Technology and Gender: Thomas I. Voire
and the Case of the Peeping Tom
The Sociological Quarterly, Volume 43, Number 3, pages 407-433.
It’s not spying if you
love someone.
--Broadway Danny Rose
Unveiled women who
show their hands and feet excite feelings of onlookers without giving them the
means to calm the excitement.
--Iranian cleric
By Gary T. Marx
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Discussion papers in this series: Willis & Silbey: Self, Vigilance and Society | Nippert-Eng: Out of Sight, Out of Mind | Manning: Doubles and Tom Voire | Staples & Nagel: Gary's Gone... | Marx: Reflective Eyes and Moods Apart
A Brief Note From
the Author
Thomas I. Voire is drawn from a forthcoming book Windows Into the Soul: Surveillance
and Society in an Age of High Technology (University of Chicago). I sought a
way to communicate about the variety of new technologies for collecting
personal information, and I also wanted to convey the subjective sense of being
a watcher and being watched. A simple table listing technologies or reporting
things such as the number of hidden video cameras sold each year and the use of
elaborate analytic conceptualizations to organize the empirical material,
however needed, seemed lifeless and unable to convey the sense that something
striking was happening in our society with respect to surveillance technology.
The ability to cross personal informational borders goes far beyond big brother
or big corporation. It involves all of us in our daily interactions. One
approach is to offer a detailed case study. But then I would be bound by
whatever elements happen to be present in the literal case. I wanted my account
to be representative of the broad range of surveillance technologies. I also
wanted it to communicate the emotional wallop that is often felt when covert
surveillance is discovered as well as the powerful attraction of secret
knowledge. To do this, I turned to the ideal-typical case of a clinical
interview with Mr. Voire.
Like any
ideal type, this is a fictional account--but it is fictional only in the sense
that it didn’t all happen this way, even though it all could happen and is
largely based on actual cases and a composite from interviews. In my book, I
follow this fictive account with traditional sociological analysis. Among some
of the questions Voire’s case raises for me are:
1.
How can we explain the gender differences in cross
sex observation and use of surveillance technologies?
2.
What are the major structures, processes, and
consequences in the relationships among various types of new information
technology that laws, policies and manners are intended to regulate? Are there
examples of laws that effectively anticipate the problems of new technologies
without inhibiting invention, commerce, and freedom of expression?
3.
How should the feelings of a target be balanced with
the intentions of the observer? Where does the “real self” stop and a fictional
self begin? Can an individual be hurt by the collection of personal information
intended only for the private use of the collector? What is the harm from
secret surveillance if the surveilled never knows?
4.
Given the ambiguity, elasticity, and frequently
conflictual nature of values and norms, how is it that we have the degree of
social order that we have? Why aren’t there many more Toms?
5.
If visibility brings accountability and we seek
transparency in government and organizations (a fundamental assumption of
democratic theory), why does our society go to the other extreme in the valuing
of individual privacy?
6.
Is there a role for more fiction in sociological work
(holding apart that too many of our
critics already think that what we do is fiction)? Should the creation of such
fictions be added to our methods kit, along with established methods such as
the quantitative fictions of simulations?
Acknowledgments
I am
indebted to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for the
supportive environment in which this case study was developed. Many colleagues
graciously contributed to Tom’s maturing or perhaps immaturing. For comments
and ratification I am grateful to Janet Chafetz, William Darrough, Murray
Davis, Mathieu Deflem, Pascal Gensous, Pat Gillham, Martha Gimenez, Cy Goode,
Erich Goode, Val Jenness, Rosabeth Kanter, Peter Klerks, Don Haines, Peter
Klerks, Rolf Kjolseth, Rob Kling, Jesse Larner, Kevin Leicht, Richard Leo, Kay
Levine, Kristin Luker, Josh Meisel, Glenn Muschert, Joane Nagel, David Nasatir,
Christena Nippert-Eng, Eve Passerini, Gerry Platt, Nicole Rafter, Pris Regan,
Nancy Reichman, Norma Rodriguez, San Antonio Rose, Barry Schwartz, David
Shulman, Susan Silbey, Mary Virnoche, Jay Wachtel, Ron Weitzer, Lenny Weitzman
and Susan Wilson.
CLINICAL REPORT
---------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
Pat. name: Thomas I. Voire AKA: Isidore Demsky
Pat. acct.
# 21-18-19-13-1-18-20
Birth date: 6/6/66
Reporting physician: A. Funt
Presenting complaints: Subject seeks greater
self-understanding and feedback on beliefs that he is a victim of a conspiracy
to deny him his rights under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments as these
involve collecting and publishing information. Possible sexual dysfunction,
inability to distinguish media depictions from reality, voyeurism, paranoid and
sociopathic tendencies.
Date: 2/21/02
Insurance routing: Medical Insurance Bureau, Boston
WARNING: This medical report is
CONFIDENTIAL and only to be seen by the more than seventy persons (or others in
their agencies) who have a legitimate professional reason to see it. If the
free and open communication between patient and professional is to be
maintained, there must be a relationship of trust in an environment in which
patient confidentiality is respected, and information is widely shared on
behalf of our interlocking goals of quality treatment, efficiency, and
profit-maximization. Remember: there is no such thing as nonsensitive personal
information. On the other hand as professionals we know that knowledge is good
and sharing it is a fundamental value of our occupational culture.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Childhood
Whatever his deficiencies, lack of imagination was not among
them. Unlike Peter Sellers in the film Being
There or Jim Carrey in The Truman
Show, he knew the difference between media fantasies and reality. He simply
preferred the media. Thomas I. Voire might have grown up like any other typical
American child raised in Hollywood on comic books and television, with an
actress-mother and a science-fiction-writing-father, were it not for the fact
that he spent the first seven years of his life in a full body cast. While
other children played, he could only watch. He became an astute observer of the mass media and of other people. A school
counselor even suggested that he become a sociologist. He loved comic books. Superman with his x-ray vision and Brenda Starr who could become invisible
by pressing her wrist were his favorites. The Saint, a TV program with the same theme, was also a favorite, as
was Candid Camera.
As a frail youngest child, Tom was carefully observed by his
parents. From an early age he was accustomed to being watched and to
inspections and examinations of all kinds. His earliest memory is of a bright
yellow transmitter with a bear decal that was always clipped on his pants. A
warning alarm sounded if he strayed too far from his adult monitor. As he grew
older the range expanded from twenty to a hundred feet before the alarm went
off. Until he was fifteen, his room had an electronic listening device and a
video monitor that permitted his parents to supervise him during commercial
breaks from their television set. As a teenager he gladly submitted to home
drug testing, thankful that he had the kind of parents who cared about his
well-being.
