The DEA and ICE are hiding surveillance cameras in streetlights
The DEA and ICE are hiding surveillance cameras in
streetlights
By Justin Rohrlich & Dave Gershgorn November 9, 2018
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have hidden an undisclosed number of
covert surveillance cameras inside streetlights around the country, federal
contracting documents reveal.
According to government procurement data, the DEA has
paid a Houston, Texas company called Cowboy Streetlight Concealments LLC
roughly $22,000 since June 2018 for “video recording and reproducing
equipment.” ICE paid out about $28,000 to Cowboy Streetlight Concealments over
the same period of time.
It’s unclear where the DEA and ICE streetlight cameras
have been installed, or where the next deployments will take place. ICE offices
in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio have provided funding for recent
acquisitions from Cowboy Streetlight Concealments; the DEA’s most recent
purchases were funded by the agency’s Office of Investigative Technology, which
is located in Lorton, Virginia.
Christie Crawford, who owns Cowboy Streetlight
Concealments with her husband, a Houston police officer, said she was not at
liberty to discuss the company’s federal contracts in detail.
“We do streetlight concealments and camera enclosures,”
Crawford told Quartz. “Basically, there’s businesses out there that will build
concealments for the government and that’s what we do. They specify what’s best
for them, and we make it. And that’s about all I can probably say.”
However, she added: “I can tell you this—things are
always being watched. It doesn’t matter if you’re driving down the street or
visiting a friend, if government or law enforcement has a reason to set up
surveillance, there’s great technology out there to do it.”
Earlier this week, the DEA issued a solicitation for
“concealments made to house network PTZ [Pan-Tilt-Zoom] camera, cellular modem,
cellular compression device,” noting that the government intended to give the
contract to Obsidian Integration LLC, an Oregon company with a sizable number
of federal law enforcement customers.
Just a few days earlier, the Jersey City Police
Department awarded a contract to Obsidian Integration for “the purchase and
delivery of a covert pole camera.” The filing did not provide further design
details.
Obsidian did not respond to a request for comment, nor
did Morgan Hairston, the Department of Justice contracting officer handling the
bids.
In addition to streetlights, the DEA has also placed
covert surveillance cameras inside traffic barrels, a purpose-built product
offered by a number of manufacturers. And as Quartz reported last month, the
DEA operates a network of digital speed-display road signs that contain
automated license plate reader technology within them.
Chad Marlow, a senior advocacy and policy counsel for the
American Civil Liberties, says efforts to put cameras in street lights have
been proposed before by local law enforcement, typically as part of a “smart”
LED street light system.
“It basically has the ability to turn every streetlight
into a surveillance device, which is very Orwellian to say the least,” Marlow
told Quartz. “In most jurisdictions, the local police or department of public
works are authorized to make these decisions unilaterally and in secret.
There’s no public debate or oversight.”
The impact of surveillance cameras will increase as the
development of facial recognition algorithms become more commonplace among law
enforcement agencies. Amazon has been particularly interested in outfitting
cameras operated by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with facial
recognition, according to emails recently unearthed by the Project on
Government Oversight.
“We are ready and willing to support the vital [Homeland
Security Investigations] mission,” an Amazon employee wrote in an email that
touted the company’s facial recognition software.
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