I play sports every weekend in a park which is situated such that the boundary fence of the park is also the back fence of the backyard of a bunch of houses (ie, the back onto the park, but have a 6-foot-or-so-fence, many of them with a gate).
I’ve been wondering recently about what would happen if I were a bit of a voyeur, and decided to look over the fence into these people’s yards. (This is all purely theoretical curiosity.)
For instance, suppose I decided to climb one of the trees in the park, that got me up 15 feet in the air or so, and I spotted something illegal happening on one of the back yards, and reported it to the police. I assume that be totally legally kosher? Would it matter whether I had climbed the tree “for fun”, vs to get a kite down, vs purely because I wanted to look over fences?
Could I buy a very tall ladder, set it up in the middle of the park, climb to the top with a pair of binoculars, and just spend all day staring into people’s yards?
If I were 6’5" tall, could I just walk around the perimeter of the park openly staring into people’s yards?
I suppose a somewhat similar question involves looking through open windows into people’s houses. When is/isn’t that legal? Could I just stand on the sidewalk and look through a family’s living room window for hours at a time?
If you are thought to be doing it for sexual gratification, then yes, you could be arrested.
Intrusion of solitude and seclusion
“Intrusion upon seclusion occurs when a perpetrator intentionally intrudes, physically, electronically, or otherwise, upon the private space, solitude, or seclusion of a person, or the private affairs or concerns of a person, by use of the perpetrator’s physical senses or by electronic device or devices to oversee or overhear the person’s private affairs, or by some other form of investigation, examination, or observation intrude upon a person’s private matters if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. Hacking into someone else’s computer is a type of intrusion upon privacy, as is secretly viewing or recording private information by still or video camera.”
There are a lot of excuses that could be used if you spotted illegal activity, it would be difficult to prove you didn’t climb a tree just for fun if you were seeing something with the naked eye. Even if you brought binoculars with you I can’t see a criminal prosecution for your actions based on the illegal activity you saw.
I recall some cases from Los Angeles where everybody has a fence around their property about intrusions of privacy but I don’t recall any real details except your right to privacy is somewhat limited when you do things outdoors.
The police often do this very type of thing when they have someone under surveillance, place themselves or a zoom camera in a position that allows them to view what is normally inaccessible. There are no separate laws for the police that allow them to do this, in fact the police are often more constrained than private citizens when it comes to snooping.
I have seen cops doing a safety check on my neighbor with cancer by taking ladders and placing them right next to his house on the front sidewalk so they could peer down into windows. My neighbor hadn’t mowed his lawn in months and his truck hadn’t moved in weeks so they knocked loudly and announced everything they were doing, including beating on the windows and yelling out his name and announcing that they were the police. Nobody answered and they must not have seen a dead body thru the window so they left. An hour later he got into his truck and went to the store.