Hartford – While a battle has been raging for years in Los Angeles, California over a proposal to give drones to the LAPD for use in limited circumstances such as counter-terrorism and hostage rescue, Hartford, Connecticut is apparently embracing the broadest possible scope for their new program of drones and surveillance cameras.
Unlike L.A., which saw fierce resistance mounted by civil liberties groups and activists such as the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, there seems to be no such pushback in Hartford – in fact, part of the program involves citizen cooperation.
The Hartford program is an expansion of a fusion center network that is already in place called the Real-Time Crime and Data Intelligence Center. The current matrix of more than 700 cameras will receive an influx of $2.5 million more in 2018 to boost the number of cameras, as well as expand their presence into even more private areas:
Police are also partnering with residents to put cameras outside homes, offering better visibility of smaller streets. Residents can link the footage into the city’s network.
(Police Chief) Foley said some Hartford dwellers have already contacted the department about participating. Officers will determine what the need is in each area.
One might be excused for wishing to boost surveillance in order to thwart violence in documented high-crime areas, but the new program goes far beyond identification and quick response. In fact, it is admittedly going to be used for pre-crime detection as well as social engineering to better control what they are euphemistically calling “quality-of-life issues.”
Here are the supposedly outrageous threats and concerns that are being used to justify a completely Orwellian matrix of total surveillance and control.
- New software will be used to analyze crime and traffic patterns and capture suspects.
- Police will use the technology to crack down on quality-of-life issues, such as illegal dumping, ATVs and dirt bikes, motor vehicle violations, narcotics markets, car break-ins and larcenies.
- “If a camera is watching a neighborhood and sees constant traffic going in and out of a doorway, it can tell that that’s where the drugs are being purchased.” — Hartford Deputy Police Chief Brian Foley
- “It’ll help tell us where people are crossing the streets, where the most dangerous areas for pedestrians are. There’s so much they can build into it.”
- Instead of engaging in high speed chases, police will now send drones to follow cars or ATVs.
- The drones will monitor festivals, concerts, marathons and other public events in Hartford.
- Footage from hundreds of cameras is fed into the center, and workers compile information from license-plate readers and a ShotSpotter system that tracks the sound of gunfire.
I hope I am mistaken in saying that there is not currently any resistance to the imposition of this spy network. The city claims that they still need to properly create the policy to incorporate drones into the network, so people need to speak up quickly if they care.
If any readers know of local civil liberties groups or activists doing their best to see that proper restraints are placed upon Hartford police, please leave the information in the comment section.
Source: Hartford Courant
Image Credit: The Anti-Media
Hat Tip: MassPrivateI
Nicholas West writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Steemit, and BitChute. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.
The quiet drones that are already in our appliances and phones are working over- time.. A.I. will ruin freedom and liberty with control and manipulation, cattle- we are all cattle to them tagged and ready for their harvest. Read into that.
Huh….we ARE buying the rope they are going to hang us with!
Buying it and tying the knot for them too. Now if we could just hang it around our necks all they have to do is yank on it.
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing!
The Sheeple of CT like this government “oversight”. CT already has AR gun registration which some estimated 105,000 people have ignored. Maybe these cameras can now round up some of these evading patriots. Understanding that more government = less liberty is fine with most in CT, Liberty is scary to these sheeples, someone could be “free” to hurt them!
All toilets will have toilet cams soon because it is a matter of national security that they know when and how you wipe your ass.
Really AP? This post triggered your censors? Time to tweak it down a little huh?
Observation tells me that people are morons and deserve what they are about to get. I need to leave this loony bin, and soon.
FTP
“If a camera is watching a neighborhood and sees constant traffic…”
Cameras don’t last too long in these type neighborhoods. I installed a camera outside a doorway for a convenient store right across the street from the projects. Took seven shots, but they got it.
We are running out of time to employ the Deputiz’m Plan……….
looks like they are working well sarc have you been to hartford lately?
When I was born, why didn’t anyone ask me if I wanted to live in a free society or on a sheep farm? I don’t recall choosing the latter…..
Orwellian Nightmare is an understatement. I suppose, as with anything else the police state engages on the currently super slippery slope down Totalitarian mountain, that in addition to some 80 thousand dubious, mostly unconstitutional no due process Swat Raids, their AI drones will consider young teenagers and their friends running in and out of their house all day long which is what kids simply do and initiate a no knock SWAT RAID and killing the kids because they refused to throw down their Nerf guns because they were temporarily deaf from the flashbangs…
This is out of control people. And it’s our own fault. Two years ago I wrote and published an ‘expose’ on exactly this drone and privacy thing predicting precisely what Conneticut is doing now, and I was laughed at for the most part.
But you don’t ever want to know how bad it’s going to get in the next year or so, especially if they don’t shut this down now. ‘
And almost all of this intrusive surveillance is illegal but ‘they’ get away with it because we let them!
The only way to stop it is to elect officials that will include strong 4th/A protections and against police state use of Autononmous Artificial Intelligence as Police State tools.
Join an activist group now and ask, no…DEMAND that your representatives make themselves accountable on issues like this and get your friends and relatives and neighbors educated to vote accordingly.
Otherwise, you won’t believe in your wildest horror movie imagination, just how bad it’s going to get.
We already have drones in Kentucky I see ours patrolling the sky every night, I also see hovering star drones, I guess those just pick up data, they hover about 12 yards above every few houses. They will move around too, but mostly hover.
Well, well. My fellow Californians AREN’T the craziest people in the country after all…
Yes, you are. This is just an exception to the rule. 🙂
You Americans own millions of guns! Just shoot the bloody things down! It’s as simple as that!
Sandy Hoax is now recognized as a FEMA/DHS “Live-Shooter” drill with NO dead children – no deaths of anyone. This Sandy Hoax drill was a phony inside-job False-Flag attack on the Second Amendment and planned to be used to motivate the passage of new, very intrusive and expensive Unconstitutional laws. There are millions of very smart folks all over the World taking on these Establishment stooges and liars who keep pumping out these false narratives. And that’s exactly why Connecticut is playing the heavy hand. Rich and powerful in positions of power, even that stooge Governor have involved themselves in a cover-up, which, under the RICO Act, would put them away for good. By the way, not too long ago False Flag operations committed by officials were made legal.
“If a camera is watching a neighborhood and sees constant traffic going in and out of a doorway, it can tell that that’s where the drugs are being purchased.” — Hartford Deputy Police Chief Brian Foley
of course he’e never given any thought to “Granny died last night!” or “little Johnny’s turned six, today”
presumably with everyone being atheist, there are no home cells, or other reasons to visit a pastor’s, elder’s or even just friend’s home
Giving away freedom for the illusion of security. What a bunch of idiots.