameras in both bathrooms. Im sure it is legal beings theyre in there. Methadone clinics
are very stringent on the regulations aspect and have to follow state and government law to the fullest. yeah if i have to go to the bathroom while im at the clinic i always wait until im outa there. Supposedly its not recorded from what ive been told by nurses at the clinic...just uses as a tool for catching people trying to fake a urine.
are very stringent on the regulations aspect and have to follow state and government law to the fullest. yeah if i have to go to the bathroom while im at the clinic i always wait until im outa there. Supposedly its not recorded from what ive been told by nurses at the clinic...just uses as a tool for catching people trying to fake a urine.
As a patient of a particular treatment center I have become accustom to many changes in policy over the years. Some good, some bad, some that are very short lived and others that are great for both patients and staff. I have been a patient now for what will be 6 years this coming October and first and foremost I want to thank the Treatment Center staff for saving my life and enabling me to live the life God intended for me to live. Unfortunately though it has come to my attention today, August 13th that camera's are now in the bathrooms to aid in the collection of urine specimens. I personally not only find this offensive and intrusive but an infringement upon patients 4th amendment rights. This not only infringes upon patients rights to privacy in a private area, but also reduces the moral of the entire patient populous. I already feel stigmatized enough for taking methadone daily, but I have had great success with treatment and I feel that by adding another process to the foreboding task of urine collection just makes me feel even more of a 'bad person'. I am used to urine drug screens, especially since I had them frequently in the Army, but never in my life, no matter where I have gone, have I had my genitalia on camera for any purpose public or private. As a Medical Technologist I have performed thousands of observed and random urine drug screens and DOT drug screens and not once was a camera involved or video footage of the patients genitalia involved. This raises many questions. The first has to do with the morality of filming someone when they are urinating and or defecating, which is a private matter that as a society we have learned from childhood to do 'in private'. Now I do understand that being a patient means that I am subject to 'observed' drug screens, but the observer should be in the room with me, not in another room watching a video monitor that is somehow connected to a video camera. This raises even more questions, who is watching this video, could it be recorded, is it secure, is is transmitted by wifi or hard wire and if so is it encrypted? As a rule patients expect a certain amount of privacy when entering a restroom. Can we be assured that the video camera is on only when a urine specimen is being collected? The other question that is raised is the simplest one of all and has to do with the validity of this process to begin with. If it takes a male or female to watch a video to ensure that a person is actually urinating in a cup, what is the difference with them standing in front of the patient as opposed to sitting behind a monitor, where others could see and the video recorded by other devices. It seems that the only benefit this practice would serve would be to save the observer the 30 or so feet that they would have to walk to the restroom and back to their station in the med room, so what good does this serve in the first place? It seems to me to be a waste of resources and gives the deceptive individual a chance to adulterate the urine specimen because human eyes can see much more than a camera and a human can also feel through empathetic emotions, deception by the actions of an individual, such as shaking, panicky behavior or other odd behavior which cannot be captured on video but is completely evident by the presence of a human observer.
