What Happens When Landlords Can Get Cheap Surveillance Software? (slate.com) 167
"Cheap surveillance software is changing how landlords manage their tenants and what laws police can enforce," reports Slate.
For example, there's a private company contracting with property managers that says they now have 475 security cameras in place and can sometimes scan more than 1.5 million license plates in a week. (According to Clayton Burnett, Watchstore Security's director of "innovation and new technology".) Burnett's company regularly hands over location data to police, he says, as evidence for cases large and small. But that investigative firepower also comes in handy for more routine landlord-tenant affairs. They've investigated tree trimmers charging for a day of work they didn't do and caught people dumping trash on private property. Sometimes, he says, a tenant will claim her car was hit in the building's parking lot and ask for free rent. His company can search for her plate and see that one day, she left the lot with her bumper intact and then came back later with a dent in it. Probably once a week, Burnett says, Watchtower uses it to prove that a tenant has "a buddy crashing on their couch," violating their lease. "Normally, there's some limit to how long they can stay, like five days," he says, "and we can prove they're going over that." One search, and they have proof that that buddy has been coming over every night for a month.
I was wondering how tenants felt about this, and I asked Burnett whether anyone had ever complained about the license plate readers. "No," he said with a laugh. "I'd say they probably don't know about it...."
[A]s the technology has matured, it's gotten in the hands of organizations that, five years ago, would never have been able to consider it. Small-town police departments can suddenly afford to conduct surveillance at a massive scale. Neighborhood homeowners associations and property managers are buying up cameras by the dozen. And in many jurisdictions, cheap automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are creeping into neighborhoods -- with almost nothing restricting how they're used besides the surveiller's own discretion....
If you know that a bald guy in a gray Toyota illegally dumped trash in your lawn, the police won't try to track him down. But if they have the plate, enforcing lower-level crime becomes much easier. Several of the property managers and homeowners associations I spoke to emphasized that this is one of the main benefits of their ALPR systems. Along with burglaries, they're mostly concerned about people breaking into cars to steal personal belongings; police wouldn't investigate that before, but now homeowners associations can do the investigation for them and hand over the evidence. As Burnett put it, "[Police] are not going to be able to investigate [a small crime] unless we hand it to them on a silver platter. Which we've done plenty of times."
The article points out that today's software can detect dents on cars and watch for specific bumper stickers (or Lyft tags) -- and often the software can be retrofitted to existing traffic cameras. A contractor working with police in one Pennsylvania county says they've now "virtually gated" an entire 20,000-person town south of Pittsburgh. "Any way you can come in and out, you're on camera."
A senior investigative researcher at the EFF points out that "Now a cop can look up your license plate and see where you've been for the past two years."
For example, there's a private company contracting with property managers that says they now have 475 security cameras in place and can sometimes scan more than 1.5 million license plates in a week. (According to Clayton Burnett, Watchstore Security's director of "innovation and new technology".) Burnett's company regularly hands over location data to police, he says, as evidence for cases large and small. But that investigative firepower also comes in handy for more routine landlord-tenant affairs. They've investigated tree trimmers charging for a day of work they didn't do and caught people dumping trash on private property. Sometimes, he says, a tenant will claim her car was hit in the building's parking lot and ask for free rent. His company can search for her plate and see that one day, she left the lot with her bumper intact and then came back later with a dent in it. Probably once a week, Burnett says, Watchtower uses it to prove that a tenant has "a buddy crashing on their couch," violating their lease. "Normally, there's some limit to how long they can stay, like five days," he says, "and we can prove they're going over that." One search, and they have proof that that buddy has been coming over every night for a month.
I was wondering how tenants felt about this, and I asked Burnett whether anyone had ever complained about the license plate readers. "No," he said with a laugh. "I'd say they probably don't know about it...."
[A]s the technology has matured, it's gotten in the hands of organizations that, five years ago, would never have been able to consider it. Small-town police departments can suddenly afford to conduct surveillance at a massive scale. Neighborhood homeowners associations and property managers are buying up cameras by the dozen. And in many jurisdictions, cheap automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are creeping into neighborhoods -- with almost nothing restricting how they're used besides the surveiller's own discretion....
