
Cameras on San Diego streetlights turned off until ordinance in place - loteck
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-09-09/mayor-orders-san-diegos-smart-streetlights-turned-off-until-surveillance-ordinance-in-place
======
MurMan
I'm a San Diego resident that was falsely accused of a serious offense a few
years ago. Surveillance footage from a restaurant saved me from prosecution.

I know that this is a minority opinion, but I'm in favor of cameras in public
places. There will always be the potential for abuse even with strong
restrictions, but I think the benefits are worth it.

~~~
kelnos
Completely disagree. It's not that there will be the _potential_ for abuse.
There _will_ be abuse, full stop. I do not want to live in an authoritarian
police surveillance state, thanks.

You're lucky that in this case it helped you maintain your innocence, but that
use will be in the tiny tiny minority. The actual solution to your particular
problem is proper due process and rooting out police sloppiness and
prosecutorial overreach, not adding features to our society that make it easy
for those in power to violate people's civil rights.

~~~
treis
>There will be abuse, full stop

Can you give an example of this abuse?

~~~
darkwizard42
I think the ACLU has a great set of examples:
[https://www.aclu.org/other/whats-wrong-public-video-
surveill...](https://www.aclu.org/other/whats-wrong-public-video-surveillance)

Police databases have been routinely abused so I don't see how the watchers
can be trusted with more information when they have zero oversight and ability
to manage what they already have :/

~~~
treis
If we go to the level of one time a cop did a bad thing with this tool then
yeah everything will be abused. I'm more interested in cases where the police
as a organization abused CCTV.

~~~
syspec
You asked for an example, and they provided it. Then you moved the goal post

~~~
treis
Because the first goal post was meaningless. If that's the level we're looking
at then we can't even give cops sticks because at least one of them is going
to beat an innocent person with it.

~~~
ABCLAW
>Because the first goal post was meaningless.

You're the one that placed it there.

~~~
treis
Not really. They said abuse. I took that to mean abuse by the police as a
group. Not abuse by any individual cop.

------
slg
How are these "Smart Streetlights" and not standard CCTV cameras that
governments and private entities have been installing for decades? Is this
just clever marketing to reduce public outrage?

~~~
loteck
they have sensors on them that collect environmental data. In fact, the
cameras by default are used to generate pedestrian and vehicle data. You have
to specifically add the vendor's "situational awareness" module to get a
console for viewing raw video footage.

But you're right, Smart city technology is always wrapped up in marketing
lingo to obfuscate its surveillance properties.

~~~
GekkePrutser
"Smart City" sounds a lot cooler than "1984-style surveillance state". Add
some light artwork, upbeat music and some stock photos of happy people and you
get the population rooting for you. Just like Apple, Google and Amazon do. Yes
Apple is better than the other two, no they're not angels.

And really, the safety aspect is easily circumvented for the bad guys. Take a
standard corona mask, hoodie and some sunglasses and you're done.

For the rest of us it means living even more in a panopticon than ever before.

~~~
01100011
Weren't the cameras in 1984 in private locations as well? I don't think you
can argue that cameras in public are tantamount to a 1984 style police state.

------
brobdingnagians
> while it was not part of the initial plan, police later began to review the
> raw camera footage to help solve serious or violent crime

Once the technological hurdles are overcome, the social barriers are more a
matter of "when" not "if". Having dumb streetlights is much more of a
protection against surveillance, and less of a temptation, than having
streetlights capable of it, but guarantees "that we don't intend
surveillance". It's a lot harder to sneak $30 million dollar expenditures
through a city budget than a memo in the police department about fully using
capabilities that already existed anyways...

~~~
the8472
A german saying that translates to "where there's a trough, the pigs will
gather" is sometimes is more apt than "build it and they will come".

------
loteck
Hi all, I've been answering questions about this effort over on Reddit [0],
but happy to chat on questions about how this is going down here as well.

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/ipyei8/san_diegos...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/ipyei8/san_diegos_smart_streetlights_have_been_shut_down/)

~~~
UhDev
I came here to get away from reddit!