Often times individuals and even groups of people come up with an idea that seem good at the time but in practice is not good at all and is not only counter productive but actually infringe on a patients rights. Patients who have been in treatment for long periods of time, who have attended hundreds of hours of groups, never failed a drug screen, never missed a call back and so on should not be subjected to any further hardship just because of the needs of the few individuals who just don't get it. When it comes to rules and regulations the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and for those few who absolutely try to bamboozle the system they need direct observation with human eyes. If a camera was placed in front of the toilet at a 45 degree angle it would only show the front of the 'penis' and the camera for a 'women' would not show much of anything as a women could pull her pants down just enough to get a specimen cup between her legs and could crouch back therefor concealing her genitalia completely. This surveillance is therefor by nature and anatomy biased towards male allowing unscrupulous females to adulterate their specimen rather easily. Even males who taped or glued a thin measured amount of tubing to the underside of their penis could adulterate the specimen if this procedure was fully implemented. That is why this kind of collection procedure is not used by any government agency or any other agency that I am aware of even though video-surveillance camera's have been around in the United States since 1949. They are not used for this purpose due to the fact that it is extremely easy to circumvent the surveillance safe guards and adulterate the specimen, and because video surveillance is susceptible to what is called "video sniffing" , which is the hacking and broadcasting of the video for other purposes. I personally do not want a new porn site called 'ADDICTS GONE WILD', where I am on video pulling out my penis and urinating in front of a video camera. The military does not utilize this technique, the Department of Transportation or DOT does not utilize this technique and neither should the treatment center, in my opinion. I feel that it will only lead to a further reduction in patient volume as patients seek alternative treatment plans and or centers and it could ultimately lead to court cases against the treatment center for video that was inappropriately recorded, hacked, or watched by unauthorized individuals. Which leads me to another issue. Who is watching who, does a male watch a male, a female watch a female, again, it's redundant, has no checks and balances and gives the patient a chance to 'beat the system' by using apparatuses attached to there bodies to deliver a specimen, which would have been caught had an actual observer been present. I have found two paragraphs from two different methadone forums talking about this very issue. I have nothing to do with the following statement's nor do I embrace or endorse what is being said, but it's subject matter is germane to this issue I am writing about. The first states verbatim:
“WTF: hi ya'll i'm not sure about everyone else but i am from pennsylvania and at our clinic they have a camera in our bathroom. Now I'm not sure how everyone else feels about this but it pisses me off and makes me sick all at the same time. For one thing at my clinic the only time you are supposed to get a monitored urine analysis (UA) is if you are up for a privalege, but if there is a camera in the bathroom technically everytime you pee it is monitored, even when you are not giving a UA. How do we know if they are recording us use the bathroom or not, just because they say there not, does't mean they are telling the truth. and where the monitor is set up in our clinic for the nurses to watch you use the BR, everyone that walks to the dosing window can see whom ever is in the bathroom pee.My husband and I did a test one day to see if the nurses payed attention to those of us that had to use the bathroom while giving a UA. Mind you we have been clean now for 2 years. anyways, he walked into the bathroom and instead of standing over the toilet to pee in the bottle he turned around to where the camera could not see him, no sooner he did that and a nurse came running out of the back and started punding on the door kicking it and pulling on the doorknob screaming what are you doing in there i can't see you, your not on camera, well me i can't keep my mouth shut so that nurse and i got into an argument about her looking at my husbands private parts, and everyone there was in agreement with me. Anyways now for the last 4 or 5 months my 2nd cousin is a nurse at my clinic, and she told me some stuff about the nurses and what they do when the men go to the bathroom, I was right the nurses sit there and talk about how big each guys thing is and what not, i think it's an outrage and I know it appals me. Now what if my little girl had to use the bathroom and they were recording it, i don't want some sick pervet getting his jollies off to my little girl peeing. There has to be some kind of law against this. I'm sorry but i would rather have a female nurse walk in the bathroom with me and a male walk in the bathroom with my husband when taking a UA then to have a video camera watch me when i don't know wether or not they are recording it. And I don't appreciate all those female nurses looking at my husbands private, that is for me and me only, believe me i'm not embarassed of what he's got . i'm actually very proud lol, but it's just the point that i feel it is sick and goes against our right. i'd like to hear some other peoples in take on this.” I can absolutely understand this woman's view that the nurses were looking at her husbands genitals, something that she and she alone should be doing. It also talkes about what goes on behind the partician, meaning the indivuals responsible for the viewing of this video is in complete control and there is nothing to stop them from abusing the system, no safe guards in place at all. The second paragraph is from an entirely different forum and reads “Today was quite humid so I went to their toilet before being "dosed" (I really hate that word for some reason), pulled down my pants to my feet, and used some toilet-paper to wipe the sweat from between my legs, balls and arse-cheeks... just generally 'freshening up' as I walk long distances each day to get to the clinic and university. Whilst washing my hands I looked up and realised there's one of those round dark tinted plastic half-spheres with a camera in it pointed directly at me and the toilet?! I had used the toilet before this to urinate many times but had never before noticed I was on film until today. Now I'm a pretty free, open and physically liberal guy, and usually don't have any qualms about people seeing me naked, BUT there's something really strange about people video-taping you while you're intimately cleaning your privates. It's not even something I would be comfortable with my partner seeing, yet alone some random methadone-clinic workers I barely know. I can't shake the feeling that my privacy has been severely infringed upon..... I was thinking maybe the reason for it was that they needed to make sure that the urine tests they sometimes conduct aren't faked or adulterated (maybe because some people are under legal restrictions with probation or something?). Secondly there's the obvious factor that it could be to stop people from shooting up in the toilet. Even though I think neither of these reasons warrants video-taping people in the toilet, at the very least they could put a sign up saying: "NOTICE: TOILET UNDER VIDEO-SURVEILLANCE" or something. What does everyone else think of this? Is it normal? Am I being too sensitive? It's a strange situation as the Kobi Clinic is privately owned (as far as I know), not public like some of the others. However, surely filming someone naked without their knowledge - even if it is on private property - is against the law? Either way I am now looking for somewhere else where I can finish the Suboxone program as I don't think I will ever be comfortable talking to the same people each day whom I'm pretty sure just watched me scrubbing my perineum and associated areas clean..... I even did that thing where you wipe between the cheeks, inspect the paper only to realise there's a bit of fecal matter and then going through the motions to remove it, checking each time.”
