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Permits? We're not talking a solar farm to power a small device. There are a lot of trail cams that have solar built in, are very small, camouflaged, and motion
by cronix 4y ago
Permits? We're not talking a solar farm to power a small device. There are a lot of trail cams that have solar built in, are very small, camouflaged, and motion activated with 20MP cameras for under $200.
- dagw 4y agoWe're talking about filming major roads here. "Motion activated" effectively means running 24/7. No way a built in solar panel in a camouflaged trail camera will manage that. Also it doesn't matter how small the device is, if you legally want to attach a camera to any sort of infrastructure overlooking a road, then yes you need permits you almost certainly will not get. You could possibly attach it to a pole on private land next to the road, but even then you'd need the permission of the land owner.
- cronix 4y agoI suppose it depends on the jurisdiction. For instance, some courts, like the 9th District Court of Appeals have ruled that cities can't remove homeless camping on public property. Public forests are public, and there's lots of trail cams. https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/court-ruling-homless-sleep-public/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/court-ruling-homless...
- kube-system 4y agoForcibly moving living people and removing unattended property are entirely different scenarios.
- bobthepanda 4y agoYeah, the issue with those who are homeless is that it essentially criminalizes living for people who cannot rent or own, and thus infringes on their liberties. There’s no right to hang up privately owned cameras in public.
- orangepurple 4y agoI am imagining an army of homeless sitting at every intersection in the US holding surveillance cameras and getting paid by # of unique plates scanned per minute
- squeaky-clean 4y agoReminds me of the company that got homeless people to be 4g wifi hotspots at SXSW https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/13/148506762/turning-homeless-men-into-wifi-hotspots-at-sxsw-ignites-debate https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/13/148506762...
- beambot 4y agoPartner with roadside billboard providers. Sell it to them on the cheap as "analytics", and then just re-sell the LPR data.
- vineyardmike 4y agoI wonder if something like this already exists. This seems like a great business. By great business I mean it seems like something people would say for. I don’t know if it would actually be valuable data to billboard owners though. But I can imagine a mega unicorn startup advertising IRL advertisement analytics and back-selling the data to tons of data brokers.
- squeaky-clean 4y agoA random solar powered android phone is found fastened to a bridge and you can be sure the police are going to look into it and take it down.
- brokenmachine 4y agoPut a police sticker on it and they will think it's theirs and leave it alone.