WTF?

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There will have to be some sacrificial lambs before people out there get pissed enough to change the laws they have.



 

Nah, we're going to boil like frogs... People don't realize how under a microscope they are.. If you were to ask people what the freeway cameras are for all along the freeway (always at exits to see which way you are going) and at major intersections what they are for, they will tell you it's for traffic control and accident response. The honest truth is that they are running these video feeds thru Automated License Plate Recognition System computers to look for "persons of interest", stolen vehicles etc. I don't know about Metro Detroit, but in Philly their camera system which is pretty similar was 90% paid for with Homeland Security funds.

How long until these cameras are used to nail speeders? In Michigan they are looking to make the video feeds admissible in court. I don't know the extent of their capability, but they are very high resolution and require a lot of bandwidth to pass data-hence the microwave dishes. Interestingly, Microwave signals are very short distance methods of transmitting a radio signal. If you watch how these dishes on the camera poles are set up, the cameras daisy-chaing their data to a central hub. The world record for non-military microwave transmission is only a mile or two which seems to jive with how far these are spread. Look at major intersections of freeways and you'll usually see a large tower that services the cameras for miles around.

They even have these cameras in Northern Michigan.... in podunk places that are lucky to see 30 cars an hour on a hot Friday night. Same thing in the ghetto in Detroit-armored cameras in places that have nobody living for several blocks.  It's about control folks, and not traffic control..... Makes you wonder what they know that we don't..

Your concerns regarding the Metro-area traffic monitoring system are misplaced. Quite a bit of speculation and misconception in your statements.  Fear not, a camera cannot detect vehicle speed.

As for the Northern MI cams: are these what you are referring to?
(http://www.johndee.com/)

A camera cannot detect speed alone, but two cameras can give you time and distance traveled.

Actually, one video camera is perfectly capable of giving time and distance traveled also which can be used to determine speed...might want to look up VASCAR and how it works - LE used to do it visually with an airplane/helicopter, just one was needed, and it is still done in some places across the US...


If anyone is worried about these cameras, be careful of OnStar - they can turn on the mic in the car remotely and listen in on your conversations - and cell phones with GPS - you can be tracked...

Might be a good idea to invest in some of those baseball caps with the fake mullet on the back and some fake beards and mustaches that stick on, so you can change up your appearance regularly...and don't forget to get your stealth photo blur license plate cover if you'll be driving so that your license plate can only be read from straight on and will be blurred out if viewed from an angle...

The sad part, is that all this technology is being used on our own citizens.  It concerns me that the government is so afraid of its very own people.  

Yeah, it's all done under the premise, "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide."  That is fine and dandy, except when someone doesn't approve of what you're doing, then make a law against it.

I don't need big brother watching me.

..Or arresting me for a FELONY for trying to drive a gang of thugs out of my front yard with technology straight out of 1984. Or this dude, going to serve 6 months for selling a gun to an illegal with a Texas license:

BULLSHIT

Amen.  The way this country was founded, we were supposed to be the big brother to our government.




That is absolute B.S.  Completely illogical too.

I'm not worried about a camera being able to catch me speeding-I'm worried about the .gov knowing where the hell I am 24 hours a day.

And Yes, Cameras can be used to detect speeders. The have been doing it for years in Europe. by time stamping your plate as you go past the camera and calculate your speed by the time it takes you to get to the next one. Do yourself a favor and look at what a simple patrol car based ALPRS system is capable of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXjZcFesCdE Mind you, this is just one patrol car, not a freeway camera system. The ability to place people at crime scenes by data mining plate logs as described in that video are really scary because you never know when you might be a criminal-or merely be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Oh, and the camera I am specifically pissed about is the one at M33 and M52. It's a major artery going off of US23 up to the northern peninsula. There is absolutely no reason for the four cameras to be there other than to run plates.

