[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BREACH OF TRUST:
SURVEILLANCE IN PRIVATE SPACES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT INNOVATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND
GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 20, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-28
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov, oversight.house.gov or docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-450 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia,
Mike Turner, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Maxwell Frost, Florida
Byron Donalds, Florida Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Greg Casar, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Emily Randall, Washington
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas
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Mark Marin, Staff Director
James Rust, Deputy Staff Director
Mitch Benzine, General Counsel
Lauren Lombardo, Deputy Policy Director
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Jamie Smith, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government
Innovation
Nancy Mace, South Carolina, Chairwoman
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Shontel Brown, Ohio, Ranking
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Member
Eric Burlison, Missouri Ro Khanna, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
John McGuire, Virginia Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Nancy Mace, U.S. Representative, Chairwoman................. 1
Hon. Shontel Brown, U.S. Representative, Ranking Member.......... 6
WITNESSES
Mr. Joseph LaSorsa, Founder and President, LaSorsa and Associates
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Ms. Laura Chadwick, President and Chief Executive Officer, The
Travel Technology Association
Oral Statement................................................... 9
Mr. Alan Butler, Executive Director and President, Electronic
Privacy Information Center
Oral Statement................................................... 11
Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S.
House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
* 2017 Short Term Rental Application; submitted by Rep. Mace.
* Letter, November 13, 2023, to Bryant Re: Preservation;
submitted by Rep. Mace.
* Letter, May 16, 2025, to Mace Re: Preservation; submitted by
Rep. Mace.
* May 2, 2018 Resort Rental Management Agreement; submitted by
Rep. Mace.
* May 14 2018 Title to Real Estate; submitted by Rep. Mace.
* Image of Property on Isle of Palms, South Carolina; submitted
by Rep. Mace.
* Image of Recording Device with over 10,633 Recordings;
submitted by Rep. Mace.
* Legal Document from Saxton and Stump; submitted by Rep. Mace.
The documents listed above are available at: docs.house.gov.
Italicized documents entered but not received by the Committee.
BREACH OF TRUST:
SURVEILLANCE IN PRIVATE SPACES
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TUESDAY, MAY 20, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government
Innovation
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:20 p.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Nancy Mace
[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Mace, Boebert, Crane, Brown, and
Subramanyam.
Ms. Mace. Good afternoon. Now that we have one other Member
here we have a quorum on the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity,
Information Technology, and Government Innovation. We will come
to order, and welcome, everyone. The Ranking Member is on her
way over.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time, and I recognize myself for the purpose of making an
opening statement, and I am going to go a little longer than
usual, so I apologize.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRWOMAN NANCY MACE REPRESENTATIVE FROM
SOUTH CAROLINA
Ms. Mace. Liberty begins with the right to close a door. A
hidden camera kicks that door off its hinges.
The Constitution's Fourth Amendment enshrines a
``reasonable expectation of privacy.'' Yet today, that freedom
is violated by secret cameras and hidden devices to record
women and girls with impunity.
Freedom is not a theory; it is the right to breathe, it is
the right to dress and undress, to sleep without someone's
camera filming your naked body. The Founders wrote liberty in
parchment, but hidden cameras erase it in pixels.
I speak not just as a lawmaker, but as a survivor. Starting
on November 5, 2023, I discovered my former fiance, Patrick
Bryant, had filmed women without their knowledge, without their
permission, and without their consent.
He filmed rape too.
He appeared to catalogue his tapes and footage and images
and photos in the way that he saved the files, and he stored
these images, photos, and videos for years.
This is not just creepy. It is criminal, but only under
weak state laws.
In South Carolina, first-time voyeurs face a misdemeanor
and a small $500 fine. That is not justice. That is betrayal.
Real men guard a woman's privacy, but predators harvest it.
When predators install covert cameras or forge explicit
images, they do not just invade a room. They invade a life, and
that life deserves more than a misdemeanor.
Exhibit one. Behind me is a screenshot from one of the
videos I found of myself. The yellow circle, this naked
silhouette, is my naked body. I did not know that I had been
filmed. I did not give my consent. I did not give my
permission. And this particular video that Patrick Bryant
recorded of me on his secret camera, he saved for over three
years, without my knowledge.
I did not pick this fight. I do not even want to be here
today and discuss this. But because he is still roaming around
South Carolina, free, filming whatever genital parts he wants,
because no one has held him accountable--he is not in jail, he
has not had to pay a fine, no restitution.
He is able to rape other women, film them. And when I
discovered this video, I discovered that he utilized up to four
potential devices, and I would not be surprised if there were
more.
I was filmed in secret. The camera sat silent, yet it
screamed my safety was negotiable and my dignity disposable.
This is an image of Patrick Bryant and the co-owner of that
property, trying to lick his face. I think that says a lot
about a man's character and what he was doing behind the
scenes.
This next image I am going to show, and I am going to ask
unanimous consent to enter it into the record.
It is the property where many women were filmed. This is
the property where I found this hidden camera, and another
device. At least one other device was used here to film women
without their knowledge, without their permission, and without
their consent. This was on the Isle of Palms, in South
Carolina.
On this one particular camera that I was filmed on, and
other women were filmed on, I found that there were at least
10,633 videos just on this one recording device. I am going to
request unanimous consent to enter this into the record.
Now, I was given legal access to his device, by the way, on
November 5, 2023, which is where I started to find all of these
things.
This is a screenshot that illustrates that in the hours and
days after I was granted legal access to his phone, he used an
app called Samsung Smart Switch Mobile to transfer files--
videos, photos, images--off of his device and onto another
device.
On the same day that I was given legal access to his phone
I found a second mobile device. It was a Tiramisu operating
system. I have a screenshot of that. I forgot to print it off
today. But I saw a second device hit our Wi-Fi, and then I see
that there are files being transferred. It turns out, we
believe, there were terabytes and terabytes of videos and
photos and images transferred off of this device and onto
another. He would, weeks later, get a second mobile phone, as
well.
All right. Patrick Bryant seemed to have certain fetishes
of the women he catalogued, and in the evidence I uncovered
there were some commonalities. So, he would categorize it. He
would even have a headshot of a woman--he would have a headshot
of a woman. I will show you an example. He would have a
headshot of a woman, and then next to her headshot, just from
her Facebook or Instagram or something--this is a woman in a
glitzy dress--he would have a picture of a woman, and he would
have all these files saved next to the headshot, almost as if
he did not want to forget who that genital part belonged to.