If you know that a bald guy in a gray Toyota illegally dumped trash in your lawn, the police won't try to track him down. But if they have the plate, enforcing lower-level crime becomes much easier. Several of the property managers and homeowners associations I spoke to emphasized that this is one of the main benefits of their ALPR systems. Along with burglaries, they're mostly concerned about people breaking into cars to steal personal belongings; police wouldn't investigate that before, but now homeowners associations can do the investigation for them and hand over the evidence. As Burnett put it, "[Police] are not going to be able to investigate [a small crime] unless we hand it to them on a silver platter. Which we've done plenty of times."
The article points out that today's software can detect dents on cars and watch for specific bumper stickers (or Lyft tags) -- and often the software can be retrofitted to existing traffic cameras. A contractor working with police in one Pennsylvania county says they've now "virtually gated" an entire 20,000-person town south of Pittsburgh. "Any way you can come in and out, you're on camera."
A senior investigative researcher at the EFF points out that "Now a cop can look up your license plate and see where you've been for the past two years."
Thankful for getting old (Score:5, Insightful)
A senior investigative researcher at the EFF points out that "Now a cop can look up your license plate and see where you've been for the past two years."
All the other stuff was pretty disturbing on it's own, but this last one... oh god.
I feel sorry for humanity. I'm glad I'm getting old, I won't be around to see how insanely tyrannical this sort of thing will get with time. Good luck folks.
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Does that still work?
Would this be a solution? Could you leave them on with the car not running and not run the battery down?
Re:Thankful for getting old (Score:4, Funny)
people putting high intestine IR LEDs around license plates
Um, yeah. About that . . .
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Re:Thankful for getting old (Score:5, Funny)
Thankyou for admitting the mistake. Took some guts.
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Oh, come now, doesn't everybody want to hear about the latest breakthrough in off-grid power generation?!
IR LEDs and cameras (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends on the camera, or more accurately the lens and sensor combo. Glass lenses do not allow IR to pass. Some plastics do.
Photography cameras need aesthetically good images, so they generally use glass lenses that block IR because IR tends to be fuzzier and produces less crisp images (longer wavelength, and all of that). Cameras with glass lenses will not be affected by the presence of IR LEDs.
Security cameras need forensically good images but not aesthetically good ones. They generally uses plastics that allow IR to hit the sensor, gathering more information in low light scenarios and enabling the use of 'hidden' illumination. These cameras are extremely susceptible to 'washout' caused by the presence of intense IR sources. I suppose high dynamic range sensors will mitigate this, but they are going to be more expensive and so are less likely to be used in the first place.
So, I guess the answer is maybe?
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> Glass lenses do not allow IR to pass. Some plastics do.
No, most glass lenses do but are not necessarily optimized for that wavelength. Most digital cameras have specific filters in front that filter more IR, some do not have any IR filtering and this is a selling point.
Re:IR LEDs and cameras (Score:4, Informative)
Glass is transparent up to 2.5 um wavelength while IR LEDs are typically 0.9 um. It's either the camera sensor that is made to block near-infrared (in order to preserve color rendering) or there is a separate, movable IR filter (in dual-function color/night vision security cameras). Flashing infrared would probably work during the night. Probably devices that prevent your license plate from showing up in a photo are illegal though.
For deep/thermal infrared (5-15 um wavelength) there are a few types of plastic that could be used in a lens, but it would't make sense to use a thermal camera for license plates.
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Glass lenses do not allow IR to pass.
The glass commonly used for lenses passes IR down to at least 2 micrometers which comfortably extends beyond the frequency of common near IR illuminators. If this was not the case, then cameras with glass lenses would not include a separate near IR filter as part of the image sensor.
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there are already laws on the books in many places that prohibit such devices.
soon, it will be illegal to wear giant sunglasses, gaudy wide-framed tortoise shell glasses, floppy wide-brimmed sun hats, ski masks or scarves that cover the face (legitimate winter wear in many parts of the world), or software-confusing makeup. no pesky 'freedom of religion' rights to worry about here; and yea, if you're thinking of wearing a headscarf or burqa to cover-up for the cameras, don't bother, because that will automat
You know you could do something about it (Score:1, Troll)
If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. I'm fed up with old people drivin
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Why does everybody always want a government intervention? This is private property, don't like it, don't deal with them, the constitution specifically forbids the government from intervening there for a good reason, if the government can forbid camera on private property, it will do so in public first and cell phone camera and body camera recordings on police become illegal. Then it will become illegal to own a safe, a security system etc because it could prevent a government search and seizure.
