San Francisco Passes Controversial Surveillance Plan (sfgate.com) 46
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGate: In a 7-4 vote on Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed to test Mayor London Breed's controversial plan to overhaul the city's surveillance practices, which will allow police to access private security cameras in real time. Supervisors Catherine Stefani, Aaron Peskin, Gordon Mar, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman and Ahsha Safai voted to approve the trial run, while Connie Chan, Dean Preston, Hillary Ronen and Shamann Walton voted in dissent.
Under the new policy, police can access up to 24 hours of live video of outdoor footage from private surveillance cameras owned by individuals or businesses without a warrant as long as the camera's owner allows it. Police must meet one of three outlined criteria to use their newfound power: they must be responding to a life-threatening emergency, deciding how to deploy officers in response to a large public event or conducting a criminal investigation that was approved in writing by a captain or higher-ranking police official. The trial will last 15 months. If supervisors wish to extend or revise the policy, they must take a second vote. "I know the thought process is, 'Just trust us, just trust the police department.' But the reality is people have been violating civil liberties since my ancestors were brought here from an entirely, completely different continent," Walton, the board president and District 10 representative, said.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins added: "I believe this policy can help address the existence of open-air drug markets fueling the sale of the deadly drug fentanyl. Drug dealers are destroying people's lives and wreaking havoc on neighborhoods like the Tenderloin. Mass organized retail theft, like we saw in Union Square last year, or targeted neighborhood efforts like we've seen in Chinatown is another area where the proposed policy can help."
Under the new policy, police can access up to 24 hours of live video of outdoor footage from private surveillance cameras owned by individuals or businesses without a warrant as long as the camera's owner allows it. Police must meet one of three outlined criteria to use their newfound power: they must be responding to a life-threatening emergency, deciding how to deploy officers in response to a large public event or conducting a criminal investigation that was approved in writing by a captain or higher-ranking police official. The trial will last 15 months. If supervisors wish to extend or revise the policy, they must take a second vote. "I know the thought process is, 'Just trust us, just trust the police department.' But the reality is people have been violating civil liberties since my ancestors were brought here from an entirely, completely different continent," Walton, the board president and District 10 representative, said.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins added: "I believe this policy can help address the existence of open-air drug markets fueling the sale of the deadly drug fentanyl. Drug dealers are destroying people's lives and wreaking havoc on neighborhoods like the Tenderloin. Mass organized retail theft, like we saw in Union Square last year, or targeted neighborhood efforts like we've seen in Chinatown is another area where the proposed policy can help."
Re: Good (Score:5, Interesting)
That seems odd to me that the police can't use surveillance video when offered to them by the camera owner. A while back somebody shot at my neighbor's house and I caught it on video. Nobody was hurt, but she was robbed. The police asked if I could look at my cameras, gave me a time period for me to look, then basically just walked off. I had really good footage of the whole thing, which I later gave to them.
They make it sound like the police wouldn't be allowed to accept any such footage in San Francisco until now. That's fucking insane.
On a long enough timeline... (Score:2)
... there will be law enforcement cameras in, around, and up your ass.
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What good does it do to help police. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: What good does it do to help police. (Score:4)
Progressive DAs are being recalled all over the nation. The political winds have shifted and the next couple decades are going to look like a hardcore version of the Reagan years. Fortunately.
Dredd! Dredd! Dredd!.....
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Ever increasing support, and funding, and militarization of the police over the past 40 years has done essentially nothing to help solve crimes [manhattan-institute.org] --- so your belief that progressive policies are to blame is belied by those loathsome leftists at . . . the Manhattan Institute. Regardless, the progressive DA was recalled in SF and this policy was requested by the new one (per the article).
While I like the idea of the police having consensual access to real-time information, a survey of Nextdoor suggests that
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Unless you captured the person yourself and have some evidence other than your own word, the cops are not going to do anything. I've given the cops clear video with audio of felony crimes several times and the cops did nothing but fill out a report. The cops in my city use an Axon system to store, search, and create evidence from uploaded videos, it does not help.
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Your use name pretty much sums up my last year.
Unless you captured the person yourself and have some evidence other than your own word, the cops are not going to do anything.
