Peeping Tom arrested

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin Police have arrested the man they say has been video taping women through their windows and masturbating in the presence of children. Carney turned himself in to the U.S. Marshal Service and APD Fugitive Unit here is Austin. He was arrested without incident. The case remains under investigation and other charges may be pending. He was arrested without incident.

Christopher Carney was seen peeping through his girlfriend's apartment window and then running across Leon Street on Dec 3.

"I could see him looking through another window, so I called the police," said Dotson. "I met the cops out there told them where he was, and within 2 minutes they caught him looking in another window."

When Police caught Carney they say he was masturbating and using his phone to record video through the window. Police arrested Carney on misdemeanor charges back in December, but by the time his cell phone was analyzed five weeks later, police say Carney had already been released form jail and was no where to be found.

"It took a long time to get videos processed," said Detective John Sevier. "By the time we looked at the report, get a search warrant and have the cell phone analyzed. Then we had to go through all the videos."

Police say one of those videos shows Carney masturbating near a little girl inside the children's section of Book Stop on Nov. 26.  Yet Lauren Pitts, one of the women police say Christopher Carney was trying to video tape said she is not sure if it would do any good.

"It is noisy out here I don't know if he would have been stopped by a little noise," said Pitts.
Meanwhile Carney's roommate says the pedicab driver went to the inauguration and is attending the Super Bowl. He said Carney is not expected back into Austin until Feb. 5.

It is cases like these that have some hoping Congress passes a new bill that would make big changes to the way cell phones record video. Earlier this month, Rep. Pete King of New York introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would ban camera phones from having a silent mode when recording video or taking a picture.

The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, also H.R. 414, would "require any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken."

The bill would prohibit such handsets from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone. Enforcement would be through the Consumer Product Safety Commission .

The text of the bill is short, and King's office has not released any public statements. Yet, the reasoning behind the legislation is clear. The text states: " Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone."

Thursday the Austin Police Department issued a warrant of arrest for Christopher Carney for the third-degree felony of indecency with a child by exposure. Police said Carney was caught recording video on his cell phone of a young girl sitting on the floor in a book store while he was masturbating.

At the time of this writing, the bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce. The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act has no co-sponsors.