LF: Businesses forced to pay the police to let them spy on customers

Title: Businesses forced to pay the police to let them spy on customers
Source: FromThe Trenches/Gateway Pundit
URL Source: http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.c ... olice-let-spy-customers/216541
Published: Jan 18, 2018
Author: MassPrivateI
Post Date: 2018-01-18 11:27:46 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 533
Comments: 12

Last year police in Detroit, Michigan asked businesses to install real-time surveillance cameras that are connected to police departments.

According to an article in Crain’s Detroit, Mayor Mike Duggan wants to force businesses to install police surveillance cameras.

The police department calls their new spy on everyone program “Project Green Light Detroit” (PGLD).

“As part of PGLD, the Detroit Police Department (DPD) and the City have committed to devote staff to effectively receive, monitor, and analyze video feeds from PGLD Partners. DPD and the City have also made a longer-term commitment to develop a permanent state-of-the-art Real-Time Crime Center to be housed at Detroit Public Safety Headquarters. Additional work is also being done with PGLD Partners to strengthen the localties between participating stations, DPD Precinct Captains, DPD Neighborhood Police Officers, and surrounding community leaders and organizations.”

Law enforcement asking businesses to install real-time surveillance cameras is bad enough.

But as you will see, things are about to get a whole lot worse.

Businesses forced to pay the police monthly

According to the Crain’s Detroit article, businesses will be forced to pay the police monthly for the privilege of letting them spy on customers.

“Businesses in the Green Light project get extra patrols from Detroit Police Department officers who stop in to sign a log book, documenting the visit. Startup costs for getting the surveillance cameras installed ranges between $1,000 and $6,000, with monthly costs for cloud storage of the video starting at around $140”.

PGLD hopes to expand to residential buildings

What is happening in places like Detroit and elsewhere should raise red-flags in the mass media but as you can see from the video they are embracing it.

Police are also using Blue Line Technology facial recognition cameras, Virtual Block Watch cameras and four camera surveillance PODS to spy on everyone.

How long before law enforcement uses ELUCD facial recognition cameras to spy on fast food customers?

Forcing businesses to act as state actors will have far-reaching implications for everyone.

It will turn the Bill of Rights into a fairy-tale.

https://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2018/01/businesses-forced-to-pay-police-to-let.html

Oh, the author did mention in the article that Detroit has the highest murder and violent crime rate of any major city in the country, according to the FBI. The FBI has released numbers show violent crime in Detroit has spiked more than 15 percent in 2016. The numbers show 13,700 violent crimes which include murder, rape, assault, and robbery. The author didn’t mention that? Hmmm ...

What the author did say is that he is deciding what is not good for business owners in Detroit when he should be allowing the business owners to be the ones that decide if this is “wrong.” Some lone individual wishing the world to know him as “MassPrivateI” should not be deciding what is good and bad in Detroit when I will give odds that he doesn’t even live there

The author did not say that most of these businesses want to protect their property and around 75 percent of businesses impacted by the requirements are already in compliance. The author didn’t mention this? Hmmm ...

The author did mention that the idea for the cameras in all the specified stores came about after the murders of two late night party store owners were solved with the help of surveillance video. The author didn’t mention this? Hmmm ...

The author did mention that the expansion of the program is crucial because it has led to a 50% reduction in violent crime at stores, gas stations and other businesses that have installed them. The author didn’t mention that? Hmmm ...

I could go on and on, but I have done enough damage to this article to destroy its creditability so I will stop here.

Not every late-night business does need such services. For instance, gas stations with cashiers seated behind bulletproof glass booths. Why should they pay?

If any businesses challenge this law in court, it will be struck down. And it should be.

Let the market sort it out. If stores want to make other arrangements or are willing to chance a few robberies over time, that is their call. Not the police's.

If Detroit is truly determined to do something like this, they should buy and install the cameras themselves for free, by raising a sales tax or business tax to pay for it.

I looked at their website. I don't see anything where businesses are forced to participate. The article tries hard to create that impression though.

I hate to do this...but I will because I don’t want to take time to go look it up. I vaguely remember that the “proposal” is to make it mandatory for late night businesses only.

But as I stated earlier, 75 percent of those business are already using it....the use of good common sense and good business sense will say it’s a high personal responsibility and a good asset.

Actually, I sounded a bit like Milton Friedman or Murray Rothbard. So, yeah, pretty libertarian.

As opposed to being a statist or a fascist or a redistributionist or a socialist, for instance. We all have to be something.

You have a problem with liberty-oriented policy where businesses who want more services get to participate in a program like this and the businesses who don't want it or need it don't have to pay for it?

It surprises me a little that these businesses aren't already running their own 1080p systems. Or even 4k systems. They don't cost that much. Even here in Hooterville, with virtually no crime at all, we have full camera coverage on convenience stores. I asked the clerks once at a local convenience store and they said that they had had a few people pull in to pump gas at the outer less-lit pumps and then make a run for it. But they did more cameras and lights and the cops put an end to that problem. Armed robbery is so rare that, well, I just don't know how many years it has been since there has been an armed robbery in a store. Even a significant burglary of a business happens only every few years. Of course, small towns are just different than even minor metro areas like Detroit. And people here are pretty habitually law-abiding. It's a character defect.

They started last January with a pilot program of 8 after-midnight businesses. Sounds like convenience stores to me. They had a lot of robberies so the police wanted to take the biggest bite outta crime as they could for the money spent on the pilot program. They've expanded it since to more businesses, not sure how many they're up to now.

Check the website link I posted. I don't think any business has been forced to do anything so far.

You can think of it another way. Say a business is still limping along with poorly lit areas and they need to upgrade from an old existing 480p camera system (with tapes on premises). Given how they seem to be financing these systems, it might be cheaper for them to do the streaming 1080p cameras, put up the little signs and the green light over their doors than if they tried to do an upgrade to their own systems. For police it does provide info about an ongoing robbery because they can see how many robbers, how many used a gun, what direction they left in and what vehicle they might be driving. Just getting make/model/color on the getaway car is very valuable info if a robbery occurs and police want to catch them in the first 10 minutes after the robbery. Getting info on how many robbers and what they are known to be armed with is valuable for officer safety.

I can see how they could sell this service fairly easily to a lot of businesses.

You just got yourself caught in “quicksand.” [I have actually been caught in quicksand a couple of times and I do know the feeling. BTW – A Land Rover Defender 90 actually floated in quicksand].

It's simple. If you're going to impose it, you resort to legitimate taxation as a standard business tax and your pols and mayor have to withstand the voters' disapproval (or approval). Then it becomes a required civic service.

Cities do impose all kinds of safety and code requirements. I assume that would be their justification for any coercion. Along the lines of "If we can force them to install fire alarms and fire extinguishers then why can't we force them to run security video cameras tied to our grid and charge them for the service".

And that is where trying to coerce them legally into doing this is likely to fall apart in court if some business(es) are inclined to fight them in court.

There are code (law and ordinance) requirements in some cities that fire alarm systems be installed, then centrally monitored by outside sources as well as having them tested and maintained by outside sources.... all at no cost to the jurisdiction. These codes require central monitoring stations to be listed. And the fire codes require some fire alarm systems to be monitored by an approved supervising station in accordance with NFPA 72. Codes often require these systems to also be monitored by a UL Listed facility. There is a list of stringent requirements that requires payment by business owners which I will not cover here.

You have said that you feel a court case would nullify the requirement for businesses to pay for the installation and outside monitoring of an theft prevention system while still let stand the requirement, which has stood for years, for businesses to pay for installation and outside monitoring of a fire prevention system. I don’t see that you have a valid point in your speculation that shows court protection against the requirement have business install and pay for the maintenance of theft prevention cameras. Time will tell ...

The police department calls their new spy on everyone program “Project Green Light Detroit” (PGLD).

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.