Victims in VCD case should fight back

The emotional entanglements between men and women in love are now subject to horrible, high-tech vendettas. The recent controversy over footage of a sexual encounter, taken by means of a pinhole camera, shows how advanced technology is being used for voyeurism, to satisfy personal grudges and to slander a person's reputation.

Before we had "black letters" (anonymous accusations, 黑函) and harassing phone calls. Now we can also take advantage of sophisticated camera equipment, digital media, broadband networks and blood-thirsty commercial magazines.

A person's private conduct is forcibly laid bare in public. A person can be emotionally tortured by having his or her conduct or reputation dragged through a hell made-up of the eyes of others.

Just as the US has to discover how to build a new order following the Sept. 11 tragedy, Taiwan's society should start establishing regulations to distinguish between the public and private domains following Scoop Weekly's release of the VCD the purports to show a sexual encounter between a former legislative candidate and a married man.

Otherwise, in a high-tech, information-based society, the overly curious or the hate-filled and envious can collaborate with vicious commercialism to shape a terrorist network that does not need a leader. A person's reputation and freedom can be crushed at any time by the weight of a million pairs of eyes.

No matter what kind of social pressure the parties shown in the video are suffering, the best response would be to stand up to this new type of voyeuristic terrorism. To remain passive may save them from having to confess, and give them space to live on in society. But appeasement will not be good for the victims or society.

For society, pursuing the perpetrators will demonstrate that voyeurism and illegal videotaping will be punished. It will help demarcate between public and private domains and establish what is appropriate to be distributed to the public.

Secretly videotaping people violates Article 315-1 of the Criminal Code. Public or private distribution of secretly shot footage breaches Article 315-2 of the Criminal Code. This behavior also infringes a person's privacy, as stipulated in Article 195 of the Civil Code. The emotional damage suffered by the victims must be compensated for through action in civil court.

If those in the video take the case to civil and criminal courts, the magazine publishers, TV stations and Web sites involved in distributing the film will have to pay dearly for their profit-driven and morally-debasing behavior. Only then will the network of voyeuristic terrorism be prevented from flouting social morals and repeating its horrible acts with the connivance of the public.

Only by bringing a lawsuit can the offensive and defensive positions of perpetrators and victims be reversed. If those in the film refuse to file a lawsuit, those who filmed the encounter will not only remain at large but also achieve their goal of malicious defamation -- repeatedly subjecting the victims to indignity in electronic and mass media. If the victims appeal for their privacy to be protected it will win them the support of the public.

Redressing violations of privacy through legal channels will definitely gain the support and approval of most people in society. If the victims can recognize that establishing private personal space has become a new value that the public now considers important, then filing a lawsuit will be the best way to alleviate the trauma and fight back.

Ho Jen-ji is a PhD candidate in law at National Taiwan University.

Translated by Jackie Lin