The ethos of surveillance to which he was subjected was
reproduced in his world of play. The watched became the watcher. He was a
curious and enterprising child who had many "toys" for listening and
communication. As a child he loved to play peek-a-boo and hide and seek.
Another favorite pastime was hiding behind the sofa when his older sister was
with her boyfriends. He recalls being punished for lying on the floor and
looking up when his mother’s friends came to visit.
Noting his interest in technology, his parents gave him a
high-powered telescope and (as he recalls), "this really boring book about
astronomy." It became his favorite toy. But he didn't look at the stars.
From his high-rise apartment he aimed it at other apartments. It never occurred
to him that this might be a questionable activity, since so many people left
their shades up and also had telescopes pointing outwards. He had a
“super-amplifier” listening device with a headset, a stethoscope-like device
that permitted him to hear breathing through a concrete wall, and a tiny
voice-activated tape recorder. Other favorite toys included the “visible woman”
(a plastic anatomy kit), a great collection of Barbie dolls and clothes and a
game called “I spy.”
Voire served in the Navy in 1986-9 where he was assigned to
the equipment and maintenance section of a signet (signals intelligence unit).
He received a general, rather than an honorable, discharge. He did not wish to
elaborate on this. But he acknowledges difficulties as a result of (1) exposing
his unclothed posterior from a moving military vehicle and (2) listing “gay” as
his marital status in his America On Line member profile.
He saw a double standard in the Navy’s response to his
behavior. At the same time as his exposure incident, a female sailor posed
unclothed for Playboy magazine,
without censure. His AOL profile was written off-duty as a joke. It had no
impact on his performance in the Navy, and he was not gay, even though he knew
gay sailors who were still on active duty.
On leaving military service he worked as a lifeguard, a job
that fit his interests. However, when the winter came he took a job as a
security guard at a women's clothing store. He joined an anticrime Neighborhood
Watch group. But since he kept changing neighborhoods as a result of a
part-time job, he did not stay with it. The job was with People Watchers, Inc.,
a marketing research company run by cultural anthropologists. The job required
him to rent a room in a home and to report on the lifestyle and consumer
behavior he observed. The only drawback was that he had to move every three
months (and once after two weeks when the homeowners became suspicious).
Tom began studying communications and criminology. He became
interested in the history of technology, particularly the cluster of
nineteenth-century developments involving photography, x-rays, and the
extension of the power of the
microscope and telescope.
He sought to broaden himself culturally and spent many hours
in the library and museums and in reading. His interests were quite focused. He
loved to look at back issues of National
Geographic containing pictures of native women. He regularly read the
newspapers but mostly for the lingerie
ads. He also liked to look at nude women in art and photography books and in
paintings and sculpture. He particularly liked Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in which the
female forms are simultaneously viewed from various angles. He liked Picasso’s
engravings that featured famous figures such as Michelangelo hiding under a bed
watching an amorous couple and Degas visiting a brothel. He was also taken with
the work of the Italian baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi as expressed in
her painting Susannah and the Elders,
which conveyed her feelings about being spied upon. In contrast to the rare
pictures of male nudes, he noted that the paintings almost always involved a
frontal view of the nude female.
He became a regular in the Rodin room of the museum. He was
never bored there. The statues were immobile but the human landscape was
everchanging. Tom liked to watch women as they contemplated the figures. The
security guards of course looked at the sculpture, Tom, and the women, while
still another guard in a control room watched images from the rotating video
camera capturing all four. This visual rondo could get pretty complex,
depending on what was being looked at and who was looking at whom and the
genders and sexual orientations of the actors.
Ever fascinated by technology and art, Tom was something of
an innovator in his filming of private parts in public places. He was one of
the first of his gender to capture images up the skirt and down the blouse in
malls, subways, and parks by putting a hidden or disguised camera under or
above a seated female. But he preferred using remote cameras because there was
less chance of discovery or losing equipment. He was very proud of the tiny
remote camera he attached to the lifeguard tower at a nude beach. He notes,
“The camcorders and keyhole lenses make it a lot easier than standing under
stairwells all day, using a telescope or looking for girls wearing shiny patent
leather shoes.” He made several trips to Mardi Gras to film topless celebrants.
He was an avid, if ambivalent, fan of Candid Camera. He thought it was wrong to create reality and then
publicly reveal it,--better to just record things naturally as they occur in
public and consume them in the privacy of your own home. He was even more
incensed, as he put it, at “the amateurs, reprobates, perverts and degenerates
who post on Web sites the poor quality images they secretly collect. This gives
photography a bad name and will result in more vague laws, further restricting
the First Amendment rights to know of legitimate voyeurs.”
Most of his spare time was spent watching television or on
the Internet (even on the subway or when waiting for a doctor’s appointment, he
was never without his palm computer and handheld TV). Growing up, his nickname
was TV--in this case his initials were denotative. In Internet parlance he was
a “lurker” and enjoyed observing the communications of those in chat groups and
postings on bulletin boards. He did not participate because he knew that old
messages never die, they just rest in the ether waiting for someone to
instantaneously retrieve them by doing a simple deja-vu search, or viewing the history file on an Internet browser.
He always wore reflector sunglasses and in the Navy was
called “the man with no eyes.” Much of his watching had an invisible quality to
it (at least to those being watched). His dark glasses were a metaphor for his
way of being. He wanted to see but not be seen. He did not wish to trouble
those he watched nor risk sanctioning should his behavior be misinterpreted. At
one of our first meetings he insisted on playing a song called “The Invisible
Man” by an English rock group named Queen. He held to a surveillance ethic of
minimal, or better still, nonobtrusiveness, in observation.
Tom had only occasional success with women, and he had no
male friends. While hardly a campus activist, Tom was interested in social
issues and sometimes spoke (or acted) out. Both because of the principle and
because he felt more comfortable around females, he applied to a women’s
college and was rejected. On the coed campus he attended, he sought to join a sorority but had to
settle for a coed fraternity. He was not allowed to even try out for (let alone
be chosen to sing in) the women’s choir, nor could he play for the girl’s field
hockey team. His documented arguments regarding the negative consequences of
separation for stereotyping and the importance of diversity in social settings
went unheeded, as did his claim that the quality of performance would improve
if men were given an equal chance. He was banned from a bar near the campus for
repeatedly complaining that if women didn’t have to pay for their drinks during
happy hours, neither should he. Nor could he get a job as a waiter at Hooters.
