Aerial map of celebrities’ homes under scrutiny

Web site may have been used in burglaries

LOS ANGELES — Suppose you could look at the pool in back of James Cameron’s Malibu estate. Or admire the ornate garden on Haim Saban’s Beverly Hills mansion. Or check out the tennis court at Tiger Woods’ Florida home.

Should you?

Celebrityaddressaerial.com, a Web site that has combined the addresses and aerial photos of hundreds of celebrities, corporate titans, politicians and others, makes possible exactly that sort of high-tech snooping into the lives of an eclectic list that includes Paris Hilton, Steven Spielberg, Warren Buffett, Matt Drudge, Steve Jobs and Kobe Bryant.

The site boasts that users “will be able to see behind the tall hedges, big gates and security systems” and “get unprecedented access to the sort of lifestyle your favorite celebrity can afford.”

To a lot of stars and their lawyers, that’s a big problem.

For nearly two years, the site operated with little notice. But Friday, a search warrant unsealed in Las Vegas revealed that one of the members of an alleged burglary ring had used the site, along with TMZ.com and Google maps, “to gain intelligence on” homes of young Hollywood celebrities, including Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom. Members of the ring would then visit the location to search for a “mode of entry,” Los Angeles Police Department investigators said.

Suddenly, celebrityaddressaerial.com finds itself in the midst of a spirited debate over the limits of privacy in the digital age — the latest example of how technology has eroded the line between the personal and the public.

The site offers information that, in most cases, a curious Web surfer probably could get with some digging — but presents it in one place, easily searched, for $9.99 a month. An official familiar with the burglary ring investigation said that members of the group regularly used celebrityaddressaerial.com until it started charging for subscriptions this summer.

Details of the site have been met with consternation — and even a bit of fear — from celebrity representatives.

“Even if it’s based on public information, marketing it in such a way that could lead to people committing crimes like stalking or other offenses could potentially be actionable,” said attorney Mark Geragos, who has had numerous celebrity clients.

Geragos learned Monday that his home is on the list, as well as some of his clients.

“I have some big dogs on my property,” he said jokingly.

Attorney Neville Johnson, who specializes in privacy law, said the site and others like it amount to “a how-to handbook for stalkers and burglars.”

“This takes it to a whole new level,” Johnson said. “It’s bad, it’s immoral, and for right now, probably legal.”

Johnson noted how the law was changed to restrict access to California motor vehicle records after actress Rebecca Shaeffer was shot and killed in 1989 by a stalker. The man, Robert John Bardo, had gotten Shaeffer’s address from a private detective who, in turn, had gotten it from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Bardo is now serving a life sentence in state prison.

The webmaster of celebrityad dressaerial.com, a resident of Canada who responded to questions by e-mail and identified himself as David Ruppel, said he was shocked to learn his site had come up in the “bling ring” investigation and defended his site as a proper use of publicly available information.

“I have no control over how anybody uses the information on my Web site, but I put it out there for entertainment purposes or as a ‘star map,’” he said, adding that he’s a one-man operation.

Ruppel said he culls information from checking the latest property listings and sales, blogs and other news sources on a daily basis. He said he also uses government sources including maps, photographs and property ownership data including specifications of the buildings on a property, its purchase date and price.

Ruppel said users should not use the site to visit homes.

Although this particular site is new on the Los Angeles Police Department radar, Cmdr. Pat Gannon said the use of the Internet to scope out potential burglary victims is an issue the department sees as a growing challenge. He said burglars have used virtual tours on real estate sites as well as family photos on social networking sites like Facebook to help case homes.

“I don’t know if there’s a solution to it because at what point can you put limits on it?” Gannon said. “But to have it available is really frightening for a lot of people.”

So far, celebrities have had little success in limiting the use of long-distance photos of their properties. In 2003, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge threw out an invasion of privacy lawsuit brought by Barbra Streisand against an environmental activist who had posted an aerial photo of her bluff-top Malibu home on a Web site alongside 12,000 other pictures of the California coastline.

Judge Allan J. Goodman ruled that Streisand’s privacy had not been invaded.