The California Supreme Court held held that employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace, but that right has limits. And it doesn’t prevent employers from conducting some hidden surveillance in an employee’s office for “legitimate business concerns.”

“An employer may have sound reasons for monitoring the workplace,” Justice Marvin Baxter wrote for a unanimous court, “and an intrusion upon the employee’s reasonable privacy expectations may not be egregious or actionable under the particular circumstances.”

This ruling came about in October 2002 when office manager Abigail Hernandez and administrative assistant Maria Lopez discovered hidden video equipment in the office they shared at Pasadena’s Hillsides Children’s Center, a facility that houses abused children. Executive Director John Hitchcock had installed the equipment in an unsuccessful attempt to catch someone who had been viewing pornography on Lopez’s computer in the wee hours of the morning.

Hitchcock was particularly concerned because many of the 66 boys and girls at the center had been the victims of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. No one was ever apprehended.

Neither Hernandez nor Lopez were suspects, and the camera — activated only after work hours — never recorded them. Nonetheless, they were distraught upon discovering the camera and sued for invasion of privacy.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge C. Edward Simpson granted summary judgment to the center. But Los Angeles’ 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed in 2006, holding that the mere placement of the surveillance equipment in the women’s office without their knowledge invaded their privacy.

On Monday, the Supreme Court justices split the difference, saying that while they could understand the two women’s “dismay,” the placement of the hidden camera wasn’t egregious, and the employer had a valid reason for doing what he did.

This court decision has given employers the right to use surveillance systems and hidden cameras for legitimate business concerns.

Cleveland Sergeant Timothy Richissin has been  charged with two counts of voyeurism in Medina County Common Pleas Court.

Prosecutors say last year, Richissin put a small hidden camera inside the bathroom of the Hinckley warehouse where he ran a business.

Earlier this year, he was charged with tampering with evidence, voyeurism, obstructing official business and possessing criminal tools, after a female employee found the camera and called police.

Richissin plead not guilty to the new charges. He also hired a new attorney to represent him.

Now, this brings me to the point of why I told you about this cop.  Everything has the potential for good and evil.  Some states have restricted stun guns and TASERS because they can be used for harm.  This completely disregards the potential of a good person using stun guns or TASERS to defend themselves.  Its a convenient restriction made by politicians looking for votes.  If they were serious about not allowing items that could harm people when in the wrong hands, they would have outlawed baseball bats.  Before stun guns were illegal and there were criminal stats on them, there were 30 times more muggings done with baseball bats in New York than with stun guns.

Same thing with hidden cameras.  Yes, you have jerks like this Cleveland cop who misuse the technology, but you also have mothers using it to watch over their children and home and business owners using it to watch over their property.  Thats why I sell them.  For the good they can do.  I will not be dissuaded from selling hidden cameras because some idiots out there will use them for evil.  Their use for good is too important.

Women must derive some sort of comfort from them, and all that other junk they bring with them when you get married that no one ever tells you anything about. One day you have a perfectly uncluttered bathroom, and then…poof…it’s gone.

But the mere innocuousness of your standard tissue box makes it the perfect place to put a hidden camera. I don’t think I have ever touched one of the many tissue boxes in this house, and don’t have any plans to start. I mean, I have pulled a tissue from time to time, maybe to clean my glasses, something like that, but I have never checked to see what the tissue level was, or refilled one, ever. That’s my wife’s turf, and she’s welcome to it.

I guess I kinda view a tissue box the same way I would view diaper changing, and it’s not high on my “want to do before I die” list.

I think most guys feel the same way. We don’t have opinions on things like tissue boxes, soap dispensers, towel colors, how many pillows should be on the bed and whether the sheets and pillowcases should match or contrast. It’s just not a guy thing, which makes The Tissue Box Hidden Camera the perfect setup for keeping an eye on what’s going on in your home when you’re not there.

The chance that if someone breaks into your home they would look for a hidden camera in a tissue box are slim to almost non-existent. It just wouldn’t happen. He’d have no idea he’s being watched and recorded.

