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Tag: surveillance video

  • Video Surveillance Market Continues to Expand

    With the numerous disclosures from former NSA employee Edward Snowden that were released in 2013, a new light has been shined on a shadowy world of information gathering and government surveillance. While world governments scramble to appease their citizens and other government leaders, it seems that the security industry will simply keep running business as usual.

    Market research firm IHS today released a report showing that the video surveillance market is expected to increase by at least 12% in the coming year. The firm expects sales of video surveillance equipment to hit $15.9 billion, mostly on sales to national and local governments.

    “During the past decade the video surveillance equipment market has grown quickly, expanding at a double-digit rate in most years,” said Niall Jenkins, research manager for video surveillance and security services at IHS. “This year will be no exception, with growth led by strong demand for fixed-dome and 180/360-degree network camera products. As for vertical markets, the city surveillance and utility/energy sectors will drive the biggest increases in sales.”

    Other predictions for the video surveillance market found in the IHS report read like a list of the things government-overreach activists have been warning about for years. Police are expected to increasingly use crowd-sourced video surveillance data and companies are expected to collaborate more with police on the sharing of their own live video surveillance. IHS also believes that thermal imaging will catch on during 2014, with consumer thermal imaging products beginning to appear.

  • Employee Arrested 62 Times For “Trespassing” At Work

    Imagine working at a convenient store and being arrested for trespassing. Imagine for four years, you’re stopped 258 times by the police. Imagine being searched more than 100 times. Imagine being arrested and put in jail 56 times, with your highest criminal offense being possession of marijuana.

    This is all happening in Miami Gardens, Florida to a man named Earl Sampson, 28, who has been arrested 62 times for trespassing, during working hours, at his place of employment, according to USA Today.

    Almost all the citations that Sampson has received have been issued at 207 Quickstop, a convenience store located at 207th street in Miami Gardens; the place he works at. Simply by showing up to work, Sampson gets cited – even when his boss tells police that he’s allowed to be there and isn’t trespassing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcGKX2IajLw

    Alex Saleh, 36, owner of 207 Quickstop, which has been in business for 17 years, has been curious as to why his employees and customers have been constantly pestered by Miami Gardens police. Saleh told the Herald that he’s seen stops occur three times in the same day. It is because of this constant harassment by police that Saleh installed 15 video cameras in his store on June 2012; he’s never been robbed.

    “Police line them up and tell them to put their hands against the wall. I started asking myself ‘Is this normal?’ I just kept thinking police can’t do this,’’ Saleh said.
    “There is just no justifying this kind of behavior,” police policy consultant Chuck Drago told the Herald. “Nobody can justify overstepping the constitution to fight crime.”

    “The real problem here is the police department does not have a relationship with its community – black or white. When they make these kinds of stops for minor offenses, it only re-enforced the mistrust.”

    Five videos that Saleh captured show the cops stopping people, questioning them, searching them, and arresting them for trespassing in 207 Quickshop.

    Despite phone messages and emails, questions regarding the behavior of the police were met with silence by both the Miami Gardens Police Chief Matthew Boyd, and City Manager Cameron Benson.

    Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union Florida, asked, “Where is the police chief in all this? In a police department in a city this size, this kind of behavior could not escape his attention. Doesn’t the City Commission know that they are exposing the city to either massive liability for civil rights violations? Either that, or they are going to wake up one day and find the U.S. Department of Justice has taken over its police department.’’

    According to the Herald, a pending lawsuit is at hand; Saleh and his lawyer, Steve Lopez, are preparing for a federal civil rights lawsuit that claims the Miami Gardens Police have engaged routinely in racial profiling, cover ups of illegal misconducts, and unconstitutional stops and searches.

    On November 4th, the Herald reported that Miami Gardens had 3 shooting deaths in less than 24 hours; the town has been facing troubles with gang violence and drug related crimes. The murder rates have more than doubled in recent years. It is fear that blinds men.

     

    (Pictures via Alex Saleh’s video footage)