San Francisco Mayor Wants PD To Be Able To Commandeer Cameras Owned By Residents Because Reasons

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the yeah-that's-what-we-need:-more-authoritarianism dept

Ring has been bedding down as many law enforcement partners as possible, turning cops into brand evangelists with the implicit (and sometimes, explicit) promise they’ll have access to private citizens’ recordings. Ring likes this because it increases its market share. Cops like it because it gives them more camera coverage in the areas they patrol, at least theoretically.

Ring may allow cops to obtain footage without warrants or notification of affected users, but no city has expressly converted private citizens’ cameras into public utilities accessible with warrants or permission. Until now.

Having dumped its “progressive” District Attorney, Chesa Boudin, the city of San Francisco has decided it’s going to be far more Dirty Harry in the future. The alleged justification is (perhaps temporary and anomalous) increases in crime. It’s time to run roughshod over constitutional rights again, as Robyn Pennacchia reports for Wonkette. (h/t Michael Vario)

When people buy those Ring doorbell cameras, they do so to protect their own safety, so that they do not accidentally welcome an axe murderer into their home. It seems safe to say that they do not buy them so that the police can hijack them for the purposes of surveilling their community. But that is a thing that may be happening in San Francisco soon, now that progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin has been replaced, by the mayor who wanted him recalled, with District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, a tough on crime prosecutor who quit her job in the DA’s office in order to lead the effort to recall Boudin as a “liberal.”

Progressive law enforcement is no longer on top. As Mayor London Breed states in her own Medium post, the future of the city will apparently include the remote seizure of private property by city law enforcement.

We also need to make sure our police officers have the proper tools to protect public safety responsibly. The police right now are barred from accessing or monitoring live video unless there are “exigent circumstances”, which are defined as events that involve an imminent danger of serious physical injury or death. If this high standard is not met, the Police can’t use live video feed, leaving our neighborhoods and retailers vulnerable.

That’s the supposed “problem” the mayor believes needs to be addressed. Here are the means, which will apparently be justified by the ends.

These are the reasons why I authored this legislation. It will authorize police to use non-City cameras and camera networks to temporarily live monitor activity during significant events with public safety concerns, investigations relating to active misdemeanor and felony violations, and investigations into officer misconduct. 

So, basically for any reason. If the legislation manages to become law, there’s almost no chance it will survive a constitutional challenge. Limiting it to “significant events with public safety concerns” might have a chance (but still not much of one) but expanding it to include incidents that relate to every criminal law on the books means this law will be dead on arrival if its passes intact. Pretending cops will use the commandeered network of private cameras to “investigate officer misconduct” is a nice thing to say but seems like the least likely use of this city-approved intrusion.

If the mayor and the PD want more camera coverage, they can buy some cameras, hang them up, and turn them on. If San Francisco wants to become China-town, it can do it the old-fashioned way. What it definitely shouldn’t do is what the mayor is planning on doing: eminent domain but for privately owned cameras.

Filed Under: police, san francisco, sfpd, surveillance, video doorbells