And later, when the cops pick him up, maybe he’ll enjoy seeing himself rummaging through your home.  Of course, he’ll probably be saying, “Well, yeah, he looks like me, but that’s not me!”  And I’m sure the cops, prosecutor, judge and jury will get a big laugh out of that.

He’ll have a great story to tell when he’s in jail.

The installation went smoothly, and we had him up and running in short order. He was now able to watch the restaurant from home on his laptop. He was so pleased with the system that he had it installed in all his restaurants. He has called me several times to tell how much he appreciated me taking the time to convince him this was a good move.

On one of the calls he just casually mentioned that four months after installing the systems, he has not had a workmans compensation claim in two months, something that was very common before the cameras were installed. This alone is paying for the systems. Not only is it saving him money, it is saving him time.

He isn’t filling out forms, or going to hearings.

The cameras have foiled the old accident game. No more paying for back injuries that never happened. The employees now know that if they fell, the camera would see it, and the result is no more phony claims.

This was something that never occurred to me when I was selling the system, but it sure is a big benefit that I won’t leave out in the future.

Insurance money is a big part of any business with employees, and if you have a good record of being “accident free” your premiums go down, and many times substantially. Over the span of a few years that could mean a much bigger slice of the pie going in your pocket, or to funding another business, or to making repairs or capital improvements.

My Florida friend tunes in to his different operations at different times every day, and takes a few notes on what he sees. Then he gets together with his managers and implements procedures to fix what is wrong. His estimate is that the surveillance systems paid for themselves in the first month, and that since then he has put thousands and thousands of dollars on his bottom line.

“Sometimes,” he says, “it is the little things that I see. But when you have multiple properties, and they are all doing a little thing wrong, it’s a big thing. If all your bartenders are over pouring, that’s a tremendous amount of money in a month. If we are over cooking four or five steaks a night in six locations, that’s a lot of money in a month in waste. I fix one or two things at a time, and the bottom line results are outstanding.”

I’m sure there are going to be even more benefits that I haven’t thought of as surveillance systems become more and more commonplace. One thing I know for sure though, is that the benefits already far outweigh the cost.

Bobby Jo is a big fan of her dogs, four of them to be exact. She has rescued all four of them from certain death. In fact, in addition to the dogs she has adopted herself, she has saved another forty by getting other folks to adopt them. Some had as little as half an hour left before they would have met the Big Sleep.

Bobby Jo wanted a way to look in on her dogs when she was at work. Though she had solved most of their issues, occasionally she still came home to big mess. She felt if she looked in from time to time, she could see who the troublemaker was, and what started the fracas.

Since the dogs were only allowed in certain areas of the house, she opted for a four channel system wireless surveillance system. It took only a couple of hours to install, and everything went fine.

On Monday Bobby Jo opened up her laptop and dialed in to her surveillance system for her first look at what was going on back home.   They were all power napping, and not a tail stirred. After lunch she dialed in again, and they were in the kitchen. The biggest, Bork was in the process of tipping over the trash can, and the three others were waiting anxiously for it to happen.

When Bork got the can tipped over, Brad, the smallest dog, went straight into the can. All you could see of him was his tail, which was wagging heartily. The other dogs didn’t like this, and started nipping at him, trying to get him out, but he wasn’t budging. Bork jumped on the can, and this did move Brad out. Then there was a big hullabaloo involving all of them.

That night Bobby Jo childproofed the lock on that cabinet door, so they couldn’t get in.

They next day she looked in, and Bork was in the kitchen, and try as he might, he couldn’t get that door open. Since there was no prospect of getting food, the other three weren’t interested, and had retired to their quarters.

Another check found them all snoring in the afternoon.

It’s what dogs do best.

Bobby Jo checks in on her hounds every few hours through her surveillance system.  She has managed to control them very well by observing them, and then making changes that thwart some of their most unruly aspects.

But most of all, she just likes watching her babies.