(TikTok screencap)

Photo of a portable surveillance system with the caption “I'd rather see crackheads at the gas station than this stupid overstimulating
surveillance state crap”

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[–] 208 points 8 months ago (19 children)

Tell crackheads that there's 50 pounds of copper and two catalytic converters in these things.

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  • [–] 67 points 8 months ago (13 children)

    Those solar panels look pretty nice...

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  • [–] 40 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    Come to think of it, yeah... These things will be real nice to have after the collapse.

    A modestly sized, but complete and mobile off-grid solar system, just waiting for you to hitch it to your car and pull it away. Tear the cameras and lights off of it, then use the solar panels, batteries, and associated electrical equipment to power whatever small electrical loads you need.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    "After the collapse" he says, with no idea what powers my posting >:)

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    For real. Why the fuck would you wait? This whole thing depends on us destroying this and anything like it.

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  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Why the fuck would you wait?

    Because this thing is recording video all around itself and I don't want any cops visiting my house.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    At trailers with GPS still get stolen and never recovered on the regular down south. Might be slightly different because it’s the cop’s property, but if you can kill off the tracing and WiFi early and leave it in the woods somewhere for a month you’d probably get away with it.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Well????? Don't hold back, tell us about the internals and where the tracking devices are.

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  • [–] 129 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    These things are so fucking dystopian.

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  • [–] 144 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    They really are. I visit a location with one of these regularly  and a pleasant loudspeaker says "Welcome to [shopping area], please report any disturbances" and I immediately feel like I'm in Half-Life, or another dystopian video game...

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago

    The ones by me play loud classical music at night to keep homeless from setting up camp. Nothing makes me feel more safe at night than loud classical music. Just kidding it always makes me feel like a slasher movie killer is just a few feet behind me.

    Probably the most dystopian thing I've ever experienced IRL.

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  • [–] 32 points 8 months ago* (5 children)

    It costs less than 10 dollars to disable them.

    It also costs about negative 1200 to steal them.

    It costs infinitely more to do nothing.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    What even are these? I'm not American, we don't torture (or have) crackheads here. I mean we do have bums, but hard drugs are too expensive and hard to find for then I think. Booze is easy.

    Anyway, in case anyone here is thinking of their local community's wellbeing, idk what it's like in the US with tariffs and all, but I know that in general it's like 30 bucks off Aliexpress to get a cordless angle grinder that works with Makita batteries. Maybe 50 with a battery and charger included. Yes, they work.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    It's like portable CCTV. Police cameras. They can move them to wherever the crime is basically.

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  • [–] 89 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Has anyone told the crackheads how much copper is in that thing?

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  • [–] 56 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    "If you can see this, you shouldn't be shopping here."

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  • [–] 53 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    I sold my old car to a crackhead. He had way more chill than any kind of AI surveillance.

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  • [–] 49 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    WARNING CITIZEN! THIS AREA IS UNDER SURVEILLANCE! YOUR FACE HAS BEEN SCANNED AND ADDED TO A DATABASE!

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  • [–] 46 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    The first time I saw one of these was at a Fourth of July gathering in a public park. I saw the high blue lights and I figured it was marking some kind of portable police resource center. I had imagined some basic first aid and some officers ready for emergency assistance. I had imagined something that was partly a service and partly community outreach. I had imagined something with positive features.

    I was so disappointed to find out it was just cameras. Quite an emotional trip in my head there, from "We're here to help!" to "We're watching you, fuckers" in the space of a moment.

    But I guess the cops in my suburb are no better than the cops in any other suburb.

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  • [–] 29 points 8 months ago (10 children)

    "We’re here to help!” and "cops" in the same thought is wild lol

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  • [+] -6 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    This. This attitude right here. Stop it.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    "This. This attitude right here. Stop it."

    Yeah, so long as the police system in the US is corrupt as hell and intent on militarization and spying on the population: lol no.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago

    What? That cops are dangerous? They are. Your chances of dying go way up whenever you are in the presence of a cop. That's why I vacate the premises whenever one walks in. You never know if he just got chewed out by his wife, or his boss, or someone else, and he's looking for someone to take it out on.

    Nothing good can come out of being in the presence of a cop.

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  • [–] 40 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    Hate it. It's so annoying. The stores in the area hate it because it pisses people off and they complain to the stores and them the stores are like we hate them as well but the cops put them there.

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  • [–] 21 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I once had the lovely privilege of listening to a police higher up (lieutenant or something?) happily crow about setting these things up. I was just trying not to scoff as he said it was super effective, and yet his little slideshow showed absolutely diddly squat in any changes in the metrics they were using.

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  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    the stores are like we hate them as well but the cops put them there.

