Nearly half of America's police departments use public surveillance cameras to spy on Americans

image credit:new jersey.com

A report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) titled “Local Police Departments, 2013: Equipment and Technology” shows a massive increase in police surveillance of Americans.

According to the BJS report, 17 percent of America's police departments use automated license plate readers to spy on Americans.  About 1 in 6 local police departments used automated vehicle license plate readers in 2013, including a majority of those serving a population of 25,000 or more.

In other words, nearly every police department that serves a population of more than 25,000 people is using them!

An estimated 17% (about 2,000) of departments used automated license plate readers in 2013. This total included more than three-quarters of the departments serving 100,000 or more residents. About half (49% or 6,000) of all departments used video cameras for surveillance of public areas, including more than two-thirds of the departments serving 25,000 or more residents.

Did you catch that? Two-thirds of our police departments that serve a population of more than 25,000 people are spying on us in public areas! 

Real Time Crime Centers (RTCC) are privately funded computer systems designed to monitor the network of cameras and sensors in a city. The RTCC's will field all 911 calls, and give officers access to any city camera — including police body and dash cameras and new traffic cameras. RTCC's got there start in NYC in 2005. RTCC's are popping up across the country, they're in St. Louis, Philadelphia,  Boston and Los Angeles.

RTCC's are often known as Fusion Centers or Emergency Communications (911) Centers.

Your address is assigned a color coded threat rating:

 "The database goes through all public information for the call’s location — from arrest records to pizza deliveries — and gives the address a rating. Green means minimal threat, yellow a possible threat and red a major threat."

"The RTCC system shows officers three pieces of data: the threat level, the criminal history of anyone living at the home and a list of known friends and family members. This list sometimes includes possible phone numbers and addresses of these associates."
 
Police are also spying on your Wi-Fi access and using street lights linked to a mesh network to spy you.

In total, 89% (about 11,000) of local police departments were using some type of video camera technology in 2013. Some departments also used advanced audio technology in the form of gunshot detection systems. Gunshot detection systems were used by 4% of departments, including 50% of those serving 1 million or more residents.

Police are using gunshot detectors called 'ShotSpotter' to spy on people's conversations. Click, here & here to read more.

Police across the country are also using "Persistent Surveillance Systems" to spy on everyone, click here & here to read more.

So far only a small percentage of police departments in the 50,000 or more population category reported using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's). Interestingly or intentionally there was no mention of police using surveillance blimps to spy on us. Click here & here to find out more.

Who's behind the UAV program?

DHS is at the forefront of police UAV's, they even want to use UAV's to transport the dead. 

In October of 2014 I reported how DHS is using surveillance drones to spy on Americans, see below:
 DHS flew drones equipped with video cameras over the United States--away from border and coastal areas--for 1,726 hours from fiscal 2011 through this April." The report, written by Brittany M. Hughes, concludes that aerial drones were indeed flown outside of approved and mandated border patrol zones to in fact spy on American citizens being monitored by the police or FBI. Moreover, “1,726 hours” of flight were logged between “fiscal 2011 through this April” outside of border zones, i.e. over the interior of the US. These flights included missions to “provide aerial support for local law enforcement activities and investigations,” to agencies including the FBI and multi-agency task forces, and to “provide aerial support for monitoring natural disasters,” the report added on slide No. 11.
In May of 2015 I reported how DHS is using our state police to start a national domestic drone surveillance program and nearly a week later the Police Chiefs Association announced they want a national drone policy.

The Police Chief's Assoc. claim they need surveillance drones for public safety, see below:

"Police agencies across the nation are increasingly using drones to improve public safety, but need clear operations policies and limits to win public trust, experts said at a law enforcement conference in San Diego."

In other words the term "PUBLIC SAFETY" is B.S. it's being used to gain "public trust" and will be abused by police!

The Police Chief's Assoc., used a university professor who's also a deputy to promote DHS's national drone surveillance program, see below:

"Alan Frazier, a Grand Forks County part-time sheriff’s deputy and also an associate professor for the University of North Dakota’s Department of Aviation."

"Frazier said his sheriff’s agency has used its drones 18 times across the state in the past two years. He said they have helped search flood zones, photograph homicide scenes and track felony suspects." Dozens of universities are working on profitable drone surveillance programs to be used to spy on Americans! Click here & here to read more.
It's only a matter of a couple of years before nearly EVERY police department serving a population of more than 25,000 has surveillance drones.