(TikTok screencap)
Wtf are these things
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Mobile surveillance stations. Typically solar powered with a backup battery, and the inevitably monstrous result of surveillance capitalism.
The first time I saw one of these was at a Fourth of July gathering in a public park. I saw the high blue lights and I figured it was marking some kind of portable police resource center. I had imagined some basic first aid and some officers ready for emergency assistance. I had imagined something that was partly a service and partly community outreach. I had imagined something with positive features.
I was so disappointed to find out it was just cameras. Quite an emotional trip in my head there, from "We're here to help!" to "We're watching you, fuckers" in the space of a moment.
But I guess the cops in my suburb are no better than the cops in any other suburb.
"We’re here to help!” and "cops" in the same thought is wild lol
Sometimes the first thought is what the propaganda you grew up with said
We're here to help "property owners and wealthy people".
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Has anyone told the crackheads how much copper is in that thing?
It's got wheels and everything. You can literally just roll it right to the scrap yard.
Tell crackheads that there's 50 pounds of copper and two catalytic converters in these things.
Or like one stick of ram
There actually might be… brb
Forget telling crackheads there's copper, tell gamers there's ram modules on there they could solder to their GPU
Those solar panels look pretty nice...
Come to think of it, yeah... These things will be real nice to have after the collapse.
A modestly sized, but complete and mobile off-grid solar system, just waiting for you to hitch it to your car and pull it away. Tear the cameras and lights off of it, then use the solar panels, batteries, and associated electrical equipment to power whatever small electrical loads you need.
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Lol 50? They would do it 2 lbs.
You can also get the same effect by telling a meth head who hasn't slept in 7 days "hey, I think that things watching you"
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There's one of these in a shopping center around me. I flip it off every time I see it.
I mean, I deliberately drive near it, stop, roll down my window, put my arm out, and flip it off very intentionally.
I don't care if it knows me. I've made no secret of my hatred for authoritarianism throughout my life. I've gone to more protests than I can count. Besides, if authorities really wanted to do something to me, they'd readily make things up anyway. They don't need an excuse, so I might as well express myself.
This shit is dystopian as fuck and every time I see it or it blasts out its message about us being watched, it boils my blood.
Fuck it all. This is not okay.
. . .flip it off very intentionally.
Heehee I'm kinda glad I'm not alone here. I walk my neighborhood and people install those STUPID cameras facing the sidewalk to catch EVERYONE walking by, that whistle at you, or say "you are being recorded!"
I give it the finger without looking at it basically as a reflex now. I've never even flipped someone off in traffic, I've been told I have the patience of a saint.
But surveillance capitalism and stupid paranoid suburbanites satisfying their nosy-neighbor compulsions is definitely a line.
We've got those stupid towers all over the place here too. Construction sites, parking lots.
Freaking absurd. I'm upset that it's the best crime deterrent they can come up with, because I suppose skulky fellows lurking around dark parking lots aren't preferable either.
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These things are so fucking dystopian.
They really are. I visit a location with one of these regularly and a pleasant loudspeaker says "Welcome to [shopping area], please report any disturbances" and I immediately feel like I'm in Half-Life, or another dystopian video game...
I always start the chase scene early by throwing the can at his face.
The ones by me play loud classical music at night to keep homeless from setting up camp. Nothing makes me feel more safe at night than loud classical music. Just kidding it always makes me feel like a slasher movie killer is just a few feet behind me.
Probably the most dystopian thing I've ever experienced IRL.
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It costs less than 10 dollars to disable them.
It also costs about negative 1200 to steal them.
It costs infinitely more to do nothing.
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I was ready to be like nah that's just a traffic obs camera or someshit, but I looked it up and it really is a total shitheadomatic-5000
Yeah we've got a bunch of these in our neighborhood. It's a rundown area but this just makes it worse. I'd love nothing more than to mask up and smash this shit
*Mask up and disassemble that shit for parts on the spot. Make it serve the people, rather than spy on them.
Oroville, California's police department pays $45,000 per year for one LVT trailer
That is what's really insane.
It does have some very nice solar panels on it, though.
Hate it. It's so annoying. The stores in the area hate it because it pisses people off and they complain to the stores and them the stores are like we hate them as well but the cops put them there.
I once had the lovely privilege of listening to a police higher up (lieutenant or something?) happily crow about setting these things up. I was just trying not to scoff as he said it was super effective, and yet his little slideshow showed absolutely diddly squat in any changes in the metrics they were using.
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the stores are like we hate them as well but the cops put them there.
If they're on a store's parkinglot, they're trespassing if they're there without the store's consent. That means they can be removed.
Most stores are tenants of a landlord. Even those Walmart warehouses are leased, often both in land and structure.
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They aren't common in the places I typically shop, at least not yet.
So, around here, when you see these, you know you're in an unsafe part of town, so they're essentially a huge advertisement to go shop some place safer and nicer. The privacy invasion aspect of it isn't even really the biggest factor in regards to where I spend my money.
Half the derelict RVs in Seattle have a power system out of one of these bad boys
WARNING CITIZEN! THIS AREA IS UNDER SURVEILLANCE! YOUR FACE HAS BEEN SCANNED AND ADDED TO A DATABASE!
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I sold my old car to a crackhead. He had way more chill than any kind of AI surveillance.
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Joke's on you, I get to see both.
No worries, a few years of surveillance state and everybody becomes a crackhead one way or the other!
Break spybox.
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