Wired magazine recommends against the use of Ring cameras for home security for fear of 'racial profiling'



The left's resentment of effective means for curbing crime is no longer limited to armed homeowners, robust police forces, stern criminal laws, and effective prosecutors. Now, home surveillance tech has been classed as "dangerous" and potentially racist.

Ring cameras are a popular commodity among those seeking greater security or at the very least some hope of identifying home invaders so that justice can later be meted out.

TheBlaze has previously detailed multiple occasions on which these devices and others like them have been utilized to great effect, highlighting heroics, exposing criminality, documenting statist intimidation efforts, and recording unsettling events.

The prospect that neighbors and communities can coordinate to counter crime, bolster security, report missing pets, and/or look out for one another is condemnable, at least where the tech magazine Wired is concerned.

Adrienne So, a senior associate reviews editor at Wired, noted in a July 9 article recently indicated that these devices, while "affordable and ubiquitous," are altogether "dangerous," not only to users but to "society in general."

So reported that upon installing a Ring camera, users are automatically enrolled in the optional Neighbors service.

The Neighbors app is touted as a means of helping "put an end to local crime spree."

The app "uses your address to create a radius around your home. If anyone shares an alert on the app about crime or safety within that radius, you'll get a notification on your phone and tablet. Conversely, if you share an alert on the app about a crime or safety issue in your radius, your neighbors will also get a notification on their phones and tablets."

So fears that homeowners with Ring cameras and the Neighbors app might collaborate with local police services or worse — that the devices might expose the wrong kinds of criminals.

So noted that the Neighbors app enables "Ring owners to send videos they've captured with their Ring video doorbell cameras and outdoor security cameras to law enforcement."

Despite admitting "it is legally not allowed [for police] to access your personal videos or information without your permission" and that Ring owners have the choice not to forward footage of a possible crime to police, So insinuated that law enforcement would access footage for which a warrant is needed.

So's primary concern appears to be less the fact that police might get their hands on incriminating footage but the demographics of those incriminated.

"Neighbors increases the possibility of racial profiling. It makes it easier for both private citizens and law enforcement agencies to target certain groups for suspicion of crime based on skin color, ethnicity, religion, or country of origin," wrote So. "We have been concerned about this issue since Ring started partnering with police departments to hand out free video cameras."

So further suggested, "Putting a frictionless feature directly into Neighbors makes it that much easier for Ring owners to bombard law enforcement with unsubstantiated and possibly biased alarms."

Largely for fear of bias, So recommended against purchasing Ring cameras despite their affordability, because "contributing to a just society is also a factor in keeping your family safe."

Richard Hanania, president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, responded to So's article, tweeting, "I absolutely love this. Ring cameras help solve and prevent crime. What's the problem? If it's too easy and solve and prevent crime, it just means you might start suspecting black people. Ergo, we should make it harder to fight crime. Liberals."

Ted Frank, director of litigation at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, highlighted how Wired alternatively praised Nextdoor, which removed the feature whereby users can submit incriminating videos to the police "in, you guessed it, 2020" — around the time the "defund the police" movement kicked off in earnest.

Revolver suggested, "It's official: liberalism is not only a mental disorder, it's also a death wish."

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The Left Wanted To Destroy The Police, And So Far They’ve Succeeded

In virtually every major Democrat-run city and beyond, policing as we know it has been undermined beyond recognition — perhaps beyond repair.

'SoHo Karen' faces hate crime charges for wrongly accusing black teenager of stealing her phone. Her lawyer says it's 'absurd.'



A woman who wrongfully accused a black teenager of stealing her iPhone before tackling him in a New York City hotel lobby late last year is now facing hate crime charges for her actions.

What are the details?

Miya Ponsetto, a 22-year-old California woman dubbed "SoHo Karen" by the media, faces a litany of charges for the incident, including two counts of second-degree unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime, one count of second-degree aggravated harassment, and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

According to the New York Times, Ponsetto was arraigned in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan over video conference on Wednesday. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A viral video of the incident, which took place Dec. 26, shows Ponsetto confronting then-14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr. in the lobby of the Arlo Hotel in SoHo.

In the video, recorded by Keyon's father, well-known jazz musician Keyon Harrold, Ponsetto can be heard yelling, "No, I'm not letting him walk away with my phone!" before grabbing the teenager and pulling him to the ground.

Ponsetto's phone reportedly was later found in an Uber driver's car.

The Harrold family and the attorneys representing them immediately expressed outrage over the incident and claimed that they were the victims of egregious racial profiling. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance's office agreed and decided to aggressively prosecute the issue. Vance's office had already brought attempted robbery and grand larceny charges against Ponsetto earlier this year.

What else?

In response to the new hate crime charges, Ponsetto's attorney, Paul D'Emilia, slammed Vance's office for choosing a "craven and opportunistic path in indicting" his client.

"Today marked another low point in out-going Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's checkered administration," D'Emilia reportedly said in a statement.