This is a te
A government intervention (Score:3)
People are looking to the government to intervene because this is a dispute between two private entities where there is a pervasive power imbalance and a fundamental right (i.e., privacy) is involved. Regulating the relationships between private entities is one of the fundamental jobs of governments.
Re: A government intervention (Score:2)
I just read only one third of millennials own their home, so lots of people are on track to be lifetime renters. Things like being caught for having a buddy on the couch really underscore the reality that these people are homeless, calling landlord housing their home, where they have no rights. That is a bad situation where private property is owned by a smaller and smaller group.
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In my State rental agreements are governed by State Law. They are private arrangements, but most of the rules are imposed by the State.
This is why renters have rights here.
Many places do it as you describe, and just let people form any contract terms they want, without any referee to determine what is fair and reasonable. And in those places, renters have few rights, and are often abused by landlords.
No need to resort to idiotic flamebait like "Then it will become illegal to own a safe." Give me a fucking b
Re: You know you could do something about it (Score:3)
Please stop pretending ANY of the candidates, from any party, are opposed to the dystopian surveillance state. They aren't.
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right? If you're old you're in a position to vote for candidates that would oppose this crap... If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. I'm fed up with old people driving us over a cliff safe in the knowledge that they'll be dead when the car hits the ground.
In the first case, as far as I can tell you have no clue how duke_cheetah2003 votes, so your tone is unwarranted.
In the second place, it's totally cute that you believe any amount or kind of voting in this thoroughly rigged system of governance will even cause inconvenience to (much less change in) "the ruling class" who "want all the money". Unfortunately, 'cute' is not a good look on a man of your age.
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The trouble is, as I see it, being some old myself (69 y/o), is the fact that politicians LIE. They will tell you ANYTHING you want to hear to get elected, and once they're firmly in office, they do WHATEVER THE HELL their "paymasters" (the lobbyists that donated to their campaign) TELL THEM TO... You, the voter, be DAMNED... Which is why Trump is sooooo damn refreshing.. He has done EXACTLY what he said he would do, or as much as the do-nothing impediment that the (D)s and RINO congress-critters will let h
Know any police? (Score:1)
Most police don't have access to that level of info when scanning your plate in their car. Besides who has time to read two years of scan data while driving behind you?
Ask a cop.
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Not while driving behind you. But imagine this one cop decides you're his or her soulmate and starts stalking you, starting YEARS before they even saw you the first time. Anyone you know or knew, anyone you've associated with or visited for the past several years are suddenly known to your stalker.
Re: Know any police? (Score:1)
100% agree. Plenty examples out there of that going on without the tech though.
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Sooner or later it's going to backfire on the cops. They will find that their movements are tracked as well, meaning they can't get away with their usual free-pass crimes. It will be similar to body cameras, where at first we see some incredibly stupid behaviour until they learn to switch them off when breaking the law.
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I feel sorry for humanity. I'm glad I'm getting old, I won't be around to see how insanely tyrannical this sort of thing will get with time. Good luck folks.
You have no idea how good, (and how bad), it feels to hear this from somebody other than myself. Misery loves company I guess - although I do my best to refrain from saying it out loud as I don't actually want to spread the misery. But since you raised the topic... ;-)
For much of my adult life I've been sorry I never managed to have kids. I still am, but now I'm also relieved - it's bad enough worrying about what the future holds for my friends' children and grand-children.
Re: It is a good thing (Score:2)
Papers please, comrade!
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Well, you are actually straddling a barb wire fence, on one had they spy on all your comings and goings and even past your curtains (time to get blackout curtains and window glass vibration suppressors) or have all the access points to your apparent secured and monitored, ain't no sneaking up to your front door or breaking in through a window, that behaviour can be analysed and reported for immediate action, they can break in but they will not escape.
Not an easy choice and I suppose it really depends on cr
They won't even need to charge you rent. (Score:5, Funny)
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Driving is wack... (Score:1)
"Freedom" my ass! Stop being a cheap shit and move to a walkable city you damn hill billies.
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On top of no camera's in the country. The city has camera's in stores, in ATM's, on light poles, in office buildings. Yea asshole. Move into the city and walk. Like it would provide you any more privacy.
Fucking moron
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cameras.
Correct
camera's
Incorrect
camera's
Incorrect
Fucking moron
Rude
How do you live in the sticks when there's no jobs (Score:2)
Source: I live near where I work and although it costs me about $200/mo more to do that I easily save that in the cost to commute, to say nothing of the fact that my time is valuable.
