šØLEAKED: Internal Email Shows Amazon's Ring Plans To Surveil Everyone šØ
That didnāt take long. Turns out we were right.
Amazonās Ring cameras will not just be used for dogs and will instead surveil all of us and feed that information to police departments. Hereās the proof.
Eleven days ago was the Super Bowl. During that pitched battle for CTE supremacy, Amazon aired a commercial for their new Super Ring Cam Lost Doggie Puppy Finderā¢, which pissed off 78% of Americans. (65% because they realized it could be used to create a horrible dystopian surveillance state; 13% because they felt Amazon was distributing lost dogs around the US simply to prove they could find them.)
I put out a viral column about said dystopia propaganda. Itās been read by around 6.2 million people on Facebook and other platforms. (This is not to say Iām taking credit for the nationwide furor, but I will take credit for writing a kickass column.) Then 5 days ago, Amazonās Ring responded to the nationwide panties-in-a-twist moment (both male and female panties) by cancelling their contract with Flock Security, a company that records every license plate of every vehicle wherever Flock is legally operating (and sometimes illegally operating) ā tracking some drivers over 500 times in a single month.
Basically Amazonās Ring said, āWe see that youāre upset our Ring cams could possibly totally be used for a horrifying surveillance state, and weāre therefore cancelling a contract that doesnāt undo almost any of that.ā
I have no corporate backers because Iām despised by corporate America. Can you throw in the cost of one beer per month to help my work continue?
At the core of this hubbub is the fear that Ringās new āSearch Partyā feature could be used to search for things other than dogs. It could be used to search for humans. It could be used to watch women walk down the street. It could be used to monitor completely-legal-yet-ungodly-behavior like sexcapades prior to marriage or drinking alcohol on a Sunday or smoking weed in a state where itās legal to smoke weed.
Amazonās Ring publicly claims the āSearch Partyā feature would NEVER be used for anything like that. Itās only for dogs and cats ā when they get lost or smoke weed underage. End of story.
Well, we just found out that behind closed doors the people at Ring plan to use āSearch Partyā for things other than dogs and cats. (Consider me shocked.) 404 Media obtained an internal email from Ringās founder-and-lover-of-all-police-agencies Jamie Siminoff saying Ringās search feature would be used to āzero out crime in neighborhoods.ā
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I kinda doubt he means only crime committed by dogs and cats. He wrote to all Ring employees,
āThis is by far the most innovation that we have launched in the history of Ring. ā¦I believe that the foundation we created with Search Party, first for finding dogs, will end up becoming one of the most important pieces of tech and innovation to truly unlock the impact of our mission. You can now see a future where we are able to zero out crime in neighborhoods.ā
I hope it doesnāt need saying, but in order to end ācrime in neighborhoods,ā Ring would have to watch all neighborhood streets, driveways, yards, porches, and tree houses at all times. It would then need to feed all that information to police departments upon request. Essentially, we Americans will have placed ourselves in a 24/7 panopticon dystopian hellhole. ā¦All because a Super Bowl ad had a cute doggie in it.
Besides the cringe-worthy invasion of privacy this entails, we would do well to remember that ācrimeā is only prosecuted against those without enough money and/or power to fight such state predation. As Amazon Ring monitors everything, the Jeffrey Epsteins of the world will continue to go untouched. Predators like Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Elon Musk and Bill Gates will have nothing to worry about. In this manner, Amazonās Ring Panopticon⢠serves as yet another powerful weapon in a class war perpetrated by the rich.
The people at Ring know full-well theyāre creating the technological infrastructure to monitor every square foot of every US neighborhood. Theyāre even admitting that internally.
When I was little parents often warned children, āDonāt ever get in a car with a man who says he needs help looking for a lost puppy.ā Well, Amazonās Ring is now telling us they need help looking for a lost puppy. ā¦We shouldnāt get in the car with them.
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