Although the individual who wrote the complaint was not belletristic , his point is crystal clear. I can absolutely understand the frustration and humiliation that the individual went through. This is a real life example of what happens in a bathroom an we need to be completely candid about this. Video camera's do not belong in bathrooms, people do and that's the bottom line. I am asking the Treatment Center to consider removing said camera's as soon as possible because of the few examples I have mentioned above and the far crucial reason to the treatment center, potential lawsuits. There are far more serious implications and ramifications that could occur if someone wished to pursue a lawsuit over the handling, viewing and misuse of video-surveillance, not to mention the vulnerability of hackers to intercept video transmissions. I would like to also site a few court cases in which the 4th amendment was acknowledged as being infringed upon when video-surveillance was used, even knowingly.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Katz vs. United States 389 U.S. 347 (1967), defined modern "search and seizure" law under the Fourth Amendment. The Court declared that "What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection, but what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be Constitutionally protected. Generally, a person walking along a public sidewalk or standing in a public park cannot reasonably expect that his activity will be immune from the public eye or from observation by the police. As recognized by the Supreme Court in United States vs. Knotts 368 U.S. 276, 281-82 (1983):
A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another. When [an individual] traveled over the public streets he voluntarily conveyed to anyone who wanted to look the fact that he was traveling over particular roads in a particular direction, and the fact of his final destination when he exited from public roads onto private property.
Following this reasoning courts, for the most part, have allowed police to videotape individuals on public roads. Transactions in plain view in a public forum generally do not raise Fourth Amendment issues. This is known as the plain view rule and open field doctrine. If a person does something illegal in plain view (e.g. in front of a video camera), an officer would not need a warrant to search that person to find the incriminating evidence. Court decisions interpreting and applying the Fourth Amendment do not classify this situation as a person, house, paper, or effects that are protected against unreasonable search and seizures. In a recent unpublished opinion, United States vs. Sherman, 990 F. 2d 1265 (9th Cir. 1993), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that individuals videotaped in public view have no reasonable expectations of privacy, and could not challenge the government's use of videotape at trial as violating the Fourth Amendment. When this test is applied to video surveillance of public streets, the prevailing legal view is that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment. In contrast, surveillance by the government of activities occurring within an individual's house may violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court has developed a test to determine if such surveillance violates the Constitution:
1. Does the surveillance occur from publicly navigable airspace?
2. Is the surveillance conducted in a physically non-intrusive manner?
Before answering these questions to see if they are applicable to the Treatment Center we must first define intrusive. Intrusive is defined as making an unwelcome manifestation with disruptive or adverse effect (of a person), or disturbing another by one's uninvited or unwelcome presence. The first sentence deals with surveillance occurring from publicly navigable airspace? The answer applicable to the treatment center would be NO, the airspace in question is a private restroom used by patients for the sole purposes of collecting urine drug screens and therefor would be considered private and not public and therefor would be considered intrusive and by definition and implication an infringement of the 4th amendment. The Second standard states” is the surveillance conducted in a physically non intrusive manner”. Physically the camera is intrusive, being that it is placed in a private, not public area and is quite unwelcome by all patients. The camera is intrusive in the manner that it is placed in an area that is normally considered to everyone to be private and intrusive in the manner that is is a direct unwelcome manifestation of a new observation technique and is very disturbing and unwelcome in a private area such as a urine collection area. One would not consider a waiting area to be private or the parking lot private, but a bathroom where an individual is unclothed or is exposing his or her genitalia and performing other bodily functions such as urinating and defecating, cleaning ones body, is most definitely considered private to the individual, and private to the treatment center. Since that particular restroom is used solely for patients to collect a urine specimen it is considered private, and therefor would constitute an infringement of the 4th amendment due to it's private implication and private function.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Government activities that qualify as a “search” must be accompanied by a properly issued warrant based on probable cause. If government video surveillance is not a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, then no warrant is required.