~~~
loteck
Sorry about that, just linking because there's a lot of questions answered.
Mass surveillance technology should definitely be of interest to the HN crowd.
Ubicquia, the company operating the system in San Diego, just landed $300M in
VC funding. Modern mass surveillance tech is absolutely a tech startup
phenomenon.

------
themark
If you are looking for some entertainment, read the City Attorney's attempt to
explain the data that was being collected:

[https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/01/stree...](https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/01/streetlights.pdf)

~~~
munk-a
I particularly like the "What does processed data look like" and they just
have a picture of some random hexadecimal digits which is accurate I guess,
but that's what all data looks like if expressed in hex.

~~~
est31
Which now makes me wonder what the data behind the hex is.

    
    
        09 00 ba 8a b6 f7 42 c8 8f d0 aa 8e bf f5 99 b6 5a f2 42 26
        Oc 92 25 4a 14 2f 6d fc ee e7 c3 f3 e7 19 82 a0 14 6f dc 7b
        Oc b8 0e 11 e7 5d c5 0d a0 19 bb 97 32 79 13 11 d2 af 8e fc
        Oc ee 29 af c6 8d 3c 59 9f 73 23 ab f6 58 22 ae aa fd 30 c5
        0e f5 fO d1 1f 31 00 ec 6d e6 7d 53 a9 36 2a 8d Of 46 8e 48
        10 76 20 ee ac 87 af 7b 2a ec 85 f8 b9 88 43 60 78 6S a6 ea
        13 b8 b8 93 d8 62 25 c2 d2 f4 c7 e4 7a ad 2d lb a6 00 b7 36
        1f ca 1c 43 cf 5f c3 5b 7d 3f da 2a 41 6f 6b fb 05 ed ff cc
    

Putting it into hex to ascii converters doesn't yield anything useful.

Putting it into a frequency analysis tool [0] doesn't give any special
patterns either. 8 bytes are present 3 times, 25 bytes 2 times, and 86 bytes 1
time (total 160 bytes). I inputted a 160 long sequence from hexdumping urandom
and I got 5 bytes present 3 times, 27 bytes 2 times, 91 bytes 1 time. Not a
statistician but it seems pretty close.

[0]: [https://www.dcode.fr/frequency-analysis](https://www.dcode.fr/frequency-
analysis)

~~~
munk-a
It's way too little data to get anything useful out of unless it was
intentionally seeded. I am a bit sad it didn't decode as "Yea we know this is
just hex but it looks fancy" since that would've been a pretty good get from
whoever prepared images for the document.

Also yea - it's probably not going to text decode trivially since there are
random null bits in the middle. My guess is that it's some random data from an
image off the camera - but it could also be a snippet of environmental
information.

------
zobzu
I always find these stories interesting, because, frankly, these cameras I'm
sure DO help catch criminals very effectively.

However, they also allow very effective privacy violations of course.

Because of this there's no perfect outcome (and opinions across the board).

~~~
sudosysgen
There are much better ways to reduce criminality that don't violate our
privacy. As long as those solutions haven't been tried seriously, as they have
worked in other countries, then there is no justification for this.

~~~
GekkePrutser
Maybe start with that obvious little thing.. People not having guns means
people not being shot at chicken restaurants, hence less crimes to solve. It
does really work here in Europe even though it's not perfect - yes some
criminals still have guns. But the big effect is someone being spotted on the
street with a gun = insta-arrest + jail time for possession.

I know proposing it is political suicide there, but when I see what BLM have
accomplished in awareness I did think some spontaneous movement like that
would happen too in the gun debate, after the xx'th senseless mass shooting.

Also, the other obvious thing (also starting to bite Europe in the backside in
all fairness), is the huge income equality leading to crime life.