To increase student awareness of gender equity questions, he
arranged for a campus showing of several sexually explicit films including The Full Monty. This drew an
enthusiastic overflow crowd, but to Tom’s dismay, no one was interested in
signing his petition protesting the unfairness in paying female porn stars so
much more than their male counterparts. Nor would anyone sign his letter of
support for male gynecologists who increasingly were having difficulty gaining
patients or for the male sportscasters who were banned from the dressing rooms
of professional female athletes. Nor were contributions received for a fund
promoting greater male involvement in cooking and cleaning.
Tom was confused and needed help. He saw an inviting
photograph in an alternative newspaper advertising the services of “Cheri,” an
applied therapist who specialized in helping men with less than satisfying
social lives. The therapist, who believed (with Colette) that love depends on
illusion, and ever aware of the role of fantasy and imagination in erotic
consciousness, sought creative ways to help Tom. Cheri suggested the idea of
videotaping their meetings. This served as a living tutorial that Tom
periodically reviewed for help. While he had to pay a lot more money for these
recorded interactive sessions, he concluded that it was well worth it. The
nurturing therapist had no qualms about this since she needed the funds to pay
for her Ph.D. studies and to contribute to the First Amendment Foundation.
Cheri recommended that (with his partner’s permission) he
always tape his sexual activities so that, like a baseball player or golfer, he
could work on improving his technique and also have a record of those truly
great moments. An additional reason for taping was so that he could prove that
the
encounter was consensual and thus protect himself against
any false accusations. Tom liked the idea of videotaping but did not follow her
advice regarding asking permission, being too embarrassed and fearing his
partners would say no.
The tapes of Tom’s encounters with his sex therapist were
consensual involving sound, as well as image. They contrast with the
nonconsensual films Tom subsequently made using a camera hidden in an overhead
light fixture with the sound recorder turned off. To capture sound
nonconsensually would violate state law (although that wasn’t the case in many
other states where as long as one person, the individual doing the taping,
agreed, it was legal). But there were no laws against secret videotaping if one
of the parties agreed to it.
Tom made a number of films but this was far more difficult
than in his therapist’s office in which there was a script and mutual
awareness. With hidden cameras it was
not easy to get the correct angle, there were power outages and equipment
failures or he forgot to turn the camera on. His encounters were often in the
dark (and an infrared camera was too expensive). Many of the images were fuzzy
and shadowy. Reality is hardly the stuff of which fantasies are made.
Such videotaping was a lot of trouble and he gave it all up
after one unpleasant episode when the camera fell from the ceiling onto his
partner’s head during a sexual encounter. Imagine her surprise. She demanded,
"How could you do that?" Pleased that she was interested in technical
matters he proudly said, "I used Sony state of the art Title III
equipment." Before he could even tell her about his effective use of other
kinds of cameras, such as the one he had hidden in the bathroom, she became
even angrier.
She demanded the tape and any others he had made of her. He
refused and said, “The tape and machinery are mine. I used them in my house.
You have given implied consent by coming into my room and getting neked with
me. I have a vivid image of you in my memory. What possible difference could it
make that the image also exists on tape? I promise that no one will ever see it
but me. An image is just an image, regardless of where it originates or
resides. Am I supposed to return the love letters you gave to me as freely as
you gave your image? Should I cut you out of the pictures taken of us in that
Las Vegas nightclub?”
However, within his limitations, he tried to be reasonable.
He said he would be glad to edit the tape so her face was blocked. He said he
would make a copy of the tape for her--and to sweeten the deal and as a way of
saying he was sorry--even throw in copies of other tapes she wasn't in and some
commercially made family films with international stars of stage and screen. He
said he would give her the first (or last) half of the present tape (since in
fairness half of the tape perhaps did belong to her). He said it would be wasteful and environmentally harmful to
follow her Solomonic solution and literally cut the tape cassette itself in
half. It would also mean destroying their unique history and preclude him from
learning from the experience. He thought that as an archaeology/history major
she should have greater appreciation of the need to preserve the past. It was
she after all who had told him about Andy Warhol’s argument for the importance
of fifteen minutes of fame and about some foreigner with “a funny name” who
said that things are only real to Americans on the screen.
The woman felt used and further ripped off after her
attorney said that it was necessary for them to review the tape together and to
question her about it. The attorney charged her thousands of dollars to
research the case, only to conclude that Tom had broken no laws and that a
victory in a civil suit was unlikely. She was further upset by the attorney's
offer of a significant fee reduction (in fact the sum mentioned would even have
created a positive cash flow for her), if she would make a film with
him.
Meanwhile, Back at the
Job
Tom was a conscientious and highly motivated dress store employee.
However, his social skills were not well developed, and he sometimes showed
doubtful judgment. For example, after his regular shift ended, he was caught
off-limits (thanks to a recently installed hidden camera) in the video terminal
room that was used to monitor the concealed cameras in the changing rooms. Only
female employees were allowed in this room. Straight arrow that he is, Voire
readily confessed that he was in the room. But he claimed that he was doing
research for a paper on shoplifting for his criminal justice class. He thought
his employer should be pleased that on his own time he was working to improve
his detection skills, and he offered to share the results of his study.
In this case, as with some of the events described above, he
sees himself as the victim while
others view him as the offender. He
feels he is often treated unfairly because of his gender. He sees
discrimination in the fact that only female employees could work in the
video-monitoring room, even though he had more detection experience and
seniority than most who worked there. He states, “It has been well established
in the courts that gender is not a bona fide occupational qualification for
security or prison guard work.” When he asked why he could not work there, he
was told, "It's not right to have men secretly watch women undress."
To which he replied, "I am a professional and this is no different than a
female doctor dealing with a male patient. My viewing is neither seamy nor
steamy. They are just blobs of protoplasm to me. It's just a job. I have no
personal feelings about any of this other than craftsmanship. If this were a
men's store and I were a woman, I would be watching them just as carefully.”
Introducing a hypothetical (the last resort of the
imaginative unbounded by the empirical) he asked, "Even if it's true that
I obtain some gratification from this activity, so what?" He offers a
reoccurring rationale:--"They didn't even know I was watching, so no harm
was done."
Tom said that he resented the implication that he was
somehow "a cowardly and exploitative free rider copping a symbolic feel
while enshrouded in a prophylactic of invisibility and distance" (a phrase
encountered in his women’s studies class from a reading critical of pornography).
