Ironic: Politicians complain of video surveillance.

Politicians recognize they give up a degree of privacy when they run for office.

But Democrats are testing the outer limits of that understanding with a practice that raises questions about when campaign tracking becomes something more like stalking.

While most serious campaigns on both sides use campaign trackers — staffers whose job is to record on video every public appearance and statement by an opponent — House Democrats are taking it to another level. They’re now recording video of the homes of GOP congressmen and candidates and posting the raw footage on the Internet for all to see.

Wisconsin GOP Rep. Reid Ribble, who said he’s also been followed by a cameraman when shopping for groceries, said the home videos cross a line.

“I feel it’s totally inappropriate,” said Ribble, a freshman facing a competitive race for reelection. “It was disturbing to me that they would put that online. I don’t understand any political benefit that can be achieved with that.”

In Ribble’s case, a clip of his northeastern Wisconsin home appeared online June 18. The soundless video — which lasts 38 seconds — is taken from a car sitting just outside the house. The shot pans across the large home, showing it from several different angles.

DeaNa Ribble, the congressman’s wife, said it is deeply unsettling.

“I’m more creeped out about this than Reid is, just because I’m home more,” she said. “If they so much as put a foot on private property, I will be the first person to call the police.”

Republicans whose homes have been videotaped say they understand that politics is a contact sport and that every public utterance they make is fair game. But, they argue, filming a home — and posting actual addresses — ought to be off-limits, if only out of respect for their families and neighbors.

Republicans aren’t exactly innocent naifs when it comes to campaign tracking. The GOP hit political gold in 2010, when then-North Carolina Democratic Rep. Bob Etheridge grabbed and yelled at several camera-wielding interns for the National Republican Congressional Committee who had stopped him on the street.

And on Tuesday, aides to Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop said they found a tracker working for his Republican opponent, Randy Altschuler, sitting outside the congressman’s Long Island, N.Y., home with a camera.

But Bishop’s campaign said it did not believe any footage of the home had been made public.
In an email, Paul Lindsay, an NRCC spokesman, wrote: “Our trackers serve as eyes and ears to hold Democrats accountable in public events and public spaces only. Anything beyond that would be a violation of our policy.”

Democrats, on the other hand, insist the videos are fair game — and are unapologetic about the hardball tactics.
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