As you pointed out as soon as you drive into the city to get anything you're under surveillance, so it's not l
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No, you're thinking of WEST Bumfuck... Get your shit together.
It's even worse than you imagined (Score:3)
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Not true.
People who equate 1984 with present intrusion probably haven't read it lately.
It's the most depressing goddam novel I've ever read.
Nowhere on this planet is it that bad.
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>Nowhere on this planet is it that bad.
Except in parts of China, not yet.
Not sure why you're whining (Score:4, Insightful)
First, 1984 was about the government surveiling you and making a mockery of the English language.
Second, it's the landlord's property. So long as they're not putting the cameras in your apartment or pointing it in your window, they are only protecting themselves. As the article relates, tenant says their car got damaged in the parking lot as the result of something the landlord left lying around. Landlord checks video. Nope, your car didn't get damaged because of me. Landlord saves money and can probably file a case against the tenant for fraud.
Landlord finds people, usually contractors, too cheap to pay for their own garbage removal so they dump in his dumpsters which fill up faster than they normally would and he's paying for it. He catches the criminals, reports them, and gets a fine imposed ($500 is what I see around my place) on the criminal.
The landlord is protecting their business. It's not your place, it's his (or hers).
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Second, it's the landlord's property
People on /. keep confusing "owning property" with "being your own sovereign country that gets to invent its own laws".
"Owning property" just gives them limited rights to do certain things on the surface of their land.
It doesn't give them mineral rights. It doesn't give them the right to regulate airwaves going through their property. It doesn't give them the right to change zoning laws. It doesn't give them the right to waive building codes. It doesn't give them the right to rape or assault on th
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I'm not sure you understand US law. On your property and a certain amount of area above it you are pretty much sovereign according to the constitution except for the natural and inalienable rights of your guests and even certain rights could be temporarily abridged in situations where people are trespassing on your land.
Now if you want to live in a city or anywhere else near society, you may have to agree to additional rules and regulations but none of your constitutional rights and amendments can still not
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When you rent out a residence, it is the renter in possession of most of those natural rights regarding the property, not the owner.
You want that house to be your castle, don't rent to me! Then it is temporarily my castle. Not yours.
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The landlord is not renting you the entire property. It's renting you the apartment and you have a limited use to make semi-permanent adjustments to the inside of it (if you rent for an extended period, The 'semi' meaning you have to restore it when you stop renting). Inside, that space is your castle and no landlord in his right mind should intervene in that. The exterior and area around the apartment, however, is still his property, including exterior walls, floors and roofs, hallways, elevators, parking
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And it certainly doesn't give them the right to invade peoples privacy (in places where that's protected by state law).
How is a landlord doing what is listed in this article "invading" your privacy? Everything they're recording is in plain view to the public. Are you somehow protected from people looking at you while you're out and about? How about if you go on someone else's property? Are you magically invisible to them while you're on their property?
So long as what they are recording is not inside your
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I have 24 surveillance cameras. It's not that I really need them; I'm a photographer and I like cameras.
I've seen shit that was uncouth.
The cops knocked on my door about a shooting at the intersection and I told them none of the cameras work.
I lied. Nobody was hit. It was a revenge shooting.
I added it to my collection.
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No, they are going beyond that.
Part of the problem is a concept called unenforceable contracts. You can put anything into a contract and most of the time people ignore excessive or illegal stuff because it is unenforceable. That used to be the main defense against garbage.
The contract writers put in excessive stuff they can't detect just to protect themselves against highly excessive crap (i.e. you charging rent to someone else and claiming they are just a guest). But they look the other way for reasona
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1984 was about television, (Score:2)
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Not how the law works. You cannot retroactively apply laws and punish people for breaking new laws. In many cases, you cannot even punish people if they have started a behavior before the law came into effect and they're simply continuing that behavior - eg. if you make a law that my house cannot be painted with lead, you cannot punish me for continuing to have and even repair a house painted with lead, at best you can make lead paint unavailable to me.
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This is almost entirely false, they can't retroactively turn it into a crime but there's no general right to grandfather clauses. If they found lead paint to be critically dangerous to public health they could declare existing buildings unfit for human habitation and have them condemned, forcing those who live there to vacate. Granted that's drastic, but I know it's been used with updates to fire code and emergency exits though not overnight. New building starts now, old buildings have a transition period t
Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Having lived in apartments until I could afford a house, I couldn't wish for something better to keep the new grown-ups safe.
