THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511250320
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
Spying on your neighbors and tracking your significant other is much easier now.
With a wealth of personal-security and surveillance merchandise - everything from night-vision scopes to video-camera teddy bears - The Spy Shop in Lynnhaven Mall may be the answer for the worried, the suspicious and sometimes the strange.
The seasonal store, which opened earlier this month and will close after the holiday shopping season, already is attracting all sorts. Customers wander in, mill about and ask for demonstrations of products like the barking German shepherd motion detector and the pen-microphone recording device.
While the new store attracts all sorts, aspiring CIA agents and weirdos represent only a tiny percentage of the store's clientele, owner Joe VanLiere said. Instead, most of his customers are ordinary folk concerned about safety, security and privacy.
``A lot of the items are directed toward the ladies,'' said VanLiere, pointing out a powerful flashlight that will temporarily blind an attacker.
Soon to arrive is a hand-held thermal detector, which can tell whether there is a warm body under the car or hiding in the bushes. Parents can buy a video teddy bear or smoke detector camera - for $349 each - to watch the baby sitter.
Much of The Spy Shop's merchandise targets professionals, like retailers who want hidden cameras to monitor their employees and customers.
Corporate bigwigs, meantime, can ensure secrecy by wearing a bug detector, discreetly disguised as a pager, that buzzes when it senses hidden transmitters. Or, they can stuff their ``top-secret'' papers in the Shocking Briefcase. Once the briefcase is snatched, the executive can use a transmitter to zap the heck out of the criminal - or anyone else holding the briefcase.
For a business deal, there's the Truth Phone, which detects stress in the other person's voice.
All these products were designed with good intentions. But it should be no surprise that some jokesters will buy them.
Who could resist using the Truth Phone during conversations? Who could stash away the Sound Scope, an audio amplifier, when there's hush-hush talk across the room?
In fact, Hampton Roads residents already have discovered the Truth Phone and the Sound Scope. The Sound Scope has sold out, in part because a group of women purchased them so they could listen in on men's conversations in bars.
Last week, a 20-year-old Virginia Beach man was eyeing a small video camera at The Spy Shop. He was looking for something to help fend off an ex-girlfriend, he said. She called him on the phone. She knocked at his door. She annoyed him.
``All the time,'' he said, exasperated.
Ah, technology. With it, the lost lover can partly screen out his smitten ex using caller ID. He even wants to rig a camera by his front door so he can screen her visits.
James Bond wannabes should note that ``there are certain things we don't sell to the public,'' VanLiere said.
Sometimes, the items simply don't exist.
``We had a guy in here the other day who wanted to order X-ray glasses,'' VanLiere said. ``I couldn't convince him that there was no such thing.''
And then there was the sweet old woman who asked for a high-powered, 6-foot-long stun gun to shock her neighbor's dog. ``He barks a lot,'' she told VanLiere.
VanLiere said no.
For a spy-shop owner, VanLiere is surprising staid. The tall, polished businessman might look like he could have been a double agent. But he's really a salesman, more concerned with business than counterintelligence.
Raised in New York, he fell in love with the Hampton Roads area and remained after he got out of the Navy in 1973. He now lives in Virginia Beach.
VanLiere had a small remodeling company and an energy-management business, which he sold. He then saw growth in the retail security and surveillance industry, and decided to move in.
VanLiere is well aware that the spy-shop industry isn't always a popular one. First of all, do people really need to spy on their relatives, friends, enemies, co-workers and so on?
``Sometimes, maybe we don't want to know the truth,'' VanLiere said. ``But there are business people and others who need to know.''
While customers might be intrigued with spy shops, law enforcement officials are not. In April, federal authorities raided 44 spy shops nationwide, citing sales of millions of dollars of illegal equipment like tiny tape recorders and fountain pen bugs, according to an article in The Washington Post.
It's illegal for people outside law enforcement to import, make, sell or own devices that are primarily used for bugging or wiretapping, the article said.
Aspiring spies also should take note that it's illegal to bug others' homes, businesses or phones. And you can't use the equipment to eavesdrop on cellular phone conversations or intercept any other communication.
The general rule: If it feels like an outright violation of privacy, then it probably is.
``Nobody's handed me a list of things I can't sell to the public,'' VanLiere said. ``I really use common sense.''
So, maybe spying on the neighbors and tracking the significant other isn't such a good idea, after all.
``If people are interested in that, maybe they should see professionals,'' VanLiere said.
Plus, remember that the some of the world's most infamous spies never used these devices. Instead, they simply lifted the classified information and walked out the door, said Phillip A. Parker, a former FBI agent who now runs his own investigative company.
``Your Walkers, your Pollards, your Ameses - they didn't have a bunch of . ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Graphic
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot
NOT-SO-ORDINARY BUSINESSMAN
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB