Police Used Streetlamps To Spy On The Public More Than 140 Times

By MassPrivateI

Gone are the days when cities used streetlamps to simply illuminate sidewalks and streets. Today’s streetlamps are being used to form an inter-connected web of surveillance devices.

A recent San Diego Union-Tribune article revealed how San Diego police officers have used streetlamp video surveillance in at least 140 cases and sometimes as frequently as 20 times a month.

Let that sink in for a moment; spying streetlamps are real and police have already requested video footage from more than 140 streetlamps.

Lt. Jeffery Jordon called spying streetlamps “game changing” and that is exactly how they should be viewed. Streetlamps that are designed to spy on the public, really is a game changer.

San Diego’s streetlamps are also equipped with ShotSpotter microphones that police claim are not being used to listen to public conversations.

Should we believe them?

Could police use ShotSpotter to listen to public conversations? Nearly a decade ago, the East Bay Times revealed how the Oakland Police used ShotSpotter to record public conversations.

It was only three years ago when the NJ Transit secretly used DriveCam’s LTYX camerasequipped with microphones to listen to public conversations.

So just what is law enforcement using these streetlamps for?

No one knows for sure; but a spokesperson for San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said that a citywide policy to regulate the use of the microphones and cameras in streetlamps is “under development.”

The San Diego Union-Tribune claims that 100 police officers have direct access to streetlamp surveillance and said that nearly every one of the department’s 1,800 police officers can request access.

Just how concerned is the City Council that law enforcement is using streetlamps as surveillance devices?

Apparently not very much, as City Councilwoman Monica Montgomery admitted, by saying that she’s “open to exploring” oversight of the program.

In what dystopian nightmare are we living in, where listening and watching everything we do in public is “under development” or “open to oversight”?

Over the past few years, I have written numerous stories about smart streetlamp/streetlight surveillance.

Police are also using streetlamps equipped with things like Smart Nodes and secret facial recognition cameras to identify Bluetooth devices and people. More recently, I warned everyone that law enforcement is using GE’s CityIQ street lights and Intellistreets to identify people. (Click here to learn more about SKYEYE streetlamps.)

But this story is far more disturbing than those because as the San Diego Union-Tribune points out, politicians and police think nothing of using streetlamps to track people in real-time.

Streetlamp cameras allowed Detective Carlos Muñoz to track the attacker to a 7-11, where in-store cameras and a credit card purchase helped identify him.

How could police track an alleged attacker to a 7-11 unless they have real-time access to streetlamp videos?

Instead of sending off warning bells in City Hall, the city council plans on adding more spying streetlamps. And that should disturb everyone.

The city currently has rolled out about 3,200 streetlamp cameras and expects to have about 4,200 by next summer. General Electric and government officials have promoted the system as the “world’s largest smart city platform.”

Turning San Diego into the “world’s largest smart city platform” takes on a whole new meaning when you realize that the city has at least 40,000 streetlamps.

Can you imagine an entire city covered with 40,000 spying streetlamps? Can you imagine America being blanketed with more than 26 million spying streetlamps?

The prospect of having that many surveillance devices in one city is unnerving to say the least. But the prospect of having 26 million spying streetlamps operating across the country is terrifying.

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Pentagon launching ‘solar spy balloons’ over midwest, documents reveal

The United States military intends to test a number of surveillance balloons over six states. The future deployment of these high-altitude surveillance balloons was revealed in a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) document filing.

The balloons will not be piloted and will run on solar power. South Dakota will serve as the official launch spots for the balloons, with navigational radiuses of 250 miles. If you live in Wisconsin, Iowa, or even Missouri, you could be under experimental surveillance in the near future. The balloons will reach altitudes of over 60,000 feet, far beyond any human eye detectable ranges. The balloons will be used to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotics trafficking and homeland security threats.”

The balloons will be equipped with cutting edge technologies, such as powerful radars that can track cars and trucks. Weather won’t discourage the success of the spy balloons missions, either, as they are equipped to endure most types of weather activities.

Of course, it is difficult to ignore the full potential of such high-altitude spy devices. In an article found in The Guardian, Arthur Holland Michel, the co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York, said, “What this new technology proposes is to watch everything at once. Sometimes it’s referred to as ‘combat TiVo’ because when an event happens somewhere in the surveilled area, you can potentially rewind the tape to see exactly what occurred, and rewind even further to see who was involved and where they came from.”

The “everything at once” line should feel a bit unsettling, at least if you are concerned with big government spying. Such technology means common Americans have little place to hide from surveillance. It’s one thing to turn off Alexa or your iPhone, it is far another to hide in a bunker for the rest of your life. Of course, nothing in the description of these surveillance balloons implies that the technology will be used to spy on us. But that’s never disclosed in any technology. The spying events are usually “accidents” or the work of “rogue employees.” Both Google and Amazon claimed they never intended to spy on us using high-tech personal assistants such as Alexa, but they did.

The US Southern Command (Southcom) commissioned the release of these spy balloons. Southcom is responsible for defense agendas in Central and South America. Mainly, they aim to cut off large shipments of drugs.

The ACLU is firing back, however, saying that American citizens have a right to privacy.

“We do not think that American cities should be subject to wide-area surveillance in which every vehicle could be tracked wherever they go,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Even in tests, they’re still collecting a lot of data on Americans: who’s driving to the union house, the church, the mosque, the Alzheimer’s clinic,” he said. “We should not go down the road of allowing this to be used in the United States and it’s disturbing to hear that these tests are being carried out, by the military no less.”

Sierra Nevada, the technology company tasked with supplying Southcom with spy technology, previously distributed planes for use in Central and South American operations. But planes are expensive in terms of fuel usage and flight crews. Solar spy balloons save tremendous money and ultimately, would be less detectable making them more effective.

In other words, US government surveillance just got super cheap and easy. The balloons can stay in the air for months at a time. Some believe these balloons may be able to provide improved cell phone and Internet services. Could the 5G health risk activists have yet another concern?

Google earth picture of South Dakota surveillance balloon launch station.

The bitter truth remains, we can’t trust our government with spying technology. Yes, it’s always been among us, but new technology is bolstering its potential to unfathomable heights (pun intended). Our devices consistently track us, now the government can literally follow us as we drive to the store from 60,000 feet away. It will all be accomplished under the guise of more “safety and security.”

As a group, we are trading our civil liberties for perceived improved security. If history tells us anything, we aren’t likely to win that battle.

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