No sarcasm here. Anyone who has had trashy neighbors knows that some surveillance could-of-would-of-may-have saved them some headaches.
Surveillance won't really matter (Score:2)
Cops arrested him and let him go, he was still living there months later when said bud finally got his credit together enough to move to a better place.
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Who needs God? (Score:1, Offtopic)
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I can't help but notice that you posted this as an AC.
Odd that someone complaining about others "obsession about privacy" was so concerned about their own...
I don't have worry about it. (Score:4, Funny)
Also the cops are drawn from exemplary cadre of Americans with great dedication to duty and observe law to the letter. There is no pressure at all on them to solve any particular crime. By solving the crime, they mean catch the true perp, not pin it on some chump get him convicted.
So I have not done anything wrong, and I should not worry about it.
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While nice to hear, social credit scoring is not starting until next year...
--
When you fight sarcasm with sarcasm, sarcasm still wins!
So all the cameras just catch liars and cheaters? (Score:2)
So according to the article in the old days your insurance would pay the scumbags out and raise your rates, but cameras enable you to catch these people. Along with the ones dumping garbage and destroying your property?
I'll be buying a Ring doorbell and cloud cameras to help
Which groups of people have been together (Score:2)
The big win in this is to do big data analysis. How people form groups, who are together.
E.g. "Which people have been associated with more than two other people that attended the protest."
Police might be regulated a little bit but there is a lot of private surveillance as well.
At least the license plate trackers will stop the police having to ask for mobile phone data
Privacy is dead. Let us hope that our civil society hold up..
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Privacy is dead. Let us hope that our civil society hold up..
Not looking good on the civility front. I can only imagine the ruckus if Trump wins another term.
Read - The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand (Score:2)
Both classic sci-fi novels. All these years later I still remember the part about privacy and technological civilizations. Every high tech civilization reaches an inflection point, generally without realizing it. This point is when cameras can be made as small as a grain of dust and connected to a cloud for data and power (these books were visionary because they were written at a time when such things were beyond our imagination). At this critical point, governments can and do release clouds of this dus
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Especially in the US various things have been made crimes that really shouldn't be. Laws that lack the "mens rea" requirement ("strict liability"), and/or that no longer say "don't do this" (thou shalt not murder) but that say "do these things my way" (forgetting to fill in form xyz58178 is a crime), for example. And of course there are so many now that the law is unknowable. Indeed, if federal agencies set up for the purpose cannot know all laws, then lay citizens certainly cannot. But ignorance of the law
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Were you thinking of Fire Upon the Deep and especially A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge?
The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand did not include ubiquitous surveillance among their themes or plots.
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Oh shit, I think you might be right!!! Sorry
Read the lease really carefully before signing (Score:2)
Re:Read the lease really carefully before signing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Read the lease really carefully before signing (Score:1)
Some might suggest in a capitalist system, that's how it should be.
Don't like it? I'd say then that you should scrape together the capital required to buy/build such a building, and then allow literally anyone to live there with no standards at all. Get back to me on how that's working for you in 6-8 years.
Because I'm pretty certain you aren't in that position already, and are just talking from the cheap seats.
The Transparent Society (Score:3)
I know! I know! (Score:5, Insightful)
"What Happens When Landlords Can Get Cheap Surveillance Software?"
I'll take "maybe lower income apartment buildings won't be such dangerous shitholes, and decent families that are struggling financially can raise their children in peace?" for 100, Alex.
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You're a charming person.
Entirely unsurprised you're posting as an anonymous coward. Easy to be brave from your hiding place, tough guy.
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Hm. These days you should be able to locate the audio source. Maybe build a directed EMP gun and disable the source? ;-)
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Foil hat didn't work?
On the off chance you are serious, a camera with audio discretely placed should easily prove your point. Though if you haven't done anything substantial in ten years, you must be OK with it on some level. Get help; take that any way in which you need.
landlords should be (Score:1)
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Sounds great (Score:1)
Get personal responsibility back into society.
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Fuck Mayor Koch? Really? He hasn't been Mayor since 1989 and he's been dead since 2013. So he was probably mayor before you were even born. Wow, talk about a blast from the past. Mayor 30 years ago. He was a great mayor. Cleaned up crap.
Now Fuck Mayor de Blasio is a whole lot more appropriate. He's the mayor right now.