I've done quite a few videos capturing government misconduct that was recorded
from doorbell cameras such as ring doorbells for example cops were
moving and destroying a ring doorbell in Erie Pennsylvania at the wrong house
cops removing an F Joe Biden flag from the front porch of a home
cops altering a removing exterior surveillance cameras
cops serving an eviction at the wrong house it was posted a week ago it was posted last week
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what are even cops coming into a house guns drawn
for a building inspection in New Port Richey Florida
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Police Department
home video cameras are certainly handy at catching law enforcement violating our constitutional
rights check out those prior videos if you want to hear me discuss the constitutional rights at
play in those incidents but did you know that the government is also actively using them as
well do you have a ring doorbell how is the footage stored Can the police obtain that
footage even against your will even if you've done nothing wrong what if I told you the ring
just might provide that stored footage from outside or even inside of your house to the
police without your consent if you own a ring doorbell you might want to pay attention foreign
Michael Larkin was featured in a political article while posted in the description his story
cameras in and around his home and his business five of those cameras surround his house which
record in 5 to 15 second bursts whenever they're activated he also has three cameras inside his
house as well as 13 cameras inside the store that he owns all of these cameras are connected to his
ring account ring the company stores this footage on their servers for up to 180 days so Michael
thought that his footage was his own private footage but he thought wrong more than 10 million
Americans own this Amazon owned product installed at their front doors and elsewhere around and
inside their homes as ring cameras became more popular they started to develop a close
relationship with law enforcement and the police realized that ring was generating and storing
what it was to them valuable surveillance footage that they could use in their investigations and
eventually police departments began basically giving away ring doorbells which the company
provided for free in some cases so ring has an app called Neighbors where users can upload and post
Clips like a virtual neighborhood watch in 2018 it started partnering with local police departments
with features specifically for police officers on the app allowing them to send Public Safety
alerts and requests for video footage to users in a specific area by 2023 ring had nearly 2 350
police departments on its neighbors Network lawmakers in Congress have previously raised
concerns about Ring's close ties with the police and how often the Amazon owned company has shared
footage with law enforcement with without the owner's consent Michael Larkin's story illustrates
how far these requests can go even when the camera owner initially cooperates with police police had
contacted him and said that they were conducting a drug-related investigation on a neighbor and that
they wanted videos of what they called suspicious activity between 5 to 7 PM just for one night in
October so Larkin cooperated and he sent clips of a car that drove by his ring camera more than 12
times in that time frame he thought that that was all that the police would need instead it
was just the beginning they asked for more footage now from the entire day's worth of Records after
sending the initial footage Larkin started to find the police demands to become honorous he
says that his main concern at first was practical each clip even if they were only five seconds long
would take up to a minute to download and then descend over after he stopped cooperating Michael
didn't hear from the detective again until he received an email from ring notifying him that
his account was the subject of a search warrant from the Hamilton Police Department then a week
later Larkin receive the notice from ring that the company had received a warrant signed by a
local judge the notice informed him that ring was obligated to send footage from more than
20 different cameras of Michael's whether or not Larkin was willing to share those cameras himself
and in Larkin's case ring indicated to him that they would be sending all the footage that the
police were asking for given the warrant in that case Larkin was not able to choose which cameras
he could send videos from the warrant included all five of his outdoor cameras and also added a sixth
camera that was inside his house as well as any videos from cameras associated with his account
which would include cameras even inside his store this included footage recorded from cameras that
he had in his living room and in his bedroom as well as the 13 cameras that he had installed at
his store associated with his account Larkin decided to fight the warrant he estimated that
a lawyer would have been too expensive and he had only about seven days to challenge it before ring
said that they would comply with the warrant and he still doesn't understand how a judge
could have signed off on a warrant asking for footage from a camera inside his home when the
investigation was about his neighbor the Hamilton Police Department got the video footage that it
requested the department claims that they did not obtain any video from inside his house Larkin told
Politico however that his indoor camera that was listed in the warrant was unplugged for the time
frame that the warrants specified and while his living room and bedroom cameras only activated
when his home alarm system became active though Larkin's warrant was unusually broad warrants
themselves have become increasingly common after concerns from activists and lawmakers about Ring's
role and Community surveillance the company began in 2020 publishing a transparency report on law
enforcement requests that they receive the report shows that the number of search warrants that it
receives has grown significantly each year it received 536 search warrants in 2019. the first
year covered in the report in the first half of 2022 it received 1622 requests ring claims to have
declined to provide footage to law enforcement in the past according to their report it sent
and back no information in response to 113 out of the 536 warrants it received in 2019 and 634
they declined out of 1 610 warrants in 2020 but ring then stopped providing information on how
many warrants they refused for 2021 and they didn't respond to Politico for their article
about why they changed those policies but here's the point I just want you to be aware that this is
happening Technologies such as ring doorbells can be extremely useful but they can also be
dangerous in that they invade your privacy usually I would say to people don't break the
law but if you do don't tell anyone about it but that's basically what you're doing if you
have cameras all over your house that record you doing something potentially illegal even if you
didn't realize it was illegal you may not have the option of choosing whether to provide the
footage to the police if requested to do so they may obtain those records through a direct warrant
to the company that's hosting the footage remember the Aaron Hernandez case his own home surveillance
cameras were used as evidence against them no longer do police need a confession they'll just
get your camera footage now people are putting these things all over inside of their homes some
will say don't break the law if you have nothing to worry about but I bet those same people can't
name even one percent of the 5 000 Plus Federal criminal laws that exist much less to several
thousand more state laws that exist every day these people likely break some criminal law that
they didn't even realize existed I prefer freedom freedom is scary deal with it foreign [Music]