In cases with "progressive" DA this will only get you charged with a crime. Like those two in Missouri, the McCloskeys'. They confronted a violent mob that was trespassing, damaging their property, and threatening their lives. Under Missouri, Federal, and virtually every common law, in every society since the stone age the McCloskeys' had ever right to arm themselves and be prepared to defend their lives and property. Instead, they are the ones charged wi
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Ever increasing support, and funding, and militarization of the police over the past 40 years has done essentially nothing to help solve crimes [manhattan-institute.org] -
Clanton Alabama, the police department has a fucking tank. Clanton Alabama does not need a fucking tank. Andy and Barney do not need damn military anything.
Technically, its not a tank. I guess it would be called a urban assault vehicle. Armor plated, big wheels, and a battering ram on the front. Looked like a tank when I first saw. But whatever it is, they do not need it.
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It's called copy-catting. They're mostly school kids just on an adrenalin high and fuelled by social media.
Proverbial ambulance at the bottom of the cliff (Score:2)
Policing budget is a measure of failures elsewhere.
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When the progressive DA's and Judges put the criminals back on the street before the officer finishes writing the report. Support and fund the police all you want but nothing will get better.
Because there is no crime in lock them up for life, conservative districts.
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Because there is no crime in lock them up for life, conservative districts.
In some cases there are crimes that need to lock them up for life. In most cases we don't want them locked up for life anyway. What we want is them held accountable for their crime and treated in accordance. If someone commits a violent crime, especially if there is a weapon involved, you don't check them through the system and release them. You lock them up till they ether post bail or a judge hears the case.
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Bail amounts should be dependent on the criminal record involved, and the crimes on it. The longer your criminal record the more likely that you will re-offend after you posted bail.
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"The progressive DA's and Judges", ha! You're a hoot. Also a Trumpublican, aren't you?
How will this loss of privacy help? (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally would rather police not have such easy access to all this video, but I see the inevitability of it, and figure we just have to learn to live with it (read David Brin's book "Earth" as to how).
However I find that aspect kind of irrelevant compared to the real question - how will this help?
The police all know the drug markets are there, what will the video show them they don't know already?
If they arrest anyone, those people will just be out and back on the street in hours, after having had a nice free shower and meal, much better than they are used to living on the streets.
If there's almost no real consequence to crime in SF then how does more monitoring do anything?
I guess maybe the police department of SF could at least make extra money editing juicy video together for TikTok.
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Eventually even woke cities like SF and Portland are changing. It only takes one election cycle.
No it doesn't. Trust me.
See, the difference between us and the Red States is that we're not paranoid about immigration. We welcome immigrants. I am one, myself. And a lot of the other people who live here have the money to travel abroad. We don't take the attitude that the United States is the greatest country on Earth simply because we, ourselves, were born here. We all know that other countries have the same problems that we do and we know how hard those problems are to solve. We don't rely on slogans and
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Sadly, Tiktok is the "why" here. Copy-catting videos are all the rage because of social media.
I'd vote to have all social media banned, to be honest. Even including Telegram to You-tube.
Re: How will this loss of privacy help? (Score:1)
self-refuting logic (Score:2)
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I don't see a problem (Score:1)
"as long as the camera's owner allows it"
If that is written into the law then where is the problem? In a case where you don't allow it and they have reason to believe you are in control of evidence then it just reverts to what exists now.
What I don't see at all is why this is even necessary. What current legal framework is it that prevents a police officer knocking on your door and asking right now? Why would you say no?
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Placebo effect (Score:2)
"Look guys! We're fixing crime but destroying your civil rights. Once we trash a few more of your civil rights and step all over the constitution, you'll no longer care about those petty first and second amendments, right?"
San Francisco's leaders can't make up their minds (Score:4, Interesting)
First, they banned government use of facial recognition. https://www.jdsupra.com/legaln... [jdsupra.com]
Now they are giving the government access to private security cameras.
I'm confused!
Use it with owner permission? (Score:3)
The article says that the police can access business and private video records with the permission of the camera owner. I'm confused. If the owner of the camera volunteers to give the police the video, the police should be able to use it whether they have a warrant or not. This "new policy" does not sound like anything substantive to me.
Re:Use it with owner permission? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how the police will get permission: "it would be a shame if we were too slow responding next time you call 911".
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The "camera owner" will probably end up being someone like amazon. You'll find out that you don't actually own any of the devices you thought you owned, and on page 24 of that document you clicked "I agree" on you gave amazon full rights to do whatever they wanted, including sharing all video footage in real time with the local police.
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The land of opportunity (Score:2)