San Francisco Public Utilities Commission reveals plans to possibly use streetlights for surveillance

An LED streetlight being installed in North Carolina (Image credit: AshevilleNC.gov)

In a request for participants (RFP) issued by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) for a secure wireless control and communication system for San Francisco’s future network of dimmable LED streetlights, it is revealed that the network may also be used for street surveillance, public information broadcasts, gunshot monitoring and much more.

The plans seem quite similar to other streetlight surveillance and broadcasting systems like Intellistreets which boasts behavioral recognition technology, among other features.

While these Big Brother-esque plans might seem strange or frightening to some, it really isn’t all that surprising given that surveillance equipment has already been placed on public buses in San Francisco and elsewhere (see below video for more information).

The RFP, dated June 8, 2012 and released by Public Intelligence on January 21, 2013, reveals that the “integrated wireless communication monitoring and control system” designed at first to remotely manage the city’s future network of LED streetlights, could have many more troubling applications.

While the RFP itself at first glance makes it seem as though the wireless network will be used to transmit street surveillance and other information captured by devices other than the LED streetlights, a report by Rebecca Browe of the San Francisco Bay Guardian makes it clear that the streetlights themselves will do the surveillance.

“Each light has something akin to a smartphone embedded inside of it, and the interconnected network of lights can be controlled by a central command center,” reports Browe, describing technology nearly identical to that in the Intellistreets streetlights (see above linked article for more information).

Some of the “future needs for the secure wireless transmission of data throughout the City may include,” according to the RFP, “electric vehicle charging stations data transmission, electric meter reading, gunshot monitoring, street surveillance, public information broadcasts, street parking monitoring devices, traffic monitoring, traffic signal control, pollution monitoring” and the mysterious need labeled “others.”

According to Browe’s report, a pilot project has already begun in downtown San Francisco on Minna between Fourth and Sixth streets involving 14 streetlights.

As of now, these lights remotely read electric meters owned by the city, wirelessly transmit data from traffic cameras owned by the city’s Municipal Transportation Agency and also transmit data from traffic signals in the area.

Yet many questions are left unaddressed in the implementation of this program.

“Is a system of lighting fixtures that persistently collects data and beams it across invisible networks something San Franciscans really want to be installed in public space?” Browne asks.

“And, if these systems are ultimately used for street surveillance or traffic monitoring and constantly collecting data, who will have access to that information, and what will it be used for?”

Even Sascha Haselmeyer, cofounder of Living Labs Global Award (LLGA), acknowledged that there are some quite notable privacy implications to these types of systems.

“Many cities are deploying sensors that detect the Bluetooth signal of your mobile phone. So, they can basically track movements through the city,” Haselmeyer said.

“Like anything with technology, there’s a huge amount of opportunity and also a number of questions,” Haselmeyer continued. “You have movement sensors, traffic sensors, or the color [of a light] might change” based on a condition or behavior detected by the system.

“There’s an issue about who can opt in, or opt out, of what,” Haselmeyer said.

Indeed, it seems nearly impossible to opt out or in of a city-wide system like this.

Mary Tienken, Project Manager for LED Streetlight Conversion Project for the SFPUC, unsurprisingly attempted to downplay the potential to use the systems for street surveillance.

“The [SFPUC’s] interest is in creating an infrastructure that can be used by multiple agencies or entities … having a single system rather than have each department install its own system,” Tienken said, according to the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

An especially interesting part of Browne’s report is the mention of the interest of Intellistreets in the San Francisco pilot program.

According to the article, Intellistreets CEO Ron Harwood said his company “was a contender for the pilot through LLGA; he even traveled to Rio and delivered a panel talk on urban lighting systems alongside [SFPUC Assistant General Manager Barbara] Hale and a representative from Oracle.”

“Harwood seemed less concerned about the activists who’ve decried his product as a modern day manifestation of Big Brother, and more worried about why his company was not chosen to provide wireless LED streetlights in San Francisco,” according to Browne.

Michael Tardif, Intellistreets Chief Administration Officer, believes this was because of some “inside deal” and declined to discuss why San Francisco had rejected the Intellistreets application.

Perhaps most interesting of all, however, was the SFPUC’s response to a public records request for details on the city’s participation in LLGA submitted last August.

“After a duly diligent search we find that there are no documents responsive to your request,” responded an SFPUC public records coordinator to the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

“The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is not a participant, nor is involved with Living Labs Global Award,” continued the response. “Please know that we take our obligations under the Sunshine Ordinance very seriously.”

While that is clearly a lie, Charles Sheehan, communications manager at SFPUC (referred to only as “Sheehan”) in the article, claimed it was just an honest mistake.

Sheehan told the San Francisco Bay Guardian that in the public records division, “Clearly, nobody had any familiarity with LLGA.”