    If they're on a store's parkinglot, they're trespassing if they're there without the store's consent. That means they can be removed.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Most stores are tenants of a landlord. Even those Walmart warehouses are leased, often both in land and structure.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Even if they are tenants to a lease, the doctrine of quiet enjoyment would prohibit a landlord from being able to freely agree to having police property sitting on the store's parking lot if their lease covers the parking lot. It's kinda like renting a house with a yard: your lease is for the house and the yard surrounding the house. A landlord cannot just come on top the lawn and start ripping it up without the tenant's permission.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    A landlord cannot just come on top the lawn and start ripping it up without the tenant's permission.

    On one hand, yes. On the other hand that's only as enforceable as a tenant can fight it.

    In practice it happens. Unless the tenant has the resources or there's a legal advocacy group dedicated to that specific issue, owners tend to be able to do whatever they want so long as they use the argument of 'protecting my property'.

    The settlement and restitution just ends up something like the owner keeps their stuff there and maybe you get to terminate your lease tomorrow without being forced to pay out the whole eight remaining months of the lease. But that's anecdotal.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    On one hand, yes. On the other hand that’s only as enforceable as a tenant can fight it.

    Trespass to land is a tort, which means there's the potential for monetary damages.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I'm assuming the higher ups for one of the more corp stores allows them there. The people actually working the stores hate them.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    I guess that kinda depends on the business structure. Are they fully owned and operated by the main corporation? Or are they licensees of the store's name and brand? If it's the first one, some humdrum middle manager could do what you said. If it's the later, those surveillance things could be trespassing.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Each store has to take care of a part of the lot, but this is all secondhand info from employees working in the stores. So I'd assume one of the stores is fine with the yapping tower thing on one of their spots, even if the other stores aren't.

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  • [–] 32 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I feel safer around crackheads than around cops

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  • [–] 64 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    There's one of these in a shopping center around me. I flip it off every time I see it.

    I mean, I deliberately drive near it, stop, roll down my window, put my arm out, and flip it off very intentionally.

    I don't care if it knows me. I've made no secret of my hatred for authoritarianism throughout my life. I've gone to more protests than I can count. Besides, if authorities really wanted to do something to me, they'd readily make things up anyway. They don't need an excuse, so I might as well express myself.

    This shit is dystopian as fuck and every time I see it or it blasts out its message about us being watched, it boils my blood.

    Fuck it all. This is not okay.

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  • [–] 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    . . .flip it off very intentionally.

    Heehee I'm kinda glad I'm not alone here. I walk my neighborhood and people install those STUPID cameras facing the sidewalk to catch EVERYONE walking by, that whistle at you, or say "you are being recorded!"

    I give it the finger without looking at it basically as a reflex now. I've never even flipped someone off in traffic, I've been told I have the patience of a saint.

    But surveillance capitalism and stupid paranoid suburbanites satisfying their nosy-neighbor compulsions is definitely a line.

    We've got those stupid towers all over the place here too. Construction sites, parking lots.

    Freaking absurd. I'm upset that it's the best crime deterrent they can come up with, because I suppose skulky fellows lurking around dark parking lots aren't preferable either.

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  • [–] 31 points 8 months ago (15 children)

    Specifically engineered to keep out "undesirables".

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  • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    What the hell is that thing anyway

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  • [–] 55 points 8 months ago* (9 children)

    Solar powered, wireless, remote, battery-powered, GPS tracked, overly-designed mobile CCTV/loudspeaker/strobe light trailer. This one in particular is manufactured by a company called LVT, who are one of the major manufacturers of these. They can go about 5 days with no sunshine before the batteries are depleted.

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  • [–] 27 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    I've only ever seen them in Walgreens, CVS, and McDonald's parking lots. Blinking away with the brightest blue LED all fucking night.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    They are kind of almost somewhat reasonable on those job sites where they’re almost done building the apartment complex, but maybe only because it’s so temporary

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    This is an insane comment. There is absolutely nothing temporary about these. They may be in that lot temporarily, but it won't move more than 100 meters before it meets its destination.

    These are valuable. Deface and steal them.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    They are in every single shopping mall parking lot by me. Need to go to Home Depot, one of these. Target, you guessed it, another one. Maybe you need to go to the grocery store, there’s another one there for you. Every single place near me has them.

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  • [–] 27 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    I was ready to be like nah that's just a traffic obs camera or someshit, but I looked it up and it really is a total shitheadomatic-5000

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveView_Technologies

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago

    I for one think it's quite generous of the surveillance state to provide free off-grid solar systems for the taking

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  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago

    No worries, a few years of surveillance state and everybody becomes a crackhead one way or the other!

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