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Privacy United States

US Cities Are Helping People Buy Amazon Surveillance Cameras Using Taxpayer Money (vice.com) 87

popcornfan679 writes: The Ring doorbell surveillance camera sits squarely in the center of a Tiffany-blue online flyer, which provides details about a "Security Product Subsidy Event" in Arcadia, California. "Big Sale," the advertisement says, in citrus-colored script. "$100 off." "HELP STOP CRIME BEFORE IT HAPPENS," the ad continues. This isn't an ad from Best Buy or an electronics store. It's an ad from the Arcadia city government. The local city government is selling discounted surveillance cameras directly to its residents, and the "discount" is subsidized by the city. In other words, taxpayer money is being paid to Ring, Amazon's home surveillance company, in exchange for hundreds of surveillance cameras.

Cities and towns around the country are paying Ring up to $100,000 to subsidize the purchase of the company's surveillance cameras for private residents. For every dollar committed by a city per these agreements, Ring will match it. This motivates cities to pledge tens of thousands of dollars to a tech giant that is building a private, nationwide surveillance network -- which Amazon is using, in part, to secure the packages it delivers. A typical discount program will last several weeks, or until a certain number of residents take advantage of the program. Motherboard has identified 14 American cities that have these discount programs as well as one city in the United Kingdom. However, there are probably more cities that have offered similar discount programs. Motherboard has reported that Ring courts local governments and police departments around the country to advertise, distribute, and use its products.

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US Cities Are Helping People Buy Amazon Surveillance Cameras Using Taxpayer Money

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02, 2019 @04:28PM (#59031246)

    I think we can all see what Ring really is. A surveillance network, and you're paying for it.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02, 2019 @04:39PM (#59031306)

      If the NSA uses it, its non admissible in court. But if a private company like Amazon has it in their cloud? Well they could be compelled to relinquish it through a warrant. That's why the government allows these mega corps to do such things.

      • If the NSA uses it, its non admissible in court.

        Parallel Construction [wikipedia.org]

      • by Agripa ( 139780 )

        If the NSA uses it, its non admissible in court. But if a private company like Amazon has it in their cloud? Well they could be compelled to relinquish it through a warrant. That's why the government allows these mega corps to do such things.

        That went out the window when the NSA started tipping off the DEA and other law enforcement agencies and parallel construction was used to prevent court challenges.

    • I think we can all see what Ring really is. A surveillance network, and you're paying for it.

      I thought that Mexico was going to pay for it?

    • One Ring to rule them all,
      One Ring to find them,
      One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
      --
      Okay, so not such a stretch. Carry on sir,=.

  • Slashdot doesn't like Ring... do we have to have a Ring attack every day? Is there significant new information in each of these posts?

    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
      Anybody who is not OK with being recorded without approval by a private company should be "not OK" with this.
      • With respect, well before Ring it was totally legal to put a camera on your own private property[1] and stream it live on the billboard at Times Square while simultaneously storing it in the cloud service of your choice.

        To the extent that idiots that get Ring don't understand that, well, idiots gonna idiot. But to the extent that you are "not OK" with what others do with their private property, your opinion is noted but not really relevant. And god help you if you try to tell people what to do or film in th

        • Re:Okay, we get it (Score:5, Interesting)

          by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday August 03, 2019 @08:18AM (#59033874) Journal

          This is a common attitude and also misplaced. Like the right to privacy in a "public space". While techincally a PI could have followed you at some point in the past and documented your every movement the risk was small because to do so on anything approaching any sort of scale would have been phenomenally expensive.

          So, people don't have an expectation of privacy in a public space because anyone could see you and you can't stop that but the problems are small.

          Trouble is now massive major corporations can now do this automatically and on a massive scale. It's legal because it's never been made illegal. But dismissing it as "nothing new" because someone could have followed you before doesn't cut it. It is new because the means to do so didn't exist before. Laws are reactive not proactive. They necessarily lag and respond to new things and new problems. The fact that the response hasn't come yet doesn't mean the problem is new.

          I think we will quite soon see a right in public spaces to not have your moves documented and stored in perpetuity by a private corporation.

          And god help you if you try to tell people what to do or film in their own house.

          We already do, if what you do in your own house leaks out. If you sit in your own house filming, but through a telescope pointed at your neighbours bedroom you might find yourself disabused of the notion that you can do or film whatever you like in you own house. If your doorbell cam is filming people on the street outside and having their movements cataloged in perpetuity by a megacorp then yes there is a problem.

