Subject: Questar's Peeping Toms

[dangr ]
[our address]
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
(801) our-phone, [dangr ]@yahoo.com


Questar Corporation
180 East 100 South
P.O. Box 45433
Salt Lake City, UT 84145-0433

Thursday 20 October 2005

Subject: Questar’s Peeping Toms

To whom it may concern:

I am thoroughly disgusted with the persistent behavior of your employees in the parking lot which abuts my home, and the homes of about thirty others, though only half of us have the grave misfortunate to be direct neighbors to your parking lot.

The regular racket of the parking lot is, frankly, quite enough to make you a bad neighbor: the incessant and unnecessary car alarms that begin as early as 6:30am, and continue into the evening hours. The people who sit and idle in their cars for five, ten, or twenty minutes at a time, ignorantly spewing their car exhaust into our windows. The exceptional rudeness of people who stand outside their cars, and therefore under my windows, and smoke cigarettes, ostensibly because they don’t want to pollute the inside of their cars, but have no problem polluting my apartment. The roaring and revving of your diesel trucks in the morning.

This morning, though, gave me not one, but two vivid experiences with easily my least favorite example of your employees: the peeping toms. There are many, they are consistent, and this has happened dozens and dozens of times in the last three months.

Specifically this morning, I am referring to one of your employees, who arrived in a Questar marked Chevy 2500 HD 4x4 truck, marked “Exploration and Production,” with Utah plates 078 LSV, which he parked in space 115. He was a white male, wearing a green jacket and dark pants, with close cropped hair, carrying a bag over his shoulder. He got out of his truck, and while standing near the door, looked directly into my bedroom window, directly at me, as I stood there. He continued looking for several seconds, and then, while walking away, turned his head and looked some more while walking away.

Disgustingly, when I went to my window minutes later to determine the number of the parking space of the first voyeur, I was met with the direct gaze of another voyeur: your parking lot security guard. This is a white male wearing black pants and a white long-sleeved shirt with a dark tie, with balding grey-ish hair in a circular fringe, carrying a clipboard. Your parking lot security are perhaps the worst intruders into our privacy: these people regularly look directly into our windows. Let me assure you that nobody is parking illegally in my bedroom or living room, and there is no need to look into my windows.

It happened this morning that I was half clothed, and did not yet have a shirt on, when I received the first and second looks from the driver of Utah plates 078 LSV. Some mornings, we have been unclothed, other mornings, fully clothed. It is apparently in part this potential for being in various stages of undress that your employees find so interesting, as the lascivious looks seem to peak in the morning hours, between 6:30am and 9:00am, while the afternoon voyeurs seem to be more in the stripe of half-interested, opportunistic perverts. Your security guards, on the other hand, do not seem to discriminate based on the time of day, but instead are vigorous peeping toms at all hours that they patrol the lot.

To clarify: these are not stray looks, while generally looking around the area: they are intentional, direct looks. They are looks calculated to invade our privacy, and see into our home. They are looks which numerous of your employees, sometimes as many as a half a dozen in a given day just that I see, cast into our windows while they walk to and from their cars. Whether motivated by prurient interests, or out of general disrespect and nosiness, I am unsure, and don’t really care to look into their minds to find out. The bottom line is that these looks are patently unacceptable.

For your information, Utah’s version of the ‘peeping tom’ law is codified at Utah Code
§ 76-9-702.7, which is classified with other “Offenses Against Public Order and Decency.” Section 76-9-702.7, titled “Voyeurism offenses – Penalties”, specifies, in relevant part:

(4) A person is guilty of voyeurism who, under circumstances not amounting to a violation of Subsection (1), views or attempts to view an individual, with or without the use of any instrumentality:
(a) with the intent of viewing any portion of the individual's body regarding which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, whether or not that portion of the body is covered with clothing;
(b) without the knowledge or consent of the individual; and
(c) under circumstances in which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Let’s apply Section 76-9-702.7(4) to our situation here: your employees do view, and regularly attempt to view, without use of instrumentalities (cameras, etc.), our bodies, regardless of whether they are then covered with clothing. These viewings and attempted viewings most certainly do not occur with our consent or knowledge, and we most certainly have a reasonable expectation in our privacy in our bedroom and living room, and in our bodies while in these spaces. Section 76-9-702.7 continues, in subsection (5): “A violation of Subsection (4) is a class B misdemeanor” which is punishable by imprisonment up to six months, and a fine up to $1,000, or both.

Notably, the Utah Legislature amended the peeping tom law in 2004 to remove the element of the offense which required that the actor have intent to invade the privacy of the victim. So, it doesn’t even matter whether your employees intend to invade our privacy: the fact that they look into our windows, into spaces in which we have reasonable expectations of privacy, and view our bodies, in which we have reasonable expectations of privacy, is sufficient. It merely makes the offense more disgusting if they intend to invade our privacy, as one can reasonably conclude they do, when they look day after day, and turn for extra looks as they walk away.

I look forward to your written response. I assure you that these behaviors, if they continue, will not be met in the future solely by a letter to you, but rather by calls to the police department, and letters to the District Attorney’s office requesting prosecution. Please: do something about your employees, and their un-neighborly, disgusting, illegal behavior.

Sincerely,

[dangr ]