He wasn’t quite sure what that meant but it didn’t sound good. He said, “If anyone was ‘getting off’ [i.e.,
obtaining inappropriate sexual gratification] on this stuff, it’s not a trained
professional like me. I just want to do my job. It’s those unprofessional . . .
[degrading explicatives banned by the clinic’s manual on nonsexist report
writing] female guards, most of whom have never even taken a criminal justice
class or stolen anything themselves.” He then cited an obscure study that found
that police officers with records as juvenile delinquents did better on the
job.
There were also problems with customers in the store.
Several female customers complained that Tom seemed too friendly. But as always, as a paradigmatic sociopath, he had an
explanation. A company directive issued a short time before required employees
to “smile, greet, and make eye contact with the customer.” Employees were told
that “secret shoppers” would check to see if they followed this as well as
other company policies. Tom claimed that in being friendly to the ladies,
especially to those he called hot “ice queen machines,” he was just doing his
job and following orders, although he added, “Having to always put on a happy
face makes me feel like a robot.”
The above incidents along with numerous complaints about him
to the store’s anonymous hot line, resulted in Voire’s being asked to attend a
meeting with Andrea Comstock, the store’s newly hired gender relations
facilitator. Tom was not sure what her job was but he thought it sounded
interesting. He was not told whether the meeting was mandatory. But it had to
be better than working. He also felt it important to explain his concerns in
the hope of contributing to a less hostile work environment. He knew that
authority was just, even if sometimes it seemed a little misguided and too
responsive to political concerns.
The facilitator began by explaining
that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the numerous complaints that had
been received about his behavior. Tom was stunned. He assumed that the purpose
of the meeting was to consider the signed complaints he had made about
discrimination in the workplace. After listening to the range of nonspecific,
anonymous complaints, Tom asked if it was true that the gender relations facilitator
had recently immigrated from a country famous for its carpets, where she had
worked for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
She had no idea what he was talking about and moved on to the real issues.
One type of complaint dealt with unwanted computer
communication sent to female employees. Several individuals thought that Tom,
with his knowledge of computers and distinctive personality, might be
responsible. There were hints and allegations but no solid evidence to support
this.
All unmarried female employees under the age of forty had
received warm, even syrupy, e-mails that flattered them and speculated on what
it would be like to be their friend and to know them in a more personal way.
There was nothing overtly threatening in the messages, but many found it
ominous to receive such a personal message from an unknown person. Had it been
signed by someone they knew and had not the same personal tone and content
characterized all the messages, this might have been seen as just the initial
foray of a shy, au courant nineties kind of electronic guy. However messages
were signed L. B. “Jeff” Jeffries, the name of the photographer played by Jimmy
Stewart in Rear Window.
There were also complaints about a Web site that actually
was run out of Finland. But borders being what they were (or rather what they
weren’t) with this new technology, it didn’t matter where the data were
located. The Web site contained the photo image, height, weight, age, marital
status, salary, latest performance evaluation, social security number, address,
and phone number of all female employees. These data could only have been taken
from the store’s personnel records. To make matters worse, the photos were
rated on a scale from one to ten as to desirability. A disclaimer intended to
soothe hurt feelings for those with low ratings did not have that effect. It
read, “This is a purely personal rating. It reflects nothing more than my
subjective sense of attractiveness. If you don’t like your score, please take
heart and note that in a society as diverse as ours there is no single correct
standard.” In some cases, however, suggestions were offered for how a rating
might be improved.
Tom denied that he was responsible for the above. He
said, “Women should be treated in all
their rich individuality and should not just be checked out like pieces of meat
and given a grade.” He said he agreed with Jack Nicholson who, in one of his
films said that women must be seen as a whole. Yet Tom also said, “As a matter of
principle I am not opposed to such Web pages. They are in the best American
tradition of freedom of expression and self-help, while being responsive to
feedback from others. If individuals aren’t interested in their rating they
needn’t log on to the site. That’s what freedom of choice is all about and why
America is a great country.”
Continuing on the theme of open
communication, he volunteered that while he was not directly responsible, he had given some technical advice via
e-mail to an anonymous individual. The individual subsequently posted
information on executive salaries and compensation packages and “for your eyes
only” memos on the company’s Web site. Tom said, “I did that because this is a
publicly traded company and as an employee and stockholder, I have a strong
interest in seeing that the company is healthy. I know that openness is central
and that dastardly deeds are more likely in the dark.”
There were other complaints about the pictures of women that
Tom had posted inside his locker and about his sometimes wearing T-shirts with
vulgar language and images. Tom said the locker pictures had artistic value and
he spoke proudly of his pinup collection. He felt hurt when his offer to share
the pictures with his interlocutor was rejected. He noted that the pictures
were inside his locker and if the complainants didn’t like that, they didn’t
have to peer into his locker as they walked by. In contrast he said, “Unlike
some employees, I would never use a sexually suggestive computer screensaver
because it indiscriminately broadcasts to anyone in the vicinity.” Because he
used his own lock, he said that his locker was a private place beyond the reach
of the store’s policies. With respect to the T-shirts, he said duty compelled
him to wear them in order to blend in as an ordinary customer when he was on
plainclothes duty looking for shoplifters.
Several complainants noted that Tom continued to invite them
out after they had refused him. While noting that he was always a gentleman, he
didn’t deny his persistence. He believed they were just playing hard to get and
thereby trying to increase their appeal to him (a ploy recommended by several
“how to catch a guy” guidebooks he had strategically memorized in order to be
prepared). Then, in a pattern that he frequently shows, he drew on a quote from
a famous person to legitimate his actions. In this case, it was Winston
Churchill who, according to Tom, was reputed to say, “Don’t give up, never,
never, never.”
Tom acknowledged that his behavior might be misinterpreted.
But he eschews any responsibility by saying, “My gender made me do it.” More
subtle than an argument about raging male hormones, he noted research reporting
that men are not as good at reading nonverbal and verbal cues as women and
hence it is harder for them to take a hint.
Another type
of complaint was more vague. Several women said they didn’t like the way he
looked at them. They said it made them feel uncomfortable and objectified. But
they could go no further in explaining the problem.
When told that the women didn’t like the way he looked,
Voire’s response was seen as hostile and defensive. He began testily asserting,
“Look, I’m sorry about the way I look. This is the face God gave me. If they don’t
like the way I look, maybe they should wear those glasses that change reality
or better still, just don’t look at me.
I am proud of the way I look and carefully follow the dress code.”