The United States Supreme Court has defined “search” broadly, such that even non-invasive surveillance may qualify. A “search” is not just a “physical intrusion into [a] given enclosure,” but rather whenever a reasonable expectation of privacy is infringed. Whether an individual can claim a reasonable expectation of privacy rests on two questions: (1) has the individual shown that “he seeks to preserve [something] as private?” and (2) is the individual’s subjective expectation of privacy “one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable’?”
At the age of 18 I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic and I am duty bound by my oath until death. I take our precious Constitutional rights very seriously as should every citizen. Any violation or infringement of the Constitution should be addressed by the people, as the Constitution was drafted by and for the people and we are all duty bound to protect it. Thank you for reading and considering my views on the validity, morality and legality of video-surveillance urine drug screen procedures and once again thank you for your excellent service and for saving my life.
Most Respectfully,
Michael Dale Sipes, Jr. MLT
My writings can also be found on Booksie.com concerning treatment
Often times individuals and even groups of people come up with an idea that seem good at the time but in practice is not good at all and is not only counter productive but actually infringe on a patients rights. Patients who have been in treatment for long periods of time, who have attended hundreds of hours of groups, never failed a drug screen, never missed a call back and so on should not be subjected to any further hardship just because of the needs of the few individuals who just don't get it. When it comes to rules and regulations the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and for those few who absolutely try to bamboozle the system they need direct observation with human eyes. If a camera was placed in front of the toilet at a 45 degree angle it would only show the front of the 'penis' and the camera for a 'women' would not show much of anything as a women could pull her pants down just enough to get a specimen cup between her legs and could crouch back therefor concealing her genitalia completely. This surveillance is therefor by nature and anatomy biased towards male allowing unscrupulous females to adulterate their specimen rather easily. Even males who taped or glued a thin measured amount of tubing to the underside of their penis could adulterate the specimen if this procedure was fully implemented. That is why this kind of collection procedure is not used by any government agency or any other agency that I am aware of even though video-surveillance camera's have been around in the United States since 1949. They are not used for this purpose due to the fact that it is extremely easy to circumvent the surveillance safe guards and adulterate the specimen, and because video surveillance is susceptible to what is called "video sniffing" , which is the hacking and broadcasting of the video for other purposes. I personally do not want a new porn site called 'ADDICTS GONE WILD', where I am on video pulling out my penis and urinating in front of a video camera. The military does not utilize this technique, the Department of Transportation or DOT does not utilize this technique and neither should the treatment center, in my opinion. I feel that it will only lead to a further reduction in patient volume as patients seek alternative treatment plans and or centers and it could ultimately lead to court cases against the treatment center for video that was inappropriately recorded, hacked, or watched by unauthorized individuals. Which leads me to another issue. Who is watching who, does a male watch a male, a female watch a female, again, it's redundant, has no checks and balances and gives the patient a chance to 'beat the system' by using apparatuses attached to there bodies to deliver a specimen, which would have been caught had an actual observer been present. I have found two paragraphs from two different methadone forums talking about this very issue. I have nothing to do with the following statement's nor do I embrace or endorse what is being said, but it's subject matter is germane to this issue I am writing about. The first states verbatim:
