San Francisco Legislators Approve Bill Giving Cops Live, On Demand Access To Private Security Cameras

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the what's-yours-is-ours dept

If you don’t like people making “People’s Republic of California” jokes, maybe don’t do stuff like this:

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the legislative body for the city, voted 7-4 to test Mayor London Breed’s surveillance camera proposal, which will take effect in 30 days and sunset in 15 months.

Under the policy, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) can access cameras owned by city residents and businesses who give police the OK to monitor them, potentially opening up thousands of private surveillance cameras to officers.

This proposal first surfaced late in July. It was correctly, and incisively dismissed as a bunch of authoritarian horseshit by intrepid Techdirt contributor [checks byline] Tim Cushing shortly thereafter.

Whoever this “Tim Cushing” is, he definitely has his finger on the pulse of… um… horseshit. Whoever’s voting on regional Pulitzer prizes is asleep at the wheel.

Anyway, the pitch was this: some city officials, led by Mayor London Breed, decided the best way to protect the city from temporary statistical anomalies (read: crime rate bumps in a few key areas) was to give cops on-demand access to cameras operated by San Francisco residents.

The ends will justify the means, said none other than Mayor London Breed in her [checks URL] Medium post:

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.

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. 

And that is what the city legislature has now approved: cops tapping into private cameras in real time for a plethora of reasons, very few of which justify this sort of heightened third-person scrutiny. Sure, there’s the always-popular “public safety” excuse for government incursion, which can sometimes get courts to ignore constitutional violations.

But it’s followed up with even worse excuses. “Significant events” means cops will decide what is or isn’t “significant.” And it won’t be limited to investigating and prosecuting serious crimes. As Mayor Breed freely notes, on-demand access to cameras owned and operated by residents will be used to curb the most frightening of urban menaces: misdemeanants.

Forget it Jakes of all makes and models in the San Francisco areas, it’s New Chinatown.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization that defends civil liberties in the digital space, called the new policy a “troubling ordinance” that could have a chilling effect on First Amendment and other rights.

“Make no mistake, misdemeanors like vandalism or jaywalking happen on nearly every street of San Francisco on any given day — meaning that this ordinance essentially gives the SFPD the ability to put the entire city under live surveillance indefinitely,” the organization wrote in a press release.

Yikes. But also apparently of no concern to the officials voting to make this law. The San Francisco PD supports it, of course, claiming it’s a force multiplier when it comes to investigating crimes. And the mayor has already made it clear Orwellian surveillance is preferable to whatever’s happening to crime rates under her watch.

The obvious point is this: if the SFPD demanded the erection of cameras everywhere people might be, people would revolt. The co-opting of private cameras, while obviously controversial, allows the SFPD to do the Orwellian thing, but without appearing to be the bad guy. Instead, the buck is held by the city council, which has decided people can’t control the things they own. All of it belongs to the government, which will use this unprecedented access to… well, who knows at this point? But the access is there. All that remains is to see how frequently it’s abused.

Filed Under: doorbell cameras, london breed, police, san francisco, sfpd, surveillance
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