So, on this one particular camera that I was filmed on, I
am going to show you a series of photos of other women. I have
blocked out the women's bodies to not identify them. This
particular woman was changing. Her arms are spread out. But you
can see her upper torso and the bottom of her torso from the
front, as she was changing on this ``camera.'' He saved that
one for years.
This next image is similar to the one of me behind me. This
is another woman I was unable to identify, and we are keeping
her covered up. But she was fully nude in front of this camera.
He saved this video of this woman, naked, walking around, for
years.
One of the things that he would do in front of his hidden
camera--this is him in the center of the shot--he would place
women. One of the common things I saw on these videos, many,
many videos, is he would put women in the middle of this area
where this hidden camera was, and there would be sexual acts
that would be performed. These women did not know they were
being filmed.
I have spoken to at least two potential victims. One was
definitely a victim because I saw the tapes. But I have spoken
to at least two potential victims that saw this camera, and
they asked him if they were being filmed, and Patrick Bryant
said no.
So, he would place women in the center field of the camera,
and sexual acts would be performed. He would also place women
on a certain piece of furniture. On this couch back here he
would place women, where I am pointing my finger. He would
place them facing out so they would be toward the center of the
camera, and that you would be able to see their bodies as they
were engaged in sexual activity. And he would save these videos
for years.
He had a fetish with photographing women who were naked at
the end of his bed. I covered up the woman from the top. You
can see her legs spread here as she is walking out after
activity in his bedroom. She has no idea that she is being
filmed. This one was with, I believe, his cellphone. And so, he
had a fetish with buttocks and of women particularly at the end
of his bed. I saw photo after photo of naked women at the end
of his bed, who did not know they were being filmed or
photographed.
Here is another example where another woman, her shoulder
is here. I identified this victim. I was able to identify
several victims. I do not know if she has been informed by law
enforcement that she was also filmed and photographed naked. I
do not know if she consented or not. But again, there was photo
after photo of women naked at the end of his bed.
He had a habit of filming female employees or photographing
them and also the wife and/or wives of male employees. This
particular victim, it looks like she might be on a zipline. I
also identified her. He had several images of her taken on an
Olympus digital camera, and these are what I would describe as
upskirt shots, and her genital area is exposed underneath. I
was able to identify this victim based on a public post she had
on Instagram, and so I have covered up what she is even wearing
in this one. He kept these upskirt photos of this victim for
almost ten years, and he had several upskirt photos from this
family vacation at Callaway Gardens almost a decade ago, June
2015.
Here is another one when she is completely spread eagle,
and he took, again--this is just another example from this same
woman on the same trip--that he took of her vaginal area, her
genital area, as she is on some sort of, I do not know, it
looks like maybe a zipline or something. I am not sure. And he
kept this image for almost a decade.
I was given permission to show this photo today from this
victim. This is one of the rape victims that I discussed in my
February 10 Floor speech. As you can tell, she is on the couch,
and she is unconscious, passed out, blacked out. I think she
was roofied. We do not know. We never will know. But as you can
see, she is on the couch, dead.
I would find multiple photos of this rape victim on the
couch of a man named Eric Bowman, who resides on Sullivan's
Island, South Carolina. Her rape was premeditated. It was
planned. It was filmed. And the tape of her being assaulted by
the business partner of Patrick Bryant, John Osborne, this rape
tape was saved for years. By the time I found the rape tape it
had been saved for over five years.
This is sick. This is perverted. This is criminal. And
these men walk free today in South Carolina. I cannot unsee the
sexual assault and the rape of this young woman in the tape
that I accidentally uncovered. These men should be behind bars.
These were not accidents. These were premeditated. They
were planned. They were filmed. They were stored, meticulously
organized. Categorized. Catalogued. Private hidden folder. For
years. None of us knew. None of us had any knowledge that we
were filmed or photographed. Some women did not know they had
been raped. At least one did not know she had been raped. I was
the one that told her.
I would learn after finding these images and speaking to
potential victims over the last year and a half, Patrick Bryant
allegedly raped at least three women.
See, there is a line between, historically, between
criminals that are, if you are a Peeping Tom, then you graduate
to voyeurism, then you graduate to rape, and then you graduate
to violence. There have been studies about that kind of
behavior.
At least two potential victims told me they once saw one of
his cameras and he denied he was recording. It turns out he
was.
We face an enemy that records and apologizes never.
When I spoke up, Patrick Bryant did not apologize. He
retaliated. In fact, Patrick Bryant has started the process of
suing--suing--his victims, myself included.
So, I am going to enter into the record a couple of
documents.
The first document, I have redacted the names on this
document. It is from the law firm Saxton & Stump, from one of
Patrick Bryant's companies. And in this letter, three of his
victims are named. He is suing, in the process of going to sue,
one of his rape victims. He is in the process of suing another
one.
This is a communication I got from his attorney that I am
going to ask unanimous consent for both of these preservation
letters to be entered into the record, that I received the
other day
Because he is going to sue me for doing the right thing.
So, I say, bring it on, brother, because there is no defamation
in the truth. And if you are going to be the kind of moron and
monster that sues his own victims, may God help you.
I am also going to ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record the deed for the property where these women were filmed,
and who the owner is.
I am also going to request unanimous consent to enter into
the record two short-term rental documents. One is a short-term
rental license application, dated back to 2017, and this
predates, I believe, this camera. This is a known short-term
rental where this camera was set up.
This is the resort rental management agreement for this
property where all these women were filmed. This document, I
believe, goes back to May 2018, as a short-term rental, a
management company. I am going to ask unanimous consent to
enter that into the record.
I am also going to ask unanimous consent to enter this
preservation letter into the record. I sent this to Patrick
Bryant in November 2023, saying that in state law in South
Carolina, Section 16-17-470 you are not allowed to record women
in this way. And this is a preservation letter for him to
preserve everything.
Now mind you, I know he got a new phone. I know he got a
second device. I would be shocked if he still has his Android
S22, shocked if he still had it. But he got that letter early
on.
So, let me be crystal clear. I will not be intimidated. I
will not back down, not for myself, and absolutely not for any
of the women he violated for years.