The facilitator explained that it was not his appearance
(his evaluations always noted that his uniform was proper and his shoes were
shined), but the way he looked at
women. Tom smiled at the misunderstanding, but he was just as well defended:
“I’m really confused. As a child I was told to always look others in the eye.
If you want to make someone you know feel bad, walk right by them without
making eye contact.” He added, “From my reading of women’s magazines in
supermarket checkout stands, I know that most women want very much to be
noticed by men. The cosmetic and fashion industries do everything they can to
make that happen. I see how women look at their reflection in mirrors and store
and car windows and how they are always checking their lipstick. In my social
psychology class I learned about Professor Cool’s ‘looking-glass self’ that
says that our sense of self depends on how we perceive others seeing us. 1. Men, after all,
are not the ones who carry a little mirror in their pocket and makeup to
disguise their real appearance.
“The facts back this up. I read in People magazine about a study that found young women enjoy seeing
and imagining themselves in enticing lingerie. They like the idea of being
appreciated by men for their appearance. I will not deny that I take maximum
advantage of what the situation
offers. But I use neither coercion nor deception in doing that. That is very
different from taking advantage of another person. Sure I like to look, but I
do that to honor them. Even though I failed my one philosophy class, I recall
reading that some really smart French guy named Sordid said that to look is to
empower the other. 2. The fact that they can make me look
and keep looking is a sign of their success.
My sense of masculinity comes from my adoration of women
rather than from degrading, denigrating, debasing, defaming, disparaging, and
dissing them the way some men do. My gaze is one of wonderment and appreciation
--just look at Ginger Rogers who did everything Fred Astaire did, only she did
it backwards and in high heels. I want to be equal to and please women, rather
than dominate and anger them. Looks have to be separated from words and words
from deeds. I never suggested anything indecorous like threading the needle,
getting my ashes hauled, or rifling her thong. 3.
“Whoever complained about the way I look is not being
honest. If they don’t want to be looked at, why do they dress that way? If it
is a virtue not to look, their behavior prevents me from being virtuous. While
I don’t think I have done anything wrong (quite the opposite), whatever you
call my behavior–they made me do it and are cooperating coconspirators. If
anything, I am the victim and am harassed by the tension their appearance
arouses in me. It’s like blaming the metal pieces drawn to a magnet because
they can’t resist, rather than seeing
the power of the magnet. If I am the one who gets in trouble here, it
would be better to live in one of those societies where women were fully
covered (or maybe absent altogether), offering nothing to look at. This is a
cruel game in which men can’t win–the temptation offers either the agony of
denial or the apparent sin of activation that in my case consists of nothing
more than looking.
“There is something else here. This is like censors who get
to watch the stuff people are not supposed to watch. It’s ironic that my accusers had to watch me, in order to
complain about me watching them. I’d also like to accuse them of visual
entrapment. How do I file a complaint?” He then ranted on about the behavior of
Lot’s wife who lived in Sodom and the temptation that Eve offered. He said he
thought the latter were not simply a function of the role of men in writing the
Bible.
The facilitator asked him if he looked at men in the same
way, and he said, “Of course not, what kind of a guy do you think I am?”
Fortunately she didn’t have to answer that. He then launched into a long
monologue about how as a child he had learned to survive in his tough
neighborhood by avoiding eye contact with males. That pattern continued to the
present. He said that some male violence, particularly that against gay men,
was triggered by such eye contact. He ended his manic Lenny Bruce monologue
wondering if gay persons got more pleasure out of looking at themselves than
straight persons, since they were, in a sense, objects of their own desire.
Other
anonymous hot line complaints said that Tom was often in the vicinity of the
women's restroom and that he even sometimes used the facilities (some employees
thought he was the one responsible for the toilet seat sometimes being left
up).
Tom said he was fascinated by the feminist movement
(he said any woman’s movement was of interest to him) and he was a strong
supporter of gender equality. One issue that particularly caught his eye (so to
speak) was the case for unisex bathrooms. But in this case he was no Rosa Parks
and had more mundane reasons for his behavior. He states, “I have nothing to
hide and once I explain the situation I am sure you’ll understand. Yes, I do
sometimes use the ladies' room and for good reason. I have a stomach ailment,
which causes nature to call suddenly and irregularly. The facility in the
smaller men's room is often occupied and farther away. There is sometimes no
alternative but to go into the larger women's room that is directly across from
my office. I only went in when I was under extreme pressure and when I was sure
no one else was there. Besides, the
men’s room doesn’t have those nice chintz-covered lounge chairs, and the
women’s room offers a greater level of privacy and cleanliness. The men’s room
has vulgar graffiti and I feel harassed by the dope-smoking men hiding there.
The women’s room feels like a safe place.
“In my sociology of law and gender class, I studied the law
of ‘indecent exposure.’ Neither indecency nor exposure were present here, only
need. I was in a stall with the door closed in a room with its outer door
closed. Weren’t bathrooms designed for this purpose? In being denied the
opportunity to use the women’s room when it was the most accessible, I feel the
same way I did when I couldn’t join the gym across the street from my house
because it was only for women. For reasons of women’s mental and physical
well-being I was told there must be ‘man-free zones.’ I like being around women
and can’t imagine wanting a ‘woman-free zone’. That would be discriminatory and
cruel and unusual punishment. Like that song says, we need to all ‘come
together right now.’”
Ever optimistic, the gender relations counselor saw this
largely as a failure to communicate, not as a problem of structure, culture, or
lunacy. Tom agreed with the counselor on at least one point: “There was indeed
a failure to communicate, but it was on your part not mine. I explained my
behavior and pointed out how I was victimized. Yet you refused to hear me or
really listen to my words. I did no
wrong, and I intended no wrong. I
can’t be held responsible for other people’s misperceptions.
“I am a very moral person and apply
two well-established standards in judging conduct. The first from the Greek
tradition stresses behavior. My
behavior was beyond reproach. The second from the Christian tradition stresses
motives and intentions. I certainly intended no harm and my motives--of showing
appreciation for others and of wanting equal access--are hardly the stuff out
of which gender wars ought to be fought. I am truly sorry if their perceptions
of my behavior made some women feel badly.
If that is the case, they need to deal with their feelings and not externalize
the problem by making me a scapegoat. They need counseling, not me. In a
democratic society you also might at least take a survey before reaching
conclusions–what about the silent majority who felt good about what they
perceived in my behavior? Don’t we need some balance here?