~~~
kyleee
what prompted the chicken restaurant bit of your comment?

~~~
GekkePrutser
The source article. In particular this passage:

"They hailed the cameras as a game-changer, and said the images helped to
identify the suspected gunman who shot three employees, killing one, last year
at an Otay Mesa Church’s Chicken"

~~~
kyleee
thank you sorry i missed that bit

------
pkamb
> Smart Streetlight _cameras_

~~~
loteck
Your point is valid. In fact, after San Diego missed its last payment,
Ubicquia shut down all access to the "smart" data sensors & kept only the
cameras running, for police use.

So, we can go ahead and drop the whole Smart Streetlight charade now and just
call them surveillance cameras now.

------
tolbish
Wasn't one of the two San Diego mayoral candidates, Todd Gloria, on city
council when they passed the resolution to install these? Why is there no
scrutiny of his part in all of this?

~~~
tomc1985
This isn't an excuse, but IIRC they were sold to the city as simple sensor
boxes. GE (or whoever it was that made/sold these) added the surveillance
capabilities later, ostensibly for internal use but easily receivable via
police action

~~~
rbecker
I'm sorry, what? Doesn't a "sensor box" by definition have surveillance
capabilities? The only way that sentence makes sense is if you're using some
ridiculously narrow definition of "surveillance".

Edit: Fair enough. But in this case, cameras and microphones were included,
were they not?

~~~
DanBC
If it only senses light or dark it's difficult to see how that would count as
surveillance.

------
eggsby
At the same time, the city government is adding explicit surveillance feeds
for law enforcement.

[https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/east-
county...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/east-county/lemon-
grove/story/2020-09-08/lemon-grove-sheriffs-ready-roll-out-camera-coverage-of-
city)

~~~
loteck
Lemon Grove is a different city from San Diego, but youre right that we have a
problem at the _county_ level as well.

------
GekkePrutser
Just need to add face recognition and you basically have China's playbook...
Scary.

------
Animats
How about making them all accessible to the public? Maybe with a 12 hour
delay.

~~~
GekkePrutser
Great idea!

Now the snoopy old lady across the road can actually follow you around town at
all hours.

------
jxramos
I wonder how these sorts of decisions would stand up if put to a ballot
initiative. Has there ever been an instance of the public voting on cameras
and surveillance technology in their towns?

------
chundicus
$30 million dollars? Feel like we could have used that money in many better
ways...

~~~
makecheck
Lights aren’t exactly cheap either way; even years ago they would be about
$100 a pole just for the light, modern LED ones are about that [1] and cities
can have thousands of them [2]. For example, the 250,000 lights in NYC at $125
per light (without even considering installation) would get you about $30M.

[1] [https://www.edn.com/weighing-the-costs-of-led-street-
lights/](https://www.edn.com/weighing-the-costs-of-led-street-lights/)

[2]
[https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/streetligh...](https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/streetlights.shtml)

~~~
chundicus
Interesting! I guess that makes sense but I definitely would have
underestimated that cost.

In this case the cost seemed to apply in part to 3,000 cameras. But solely
based on the article, it's hard for me to tell what portion of that $30
million went to upgrades/maintenance and what portion went to the cameras.
However it does clearly say it would be another $7 million to maintain the
cameras over the next four years.

~~~
Stupulous
For anyone who doesn't want to do the math, that's $10,000/installation and
$600/light/year maintenance.

------
everybodyknows
Also this, same day, same newspaper:

[https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/202...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2020-09-09/san-
diego-moving-toward-repeal-of-seditious-language-ban-police-have-used-during-
protests)

>San Diego moves toward repeal of ‘seditious language’ ban police have used
during protests

>Rule against anti-authority speech ...

~~~
1f60c
Is that a bad thing?

~~~
munk-a
Yea it is - the US has a pretty clear and sane definition of what speech
should be protected at a national level. Cities and states have no business
trying to muddle the line of what speech should be protected.