Did I forget anything or miss any errors? Would you like to make me aware of a story or subject to cover? Or perhaps you want to bring your writing to a wider audience? Feel free to contact me at admin@EndtheLie.com with your concerns, tips, questions, original writings, insults or just about anything that may strike your fancy.

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Elderberry Extract: Nature’s “Tamiflu”

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According to PubMed:

Sambucus nigra L. products – Sambucol – are based on a standardized black elderberry extract. They are natural remedies with antiviral properties, especially against different strains of influenza virus. Sambucol was shown to be effective in vitro against 10 strains of influenza virus. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized study, Sambucol reduced the duration of flu symptoms to 3-4 days.

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Anonymous Calls for Civil War to Overthrow the US Government

In the latest video from Anonymous, they have called for the most aggressive action yet. They're asking the American people to join them in a "call to arms" for the destruction and overthrow of the US Government.

In the statement, Anonymous says the government is calling them "terrorists" because they truly fear a people's uprising.

"The United States Government insists on labeling us as terrorists. The question is, "who do we terrorize?" Is it probable that the United States government is truly afraid of we, the people?"
They are not calling for denial of service attacks on government websites or protests as is their normal modus operandi, but for freedom activists to join them in full-blown war to overthrow the US Government and return it to the control of the people.

"We are not calling upon the collective to deface or use a distributed denial of service attack on a United States government agency website, or affiliate. We are not calling upon the people to once again occupy a city or protest in front of a local building, This has not brought on us any legislative change or alternate law. It has only brought us bloodshed and false criticism. For the last 12 years, voting has been useless. Corporations and lobbyists are the true leaders of this country and are the ones with the power to control our lives, To rebuild our government, we must first destroy it.Our time for democracy is here, Our time for resolution is here, This is America's time for revolution, To restore our constitutional rights, to once again, be free therefore, Anonymous along with the American people have decided to openly declare war on the United States government. This is a call to arms."

The hacktivist collective lists a long train of abuses that can no longer be allowed:

• We refuse to be a police state.
• We refuse to be brutalized and dehumanized by the very people our tax dollars fund to protect our cities and streets.
• We will not allow the government to control our destiny, our right to build a life for ourselves.
• We demand freedom from government control, taxation, repossession and death.
• You will not come to our doors and take our guns, our property, you will not force the citizens of this great country to participate in the unlawful act of government mandated healthcare.
• We the people refuse to put in your control our health, our bodies, our minds, our lives.
• We will not grant permission for the government to deploy drones over our homes and communities. 
• We must end the federal reserve. A private central bank should not issue our currency, set interest rates and run our economy. Rather, we need to return control over the currency to the American people where it belongs.

They claim that all peaceful attempts to affect change within the system have failed and the time for action is now.

"Our peaceful actions, patience and restraint have been demonstrated as we watched and waited for our Congress and Representatives to speak for the American citizens and protect us from the tyrant that sits in the oval office and happily strips the American people of our rights, one by one, executive order by executive order. We have waited long enough."

Google I/O Conference: Project Glass Prototype For Sale

Google's futuristic, Internet-connected glasses -- known, and fantasized about, as Project Glass -- are now real enough, said company co-founder Sergey Brin today, that prototypes will be sold to developers for $1,500.

"This is new technology and we really want you to shape it," Brin said at the Google I/O conference for computer programmers in San Francisco. "We want to get it out into the hands of passionate people as soon as possible." They are not ready for sale to the public.

The glasses -- really a tiny camera, display screen and processor that fit over the upper corner of a pair of glasses -- are meant to display information literally before a user's eyes. The camera would allow people to transmit video or still images of what they're seeing to others wirelessly, allowing them to see your world as you live it.

Google said it had been quietly working on Project Glass for two years. But until now, the outside world had only seen fanciful versions of what the glasses might be able to do. Today, Google said, they're far enough along that programmers are invited to try them out -- and come up with all sorts of ideas for how they might be used.

"Obviously capturing images and video is only one of the things a wearable computer can do," said Brin.

To make the point, Google had parachutists jump out of a blimp over San Francisco, wearing the glasses. The 6,000 programmers and reporters at the meeting saw a live video feed from the skydivers' glasses as they descended, landing on top of the Moscone Center where the I/O conference was taking place.

The applause when the skydivers walked into the convention center was thunderous.

Google this spring had shown a fanciful video of Project Glass, suggesting what might be possible. Look up at the sky, and a weather forecast will appear on the little screen over your eyebrow. Head down the stairs into the subway, and the glasses will show you whether trains are on time. Walk down the street and get turn-by-turn directions. See something you'd like to share with friends, and the images your glasses shoot will go to their Google+ social-media accounts.

Brin said that's just the beginning. Programmers can place orders at this week's meeting, he said, and get a pair early next year. The company is counting on them to come up with new uses for a wearable computer before the glasses are sold generally.

"You have to want to be on the bleeding edge," Brin said.

ABC News