by Leo Hohmann, Leo Hohmann:
Cities across the United States are installing hidden surviellance cameras that track everyone, everywhere, and nobody, not even Donald Trump, is talking about this. What are the Top 10 most surveilled cities in the U.S.? We’ve got the list!
My old colleagues at World Net Daily have an interesting story up today about the city of Norfolk, Virginia. City officials have transformed Norfolk into a virtual lock-down surveillance society with more than 172 high-resolution, internet-connected cameras monitoring practically all human movement.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Of course Norfolk is not terribly unique in this regard and we have a full report below, including a Top 10 list of most surveilled American cities.
Multitudes of cities of all sizes across the U.S. are jumping on the technocracy bandwagon and setting up hidden surveillance cameras on every corner. They’re on light poles, bridges and overpasses, stoplights, buildings, you name it. Some are equipped with speakers so they can also listen in on what’s being said.
They claim it’s for our “safety.”
What makes Norfolk unique is a group of citizens is fighting back. They’ve filed a lawsuit against the city, which is something that needs to happen in every city that implements this technology.
A lawsuit has been filed that accuses elected officials in Norfolk, Virginia, of using a network of 170 cameras to impose a warrantless surveillance scheme on residents and visitors.
The Institute for Justice has filed the suit on behalf of several plaintiffs, charging that the actions violate Fourth Amendment rights protecting U.S. citizens against unwarranted searches and seizures.
The system allows police “to monitor the comings and goings of all drivers in the city,” the legal team said.
Lee Schmidt, one of the plaintiffs, said, “I don’t like the government following my every movement and treating me like a criminal suspect, when they have no reason to believe I’ve done anything wrong.”
Another plaintiff, Crystal Arrington, stated, “My work requires me to drive around Norfolk very often, and it’s incredibly disturbing to know the city can track my every move during that time.”
The Institute for Justice explained that in 2023, Norfolk police partnered with a private company called Flock Safety Inc. to install 172 automatic license-plate reading cameras all across town.
The locations were chosen to provide a so-called “curtain of technology,” which would allow police to watch anyone drive anywhere without knowing they’re being watched.
The Institute noted:
“Unlike traditional traffic cameras, which capture an image only when they sense speeding or someone running a red light, Flock’s cameras capture images of every car driving by, which it retains for at least 30 days. Artificial intelligence then uses those images to create a ‘Vehicle Fingerprint’ that enables any Flock subscriber to both track where that vehicle has gone and identify what other vehicles it has been seen nearby.”
Institute for Justice lawyer Michael Soyfer stated:
“Norfolk has created a dragnet that allows the government to monitor everyone’s day-to-day movements without a warrant or probable cause. This type of mass surveillance is a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
Making the violation worse, the Institute noted, is that since Flock “pools its data in a centralized database, police across the entire country can access over 1 billion monthly datapoints. That means not just tracking drivers within a particular jurisdiction, but potentially across the entire nation.”