O yeah, we're just checkin' to make sure your car isn't stolen...Uh-huh.....

Freeport installs tracking-capable cameras to watch traffic entering city

By Craig Hlavaty, Houston Chronicle | July 11, 2013
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With help from a $600,000 federal grant approved in 2009, Freeport has installed 12 surveillance cameras at major entrances to the city with an eye on adding even more in the near future.

Dedicated cameras that can follow cars have been set up to scan license plates to be checked against a national database of stolen vehicles.

"If the plate is listed as a wanted vehicle or in connection to a crime or a wanted person the cameras will follow the car and notify the dispatcher," said city manager Jeff Pynes in an email.

Freeport officials told Click2Houston that every car that comes and goes will be recorded at the Freeport police station, and the city will keep these photos on record for 90 days.

Pynes adds that the notification of "hits" on license plates is automatic, but the movement of the cameras are manual based on the need.

"We have another $6 million pending that will add to the phase one installed infrastructure to add up to 80 more cameras all around the industrial areas, port areas and major thoroughfares of the city," said Pynes.

Pynes says Freeport made the decision to fortify the community and its businesses.

Freeport, southeast of Lake Jackson, has one of the nation's busiest international ports, and over two dozen chemical companies have facilities there.

"Freeport is a medium to small city with larger city problems," he said, mentioning the port and industrial complexes essential to the local economy.

Pynes also said terrorism is an issue for the city government.

"We are trying to make our city and business community not a soft target for terrorist or criminal opportunities," he said.

The main entrances where the cameras have been placed, Highway 288, FM 1495, Highway 36, are all heavy traffic areas.

Pynes says that the complaints have been minimal.

"We have not really received any complaints," Pynes said. "Even the people I thought may complain have been supportive, if the technology is not used for traffic enforcement."

right... stolen cars...

thanks for posting.

I guess having bar codes tatooed on our foreheads will certainly make those cameras even more useful to identify us, don't you think? Surely no one would complain about that? If you've done nothing wrong, what do you have to worry about?

Freeport is publicizing these cameras, how many towns and cities already have this in place already and it simply slipped their minds to say something about it?

A few city have them mounted on patrol cars and they scan every sigle plate while cruising their beats.
This started (public)back in 2010 fwiw(pre 9/11)

Originally Posted by Metachrosis

A few city have them mounted on patrol cars and they scan every sigle plate while cruising their beats.
This started (public)back in 2010 fwiw(pre 9/11)

And this kind of 'scan and send' software (or however it works) has been around for a little while, or has it? It isn't brand new?

Not near new and advancing at a steady rate due to government funding
If the military throws it away the public is soon oppressed by it in some form or fashion.
In the hands of the keepers its used to generate control and revenue from the populous
Things like Doppler,Lidar(traffic laser radar) and several others were once "military spec" and used in war for advancement against the opposition(s)

Wait till you see whats coming from our latest ventures in the SandBox theaters of war.Implemented by none other then our our militarized peace keepers on the local suburban fronts of metro inner city(s).

Yes,they will turn those "weapons" on the populous to achieve "control"over the opposition

And of course, the main reason and purpose of the Second Amendment, which was explicitly put into place to keep the weapons that are available to the government also available to "the people" to maintain parity with the potential tools of oppression, has been completely ignored and surgically removed from the Bill of Rights. The spirit and letter of the Second Amendment had nothing at all to do with "sporting uses" of weapons.

Originally Posted by Metachrosis

Not near new

So, I am trying to go somewhere with this and I need help thinking it through.
I'm bothered by the publication of the story. Why? Many stories are not written just to sell copy, they are published for a reason. (Another whole conversation, that the press seems to be at times a pawn or a tool rather than freely disseminating information. I mean really, the press was TOLD to call Snowden a 'leaker' rather than a 'whisteblower' and most all did)
So Freeport is putting in these cameras which are not new technology. What does that mean? That a lot of 'bad guys' have the same technology and they too are checking out plates. It isn't hard for them to find out cop car plates, isn't hard for them to check out homeowner's plates and know when they are at home or where they are. You can bet that all that gps technology and all that stuff isn't only in the hands of the government.
Remember, this is Texas, there is a lot of money and a lot of organized crime. Maybe not like New York or Chicago but still we have the drug cartels and the seriously organized gangs that have money, lots of it, (and want a lot more), and then there is the whole issue (another conversation) of organized medicine and pharma.
So who will plate cameras catch? Not upscale car thieves, they would know to switch plates. Not terrorists, if they know they are being plated they will use someone else's car. Not any kind of organized criminal that has the resources (and it doesn't take much) to outsmart the cameras, or those who have enough connections so that it doesn't matter where they are seen.
It seems the plate cameras will catch low level criminals. Heck the high level criminals probably have their own cameras and are happy that the gummint's cams are keeping the gummint occupied, so it looks as if both the government and the unelected criminal element is still plundering your everyday citizen.
So why run a story like that when all you are going to catch are some incompetent low level thieves? Is it just to get the public used to being photographed every moment of their waking lives?

Indoctrination conditioning some call it,which isnt complete

Operant Conditioning is actually what it is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_Conditioning

Awareness reveals its in virtually everything in the USA