Predators like Patrick Bryant do not ask permission, and
neither should justice. A hidden camera does not erase liberty
and does not deserve a slap on the wrist.
Justice also does not crawl out of a plea deal. It arrives
in a sentence that fits the crime and restores the victim.
Justice should come in the form of real sentences, real
fines, and real protection for victims.
That is why I introduced the Sue VOYEURS Act, which creates
a civil right of action for victims at the Federal level. The
Stop VOYEURS Act, I also filed, expands the narrow Federal
prohibition of video voyeurism. It is not against Federal law
to film women in this way, except for in certain maritime
jurisdictions and Tribal lands. As I mentioned earlier, South
Carolina laws are a joke. They are very weak on this.
Secret recordings thrive in the shadows. These bills drag
them into broad daylight.
Liberty is not theory. It is the right to undress in peace,
to live unrecorded, without being filmed while naked.
Let us make sure the law reflects that truth. We need laws
with teeth. We need survivors with standing. And we need to
leave predators with nowhere left to hide.
So today, I choose daylight. I invite every Member of this
House to step into that light with me, to pass these bills, and
to prove that in the digital age liberty still lives where
Americans stand, as our forefathers promised.
I encourage other potential victims to come forward.
Potential victims may contact South Carolina State Law
Enforcement Division lead investigator directly. Her name is
Haley Nelson. Her email is [email protected].
My office has a tipline that remains active, for those who
believe they may have been recorded, assaulted, or otherwise
victimized by Patrick Bryant and any of his business partners.
That number is 843-212-7048.
I would run through a brick wall to protect women and girls
in South Carolina, and to other potential victims, I want you
to know, ``I have your back.''
And I yield back. I will now recognize the Ranking Member
for her opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER
SHONTEL BROWN, REPRESENTATIVE FROM OHIO
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I begin I want to
take a moment to acknowledge the strength of women who come
forward to share their experiences with abuse and violations of
privacy. Their stories remind us of the responsibility we all
share to create a world where safety and dignity are never in
question. No woman should ever feel unsafe, whether in public
or private life. And I think that it is fair to say that we
both agree that everyone has the right to be safe from prying
eyes, electronic or real, in private places.
When someone checks into a hotel or a short-term rental,
they have a reasonable expectation that they will not be
watched or recorded. It shocks me that we even need to have
this conversation, but this is the world we live in.
What is more, new technology has only made it easier for
bad actors to abuse our trust. Cameras are smaller, cheaper,
and harder to spot than ever. Although the largest companies in
the industry have explicitly prohibited surveillance cameras
inside of properties, too many bad actors have continuously
been noncompliant.
A CNN report found that Airbnb may have received as many as
35,000 complaints about cameras inside of rentals on their
platform. This is not just invasive, it is traumatizing.
Having hidden cameras in private spaces is not about
security. It is not about making sure guests do not throw
outrageous parties on the property. Outside cameras would
accomplish that.
No. This is about invading someone's personal privacy. The
lack of clear national standards allows platforms and hosts to
operate under a patchwork of inconsistent rules, leaving
consumers vulnerable.
Women are often the primary targets of harassment and
surveillance. And the ways technology can be employed to harass
and surveil women extend beyond hidden cameras in hotel rooms.
For example, the National Organization for Women recently
released a report finding that a quarter of American women have
experienced abuse online, including sexual harassment,
cyberstalking, and other threats.
Women of color reported experiencing the highest rates of
online abuse. However, all communities are not impacted by
surveillance in the same way. Black and Brown communities are
disproportionately surveilled by law enforcement using
surveillance cameras.
These systems frequently leverage facial recognition
technology, which has shown significant error rates when
analyzing individuals with Black and Brown skin tones. One
study found that the error rate for facial recognition
technology when used on light-skinned men was less than one in
100, while the error rate when used for darker-skinned women
was nearly 35 percent.
This discrepancy raises serious questions about the
possibility that surveillance technology will be used to
unfairly target minority communities. Cameras that misidentify
people do not create law and order; they only put more people
at risk.
I appreciate the opportunity this hearing brings to discuss
the ways that surveillance technology can be used to target
women and other minority communities.
I ask my Republican colleagues to join me in thinking about
the ways that this technology should be regulated to stop its
misuse. As lawmakers, we cannot stand by while surveillance
technology evolves unchecked.
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven
monitoring tools, we must act decisively to close loopholes
that allow consumer-facing platforms to profit at the expense
of personal privacy.
Let me be clear. Every American has a fundamental right to
privacy, especially in personal spaces like bedrooms,
bathrooms, and living areas. Renting a home, whether for a
weekend or a month, or walking down the street in your
neighborhood should never require sacrificing that right.
Thank you, Chairwoman Mace, for raising these concerns
about surveillance technology and women's safety and privacy. I
look forward to today's conversation, and with that I yield
back.
Ms. Mace. Thank you so much.
I am pleased to introduce our witnesses for today's
hearing. Our first witness today is Mr. Joseph LaSorsa, Founder
and President of LaSorsa and Associates. Our second witness is
Ms. Laura Chadwick, President and Chief Executive Officer of
the Travel Technology Association. And our third witness today
is Mr. Alan Butler, Executive Director and President of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Welcome, everyone, and we are pleased to have you this
afternoon.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses, if you will
please stand and raise your right hands.
Will you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
[Chorus of I dos.]
Ms. Mace. Let the record show that the witnesses all
answered in the affirmative.
We appreciate all of you for being here today. You may be
seated, and we look forward to your testimony.
I will remind the witnesses that we have read your written
statements and they will appear in full in the hearing record.
Please limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. As a reminder,
please press the button on the microphone on front of you so
that it is on and the Members up here can hear you. When you
begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green. After
4 minutes the light will turn yellow. When the red light comes
on your 5 minutes has expired and we would ask you to please
wrap up.
I now recognize Mr. LaSorsa for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH LASORSA
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, LASORSA AND ASSOCIATES
Mr. LaSorsa. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before
this Committee and discuss a growing concern in our
increasingly connected society, covert surveillance in private
and temporary spaces. My name is Joseph LaSorsa. I have spent
the past 15 years in the field of personal protection, security
consulting, technical surveillance countermeasures, and privacy
protection, supporting both corporate and individual clients
across the United States and abroad.
