By Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross
The San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — With at least a dozen cars mysteriously set ablaze in San Francisco in recent days, you might be interested to know that short-handed city arson investigators have been quite preoccupied — spying on their fellow arson investigators with hidden office cameras.
This not-so-funny Keystone comedy started with what one source calls “a cat fight” between two groups in the arson investigation unit. Some of the employees were convinced their rivals were snooping into their personal business and maybe making unauthorized credit card purchases. So they set up a camera, hoping to find the culprits sneaking around their possessions or looking at their computers.
Eventually, word of the candid camera reached Fire Department brass, who — rather than asking, “What’s up with the secret filming?” — took over the operation.
“I don’t condone hidden taping,” Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said. “But there had been some very outrageous things going on in that office that no one could explain, and we felt this was possible evidence.”
While it is illegal to tape conversations secretly, video recording is fine as long as the sound is off, legal experts say.
The tapes were handed off to the city attorney, whose lawyers brought in a couple of the targeted arson investigators and started asking them questions.
The targets promptly turned around and asked who set up the cameras.
Faster than you can say “invasion of privacy lawsuit,” the city lawyers were on the horn to the Fire Department, asking the same question.
They must not have liked the answer, because the city attorney immediately pulled out of the probe.
Chief Hayes-White said the tapes showed no evidence of any wrongdoing, but added that the department is still looking into the misuse of city property.
The investigators who were spied on, however, are steaming. At the very least, they think they deserve a letter of apology from the department — and maybe some discipline for those who set up the camera in the first place.
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