IT Blog

The Ring doorbell deal between Amazon and police departments could be a first step toward privatizing and replacing the police force—or at least deeply changing how it functions.

Ring is a Trojan Horse. Amazon builds a network of surveillance cameras, offers deals to the police, who accept and include it into their portfolio of surveillance tools, and neighbors using Ring feel safer. But some police departments are claiming that Ring footage doesn’t help them much. Is that true? It could be. A Ring doorbell may help deter crime, but that impact cannot easily be measured.

Perhaps the police do not wish to consider how technology will eventually become smart enough to subsume most policing duties that involve identifying suspects and locating them.

These days, there is much for police departments to be concerned about. They have been murdering Black citizens and firing rubber bullets (with steel cores) at both citizens and the press. The Federal…