I am here to speak today about the ease in which covert
surveillance can be conducted utilizing commercially available
technology, and how this capability threatens the expectation
of privacy in short-term and temporary rentals such as Airbnbs,
VRBOs, and even hotel rooms.
Technical surveillance is nothing new, first instances of
which have occurred as far back as the Civil War, when Abraham
Lincoln's telegram lines were tapped. However, modern
technology has become increasing accessible, inexpensive, no
longer in the domain of governments or corporate espionage.
Small, high-definition cameras and audio recorders can be
purchased online for less than $100. These devices are mass-
produced, often marketed as tools for legitimate purposes, such
as for home security or child monitoring, but no verification
of how or where they are utilized exists. This accessibility
creates an environment where an individual, regardless of
intent, can obtain and deploy highly effective covert
surveillance equipment with minimal effort or technical skill.
As someone who routinely performs technical surveillance
countermeasures inspections, or bug sweeps of offices,
residences, and short-term rentals, I can confirm that these
hidden cameras disguised as smoke detectors, alarm clocks, air
purifiers, power adaptors, everyday commonly found devices are
found in places where individuals have a reasonable expectation
of privacy.
Before me here on the counter there are several devices
such as carbon monoxide detectors, power adaptors, and even a
computer mouse, which is used for technical surveillance.
Currently, U.S. laws regulating the manufacture, sale, and
use of surveillance devices are outdated and insufficient. They
presume lawful intent and typically do not restrict possession.
In many states, the legality of surveillance is tied to
consent, but that consent is often ambiguous in the context of
a short-term rental where the renter is unaware of being
monitored in common spaces. This legal loophole creates a
fundamental misalignment between the letter of the law and the
reasonable expectation of privacy.
Homeowners would never be expected to tolerate surveillance
within the privacy of their own homes. Similarly, individuals
who temporarily rent a space, whether for a weekend stay or
during travel, should be granted the same reasonable
expectation of privacy. During such occupancy, that space
effectively becomes their private residence. While some laws
prohibit surveillance in inherently private areas such as
bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets, the allowance of covert
monitoring in so-called ``common areas'' like living rooms and
kitchens, often without the renter's knowledge or consent,
undermines personal dignity, autonomy, and legal protections.
This issue is not hypothetical. Multiple documented cases have
revealed hidden surveillance devices in private rental
properties.
To help restore and reinforce the public's trust in the use
of temporary spaces, the following is recommended:
Establish a Federal privacy expectation standard for short-
term rentals, mirroring the protections afforded to long-term
tenants and hotel guests.
Requiring full disclosure of any surveillance devices in
any rented property, regardless of where they are placed and
whether or not they are covert, and require signed and informed
consent from renters.
Ban the use of surveillance devices in bedrooms and
bathrooms of any rental or temporary living space, including
common areas where sleeping or personal activities may occur.
Clarify penalties for covert surveillance of any
individuals in temporary dwellings without clear and voluntary
consent.
In conclusion, privacy is a foundational right, and its
erosion in temporary living spaces threatens not only
individual freedoms but also the integrity of platforms and
industries which depend on public trust. Efforts must be made
to close the legal and technological gap which has allowed
covert surveillance to flourish unchecked in short-term
rentals.
Thank you for the opportunity to share these insights. I
look forward to answering your questions.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now recognize Ms. Chadwick for
her opening statement.
STATEMENT OF LAURA CHADWICK
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
THE TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION
Ms. Chadwick. Thank you, Chairwoman Mace. I am so sorry
that you had this experience in your life. The stories that you
have shared of yours and of the other women are a nightmare.
You are a survivor, and you are brave, and I thank you, as a
woman, for bringing this to light.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I did not come for this fight, I did
not want it, but here we are. I am going to fight for women and
girls like hell. I am going to fight like hell for them all
across the country. So, thank you for being here today.
Ms. Chadwick. My name is Laura Chadwick, and I have served
as President and CEO of the Travel Technology Association,
known as Travel Tech, since October 2022.
Travel Tech is the voice of the travel technology industry,
advocating for public policies that promote transparency,
competition, and consumer choice. For over 25 years, Travel
Tech has advocated for these values. Our members include online
travel agents, metasearch engines, short-term rental platforms,
travel management companies, and global distribution systems,
as well as early stage travel tech startups.
Many of our consumer-facing members are marketplace
platforms that connect travel service suppliers with would-be
travelers online, facilitating information sharing and e-
commerce. Suppliers such as hotels, airlines, and short-term
rental owner/operators choose to provide their listings on our
members' platforms.
Millions of consumers visit these sites to easily research
travel options, compare, and book their travel. It is on our
members' platforms where travel service providers directly
compete, which in turn helps keep travel affordable for
everyday Americans.
It is important to note that Travel Tech does not represent
individual short-term rental owner/operators, travel agencies,
or hotels. Travel Tech is the trade association for the leading
travel platforms in the United States.
Travel Tech's advocacy on behalf of its members focuses on
platform-related issues, such as mandatory and ancillary fee
transparency and industry competition.
However, the purpose of my testimony today is to speak
broadly about the policies that Travel Tech member companies
facilitating short-term rental bookings have in place to help
protect guests from surveillance in private spaces. I am not
here to represent any one member but to speak for the industry
at large.
I want to make it clear, as I said in my opening, that this
is an issue that deeply resonates with me.
I want to make it clear that secret recordings of any
unsuspecting person in any private space is wrong. Individuals
who engage in such conduct violate fundamental human rights
wherever secret recordings occur, be it in a hotel, locker
room, retail establishment, medical setting, or even in an
airplane restroom. As a woman and a mother, I am deeply
concerned about this issue.
Our member companies are likewise focused on these issues.
Having policies in place to help protect guests' safety and
privacy is their highest priority.
One of the many benefits of a short-term rental lodging is
that the properties come in various configurations, offering
consumers a wide range of choice to meet their needs and
budget. Common configurations include a full house or
apartment, where all the space is considered private. Another
popular configuration is a private room within a house or
apartment with shared common space.
For all of these configurations and others, our members
have unequivocal policies to help protect guests in these
private spaces. Surveillance devices are prohibited, full stop.
This means for entire house or apartment rentals, no
surveillance devices are allowed anywhere inside. In private
rented rooms within a house or an apartment this means no
surveillance devices too. Further, no cameras are allowed
outside that record guests inside, and our members also have
policies for outdoor-facing surveillance devices, like doorbell
cameras, and they require that they be disclosed up front to
guests.
