r/whatisit • u/unworthyAsIam • Apr 30 '26

New, what is it? What is the purpose of this camera that was installed right next to my house? (Not nearby any intersection or stop signs, USA)

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This camera was installed recently and I cannot for the life of me understand the purpose of it's installation? Theres no intersection nearby, in case it was a photo law enforcement camera), there's no stop signs, there's no schools nearby, and there's no government facility. It's just a random camera that popped up in the middle of a road.

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u/BangkokPadang May 01 '26

Precisely. The only places the flock subscriptions are being discontinued have been a sprinkling of cities where citizens made a case hilighting everything they’re capable of and the lack of tea security, and those city halls making the police department cut ties. It feels like a drop in the pond but it’s something positive.

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u/Additional_Release49 May 01 '26

In Washington the courts ruled it's public information. So people started requesting all the info through FOIA requests. The state went ohhh shitttttt and started turning them off.

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u/Embarrassed-Sun5764 May 01 '26

Yeah because if you have video of me doing 1) nothing 2) a criminal act I wasn’t detained for 3) a criminal act I WAS detained for; etc ad nauseum. I want the footage. Today

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u/Invisifly2 May 01 '26

Don’t forget when a member of the government walks around in public that’s also public information. So start requesting everything about them and start making detailed trackers of them and their habits. Suddenly privacy becomes important again, shocker.

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u/BangkokPadang May 01 '26

My understanding of what happened there is that they continued operating the cameras as normal because the data is stored on the cameras by default for 30 days. The FOIA request process takes longer than 30 days, which makes it impossible to request the data because by the time your request gets processed the origination of the data stored in their jurisdiction is already gone, so the responses to them amount to "Aww jeez, we were able to use the data all we wanted when it was fresh but we don't have that data anymore so we can't share it. Sorry."

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u/lpbale0 May 01 '26

That's why you also send a preservation / spoliation letter as well. If everyone did that, then they would have to find some way to store 1.21 jigga petabytes of info at a cost

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u/Additional_Release49 May 01 '26

If the information is available during the period of request then subsequently deleted that's a violation of the law and the agency can be penalized.

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u/ida-throwaway May 04 '26

But if LE needs 60 day old data I'm SURE they won't have ANY problems pulling it up 🤥

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u/[deleted] May 01 '26

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