“WTF: hi ya'll i'm not sure about everyone else but i am from pennsylvania and at our clinic they have a camera in our bathroom. Now I'm not sure how everyone else feels about this but it pisses me off and makes me sick all at the same time. For one thing at my clinic the only time you are supposed to get a monitored urine analysis (UA) is if you are up for a privalege, but if there is a camera in the bathroom technically everytime you pee it is monitored, even when you are not giving a UA. How do we know if they are recording us use the bathroom or not, just because they say there not, does't mean they are telling the truth. and where the monitor is set up in our clinic for the nurses to watch you use the BR, everyone that walks to the dosing window can see whom ever is in the bathroom pee.My husband and I did a test one day to see if the nurses payed attention to those of us that had to use the bathroom while giving a UA. Mind you we have been clean now for 2 years. anyways, he walked into the bathroom and instead of standing over the toilet to pee in the bottle he turned around to where the camera could not see him, no sooner he did that and a nurse came running out of the back and started punding on the door kicking it and pulling on the doorknob screaming what are you doing in there i can't see you, your not on camera, well me i can't keep my mouth shut so that nurse and i got into an argument about her looking at my husbands private parts, and everyone there was in agreement with me. Anyways now for the last 4 or 5 months my 2nd cousin is a nurse at my clinic, and she told me some stuff about the nurses and what they do when the men go to the bathroom, I was right the nurses sit there and talk about how big each guys thing is and what not, i think it's an outrage and I know it appals me. Now what if my little girl had to use the bathroom and they were recording it, i don't want some sick pervet getting his jollies off to my little girl peeing. There has to be some kind of law against this. I'm sorry but i would rather have a female nurse walk in the bathroom with me and a male walk in the bathroom with my husband when taking a UA then to have a video camera watch me when i don't know wether or not they are recording it. And I don't appreciate all those female nurses looking at my husbands private, that is for me and me only, believe me i'm not embarassed of what he's got . i'm actually very proud lol, but it's just the point that i feel it is sick and goes against our right. i'd like to hear some other peoples in take on this.” I can absolutely understand this woman's view that the nurses were looking at her husbands genitals, something that she and she alone should be doing. It also talkes about what goes on behind the partician, meaning the indivuals responsible for the viewing of this video is in complete control and there is nothing to stop them from abusing the system, no safe guards in place at all. The second paragraph is from an entirely different forum and reads “Today was quite humid so I went to their toilet before being "dosed" (I really hate that word for some reason), pulled down my pants to my feet, and used some toilet-paper to wipe the sweat from between my legs, balls and arse-cheeks... just generally 'freshening up' as I walk long distances each day to get to the clinic and university. Whilst washing my hands I looked up and realised there's one of those round dark tinted plastic half-spheres with a camera in it pointed directly at me and the toilet?! I had used the toilet before this to urinate many times but had never before noticed I was on film until today. Now I'm a pretty free, open and physically liberal guy, and usually don't have any qualms about people seeing me naked, BUT there's something really strange about people video-taping you while you're intimately cleaning your privates. It's not even something I would be comfortable with my partner seeing, yet alone some random methadone-clinic workers I barely know. I can't shake the feeling that my privacy has been severely infringed upon..... I was thinking maybe the reason for it was that they needed to make sure that the urine tests they sometimes conduct aren't faked or adulterated (maybe because some people are under legal restrictions with probation or something?). Secondly there's the obvious factor that it could be to stop people from shooting up in the toilet. Even though I think neither of these reasons warrants video-taping people in the toilet, at the very least they could put a sign up saying: "NOTICE: TOILET UNDER VIDEO-SURVEILLANCE" or something. What does everyone else think of this? Is it normal? Am I being too sensitive? It's a strange situation as the Kobi Clinic is privately owned (as far as I know), not public like some of the others. However, surely filming someone naked without their knowledge - even if it is on private property - is against the law? Either way I am now looking for somewhere else where I can finish the Suboxone program as I don't think I will ever be comfortable talking to the same people each day whom I'm pretty sure just watched me scrubbing my perineum and associated areas clean..... I even did that thing where you wipe between the cheeks, inspect the paper only to realise there's a bit of fecal matter and then going through the motions to remove it, checking each time.”