Violations of these policies are infrequent, but when a
guest does report an alleged hidden camera our members take it
extremely seriously. They encourage guests to report actions by
short-term rental owner/operators that violate the platforms'
surveillance policies, and our members and guests report and
address it accordingly. This can include removing the property
from the platform. Our members provide resources to help guests
report incidents to law enforcement and cooperate with police
as they investigate.
Chairwoman Mace, we look forward to working with you with
the Stop VOYEURS Act, and I thank you for the opportunity to
testify at today's hearing, and I look forward to answering
your questions to the best of my ability.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now recognize Mr. Butler for
his opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF ALAN BUTLER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND PRESIDENT
ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER
Mr. Butler. Thank you, Chairwoman Mace and to the Members
of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify
today about this critical issue of privacy threats posed by
recording and monitoring in shared spaces.
My name is Alan Butler, and I am the Executive Director at
the Electronic Privacy Information Center. EPIC is an
independent, nonprofit research organization established in
1994, to secure the right to privacy in the digital age for all
people.
This hearing addresses a critical question that has been
the central focus of modern privacy law since it was first
developed more than a century ago: how can the law preserve our
right to be let alone as technologies evolve and make
surveillance easier and less expensive and harder to avoid?
The stakes are high, and those of us working to protect
against abuse and provide meaningful guardrails on these
powerful technologies should work together to establish safety
standards and defend privacy.
Privacy law, as we know it today, was developed in response
to the widespread adoption of camera technology and the turn of
the 20th century. When Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis
published ``The Right to Privacy'' in 1890, they were concerned
that the onset of these new recording devices would mean that
``what is whispered in the closet should be proclaimed from the
house tops.'' Their response was to establish the theoretical
foundation for the individual right to privacy against such
intrusions, and this right has been enshrined in laws in cases
over the ensuing decades.
The law has continued to evolve over the last century as
technological developments have enabled new methods of
surveillance and data collection, and policymakers have
responded in kind, when necessary, by restricting the use of
these technologies and enabling public oversight. For example,
Congress passed the Wiretap Act in 1968, to regulate both
government and private sector uses of telephone interception
systems.
We have witnessed a profound shift toward widescale
surveillance in the 50 years since the Wiretap Act was passed.
In 2002, EPIC launched a campaign called ``Observing
Surveillance'' to document the widespread use of surveillance
cameras in our Nation's capital, and that trend has increased
exponentially with the marketing of direct-to-consumer and
direct-to-business camera products.
It would be hard to lead a similar campaign today because
cameras are omnipresent, smaller and harder to detect than
ever. And now even inexpensive cameras can capture detailed
pictures at a distance. What is more, camera systems can now be
integrated with facial recognition and other AI-based analytics
and tracking capabilities.
Many of the devices in our homes, offices, and community
spaces now have built-in sensors that pose significant threats
to privacy. Recording devices have become much smaller and more
precise than ever, and software makes it possible to analyze
and even clone our voices for malicious purposes. And even when
microphones are not present, we can still be exposed. Data
about our precise location can reveal our movements, our social
activities, our beliefs, and our health status. Location data
is routinely generated by our cellphones and imbedded sensors
around us.
The rapid expansion of cloud storage capacity has made
storing thousands of hours of video, audio, and other sensor
data trivial. So, where in the past a Closed-circuit television
(CCTV) surveillance camera might have captured a relatively
low-resolution image and stored it for a few days, now high-
resolution images are stored for months or years. These
developments have led to a significant loss of practical
control over when and how images, recordings, and other
information about our conversations and actions are being
collected, and these capabilities have been used to malicious
and abusive ends.
It is unfortunately not surprising that those who seek to
control, manipulate, and abuse others are ready and willing to
use these technologies against their victims.
It is important to raise awareness of these risks, but we
should also demand that those who design these systems work to
mitigate these harms. Thoughtful product design can help to
prevent some of these harms, including by clearly indicating
when a device is recording or by alerting a user that a
tracking device is following them. But the law should also
protect individuals against malicious users who can circumvent
these protections.
Today's laws do not adequately limit the collection,
retention, and use of personal data collected by devices in
public and shared spaces. The right to limit monitoring and
tracking has been more limited in semi-public spaces than in
private ones, and this is, in part, due to the interplay
between privacy and speech rights, which limit our ability to
penalize the dissemination of certain information.
But substantial progress has been made in the last decade
to combat the scourge of image-based sexual abuse and other
related intimate privacy violations. Just this week, the TAKE
IT DOWN Act was signed into law, criminalizing the non-
consensual distribution of intimate images at the Federal
level.
The defense and preservation of privacy has always relied
upon the intertwined efforts of lawmakers, technologists,
advocates, and individuals. As new threats emerge, we have to
work to adapt our standards to preserve privacy protections,
and we find ourselves now in a period where the rapid expansion
of pervasive computing has embedded tracking capabilities in
our lived environment. This is a time for action to ensure that
we, as individuals, do not fall victim to the eradication of
privacy by the path of least resistance.
We appreciate the opportunity to draw public attention to
these issues and to assist the Subcommittee in this inquiry.
EPIC has focused in recent years on the need for a strong data
minimization standard to protect individuals against the risks
of over-collection and unauthorized uses of their data.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look
forward to your questions.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now recognize Ms. Boebert for 5
minutes.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much
for your testimony and for holding this hearing today. I truly
hope that the efforts that you are putting forward not only
bring justice to victims and yourself but also protect women in
the future, so thank you.
Ms. Mace. Thank you.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you to our witnesses who are here, as
well. Mr. LaSorsa, would you agree that most Americans expect
privacy when they rent a home or stay at an Airbnb or in a
hotel?
Mr. LaSorsa. Yes.
Ms. Boebert. And are cheap, consumer-grade surveillance
tools now small and advanced enough to avoid detection without
specialized equipment?
Mr. LaSorsa. Not only small enough to avoid detection, but
they also just hide in plain sight. So, like the devices you
see here, people just do not think to look there.
Ms. Boebert. I would like for you to explain some of the
devices that you brought with you today, if you do not mind.
