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Amazon's Orwellian Surveillance Hellscape

Amazon is providing police departments with warrantless access to thousands of Ring doorbell cameras giving cops unpredecented, persistent surveillance capabilities of private homes and neighborhoods. This is yet another dangerous partnership between the empire of the megacorporations[1] and the state.

Police don't even need probable cause to request the Ring camera footage. If the "owner" of the camera refuses to share footage with the police, the real owner (Amazon) can provide the footage anyway. There are no safeguards and there's no accountability in place to protect the footage. This persistent dragnet neighborhood video surveillance is incompatible with democracy and must be stopped. Sign the petition at www.cancelring.com[2] and tell your local officials to cancel these partnerships that violate our basic civil liberties.

This petition focuses on ending Amazon+Police partnerships, but that doesn't go far enough. Amazon Ring cameras should not be allowed to exist. Ring doorbell cameras are an instrument of Big Brother whether or not there is a formal partnership between local police departments and Amazon. If someone you know uses one of these cameras, show them the petition and ask them to remove the camera from their home. Good neighbors don't set up persistent, warrantless Big Brother surveillance of their neighborhood.

Link(s):

1: https://stallman.org/amazon.html

2: https://www.cancelring.com/

Unless otherwise noted, the writing in this journal is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.