How long, do you think, before the city absolutely must have these?

Meet Big Brother.

These creepy new Orwellian streetlights are straight out of 1984. They double as surveillance cameras and can spy on pedestrians, photograph and record their movements and conversations, direct advertisements and government messages at them, count crowd numbers for police and much more. They are operated as a two way system.

ABC 7 in Farmington Hills, Michigan, where these lights are being rolled out with a federal grant, reports that owner/designer Ron Harwood is now “working with Homeland Security” to implement these streetlights as part of a high tech network.

Harwood told the Detroit Free Press that the street lights will “make us feel not only safer, but happier,” representing how “business and government can work together for economic, environmental and social benefits.”

The lights can communicate with each other, and the system is connected via a wi-fi system to a central location where a remote human operator can zoom in on whoever or whatever they want. Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh are rolling them out, too. They promise big bucks for bureaucrats, since advertisers can purchase ad space on them. 

The UK is apparently a few years ahead of us on this.

‘Talking surveillance cameras’ that use a speaker system similar to the Intellistreets model are already being used in UK cities like Middlesborough to bark orders and reprimand people for dropping litter and other minor offenses. According to reports, one of the most common phrases used to shame people into obeying instructions is to broadcast the message, “We are watching you.”

 

I bet this comes before city council within two years, with the first network operational here within three.