Mr. LaSorsa. Sure. So, cameras can be so small, if they are
powered, that is. Batteries have to still be very large. But
the cameras, if they are powered, can be very, very small, so
they can be hidden in almost anything. Such as the picture up
there, it looks like it is almost mounted high, like a smoke
detector or something like that. That is very common, hidden in
smoke detectors, exit signs, and other things. These devices
here, this one is hidden in a carbon monoxide detector, several
chargers, and a computer mouse. So, those devices, people do
not think to look there, so even if they had tools or anything
else, they typically would not look there, if that makes sense.
Ms. Boebert. And are common bug detectors effective in
finding these devices?
Mr. LaSorsa. For commercially grade equipment they are.
However, it takes a little bit of skill to do it right. Almost
everything nowadays has some type of transmission, some type of
Bluetooth connectivity, so there are a lot of false positives.
So, if you do not know exactly what you are looking for, it is
kind of a needle in a stack of needles nowadays, with smart
homes.
Ms. Boebert. Understood. Thank you.
Ms. Chadwick, when your platform catches a host secretly
recording guests, do you immediately ban that host and notify
the guests who were spied on?
Ms. Chadwick. When that occurs, when the guest reports it
to our member platforms, our members provide immediate
assistance to the guest. Individual investigations are
determined on a case-by-case basis. As Mr. LaSorsa just said,
there are potentials for false positives. So, as I said,
those----
Ms. Boebert. Have there been true positives, and have those
hosts been banned, or if there were to be one?
Ms. Chadwick. I am not able to speak to individual company
policies or procedures about particular incidences. But what I
can tell you is that our Members take these reports very
seriously, and immediately provide resources, to guests to
contact law enforcement.
Ms. Boebert. I mean, I guess we are not going to get an
answer if anyone has ever been banned. But let us say,
hypothetically, to not expose those who are on your platform,
hypothetically, if it was a true positive and law enforcement
were involved, would you ban that host?
Ms. Chadwick. I believe that is certainly an option.
Ms. Boebert. It is an option, yes, but would you ban them
from your platform if that were----
Ms. Chadwick. I mean, I cannot speak to how each individual
company would do it.
Ms. Boebert. OK.
Ms. Chadwick. But as I believe I said in my testimony, that
does include banning from the platform.
Ms. Boebert. OK. Mr. Butler, are certain demographics,
particularly women and girls, more likely to be targeted by
covert surveillance in these environments?
Mr. Butler. I think that history certainly bears that out.
I think that there is an inherent power dynamic in the use of
some of these technologies, and you are definitely seeing
certain populations targeted more than others, especially for
intimate privacy violations and image-based sexual abuse.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Butler. And one last question,
Mr. LaSorsa. Do you believe that our current laws are effective
enough to protect people from being secretly recorded in semi-
private even areas, and if not, what suggestions would you make
to strengthen that law and further enforce them.
Mr. LaSorsa. To directly answer, no. The largest issue that
I see is that there is a legitimate use for covert surveillance
cameras. So, say, for instance, we buy these to see how we can
find them and everything else. One of the latest ones that I
purchased was an exit sign, Wi-Fi camera. However, that was
marketed as a security camera for an office, which is a
legitimate use. So, that has become an issue that I see, is
there is a legitimate use, so how do you define what somebody
is actually going to do with it if they can legally purchase
it?
Further, most of the devices that we have actually found,
the individual takes the claim that they did not know it was
illegal because they were able to purchase it due to that
legitimate use. So, that is what I would highly recommend is
trying to clarify the intent and use cases of surveillance
devices, but I do not see an easy pathway there, considering
the amount of legitimate use cases.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you very much. I yield.
Ms. Mace. I will now recognize Mr. Subramanyan for 5
minutes.
Mr. Subramanyam. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I am very
sorry about your experience, and I hope you are able to find
justice.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. Subramanyam. I would love to hear from Mr. LaSorsa
about sort of what legislation already exists that has
addressed this. You had some ideas in your testimony, so I
would love to hear from you what you think we can do in
Congress to help address this.
Mr. LaSorsa. Sure. There are various laws which were
written in the late 1960s, 1970s. The Title 18 USC, I believe
it is Chapter 119, 2510, identifies what a covert device is.
But again, it does not get into the intent behind it and the
manufacture and sale of legitimate uses cases versus
illegitimate.
So that being the case, as we are focused here on private
spaces and temporary rentals, what I would recommend is
establishing a Federal standard for privacy. So, most states--I
cannot speak to all states, obviously, there are a lot of
them--most states have an expectation of privacy as a basis for
their laws. That is, let us say, the issue state to state. So,
what is actually considered private? Is it, as Ms. Chadwick
mentioned, the common spaces? That is different in a lot of
states as far as if you can rent a room and the common spaces
are shared between different people that can rent rooms, or is
it the common space of a home, like a kitchen or a living room.
Is that technically a common space?
So, that Federal standard, I think, should be worked
toward--establishing a Federal standard for privacy.
Mr. Subramanyam. How does one define a private area?
Because in a situation where someone is taking a victim to the
living room, knowing that might be a private area and they can
surveil there, how do you kind of address that?
Mr. LaSorsa. In my testimony here, the simple way that I
looked at it was if you were in your home and you expected to
not be surveilled by somebody else, I think that is kind of the
limit there. So, if you are in your home, you know, if you are
standing near an open window, there is not an expectation of
privacy. If you are in a space in your home where somebody,
where they are legally allowed to be, cannot see you, and let
us say there may be personal things that might occur there, I
think that is where we should define the line.
Mr. Subramanyam. And then this is for anyone. How can
someone protect themselves right now? You mentioned earlier
there are devices, but it is very difficult to use them. Like
what can people do right now to protect themselves and assure
whether or not they are being surveilled?
Mr. LaSorsa. If I may start, I start with just advising
people of the lack of protections and that they may be exposed
to this. So, just to put this in context, we do travel security
risk assessments. So, if I have a client traveling to, say,
China, we do not tell them to look for the devices. We tell
them to be aware that they are under surveillance.
So, the same practice almost exists if we are trying to
inform people and protect people as they travel and rent
Airbnbs, VRBOs, et cetera. We say just act like you are under
surveillance, because you cannot expect privacy in a lot of
these places.
Mr. Subramanyam. Would anyone else like to comment on that?
OK. I yield the remainder of my time. Thank you.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now recognize Mr. Crane for 5
minutes.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman, for holding this very
important hearing, and again, like everyone else, I apologize
for what you went through, and I too hope you get justice.