“And one more thing, while we are talking about the Greeks,
we are reminded to ask the question, ‘What’s the big deal about this privacy
stuff anyway?’ For them, the greatest value was placed on public life. It was
there that one’s sense of identity was to be found. Privacy, being the realm of
slaves, women, and children who were restricted to the home, was not valued. To
be private meant deprivation. Have
you ever wondered where the word ‘privy,’ came from?” The counselor being a big
city person thought that privy was an adjective and didn’t know it could also
be a noun. “For the Greeks, the erotic was connected with self-knowledge. It
was only those dirty-minded, copy-cat Romans who later claimed that there was
something wrong with erotic gazes.”
In spite of her training, the gender relations specialist
was flustered and didn’t know how to professionally deal with Tom. The
role-playing sessions in graduate school were never like this. She tried to
move on to the next issue. But not before Tom asked her if she felt
uncomfortable talking about sexuality, either her own or in general. He noted
that ambivalence was natural to the human condition. He asked if she had ever considered
Freud’s suggestion that some women were angry because they were not men.
He pointed out that their meeting was very one-sided. She
asked questions and he responded. Tom said he was interested in knowing her
feelings, both as a professional and as a woman, about what he had said. He
wanted a true dialogue. They were work colleagues after all. He volunteered to
make his observations and references available to her and, in a supportive
fashion, indicated that he would be glad to discuss her feelings or any
problems. She gracefully demurred and resisted the impulse to press her
personal panic button or the hidden alarm summoning a guard.
He asked her if she was aware of the irony and lack of
equity in experts such as herself being licensed to pry into his life regarding
his interest in the lives of women, while she refused to share her feelings and
experiences with him. He asked if she had seen a recent issue of Psychology Today in which research showed the importance of
reciprocity in relationships. He asked her whom she would share his information
with. He then launched into another monologue about professionals and their
inability to share power.
The counselor gave Tom a series of tests and realized that
he was the stuff out of which clinical articles and even careers are made. In
one projective test, she showed him a card with a series of lines all leaning
to the right. When asked what it was, he replied, “A man chasing a woman.”
She showed him a card with all the lines leaning to the left
and he replied, “That’s a woman chasing a man.” The facilitator said, “You seem
to think an awful lot about sex.” Tom looked surprised and replied, “Sex is not
awful. It’s wonderful. Guilt might be your chauffeur, lady, but it’s not mine. And besides, Doctor, they’re your dirty
pictures.” He didn’t deny his interests and the fact that he liked to watch.
But he said (in spite of having taken several sociology courses), “My genes
made me do it.” Neither he, nor any other male, could be blamed for the
research finding that in matters of romance, men were more responsive to the
visual and women to words. He described himself as a “see-er.” He professed to
see deep mythological and sacred meaning in the fact that this had the same
roots and sound as “seer.” That being a “seer” could also sear was beyond his
comprehension.
In her report, the counselor said
the company needed to better explain its expectations and rules. She
recommended additional testing and then counseling for Tom and also some
upgrading and better maintenance and security in the men’s facilities. She
thought some operant conditioning using penile plethysmography might also be
appropriate. 4.
She thought Tom was creepy and she didn’t like the way he looked at her.
She thought a male gender relations counselor might be more understanding and
do a better job of explaining the company to Tom (and although she didn’t put
it in her report, of explaining Tom to the company). It all might have ended
there but for one more little nest-fouling incident.
This Coffee Sure Is Strong!
Ever respectful of authority, Tom
was never the less very upset after the meeting. He said, “Anonymous informers
are the stuff of police states not democratic-capitalist states. I have a right
to confront my accusers and for a detailed bill of particulars. This is no
process, not due process.” He did not
like confrontation and was a nonviolent person. He often contrasted himself
with a distant cousin name Earl who had gone missing several years ago. 5. Tom said men were too quick to resort to violence and he
wished they could become more taunting, snide, and gossipy.
Tom could become passionate over
issues of justice as he perceived them. The passive-aggressive personality that
kept him out of big troubles continually got him into little troubles. The
great voyeur was again lifted on the petard of the technology he favored. The
day after the interview, a hidden camera caught him urinating into the
executive office coffeepot.
When confronted about this, as
always, he was well defended and up front. He didn’t deny it or claim that the
tape had been faked as some might have. He defended himself by principles of
reciprocity, lesser evils, and the absence of harm: “The company treated me
badly and I owed them one. They had it coming and this kind of fighting back is
the only weapon a powerless worker like me has. Any company that treats
employees this way should expect retaliation.
“After all, I hardly went postal on
‘em. I just pissed for a second, I didn’t empty my bladder. That coffee is so
strong they’d never have known were it not for the camera. Lots of employees
get away with far worse–beating up the boss, stealing, selling information,
sabotaging production. What I did didn’t hurt anybody. It’s like those
victimless crimes where if the ‘victim’ doesn’t know about it they can’t be
said to be hurt. I even read in True
Adventure about a man dying of thirst in the desert who survived by drinking his own urine. What
about all the good work I’ve done and all the times I have followed the rules
that you don’t have on videotape? Surely that overwhelms one minor mistake.
“Watching potential shoplifters with a hidden camera
is one thing. It would be unprofessional not to do that. But it is wrong to do
that to trusted employees, especially without telling them. I see how some
literal-minded persons unable to see the big picture and mitigating factors
might think that what I did was wrong, but it is far worse to use the sneaky
means you used.
“My actions pale in comparison to the deceit and
gross invasion of privacy the company demonstrates in using a hidden camera
against its own employees. What kind of a message does that send to people like
me? How would you feel if you were secretly videotaped while urinating and that
tape was then seen by others of both genders and various sexual persuasions?”
Ogling female employees was one
thing. Urinating in the boss’s coffeepot was quite another. This led to an investigation
and a high-level review resulting in a decision to terminate employment.
The company's media relations
specialist said, "This guy's a public relations Chernobyl waiting to
happen. Let the explosion occur in someone else's neighborhood." The company's
consulting psychologist, losing his detached, clinical manner, said, "This
clown isn't funny. He’s a fruitcake, heavy on the nuts and likely
contagious….He is either one of the world's dumbest or smartest people. Either
way the subversive nature of his perceptions and claims are dangerous to the
company's well established-routines. He sure as hell won't help us bring down
those medical insurance premiums that my bonus depends on."
The company's legal counsel, aware
of the recent trend toward million-dollar-plus settlements for fostering
unwelcoming work environments, gender discrimination, and privacy invasions,
was direct: "Terminate his employment--but not because he is a man. Let’s
also be sure the transcripts of the [illegal] wiretaps on his home phone and
computer modem get shredded since we didn’t find anything incriminating on
them. I’d hate to have to explain those in court or to the public.”
