Cities across the country are using street lights equipped with microphones and surveillance cameras to spy on everyone

According to an article in the Mercury News, the City of San Jose, California is letting anyCOMM install 300-1,000 street lights equipped with surveillance cameras and microphones on their streets.

“The council ultimately voted 7-4 to allow anyCOMM, a tech company with offices in El Dorado Hills, Gold River and San Jose, to install “nodes” which could have video and audio recording capabilities on 300 to 1,000 streetlights. The “pilot program” — as proposed by Mayor Sam Liccardo — would run for a year and only in pre-agreed upon areas.”

The article goes on to say, that Siemens and anyCOMM will be paid over $34 million to install LED surveillance street lights across the city.

Four months ago, I warned everyone that smart street lights and smart cities were being run by a CIA signature school in New Mexico.

“On November 10th, 2016, CIA Director James O. Brennan met with ten NSSP scholars following his announcement that UNM is to be designated the first IC-CAE Signature School.” 

Albuquerque Business First said, “the program will deepen cooperation between the CIA and UNM…”  

Earlier this year, Reuters revealed that GE, Intel and AT&T were working together to install spying street lights.

“General Electric will put cameras, microphones and sensors on 3,200 street lights in San Diego this year, marking the first large-scale use of “smart city” tools GE says can help monitor traffic and pinpoint crime.”

Los Angeles claims street lights are only listening to traffic

Sadly, the story of spying streetlights is being played out across the country and no one seems to be noticing.

Two years ago the city of Los Angles quietly installed street lights equipped with microphones, to allegedly listen to traffic.

“With help from Philips, some light poles in the City of Angels have been equipped with microphones capable of monitoring the ambient sound in select parts of the city as a way to effectively “listen” to the traffic and obtain “a very articulated and diverse reading of the urban soundscape,” according to Dietmar Offenhuber, assistant professor at Northeastern University.”

And in the same year, Jacksonville, Florida installed 50 GE street lights equipped with video cameras.

Since 2015, mall developer Simon Property Group, General Electric, Cisco; and LED lighting maker Acuity Brands have been working with Sensity Systems to develop street lights that spy on the public and monitor traffic, wink, wink.

The New York Times (NYT) revealed that LED street lights do more than just monitor traffic.

“Depending on the installed or connected sensors, they can detect a range of factors and activities, including motion, congestion, pollutants, gunshots or, increasingly, a particular shopper in or around a store.”

The NYT article said, LED street lights can even spot “suspicious behavior”. Which means they’re spying on everyone. (To find out more about each companies spying LED street lights, click here, here & here.)

Last year, I warned everyone that spying street lights would be coming to a city near you and it appears I was right.
 

Street lights identify individual wireless Bluetooth signals

According to Michael Robertson, police are using Bluetooth detectors to identify an individual Bluetooth signals. 

 “By combining a license plate or a phone number with a Bluetooth serial number, it’s possible to track citizens via their phone”Mr.Robertson said.

Wireless Bluetooth detectors are everywhere…

“The whole country is doing this,” Paul Misticawi, vice president of public sector sales for traffic data software company.

As is often the case when it comes to spying on the public, DHS’s fingerprints are all over it.
 

Intellistreets admits DHS is behind spying street lights

Last year,  DHS the TSA and the NJ Transit installed DriveCam LTYX’s cameras equipped with microphones to secretly spy on commuters conversations.

“The video and audio captured … is utilized by the New Jersey Transit Police Department and is an indispensable investigatory tool for them,” said NJ Transit spokesman Jim Smith. (To find out more click here.)

It’s time to face the facts.

Federal/corporate spying has never been about our safety. Smart lighting and smart cities are about government spying on an unimaginable scale.

As you can see, smart lighting is really about corporate profits at the expense of our privacy.