Ms. Mace. Thank you.
Mr. Crane. Mr. LaSorsa, you have spoken a lot about some of
the privacy concerns with basic common technology that many
Americans use in their homes, like Ring cameras, alarm clocks,
smoke detectors, and how to detect breaches and abuses. In your
experience conducting inspections and bug sweeps, what is
something people would least expect that has become a huge
privacy threat with some of those common technologies?
Mr. LaSorsa. Mostly, I would say, the audio that goes with
it. A lot of people seem to expect some type of video
surveillance, like being seen through a window, for instance,
but the audio part of that, as well. A lot of these devices are
audio capable, and a lot of the people that even uses these
devices are unaware of the excess legality of audio versus
video.
So, for instance, where you are allowed to video does not
necessarily mean that you are allowed to audio record, if I am
saying that right. So, what you are saying being recorded I
think is a large surprise to a lot of people, that what they
said was recorded, if I am explaining that correctly.
Mr. Crane. Are there any products that you can buy to
actually put covers over those, so that you are not being video
recorded? Some of the products you have in front of you, I
believe you have a power strip, smoke detector, a mouse, a
cellphone charger.
Mr. LaSorsa. Right. Most of these, what we would recommend
people to do is simply unplug them. I do not recommend that you
damage or completely remove anybody's personal property from a
rented property. However, these can simply be unplugged and
covered. I am not sure if there are any tools to specifically
cover them, but you can unplug it and put it in a closet or a
drawer somewhere, something like that.
Mr. Crane. There have been over 35,000 reports to Airbnb on
surveillance devices at rentals as of 2024, and we have seen
terrible cases of abuse, such as a man in Michigan was caught
filming women in a tanning salon in 2021 and posting that
footage to an adult website.
Earlier this year, a school security coordinator faced
felony charges for installing a camera in a girl's locker room
in Wisconsin. An exchange student in West Virginia was spied on
in her personal bathroom with a disguised camera purchased from
Amazon in 2023. Concerning some of these particularly egregious
examples, how can people protect themselves against these
privacy threats?
Mr. LaSorsa. Mostly what we recommend is again being aware
of the laws and how loose they are. So, to be aware of the fact
that you are likely under video surveillance in such areas. And
then to be aware of any devices, like you see here, and again,
exit signs, smoke detectors, things like that, to be aware if
they are different.
Mostly, if we see these devices installed somewhere, the
overwhelming majority are in addition to what is already there.
So, for instance, a smoke detector camera. There is a
legitimate smoke detector in the room, and there is an
additional smoke detector which is the actual camera. That is
mostly what we see. So, that gets you the majority of the way
there in terms of being aware and looking for extra devices
that perhaps are in duplicate and different.
Mr. Crane. We are talking a lot about Airbnbs today, but
have you also encountered these at hotel chains and other
places? Anybody?
Mr. LaSorsa. Yes.
Mr. Crane. Would you say one is more predominant than the
other?
Mr. LaSorsa. In my experience, the Airbnbs, VRBOs, those
are, I would say, the majority of cases where we have looked,
we have found something.
Mr. Crane. Do corporations that operate large hotels, do
they have their own security teams that will go through just to
make sure employees are not installing some of this type of
technology?
Mr. LaSorsa. I am not aware if they have a dedicated team
to that, but in my experience they are very concerned with it.
Obviously, there is a large backlash if this does get out, so
that is certainly a concern of theirs, yes.
Mr. Crane. Mr. Butler, you spoke specifically about how
recording devices have become smaller and more precise, and
cloud storage capacity makes it shockingly easy to store
thousands of hours of video and audio footage. How does the
lack of clear consent requirement make it easier for
perpetrators to violate privacy without legal consequences?
Mr. Butler. Thank you for the question, Representative. I
think that it is a layered problem in the fact that you have,
in many of these instances--not all--in some of these instances
you have the perpetrator involved makes the consent question
under current law more complicated, because a lot of the
current law we have is focused on the privacy of communications
between parties. In many states you have one-party consent,
which means that if two people are talking that one person is
not violating the law if they record that conversation. Now, in
other states you have two-party consent, which does not allow
surreptitious recording of conversations unless both people
consent.
So, that is one element of the problem of disentangling
consent in these cases, and I think another, as Mr. LaSorsa
mentioned, is the lack of clarity, especially in common law and
tort claims around defining those expectations, especially in
spaces that are not specifically the home of the victim. And
that is something that, I think, really statutory law has to
step in to fix.
Mr. Crane. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. And I will now recognize myself for 5
minutes.
Mr. LaSorsa, can you show us some of those hidden camera
devices that you brought with you today? Can you just show
them?
Mr. LaSorsa. Yes, ma'am. So, this is a Wi-Fi camera with
audio, as well, as we spoke about with Mr. Crane. This has a
microphone and camera in it. So, you can place this----
Ms. Mace. Do you have a mouse, too?
Mr. LaSorsa. Yes, a computer mouse. That one is actually a
cellphone inside of it. So, this is actually an audio recorder
that you would simply call it.
Ms. Mace. And you have got a little black thing that you
would plug into the wall.
Mr. LaSorsa. You do, yes, and that way----
Ms. Mace. Is that a charger?
Mr. LaSorsa [continuing]. It is currently powered. Oh, this
one. This one is a typical cellphone charge but it has a Wi-Fi
camera in it.
Ms. Mace. And the last one, the big white one.
Mr. LaSorsa. It is a power strip with a camera and audio
recorder in it.
Ms. Mace. Would you mind bringing me that up here,
physically? The white one. The big one with the outlet plug.
The outlet plug, yes. I want to take a look at it.
[Pause.]
Ms. Mace. This is very interesting. I am shaking a little
bit. I recognize a device almost identical to this, that I
believe Patrick Bryant, or the owner of this property, there
was a device that was just like this. It was a big and bulky
outlet plug, and I am just realizing it for the first time. It
was plugged in over on the wall over here, in the center of the
room, and the center of the room is where he often would record
women with sexual activity in the middle of this camera. It was
within feet. I am going to take a picture of this, if you do
not mind. I am going to send it to our state Law Enforcement
Division, because it looks really familiar. It is probably gone
now. It is probably in the bottom of the ocean.