In what he later claimed was just a
joke and an expression of his feelings, not a call for direct action, Rocky
Bottoms, the company's national director of security, was even more blunt:
"Terminate with extreme displeasure" (a euphemism for assassination
from his earlier days as an intelligence operative).
Voire was called to a meeting intended to be an austere
degradation and departure ceremony in the normally off-limits presidential
suite. The director of personnel, the epitome of grease under pressure, wearing
a bulletproof vest, said, in the best syrupy, somber pseudo-sincere tones of a
funeral director expressing the same sympathetic concern fourteen times a day,
"Son, the hardest part of my job is making personnel decisions, but
someone has got to do it. Whether it be hiring or firing, I always ask God for
the strength to be fair, to get the facts correct, and to do what is best for
the company and the individual. There is nothing personal here."
The director thanked Voire for his efforts on behalf of the
company and praised him for his technical skills and ambition. He said he was
sure these strengths would help Voire in his next job, and he was sure that if
Voire received help, there would be a next job. There was a big demand in the
security field, especially for those hard-to-fill minimum-wage jobs without
benefits.
Voire listened patiently and with great dignity and
composure, considering the fact that he had just been fired. He was never at a
loss for a worldview that served his interests, however strange his views might
seem to the more privileged and conventional people holding the reins of
reality definition.
With all the stylish, macho chutzpa of a world-class
sociopath about to prevail in a high-stakes poker game, he said (in the best of
diplomatic and conflict resolution traditions), "Thank you, sir, for
sharing your views. I have gotten a great deal out of working here and, while
we may have had our differences, I am grateful to my fellow workers, my
immediate and more distant supervisors, the janitors and kitchen crew, and even
the stockholders and our customers whose efforts and belief in this company
made it possible for me to do my job here.
“Yet you have erred badly in your analysis of these events
and in the course of action you propose. You have obviously not considered the
implications of the fact that I have a tape recording of the meeting at which
my case was discussed. 6.
“Being in security work I have learned the importance of
being discrete. I hold no grudges, although I have good reason to. There is
nothing personal here. Jesus counsels me to have compassion and forgiveness. I
don't wish to quibble about the past. It is best for all of us to look to the
future.
“I am a reasonable person. I will give you the only copy of
the tape and I will resign from my job (I would not want to work for an
employer that discriminates against males, secretly videotapes employees and
eavesdrops on their communications,
destroying the trust and family feeling that I seek from my job). I will be
pleased to accept a relocation stipend of $25,000 in appreciation of my
contributions to the company.”
True to his word, in their second meeting, Voire handed over the “only copy of the tape” (although he kept the original) and received his check. The personnel director apologized profusely and said, "Son, we are all deeply sorry about this misunderstanding. The company very much appreciates your understanding and sensible solution.”
After his last day at work and receiving his severance pay,
Tom was feeling dejected and lonely. He drove to the entertainment district and
was arrested for “loitering for the purpose of soliciting a prostitute,” even
though there was no mention of a sex act in exchange for money. The attractive
"prostitute", dressed in high heels, hot pants, and a revealing
halter was an undercover policewoman. Voire claimed that he simply wanted
someone to talk to. She was wired for sound, but unfortunately much of the tape
is garbled and static-filled, and even some of the clearly discernible
conversation is subject to different interpretations. For example, when she
runs her tongue across her lips while lasciviously staring at him and initiates
conversation by saying, "Hi, honey, you look like you need a friend and
could use a good time," and he says, "I just got paid, do you want to
go on a date?" do we have entrapment, misdemeanor solicitation, or
neither?
But the vagaries of justice apart, he had the misfortune to
have this incident occur during a heated local election in which law and order
was the central issue. Rival candidates argued about who could crack down most
severely on crime, and they engaged in purity contests, challenging each other
to provide tax forms, drug and sexually transmitted disease tests, and
affidavits attesting to their marital fidelity and to the fact that they had
never had psychological counseling. Some even went so far as to report their
cholesterol levels and church attendance records. Voire was sentenced to six
months in jail after a five-minute trial. Even before being found guilty, he
saw himself on the six o’clock news. A “ride-along” television crew had
captured his encounter. His image and his license plate (with the last numeral
omitted) were recorded by a local self-help group and posted on a “videovigilante”
community Web page. Since all of this happened on a “public” street his
permission was not required. He felt terribly invaded by such behavior.
Yet fortune smiled on him. His jail was more enlightened
than many and had a nationally recognized training program. Contracts with
major health insurers gave prisoners on-the-job training in using computers to
process medical reports. The program paid for itself (and even made a profit
that was used to expand the jail system which then permitted putting even more
inmates to work in a constantly expanding program).
Voire excelled at this, working many extra hours and showing
interest in understanding the commercial, as well as the personal, side of
personal data. Prison officials were very pleased with his progress. He was
featured in a newspaper story that ran nationally about the prison's successful
rehabilitation program. The program received an award from an industry group
whose goal was the advancement of such public-private partnerships and the breaking
down of barriers. Their motto was “the prison in public and the public in the
prison.”
Yet Voire rapidly fell out of favor. He refused a generous
offer to provide information on his cell mates. His filing of a freedom of information request to learn about
possible food additives such as sodium nitrate (AKA NaN03 or Salt Peter) and
aromatic engineering additives to the heat and air conditioning systems was not
appreciated. He further angered prison officials when they discovered that he
had created his own private database of young unmarried women who had recently
seen an ob/gyn. This contained extensive personal information culled by
characteristics of interest to Tom. This included digital photos (taken as a
security measure to counter insurance fraud), addresses, and listed and
unlisted phone numbers. He combined this information with other readily
available computer information, including census track data, and sold it to
pharmaceutical companies, sex therapists, and dating services. As a matter of principle,
he refused to sell to individuals or to code ethnicity.
Once the yoke breaks it spills all over. Authorities were
even more upset to learn on the TV program 30/30
that Voire had sent anonymous e-mails (using a forwarding service that strips
the sender’s address) to many of these women. The letters were plaintive,
friendly, and adroitly quasi-personal. As with some mass marketing material
that addresses the individual by first name and offers some other specific
biographical facts, the recipient could not be sure just what the sender really
knew, but there was the distinct possibility that she was personally known, or
known about, by the sender.
