Detroit To Become America’s Second Chinese-Style Surveillance City

By MassPrivateI

The push to turn America’s cities into Chinese-style surveillance networks has found a new partner in Detroit, Michigan.

The only difference between what is happening in San Diego and what is happening in Detroit is, they are not using the same smart street lights to spy on everyone. Detroit uses Intellistreets a company known to have strong ties to Homeland Security.

What started out as a ‘voluntary’ police-cam share program in Saginaw, Michigan has morphed into a massive 1000 surveillance camera network which includes 500 businesses in Detroit.

Detroit’s Project Green Light, spies on people in real-time at gas stations, retail stores and public housing.

A map of Project Green Light’s surveillance cameras, shows the true extent of police spying in Detroit and it looks an awful lot like the map of San Diego’s IQ street lights.

What makes Detroit’s spying so disturbing, is that the city wants the public to help fund their program.

The Detroit Free Press said, Mayor Mike Duggan sent out a ‘citizen petition drive’ soliciting money from home owners and businesses to help pay for a new multi-million dollar surveillance program.

In order to continue making Detroit a safe place to live, work, and play, we are asking you to gather signatures from your neighbors pledging support for the Neighborhood Real-Time Intelligence Program.

Motorola’s hand in helping turn our cities into Chines-style surveillance centers is deplorable.

Motorola Solutions and the Detroit Police Department have worked together to create their own “Neighborhood Real-Time Intelligence Program” (NRTIP) which spies on residents 24 hours a day. (To learn more about Motorola and Project Green Light click here.)

An article in the Neighborhoods.org revealed that police departments are creating their own ‘real-time intelligence centers’.

Detroit Police Department Lieutenant Sonia Russell said, “the difference between us and a fusion center is that we’re not on the state level. All the products that we have here are on the same level as being a fusion center with counter-terrorism, with the statistical data, with the crime patterns and trends, with the camera footage,” she said. “That’s what’s unique about us, we got everything right here, and a lot of real time crime centers don’t have that. We’re able to do all the things that a fusion center can do.”

I am torn between calling Detroit, America’s second Chinese-style surveillance city or New Orleans which has the dishonor of being “America’s largest spying network.”

The true extent of police spying is much worse that what is being reported, especially if you include Ring doorbells and Nest cameras which turn entire neighborhoods into mini-surveillance networks.

I think what puts Detroit in second place, is law enforcement’s social media spying.

Local police mimic China by spying on everyone’s social media

The ‘Neighborhoods’ article also revealed that Detroit’s NRTIP spies on everyone’s social media and receives secret hot lists from Project Green Light.

Project Green Light is a considerable portion of how they track crime in the city, using their hot list – the area around a recent crime – as a way to prioritize where they should be monitoring and focusing their efforts.

The screens on the front wall are feeds from Project Green Light locations and dumping cameras. One analyst scrolled through Twitter and other social media to check for any threats or mentions of crime.

Big Brother’s justification for turning our cities into mirror images of China is summed up by Crime Analyst Breanna Lingo who said, ” If you were a victim of crime one day, there could be an extra eye watching to really help.”

Does it make you feel safer knowing that law enforcement is using the same tactics that China uses? Do we really need police spying on everyone in real-time to make us feel safer?

You can read more at the MassPrivateI blog, where this article first appeared.