My opinon, is that all of this investment in camera systems is not for a terrorist threat, but because they are planning for Continuity in Government if our economy really fails. Unlike the Great Depression where cities like Detroit and NYC were scattered with gardens in alleyways and rooftops, nobody grows their own food. Our labor pool is too specialized to live as people did in the 20's, how does a metrosexual IT programmer with a wife and three kids go about keeping his family alive and healthy when the .gov has failed to keep the economy rolling? Worse yet, what is going to happen when, not if, the welfare checks stop coming every month? There was talk last year that the .gov will not take in enough taxes to run the Government in 2012, I think this is why it was so important to pass Health Care Reform and start taxing and fining 4 years before it pays any benefits.

I don't know any better than anyone else what is going on around me, and I may be paranoid, but I would be a fool to not notice the changes around me.

Me too.  All I know is what is going on, is not right at all.

Oh, and don't forget, guys, that Chicago started using ALPRS last year to send tickets for expired registration for cars driven in the city.

Video for shot spotter

So, machinists and construction workers know how to grow food better than IT guys?  LMFAO

ETA - We would all be fucked.  Farming is the only occupation that does not require trade to sustain life.

My statement still stands: "a camera cannot detect speed". Sure there are several systems out there that employ a camera to detect the speed of an object. However, the MDOT Intelligent Transportation System uses very simple cameras with pan, tilt, and zoom. It ain't easy tracking a vehicle along an expressway let alone passing from one camera zone to another. The images you can see online are all you get.

M33 & M52? The northern end of M52 is 49.2 miles from the southern end of M33 (as the crow flies). Can you provide a more specific reference? Is it listed here?

Just go 100 yards east of Telelgraph on 96, and tell me what the conex boxes armed with night vision cameras, data arrays, and shot spotter mics are for.

That is, if you can see through the veiled fences. There is one on the freeway, on the North side in Eliza Howe, and on the south side in the middle of the Church yard.

I've seen it and it's not part of the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS).

Wutsa "data array"?

I agree 100%, I've been saying that the amount of people collecting in this state seems higher than the amount paying in and it can't last that way for very long.   Once those welfare checks quit coming it will get ugly.



What is you theory on what they would use the cameras for in the event of collapse?





 

This thread is full of a serious amount of WTF?  Some of you guys may want to have your water checked to make sure there aren't any PCBs or other shit in it that's messing up your brains?

Chance favors the prepared.

I'm sorry, it's 33 and 55. There are four cameras, each facing the direction and angle to allow reading of plates. If they were for traffic flow control they would be looking at traffic coming straight on like some here in Westland do, not down at an angle looking at the rear of the car as they pass.

If these cameras are simple up down/left right cameras used only for traffic control, then why is it HAM radio licensees like myself can listen to police freqs. and hear the police in say... Canton getting updates from dispatchers as a car stolen from a dealership speeds by? Or, when a car full of ghetto goblins hit a telephone pole by Southfield Highschool the dispatcher was able to redirect a camera near the freeway to see which way thru the neighborhood they ran?


You don't happen to work for Rauhorn, do you?

This is not traffic control:

Interesting factoid: The State of Michigan has been out of unemployment money since January of '08. Every dime spent on benefits since then has been borrowed from the Fedgov, with interest. We are not the only state doing this-how long can the federal government keep that much money flowing? One in 4 homes in Suburban Detroit has no income, and an equal number are in foreclosure or are vacant. In Detroit proper, unemployment was over 50% 3 or 4 months ago-I don't know what the housing picture is like there. Let those numbers sink in:  What will happen when Congress can't write these welfare and unemployment checks anymore?

Well, you're a military man, think of it as a military problem with a military solution: The reason I mentioned Rauhorn, is because Rauhorn Electric is one company who installs these cameras-I personally have never seen them installing out of Detroit proper, the trucks that install cameras along the freeway/suburbs are much newer and usually painted white with some kind of specialized rig to erect the camera masts. Anyway, back to Rauhorn: Their website shows them to be a Detroit company that boasts "We are a Pre-Qualified Contractor with the Michigan Department of Transportation, and are an approved contractor with the U.S. Department of Defense."

