Houston Says Businesses Must Install Surveillance Cameras; Cops Can See Footage | Hacker News Reader

Houston Says Businesses Must Install Surveillance Cameras; Cops Can See Footage

reason.com

45 pointsleephillips32 comments

This is the future nationally. We have a nationwide shortage of police officers that will only get worse. Surveillance is the only way that we can mitigate this problem.

It won't even do that. I live in Houston and there is no amount of security footage that will get HPD to investigate a crime if they aren't inclined. This has been proven to me on multiple occasions.

The end result of not enforcing the law long term will be a "hollowing out". More people will leave and there will be even less money for public services.

Guess who loves the prospect of hollowing out Houston

Dallas?

A certain party that feels they need to tilt the voter base to be able to win, because they otherwise can’t win fair and square.

Is it the party that has 11 out of 16 seats on the Houston city council?

(The Houston city council is, in theory, nonpartisan but one party has a de facto ~2/3 majority)

No idea. The party I’m thinking of is also the party that is doing everything they can to make it harder to vote.

You've got it all backwards. They are making it harder to cheat. It's the other party that can't win if they play by the rules.

Oh so I assume there must be evidence of widespread cheating then?

Yes.

Produce evidence or take an L. I bet it's not the first time.

You believe, I would imagine, that a hockey stick graph of rising temperatures is evidence for anthropogenic climate change. I believe that the hockey stick graphs of votes going nearly solely for Biden at the 11th hour are evidence of spread cheating. But there's mountains of other corroborating evidence. Look it up yourself. I'm not your research librarian. And it would be a waste of time anyway. No matter what I produce, you will dismiss it.

Votes from different locations and that came in by post vs. in person get counted at different rates. This is common knowledge.

> I'm not your research librarian.

No, you're someone advocating a controversial minority view for which much legitimate time has been wasted on research already. No evidence was found.

To continue pressing this position, you need something to offer against research and numerous court cases which have previously denied this position.

Or take an L.

Maybe it's both. Maybe they're colluding to maintain their increasingly geriatric grip on power. Maybe they're working together to stoke division and partisanship to prevent meaningful change.

Red vs Blue is the dumbest form of politics. Don't be dumb. Vote third party.

No I’m pretty sure I don’t. But what would I know. I’m from a place where everyone gets to vote and nobody is prevented from doing so for BS reasons.

depends where you live. in River Oaks there are there instantly. corruption pays off.

>This is the future nationally. We have a nationwide shortage of police officers that will only get worse

maybe if we keep buying them anti tank weapons and be immune to any punishment, the problem will naturally fix itself!

I can think of other ways: "For example, one recent analysis of 911 calls across eight cities in the country found that 23 to 39 percent were for low-priority or non-urgent issues like noise complaints." https://www.vox.com/2021/4/14/22374196/calling-the-police-vi...

Noise complaints can potentially escalate into future violence if an authority doesn't make a call. I'm also not sure what you mean by other ways. The number of new recruits keeps shrinking year after year and the number of retiring officers keeps growing.

I just don't see another alternative from mass surveillance unless you have a homogenous, group first population like Japan.

Japan doesn't have crime because the police are super involved in the communities they patrol, not because they're homogeneous

Police in the US don't even live in communities they patrol

It’s both, but it’s mainly due to the culture of putting the group ahead of the individual, respecting authority, and with a homogeneous population that makes it possible. The downside is that same culture tends to be more on the xenophobic side if you ever decide to stay in Japan.

IANAL, but wouldn’t it make more sense if they forced owners of these licensed services to maintain security cameras that they could then use a warrant to gain access to?

The “no warrant” clause just seems like it’s designed to get the law struck down.

> The “no warrant” clause just seems like it’s designed to get the law struck down.

Or the true purposes is more nefarious.

Nah, it's classic overreach. Until someones constitutional rights are violated, and it could take awhile, it will be the law of the land. The key part is the "reasonable" search. Someone shoots someone in front of a store it's pretty "reasonable" for the cop to ask to see the footage. Some cop wants to see footage from a brawl that a store owner is involved in is maybe not reasonable, because it would both violate his 4th and 1st amendment rights. It is hard for me to see how this would get resolved in the courts on a 4th amendment basis, so it will take some time before it is knocked down. You have to have standing to take it to the courts and that requires a violation by the state. Anyone trying to bring this to the courts will get thrown out pretty quickly without being able to show that.

> Nah, it's classic overreach. Until someones constitutional rights are violated, and it could take awhile, it will be the law of the land.

Violating people's constitutional rights needs to come with jail time. This should include anybody who votes these laws in, implements them through bureaucratic policy, or chooses to enforce them, from POTUS all the way down to the officer walking a beat.

I'm British, so apologies if this is obvious to people more familiar with the constitution, but is this actually against the letter of the constitution? Have CCTV cameras run by the government/police been deemed to be unconstitutional (wrt the 4th amendment)?

It certainly seems like it's designed to get around something, but from reading the 4th amendment I don't really understand what. I assume it's from later interpretations by the courts?

The CCTV is their property. To view the CCTV contents on their property without permission, they need to have a search warrant. Most businesses will just let the cops see CCTV for events that matter but it is their right to refuse to do that unless they get a warrant. The "reasonableness" of the search is constantly argued in the courts, which is why, for an example, students have less protection from a search.

Ah, right, thanks. So it's specifically the requirement that the footage be handed over without a warrant that is unconstitutional.

So, are they expecting this to be overturned?

On one hand, that's absurd. On the other hand, it's getting ridiculous that private companies can leverage massive networks of cameras while governments can't. Maybe that'll also help people understand how their private lives have been invaded.

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