Although the individual who wrote the complaint was not belletristic , his point is crystal clear. I can absolutely understand the frustration and humiliation that the individual went through. This is a real life example of what happens in a bathroom an we need to be completely candid about this. Video camera's do not belong in bathrooms, people do and that's the bottom line. I am asking the Treatment Center to consider removing said camera's as soon as possible because of the few examples I have mentioned above and the far crucial reason to the treatment center, potential lawsuits. There are far more serious implications and ramifications that could occur if someone wished to pursue a lawsuit over the handling, viewing and misuse of video-surveillance, not to mention the vulnerability of hackers to intercept video transmissions. I would like to also site a few court cases in which the 4th amendment was acknowledged as being infringed upon when video-surveillance was used, even knowingly.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Katz vs. United States 389 U.S. 347 (1967), defined modern "search and seizure" law under the Fourth Amendment. The Court declared that "What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection, but what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be Constitutionally protected. Generally, a person walking along a public sidewalk or standing in a public park cannot reasonably expect that his activity will be immune from the public eye or from observation by the police. As recognized by the Supreme Court in United States vs. Knotts 368 U.S. 276, 281-82 (1983):
A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another. When [an individual] traveled over the public streets he voluntarily conveyed to anyone who wanted to look the fact that he was traveling over particular roads in a particular direction, and the fact of his final destination when he exited from public roads onto private property.
Following this reasoning courts, for the most part, have allowed police to videotape individuals on public roads. Transactions in plain view in a public forum generally do not raise Fourth Amendment issues. This is known as the plain view rule and open field doctrine. If a person does something illegal in plain view (e.g. in front of a video camera), an officer would not need a warrant to search that person to find the incriminating evidence. Court decisions interpreting and applying the Fourth Amendment do not classify this situation as a person, house, paper, or effects that are protected against unreasonable search and seizures. In a recent unpublished opinion, United States vs. Sherman, 990 F. 2d 1265 (9th Cir. 1993), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that individuals videotaped in public view have no reasonable expectations of privacy, and could not challenge the government's use of videotape at trial as violating the Fourth Amendment. When this test is applied to video surveillance of public streets, the prevailing legal view is that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment. In contrast, surveillance by the government of activities occurring within an individual's house may violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court has developed a test to determine if such surveillance violates the Constitution:
1. Does the surveillance occur from publicly navigable airspace?
2. Is the surveillance conducted in a physically non-intrusive manner?
Before answering these questions to see if they are applicable to the Treatment Center we must first define intrusive. Intrusive is defined as making an unwelcome manifestation with disruptive or adverse effect (of a person), or disturbing another by one's uninvited or unwelcome presence. The first sentence deals with surveillance occurring from publicly navigable airspace? The answer applicable to the treatment center would be NO, the airspace in question is a private restroom used by patients for the sole purposes of collecting urine drug screens and therefor would be considered private and not public and therefor would be considered intrusive and by definition and implication an infringement of the 4th amendment. The Second standard states” is the surveillance conducted in a physically non intrusive manner”. Physically the camera is intrusive, being that it is placed in a private, not public area and is quite unwelcome by all patients. The camera is intrusive in the manner that it is placed in an area that is normally considered to everyone to be private and intrusive in the manner that is is a direct unwelcome manifestation of a new observation technique and is very disturbing and unwelcome in a private area such as a urine collection area. One would not consider a waiting area to be private or the parking lot private, but a bathroom where an individual is unclothed or is exposing his or her genitalia and performing other bodily functions such as urinating and defecating, cleaning ones body, is most definitely considered private to the individual, and private to the treatment center. Since that particular restroom is used solely for patients to collect a urine specimen it is considered private, and therefor would constitute an infringement of the 4th amendment due to it's private implication and private function.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Government activities that qualify as a “search” must be accompanied by a properly issued warrant based on probable cause. If government video surveillance is not a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, then no warrant is required.
The United States Supreme Court has defined “search” broadly, such that even non-invasive surveillance may qualify. A “search” is not just a “physical intrusion into [a] given enclosure,” but rather whenever a reasonable expectation of privacy is infringed. Whether an individual can claim a reasonable expectation of privacy rests on two questions: (1) has the individual shown that “he seeks to preserve [something] as private?” and (2) is the individual’s subjective expectation of privacy “one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable’?”
At the age of 18 I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic and I am duty bound by my oath until death. I take our precious Constitutional rights very seriously as should every citizen. Any violation or infringement of the Constitution should be addressed by the people, as the Constitution was drafted by and for the people and we are all duty bound to protect it. Thank you for reading and considering my views on the validity, morality and legality of video-surveillance urine drug screen procedures and once again thank you for your excellent service and for saving my life.
Most Respectfully,
Michael Dale Sipes, Jr. MLT
My writings can also be found on Booksie.com concerning treatment