Regardless of who puts the cameras up, if you wanted to quell anything from riots to attempts to dislodge local government in the event of social upheaval, you would want the ability to monitor road traffic use by plate number, data mine for common plate numbers that were near areas that Problems occurred, and ultimately you'd want the ability to associate an owner with the vehicle. Given that all major arteries, both freeways and surface streets in the metro area are camera equipped now, it would be very easy to data mine logged plate numbers in an affected area and then go back to recorded video feed to see if the vehicle is actually in the area, how many persons were in it, how much time they spent in what areas etc.

Ok, so let's say that a food riot happened in Detroit, with small gangs/factions siezing large quantities of food from a National Guard station. With 900 people converging on 10 Deuce and a Halfs, the soldiers distributing the food are overwhelmed quickly because they can't shoot into the crowd  (hypothetical here) to nail a few shooters. They retreat and the gang faction takes all the food. The trucks are driven to an abandoned school yard to let things cool off. Immediately after the theft, a call is placed to whatever facility handles these video feeds and data collection to see who had driven in the area and if the trucks were seen driving on any of the surveillance streets. Sure enough, 4 vehicles were seen crossing Grand River and Michigan with the trucks. Knowing the direction of travel and that they had not been seen going thru any other major intersections after that point, the Deuce and a Halfs and their escort have a very high likelyhood of being within that next block. Troops go in heavy and are able to recover the trucks and food, then use the captured license numbers to apprehend 2 of the escort drivers at the home the vehicle is registered at. Two days later, the other two vehicles get a "hit" after passing under a camera and police/soldiers are dispatched to apprehend them.

Very easy to estimate where a vehicle of interest is with this technology, and a lot of contingencies could be covered with them. Mind you, I am a nobody-just observant, and none of the ideas I am presenting here are new or novel in their application. I saw my first reference to ALPRS in a law enforcement magazine in 1996. It was a story about a patrol car based system that could log 3,000 plates an hour using a single laptop and camera. Now we have cop cars with 4 cameras on them and tied into 3 or 4 databases to run checks on every plate they drive past and log their positions whether they are "of interest" or not so that the data is available for later investigations-watch the video I linked!

"Intelligent Transportation System"... That sound innocuous enough, of course "Citizen Tracking and Surveillance network" doesn't quite have the same ring to it...

Oh, I do know that in the past, MDOT did pay the electric bill for some of these cameras, or at least they did for the one on 696/Farmington Rd. back in 2003. I know because I used to read the electric meter attached to the phone pole it was mounted to-I worked for an Edison contractor while laid off that year.

Got anything productive to add here?

I never said that. I said that our labor pool is too specialized. The last generation who grew vegetables to supplement their diets in the US are all either dead or in nursing homes.

We have a garden where we grow our own vegetables and chickens we plan to have for eggs, and in a pinch we could eat them too.  Does this count for anything?  

Do you?

I still disagree.  I would say at least 3 out of 4 homeowners I know grow gardens (household incomes from $50k - $300k).  Occupation has nothing to do with whether you know how to grow a garden, work on cars, hunt, fish, or use hand tools.  I would help my entire neighborhood plant vegetable gardens if it came down to it.  The skills are still there, just used as hobbies instead of necessity.

I don't think you understand how difficult it would be-yes, there are people who can grow a garden, and people who would be willing to help other do the same. Where are the seeds going to  come from? Will it even be growing season? How will the food be stored until more can be grown? Does everyone in your neighborhood have enough open, plantable ground to support a family with vegetables? How many homes are poor candidates for growing food due to tree coverage shading sunlight for most of the day? How many would experience a crop failure in their first try?

I'm a tool and die maker, I know a little about fixing cars. I know less about making shoes and boots. I know nothing about medical care beyond red cross basics.