Below is description of a current privacy controversy in Colorado. I invite the VC's readers to supply answers any of the legal and ethical questions.

Facts: Sugar House is a swingers' club, set to open in a Denver area neighborhood on August 25. One of the purposes of the club is to facilitate sexual encounters among members; presumably spouse-swapping is among the faciliated activities.

For purposes of this question, assume that Sugar House is in compliance with all zoning laws (although some people in the neighborhood do not think so). Likewise, assume that Sugar House is not violating any laws. (This assumption sets aside Colorado law by which adultery [sex by a married person someone other than the person's spouse] is defined as a crime, but there is no punishment for the crime.)

KHOW-AM radio host Dan Caplis has urged people in the neighborhood to attempt to drive out Sugar Hill by taking photos and videos of every person entering or leaving Sugar Hill. (The issue is discussed in the last hour of the August 10 show. You can listen via the "Radio Rewind" feature on the KHOW website, which requires free registration.) He argues that clubs such as Sugar House are bad for any neighborhood, because children might walk by, and because the club's purpose is promoting activities which are harmful to society. Caplis has said that he believes that what he is encouraging is legal, and has also said that if he is wrong, he will issue a correction.

Legal questions:

1. Under Colorado and federal law, is Caplis correct? What about the laws of other jurisdictions?

2. Does the answer depend on what the photographers do with with the captured images? If the images are just viewed at home by the person who took them? If the images are distributed for free (e.g., by photocopied flyers, or on a non-commercial website)? If the images are given to the media for publication? If the images are used by people in the neighborhood to identify the customers of Sugar House, and then the images are sent to persons who know the customer (e.g., employers, family)?

Ethical questions:

1. Hypothesizing that the above photo/video conduct is legal, is it ethical?

2. Would the ethical answer change depending on whether the establishment were some other entity which deeply offended several people in a neighborhood? Depending on the neighborhood, some people might be extremely offended by: a Communist bookstore, a white supremacist bookstore, a tavern, a strip club, an adult book or video store, a birth control clinic, an abortion clinic (presume that for the clinics, the photographers use telephoto lenses, so as to comply with bubble laws), a Wiccan religious center, or a gun store. In answering this question, presume that the establishment is fully compliant with all zoning and other laws.

3. If your answer is the photography/video would be ethical for at least one but not every establishment on the list, is there a rationale other than your personal hierarchy of what activities are most detestable? If a person with a different hierarchy of detestation wanted to photograph/film the customers of an establishment which you liked, could you offer any arguments, other than urging him to adopt your own hierachy of values?

UPDATE: Here is a link to a 1995 article by the Colorado law firm Fairfields & Woods. Although the article is mainly about employer surveillance of employees, it does offer some interesting ideas. In terms of statutory law, a video which captured conversations might violate Colorado's wiretap law, if the videographer were concealed from the people who were talking. The relevant torts (for Sugar House customers) might be "unreasonable disclosure of personal facts" and "unreasonable intrusion into the private affairs of another." A key question is whether the publicity or intrusion would be "highly offensive to a reasonable person."