~~~
slg
>the US has a... sane definition of what speech should be protected at a
national level

The US has a more extreme view of protected speech than almost all of our peer
nations. Whether that is "sane" or not is a matter of opinion. Many Europeans
would scoff at our campaign finance laws for example.

~~~
naberhausj
I'm was not familiar with the exact definitions of "protected speech" and
"campaign finance laws". Having looked both up, I still fail to see your
point. How does our regulation of a candidate's fundraising indicate
extreme/nonsensical regulation of protected speech?

Compared to Europe, we don't have any hate speech laws that risk make
criminals out of people because of public whim. I will not scoff at that
though, because hate speech is only a necessary evil. Do you real feel the
range of opinions you can express here is less than what you could express in
your average European country?

I think the original definition of protected speech, namely that is
inalienable, is the only sane one. How flawed the implementation of that
definition is (and truthfully it was flawed from the start) is definitely a
problem of course. Any other guarantee would be worthless because very few
people will suffer somebody spewing what they view as or want to be lies if
they don't have to.

~~~
slg
>How does our regulation of a candidate's fundraising indicate
extreme/nonsensical regulation of protected speech?

It corrupts our democracy. A democracy should be one person, one voice, one
vote. In our democracy the people with money have an outsized voice and
therefore an outsized influence which leads to a government that is more
concerned with appeasing the wealthy class minority than the majority of the
rest of us.

>Do you real feel the range of opinions you can express here is less than what
you could express in your average European country?

No, the point is the reverse. We can express ourselves here more than they can
in Europe. Even still, I don't think you will find a huge percentage of
Europeans who feel they can't legally express themselves. That is because most
of the things that are protected here and not in Europe are a net negative on
society. I also fail to see how outlawing something like Holocaust denial is a
slippery slope to authoritarianism. Why do we need to protect speech that is
objectively and inarguably incorrect? Defaming a individual person in the US
is illegal. Why should defaming an entire class of people through hate speech
be legal?

Plus the US doesn't even have universally protected speech anyway. We outlaw
plenty of speech from our meager campaign finance laws to threats of violence.
There is no binary choice between free speech and no free speech. We are just
debating where the line is and the US isn't drawing the line where most other
countries are drawing it.

~~~
srtjstjsj
One person, one vote?

Why should someone get to increase their voting power simply by producing more
children to indoctrinate?

In Europe it's illegal to criticize the crimes of religious figures. That's
horrific.

~~~
slg
>Why should someone get to increase their voting power simply by producing
more children to indoctrinate?

Are you serious with that one? There are much quicker, cheaper, and more
effective ways to enact political change than spending 18 years and the
literally hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to raise a child in order
to get one more vote.

>In Europe it's illegal to criticize the crimes of religious figures. That's
horrific.

I agree. I didn't say other countries were perfect. However many countries do
recognize that blasphemy laws are unjust are have repealed or have started
debated repealing them. Ireland is one notable example of a country that
amended their constitution recently to remove them. And even in the countries
who still have those laws on the books, it is extremely rare for them to be
prosecuted.

------
tomc1985
Good, that these were even allowed to be installed is a travesty

------
la6471
I don’t see what is the problem if the footage from this camera is made
available to the general public all the time including law enforcement
authorities. Open access to information is better and can have a positive
impact.

~~~
r00fus
Are cameras like this open-access for anyone? In that case, great data source
for image analytics AI startup.

------
s1mon
The article title is missing the key word "camera". "Smart Streetlights" just
sound like they intelligently control when the lights turn on and off, and
saying that they would be turned off sounds like San Diego would be plunged
into darkness at night.

~~~
loteck
My original title was "orders city's surveillance camera network shut down."
HN likes to defer to original headlines, which is understandable.

~~~
JamesSwift
Thats understandable, but the edit also left out the 'surveillance' bit from
the original

------
eanzenberg
Good experiment to see if this causes crime to increase.

~~~
LinuxBender
Most criminals didn't know these existed. For that matter, neither did most
citizens know that cameras were peering into their backyards and microphones
doing machine learning on what people were saying. Sorry I don't have the
links to the tech specs handy.

~~~
sitkack
A system like this could be used as a massive phased array microphone to
literally listen to anyone between 2 or more poles.

------
throwawaysea
I don’t get why people are against cameras. We have limited police resources
and need to enable them to locate wanted criminals easily. Betting on police
randomly spotting a suspect with their eyes while on patrol is a bad bet. We
can do better and this technology is the way.

