Wealthy town has everyone on camera

Medina Washington is an upscale community just east of Seattle. Bill Gates has a home there as well. Roghly 3500 people call Medina home. The median income is close to a quarter of a million dollars.

Now you may decide to take a drive through this beautiful community but be aware, your every move will be caught on camera. The moment you enter town, an automated system is busy running the license plate of your car through a vast network of information systems.

I'm getting a little aggravated with the level of surveilence coming down upon each and every one of us.

Is it a coincedence this is an affluent community? I think not. Where are the cameras running all the plates in say.....East LA or Newark, NJ?

Source: seattletimes.nwsource.com...

Becker



[edit on 16-9-2009 by Becker44]

Oh and let me share this one quote from an elected official to really get your blood boiling.

"We're not elitist at all," Councilmember Robert Rudolph said. "There is a mix of people in Medina of all economic strata. What we're doing here is protecting our citizenry."

Yeah right Pal!

seattletimes.nwsource.com...

Becker

[edit on 16-9-2009 by Becker44]

I think the surveillance is going on in most cities and towns. Probably not to the extent of your town since the income is so high there. I live in a town of roughly 6 to 7 thousand. The city council bought 70,000 dollars of surveillance cameras and placed them around in different parts of the town. Now, this was never printed in the newspaper for people to know. It leaked out from a council member. The streets in this town are almost impossible to drive on and yet that much money was spent on cameras for surveillance. I believe it is the sign of the times as much as anything else such as protecting the citizens. Why do people have to be watched all the time?

If wealthy people CHOOSE to live in towns like that honestly I don't see how its anyone else's business, its just a very large "gated" community essentially.

Did you see what those people wrote in their responses, its times like this when I look at how far they will go to get partially retarted people to participate in a witchunt, well if we "market" it right , then they are elitist and Hitler and we all made money someone elses problem, any volunteers to get your **** sawed off with a butterfly knife?

Check out Monaco.. every inch is under watchful eye. Same sort of thing, lots of rich materialites (tm).

My home town was one of the first in the UK to get equipped with CCTV. We have spent hours discussing ways we could get out of the city unseen and there aren't any. Not one way out of the city centre or the outskirts without being caught on camera.

Yet I have been mugged two times, ironically the second time i was about 20 feet from a camera.

reply to post by Becker44


Putting a camera on someone without them being suspicious to the point of probable cause definitely qualifies as an illegal search.

I think the cameras are fine but they need to not be networked and they need to be accessed only upon probable cause.

the camera systems are so they have key points of entry and exit under video survellance. in the event of a national emergency. I suspect the eyes for the state to be udderly impossible to defend against a deer scope.

I have done a few jobs in this city poking holes in the ground and it is about as Elitist as it can get. We drilled a bunch of test holes because they are actually rerouting the freeway so they can build a new state of the art sound barrier because all of the people who bought and built houses next to the freeway realized they just didn't like the noise. These cameras are simply to make the wealthy people all warm and cozy knowing the police will be notified of any criminals with warrants via license plates a facial identification software. This is big brother at it's worst. I must say though, any town that has a few million dollars in cars parked in front of the Tully's coffee shop every morning is almost putting a target on itself. I actually seen a pair of segway's parked outside and I guess if you got the money to burn but c'mon, this is western Washington and it rains half the year.