An article I read in The Daily Collegian a couple weeks ago hit me as hard as linebacker Paul Posluszny.

The headline, "Man charged in HUB bathroom photos case," Jan. 19, had me ready to chalk up another worry for women, who sadly can't feel safe in the bathroom anymore.

I prepared to be the proverbial shoulder for my female friends to lean on as I continued reading about this blatant threat on the privacy and dignity of women in our country. Then I dropped my cup of coffee. And my pity turned to genuine fear.

This man was charged with taking photos in the men's bathroom ... the bathroom I use.

This guy had been allegedly staking out the bathrooms at the HUB for a few weeks waiting patiently for his Kodak moments to arrive, in the form of unsuspecting restroom residents. According to the article, Jared D. Shuke, 28, of Lewistown, was charged with by police taking photos of men doing their business. He later told police he sold the photographs on the Internet.

Besides being shocked that there was a market for that somewhere online (yeah it's the information super highway, but I didn't realize people were making pit-stops for the X-rated visual-version of "Stall Stories"), I was blown away that this sort of privacy invasion could happen to guys, too.

We're used to hearing about this stuff happening to women, and to be honest -- and probably ignorant -- it sometimes doesn't register as real.

Though this type of thing saturates the headlines, it isn't often a blip on our radar. We're so used to reading bad news that sadly, we become desensitized.

We feel bad for the moment, but we sometimes don't realize the consequences it may have on society, such as the development of a cloud of fear raining on those who can be victimized on a daily basis.

But here's the thing: Crime is an equal opportunity employer. And sometimes it pours on even those who feel they had shelter from the storm.

And I guess that underlines the problem: Threats to the well-being of others are only cause for casual concern, until the gun, or in this case camera, is pointed our way. If we ignore the smoke filling rooms around us eventually the fire will burn down the whole house.

This "It would never happen to me" mentality silently urges us to light up that next cigarette because we won't get lung cancer. It encourages the drunken versions of ourselves to drive "just down the street" because we won't get a DUI. It urges promiscuity, until promiscuity changes its name to STD. It makes us apathetic to foreign affairs, politics and war until it's our older brother getting shipped overseas.

So what life lesson can we learn from this story? We can learn that no one is completely safe, and if we don't take action to protect all the members of our society, there might not be anyone left to protect us when we're threatened with such indecent exposures, or worse.

Maybe we can't spend our lives checking under stalls for the potty-paparazzi but we can learn to take threats to the public's safety more seriously, even if it's not a direct threat to ourselves. Cops can do more than give underage citations, so call them when you see something suspicious. Silence is injustice.

Cause it could be you on candid camera next time, and there won't be any smiling at the end of the episode.