In your opinion, you all here today, if there are
properties like this, and if someone is caught filming women
naked, should they be kicked off of short-term rental sites?
Mr. LaSorsa.
Mr. LaSorsa. Absolutely.
Ms. Mace. Ms. Chadwick.
Ms. Chadwick. Absolutely.
Ms. Mace. Mr. Butler.
Mr. Butler. Yes. Absolutely.
Ms. Mace. I have no idea if this property where all these
women were filmed, if it is still on any of these short-term
rental sites. If it is not, I hope by the end of the day today
it is taken down. These men, these owners, who knew that there
was a camera, knew women were being filmed. Could have
unplugged it and did not. And these women were filmed for years
at this property, and they did it with impunity.
OK. So, in terms of, you know, now that I have lived
through this experience, I travel with a little device I got on
Amazon. So, when I am at an Airbnb or VRBO or a hotel room, it
has this little antenna I can pull out and try to find devices.
It feels pretty accurate.
Are there any particular products that you all recommend
when people are traveling or where they are somewhere where
there could be a hidden camera, that they should use to make
sure that they sweep the room on their own, to make sure there
are no devices recording them? Mr. LaSorsa.
Mr. LaSorsa. We actually teach and recommend that, as well.
There are several devices, what you are speaking to----
Ms. Mace. Is there any one that you particularly recommend
that is really good?
Mr. LaSorsa. Not particularly, no. They are all about the
same, honestly.
Ms. Mace. OK. Ms. Chadwick.
Ms. Chadwick. I am not familiar with such devices.
Ms. Mace. Mr. Butler.
Mr. Butler. Same. I do not have anything specific.
Ms. Mace. You can get them on Amazon, pretty cheap, and I
have used them. They will find chips in places consistently.
Is it true that someone could hide a surveillance device
today that is no bigger than a pen cap, and the average person
would have no idea they are being watched? Mr. LaSorsa, I want
to thank you for bringing those devices today. It is really
shocking, and I am literally like physically shaking over this
device. I recognize this. I recognize something almost
identical to this, that was in that property. So, maybe there
were up to five recording devices.
Platforms claim they ban unauthorized surveillance. How do
we enforce this, Ms. Chadwick? How do we enforce surveillance
in short-term rentals?
Ms. Chadwick. Indeed. We have policies that ban them in any
private space. Our members have policies that are, as I said,
for every private space. And we also believe, as you, in your
proposed legislation, that we should raise the consequences for
such behavior, with the hopes of deterring any such behavior.
Ms. Mace. Can owners of properties where they have private
cameras, like this one, can they get back onto these apps,
these short-term rental sites once they have removed the
camera? Is there an appeal process?
Ms. Chadwick. I cannot speak about our members' particular
policies and how they evaluate situations on a case-by-case
basis.
Ms. Mace. Gotcha. OK. I want to thank all of our witnesses
for being here today. My 5 minutes is up. And in brief, Mr.
Subramanyam, I want to say thank you for sticking around with
us today.
When there are cameras recording people without their
knowledge, without their permission, without their consent,
particularly when they are fully unclothed, undressed, doing
private things, it is not just about a little chip, a little
camera, a little video, a little device. It is life changing.
The women that I have talked to and identified who are victims
of this man and men, they are never going to be the same, ever,
and they still do not have justice. In the state of South
Carolina our laws are $500 for a misdemeanor for this.
I am an elected official. I was elected when I was filmed
here. What the hell was he doing, or going to do? Was it for
blackmail? Was it to intimidate me? Was it to hold it over my
head, to do something? I have no idea what he was going to do
with these. I do know he also had access to the Dark Web, based
on one of the apps he had on his devices. I do not know if
these videos were sold online on the Dark Web. I do not know if
they were shown to friends. I do not know if they were sent
around at cocktail parties with his business partners. I have
no idea who has seen this.
But what I do know in this particular video and videos of
other women, that one of me was saved for over three years. I
had no F-ing idea. I have evidence today of upskirt shots of
the wife of a male employee, and her genital area, that he took
from beneath her. He saved those images for almost ten years.
He categorized these videos, these photos, these images, based
on who the woman was, her headshot, and then all of her body
parts and genital area photos and videos he had, he then put
then next to her headshots.
He had certain fetishes. He liked to photograph and video
the buttocks. He loved the upskirt shots. He loved putting
women in the middle of this hidden camera. I saw video after
video after video, years old, before my time, before I ever
knew this person, of women engaged in sexual activity with him
in the center of this camera. And he would put them on the
couch behind me in that image, in a certain position, so they
would be more centered toward the camera, and you could see the
woman's full naked body, in full view, as they were engaged in
sexual activity. There is no way these women knew.
And, in fact, I have witnesses, and I have potential
victims who saw the camera, this one above the refrigerator,
and asked him if they were being filmed, and he said no. I also
have potential rape victims, allegedly three, and I have a
witness to some of these activities.
This man is a rapist; he is a voyeur. He is a Peeping Tom.
He deserves to be in jail. He deserves everything that is
coming to him, and I am going to ensure that his victims, every
single victim in South Carolina, that they get their justice,
and that we have legislation at the Federal and the state level
that protects victims.
I did not get a victim's rights advocate for 11 months. One
of the rape victims did not get her victim's rights advocate
for six months.
Victims have rights. You cannot publish their name. You
cannot intimidate them. The witness intimidation, the
obstruction of justice that I have seen in this investigation
is incredible, and I am documenting all of it. These women
deserve better. It is more than a misdemeanor. It should be
more than a year in jail. It should be more than a $500 fine.
These women's lives have been changed forever. There are some
victims who are too afraid to come forward, and I am going to
be their voice. For the women who have come forward, I want to
say your bravery and your courage is immeasurable.
I am not doing this for me. I am doing this for the women
behind me, for the women who will continue to be abused and be
victims of a monster. This can never happen again, and I will
not allow it on my watch. And I will work day in and day out,
seven days a week, 365 days a year, to ensure these men can
never harm another woman again, with Federal legislation and
state legislation, as well. Come hell or high water, these
women will get what they deserve, and I will always have their
back.
And with that I conclude this hearing today. And with that,
and without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days in which to submit materials and to submit additional
written questions for the witnesses, which will be forwarded to
the witnesses for their response.
If there is no further business, without objection the
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:24 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]