          GDPR is the beginning, these things will get stricter over time.

          • The time is coming for the panopticon (it's probably here already in the basements of the billion dollar NSA buildings). A single database with intuitive HMI -- punch in someone's name and it will tell you where they are. Out on the streets? Driving, in what car, and where on the highway? In what building? Perhaps even estimate the room?

            Naw, that's not an oppressive dictatorship's wet dream. It's just metadata. Nevermind the Tyrant King George III would have used it to shut down the revolution, and, h

          • If you sit in your own house filming, but through a telescope pointed at your neighbours bedroom you might find yourself disabused of the notion that you can do or film whatever you like in you own house

            That's correct, and indeed "sensitive places" (such as a bedroom) are privileges.

            But beyond that, you will quickly find that both the First Amendment protects the right to film non-sensitive locations provided that the photographer is in a place they are legally entitled to be (e.g. not trespassing). Attempt

            • But beyond that, you will quickly find that both the First Amendment protects the right to film non-sensitive locations provided that the photographer

              When someone points out that the law hasn't caught up with reality it's a bit of a stretch to simply argue the law. But since we're on the topic...

              The first amendment is not nearly as rigid as you think: for a start whether or not corporations are bound by it depends on the concept of corporate personhood and that's certainly not in the constitution. There's

    • "Slashdot doesn't like Ring... do we have to have a Ring attack every day? Is there significant new information in each of these posts?"

      Yes, Amazon has the cheapest price.

    • I don't see the issue with the articles on Ring being posted up here regularly, or even daily. It's not that "Slashdot doesn't like Ring", it's that people everywhere shouldn't like Ring or any of the other similar devices out there (Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Nest, etc..) and shouldn't be buying them. Any information that educates the public to that end shouldn't be construed as a bad thing simply because it's brought up more times than some folks would like.

      The rate at which these mass surveillance d

  • How can anybody think this is a good idea? How fucking stupid are people?
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @05:58PM (#59031672)
    to use Ring if you want to buy from Amazon. Before long every apartment will have a Ring device, which the apartment managers will welcome. And if Amazon has their way (and isn't checked by gov't regulation) they'll be the only place to shop eventually ("All restaurants are Taco Bell", yeah, it's funny when it's Taco Bell, not so much when it's Amazon and it might really happen).

    Now would be the time to start voting for the kinds of politicians who enforce anti-Trust laws. For anyone keeping score at home that's your Bernie Sanders, your Liz Warrens and your AOCs.
  • Kode Alam [blogspot.com] merupakan situs prediksi togel online berdasarkan buku mimpi terpercaya dengan result nomor jitu 4angka.
  • put up with all the false notifications, having to make sure you don't go past your data cap for the cloud service, and pay a monthly subscription fee so the authorities can get free access just about any time they want!!! does that sound like a good deal?

  • And don't forget, once purchased and delivered, the installed and ongoing connectivity is free! (To the city, anyway)
  • ...finally arriving & not a moment too soon. It doesn't matter whether we have to pay for them partly directly, from our salaries, & partly indirectly, from out taxes. The important thing is that we need everyone in the Inner & Outer Parties to have one (the proles* are, of course, inconsequential) & it's long overdue.

    It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of privacy.

  • Can you fit in one month? Same as the Facebook or OMG Siri / Echo has humans listening to us for QA! (Jesus like we didn't theorize that already). SJW has now turned into CJW - Corporate Justice Warriors. Anything sold or even in Google's case given away freely (EU antitrust fines) has got to be scrutinized until everyone hates it enough that government money sucking fines will be agreed with. Even if they broke no existing laws. All retroactive taxes basically. Nut cases are running this world fining peopl
    • SJW has now turned into CJW - Corporate Justice Warriors.

      You have to be a special kind of fuckwit to think that corporate justice is a bad thing.

  • It's easy for "privacy advocates" to complain about "potential" misuse from their ivory computer towers.

    Real people just want to be able to get packages and crap with a slightly higher level of security...and if the cops want to look at it to see who was breaking into the Smith's house across the street, more power to them.

    If pervasive security cameras mean that crew of people scoping out cars in several local communities to break into over the past 3 months decide to take their general mayhem elsewhere, ev

  • So would that be lime, lemon, or orange?

"I shall expect a chemical cure for psychopathic behavior by 10 A.M. tomorrow, or I'll have your guts for spaghetti." -- a comic panel by Cotham

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