"The charges alleged are a brazen and clear overreach of the intent of the statute. In sum, they are absurd, and a perversion of our legal system," he went on to say. "As truly violent criminals maraud and run rampant through New York City, this DA exhibits zero interest in law enforcement and prosecution. Instead, he turns his prosecutorial fury on a distraught and panicked young woman stranded without her lifeline, her phone, thousands of miles from home. Shameful."

Here's more about the incident:

'SoHo Karen' sued by family of Black teen falsely accused of stealing phone in viral video www.youtube.com

Man reportedly called cops on himself multiple times in attempt to manufacture a George Floyd 'situation'



Police in the Seattle metro area arrested a young black man on two counts of false reporting after he allegedly called the cops on himself while pretending to be someone else on multiple occasions.

According to talk radio host Jason Rantz, Arlington police believe that the suspect, Tamon Leverette, was attempting to "goad" law enforcement into racially profiling him. Leverette's Community Corrections supervising officer reportedly told police that Leverette had mentioned to him that "he could see himself in a similar situation as 'George Floyd.'"

EXCLUSIVE: Police were called after a report of a Black man brandishing a gun. The man later complained that he was… https://t.co/7FpesliT4R
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@(((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio) 1614823276.0

What happened?

On Feb. 22, Leverette called police to report a black teenage male in a tan hoodie, who was supposedly brandishing a handgun with a red bandana tied around it — which is often a symbol of gang membership in the "Bloods."

"Well, I'm at the bus stop, and there's a colored young man and I can see a pistol right there," Leverette said during the call. "I saw him fidgeting with a pistol at the bus stop, so it's kind of scared me."

During the call, Leverette claimed to be "Stacy Williams," and the incident report noted at the time "it sounded like a male speaking in a higher pitch to simulate that of a female's voice."

When police arrived on the scene, they located Leverette and briefly searched him, but didn't find any weapons.

"Tamon pulled up his left pant leg, showing me a Department of Corrections (DOC) GPS tracking ankle band," the officer wrote in the incident report. "He informed me that he was not doing anything wrong, just waiting for the bus to come so he could go to his DOC check in with his assigned DOC Officer."

No charges were filed and the two parties went their separate ways.

Then the very next day, Leverette told his supervising officer that he had been the victim of racial profiling. The officer wrote in an incident report that Leverette told him "he was stopped and frisked by 'Everett Police' for no reason the previous day because of 'being black.'"

But when the officer reached out "Stacy Williams" to follow up, Leverette's scam unraveled.

"I noted that the voice mail was set up by a mail with a voice that seemed very similar to that of Tamon," the officer reported. "I asked Dispatch if this phone number had been previously used for any calls to 911 Dispatch. The Dispatcher notified me shortly after that the phone number had called 911 on five separate occasions in December of 2020 for 'Civil' calls at an address of 520 Commercial Ave, Darrington, WA. Dispatch advised me that the only name used to call into 911 on those incidents was 'Tamon L.'"

After police confirmed that the phone number belonged to Leverette, they arrested him for false reporting.

What else?

During the investigation, police discovered that Leverette had allegedly attempted to goad police into a similar situation on at least one other occasion.

Last December, Leverette reportedly called police, pretending to be "Eric Johnson," to report a black teenager wearing "black and red" and brandishing a gun in the presence of his children.

Pro-life activist Abby Johnson said police would be 'smart' to racially profile her brown-skinned adopted son



Pro-life activist Abby Johnson, who is scheduled to speak Tuesday at the Republican National Convention, said in a now-deleted June video that police would be "smart" to racially profile her son because of his brown skin, according to Vice News.

Johnson posted the video in June, not long after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May kicked off a series of nationwide race riots.

What did she say?

Johnson said she would be fine with police officers treating her minority son differently than her white sons because of crime and prison statistics.

"Statistically, I look at our prison population and I see that there is a disproportionately high number of African-American males in our prison population for crimes, particularly for violent crimes," Johnson said. "So statistically, when a police officer sees a brown man like Jude walking down the road—as opposed to my white nerdy kids, my white nerdy men walking down the road—because of the statistics he knows in his head, that these police officers know in their head, they're going to know that statistically my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons."

"So the fact that in his head, he would be more careful around my brown son than my white son, that doesn't actually make me angry," Johnson continued. "That makes the police officer smart, because of statistics."

Abby Johnson youtu.be


This writer's perspective

Johnson said later in the video that she would not approve of police being more violent toward her biracial son because of his skin color, but the distinction doesn't acknowledge the reality that if a police officer views someone as inherently more threatening, there's a good chance they might react to that person more aggressively.

The very racial profiling Johnson advocates for in the videos leads to the statistic she uses to justify it; police view minorities as inherently criminal, leading to more confrontations, more arrests, and more incarceration for nonviolent crimes such as marijuana possession. Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's stance on stop-and-frisk is an example of how profiling plays out in a community.

Much of the racial unrest in the U.S. right now is based on the belief, whether through perception or lived experience, that police officers treat minorities worse than white people simply due to the color of their skin, which can lead to seemingly routine interactions between police and minorities ending in violence.

Research shows that most black people don't feel confident that they'll be treated well by police officers, which can lead them to be more antagonistic toward police presence in their communities. That will only get worse if the officers who police those communities approach the job with racial prejudice.