In his letter Voire described himself as a lonely, gentle,
caring, and misunderstood person who had had a hard life and was seeking true
companionship from another person in a similar situation. He wrote in general and tasteful terms about
his problems with sex. He wondered if women had similar concerns and indicated
a desire to better understand their problems and needs. Without getting
specific, he indirectly communicated (or at least left it open to
interpretation) that he knew and understood why the recipient had seen the
doctor (whether for abusive, indifferent, or impotent partners, sexually
transmitted diseases, birth control, infertility, ambivalence about sexual
orientation, PMS, HRT, or body-image concerns). Voire said his purpose here was
only to help and he did send an attachment listing various Web sites offering
advice on these matters. He said there was nothing in this for him, and he
didn’t even include a return address. He pointed out that the prison even had a
cyberspace program that sought to find pen pals for inmates as a way of
connecting them to the community.
Voire thought he might balance some of the anger that prison
officials (and many recipients of his letter) expressed by volunteering
information about an altruistic act involving the database. He proudly
acknowledged that he was the one responsible for faxing the complete medical history
of a politician who was a candidate for the U.S. Congress to all of the state's
newspapers. Among other things, the history revealed problems with drug and
alcohol abuse and treatment for pathological lying (some constituents were
reassured by the report's conclusion that this was more an occupational, than a
characterological, thing).
Newspaper editorials praised this as a patriotic act
involving the public’s right to know that aided the democratic process. Voire
was a bit surprised, however, when the candidate easily won the
election--perhaps this was sympathy for an underdog or the public's distrust of
her opponent, a sanctimonious politician suspected of telling the truth and
known for purity-proving challenges to his opponents.
The furor eventually calmed. Voire was forbidden to be in
the same room with a computer and he was reassigned to work in the
video-monitored kitchen. He was warned against any unauthorized additions to
the soup.
Tom further angered prison officials by challenging
personnel practices. He became a leader in a conflict over whether or not there
should be female prison guards in the male prison and male guards in the female
prison. As a committed egalitarian, he argued strenuously for both. He did not
like being “scoped out” by the male guards and said that female guards had a
calming effect. Since more than half the population was female, while
nationally only about 20 percent of correctional officers were, there was a
problem.
Tom strongly disagreed with another inmate who filed a
federal lawsuit claiming that the presence of female guards was “embarrassing,
humiliating, and offensive to my religious beliefs. My right to practice
Christian modesty is denied when women watch me every day as I dress, shower,
use the bathroom, and give a urine sample.” The brief argued that this was a
form of cruel and unusual psychological punishment that the Eighth Amendment
was designed to protect against.
In contrast, Tom filed a brief claiming that to deny women
the chance for such work was discriminatory and that to deny men the
opportunity to be supervised by them was cruel and unusual punishment.
Consistent with modern jurisprudential trends that rely on social science
evidence to document impacts, he cited a survey that found that 86.2 percent of
male prisoners did not feel invaded by the presence of female guards. These
figures actually increased to 88.7 and 91.2 percent when it came to being
monitored while taking showers and for strip searches conducted by females. By
overwhelming majorities, the prisoners said they actually preferred to be
watched by females. Symmetrically, almost all of the female guards reported
satisfaction in their surveillance roles as "Big Sister" and that
they were not disturbed by male nudity. Tom felt that his case also received
support from a survey of female prisoners that found that they, too,
overwhelmingly preferred to be watched by women.
On leaving prison, Voire was strongly encouraged to move to
another state. If he remained and was arrested again he might be subject to
electronic location monitoring and have his whereabouts tracked by global
positioning satellite. When not at work he would be required to be at home. He
would receive random calls requiring him to breath into a remote breathalyzer
and appear in front of a video camera. The parole officer, unlike a police
officer, could search his home or person at any time without cause. If a
subsequent arrest involved a sexual violation, on release from prison he would
be required to send (at his expense) a postcard with his picture, name,
address, age, and status as an offender on parole for a sex violation to
everyone living in his zip code area. Neighbors might be contacted by his
parole officer and asked to keep an eye on him.
Voire chose to leave the state. His Muddy Waters tape with
the lines, “If I feel tomorrow the way I feel today, I’m gonna pack my bags and
make my getaway,” broke from repetitive playing on the drive to his new home.
Given his avocational and vocational interests, he next
sought private security work at a women's hospital. He reported his prior job
at the department store but withheld certain crucial details. He said he left
because of gender discrimination and a lack of professionalism by the security
department in tolerating shoplifting and employee theft that could have been
prevented by making more extensive use of available technology. On the advice
of their legal counsel (fearing a lawsuit for defamation and the invasion of
privacy and seeking to avoid scandal over the illegal taping), his former
department store employer simply validated the dates of his employment and his
salary but said nothing of the conditions under which he ceased to be an
employee.
Because he was imprisoned for a misdemeanor he did not have
to report that. The hospital was forbidden by 1988 federal law from applying a
polygraph. Instead it gave him a battery of paper and pencil (actually computer
keyboard) tests that were designed to ascertain his personality characteristics,
honesty, and suitability for security work. Having taken a psychology course in
personnel selection and occasionally helping the personnel director administer
such tests in his previous job, Tom was ready with the right answers (he even
gave a few answers that he knew were wrong, just so his test wouldn't be
suspicious by looking too good). The personnel director, a person of stunning
sensitivity to the ways that human bias can condition perception, placed great
reliance on machine-scored “objective” tests in her hiring decisions. Tom was
hired. But alas even machines can make mistakes.
Tom got off to rocky start. He of course claimed that this
was not his fault and in this case appears to be correct. Even a broken clock
is right twice a day. The hospital was concerned about the theft of drugs and
suspected several nurses. Tom was instructed to hide a camera in the ceiling of
the nurse's dressing room. He correctly followed the wiring document he was
given in which the locker room feed was to go directly to a camera in a secure
area (which was to be viewed by a female guard). Unfortunately the wiring
document was in error and instead the images were broadcast through the cable
of the hospital's main CCTV channel. Vasectomy patients in a recovery room
cheered when they saw nurses taking off their clothes and thought this might
even be part of their postoperative care. Some elderly patients mistakenly
thought they were watching General
Hospital and even rang for the nurse when the image seemed frozen. Rumors
that Tom had been compromised by one of the nurses and had done this on purpose
or that the operation had been sabotaged by a fellow employee involved in drug
theft could not be proven.
Tom proposed that he probe the
hospital's patient records security system for weak spots. His supervisor was
appreciative and Tom did discover a few weaknesses. For fun he also did a
computer match running “his” prison database against names in the hospital’s
system. He was curious to learn about
one Eve Spectre, from his prison database, who had relocated about the same
time Tom did.