I've done quite a few videos capturing government misconduct that was recorded from doorbell cameras such as ring doorbells for example cops were moving and destroying a ring doorbell in Erie Pennsylvania at the wrong house cops removing an F Joe Biden flag from the front porch of a home cops altering a removing exterior surveillance cameras cops serving an eviction at the wrong house it was posted a week ago it was posted last week [Music] what are even cops coming into a house guns drawn for a building inspection in New Port Richey Florida [Applause] Police Department home video cameras are certainly handy at catching law enforcement violating our constitutional rights check out those prior videos if you want to hear me discuss the constitutional rights at play in those incidents but did you know that the government is also actively using them as well do you have a ring doorbell how is the footage stored Can the police obtain that footage even against your will even if you've done nothing wrong what if I told you the ring just might provide that stored footage from outside or even inside of your house to the police without your consent if you own a ring doorbell you might want to pay attention foreign Michael Larkin was featured in a political article while posted in the description his story cameras in and around his home and his business five of those cameras surround his house which record in 5 to 15 second bursts whenever they're activated he also has three cameras inside his house as well as 13 cameras inside the store that he owns all of these cameras are connected to his ring account ring the company stores this footage on their servers for up to 180 days so Michael thought that his footage was his own private footage but he thought wrong more than 10 million Americans own this Amazon owned product installed at their front doors and elsewhere around and inside their homes as ring cameras became more popular they started to develop a close relationship with law enforcement and the police realized that ring was generating and storing what it was to them valuable surveillance footage that they could use in their investigations and eventually police departments began basically giving away ring doorbells which the company provided for free in some cases so ring has an app called Neighbors where users can upload and post Clips like a virtual neighborhood watch in 2018 it started partnering with local police departments with features specifically for police officers on the app allowing them to send Public Safety alerts and requests for video footage to users in a specific area by 2023 ring had nearly 2 350 police departments on its neighbors Network lawmakers in Congress have previously raised concerns about Ring's close ties with the police and how often the Amazon owned company has shared footage with law enforcement with without the owner's consent Michael Larkin's story illustrates how far these requests can go even when the camera owner initially cooperates with police police had contacted him and said that they were conducting a drug-related investigation on a neighbor and that they wanted videos of what they called suspicious activity between 5 to 7 PM just for one night in October so Larkin cooperated and he sent clips of a car that drove by his ring camera more than 12 times in that time frame he thought that that was all that the police would need instead it was just the beginning they asked for more footage now from the entire day's worth of Records after sending the initial footage Larkin started to find the police demands to become honorous he says that his main concern at first was practical each clip even if they were only five seconds long would take up to a minute to download and then descend over after he stopped cooperating Michael didn't hear from the detective again until he received an email from ring notifying him that his account was the subject of a search warrant from the Hamilton Police Department then a week later Larkin receive the notice from ring that the company had received a warrant signed by a local judge the notice informed him that ring was obligated to send footage from more than 20 different cameras of Michael's whether or not Larkin was willing to share those cameras himself and in Larkin's case ring indicated to him that they would be sending all the footage that the police were asking for given the warrant in that case Larkin was not able to choose which cameras he could send videos from the warrant included all five of his outdoor cameras and also added a sixth camera that was inside his house as well as any videos from cameras associated with his account which would include cameras even inside his store this included footage recorded from cameras that he had in his living room and in his bedroom as well as the 13 cameras that he had installed at his store associated with his account Larkin decided to fight the warrant he estimated that a lawyer would have been too expensive and he had only about seven days to challenge it before ring said that they would comply with the warrant and he still doesn't understand how a judge could have signed off on a warrant asking for footage from a camera inside his home when the investigation was about his neighbor the Hamilton Police Department got the video footage that it requested the department claims that they did not obtain any video from inside his house Larkin told Politico however that his indoor camera that was listed in the warrant was unplugged for the time frame that the warrants specified and while his living room and bedroom cameras only activated when his home alarm system became active though Larkin's warrant was unusually broad warrants themselves have become increasingly common after concerns from activists and lawmakers about Ring's role and Community surveillance the company began in 2020 publishing a transparency report on law enforcement requests that they receive the report shows that the number of search warrants that it receives has grown significantly each year it received 536 search warrants in 2019. the first year covered in the report in the first half of 2022 it received 1622 requests ring claims to have declined to provide footage to law enforcement in the past according to their report it sent and back no information in response to 113 out of the 536 warrants it received in 2019 and 634 they declined out of 1 610 warrants in 2020 but ring then stopped providing information on how many warrants they refused for 2021 and they didn't respond to Politico for their article about why they changed those policies but here's the point I just want you to be aware that this is happening Technologies such as ring doorbells can be extremely useful but they can also be dangerous in that they invade your privacy usually I would say to people don't break the law but if you do don't tell anyone about it but that's basically what you're doing if you have cameras all over your house that record you doing something potentially illegal even if you didn't realize it was illegal you may not have the option of choosing whether to provide the footage to the police if requested to do so they may obtain those records through a direct warrant to the company that's hosting the footage remember the Aaron Hernandez case his own home surveillance cameras were used as evidence against them no longer do police need a confession they'll just get your camera footage now people are putting these things all over inside of their homes some will say don't break the law if you have nothing to worry about but I bet those same people can't name even one percent of the 5 000 Plus Federal criminal laws that exist much less to several thousand more state laws that exist every day these people likely break some criminal law that they didn't even realize existed I prefer freedom freedom is scary deal with it foreign [Music]