Re: John Seiler: Surveillance state invades San Clemente

On 21/4/26 12:35, Immigration Has Rules wrote:
> If you live in San Clemente: Smile, you’re on Candid Camera! In this
> case, it’s not the TV joke show that ran, on and off, from 1948 to 2014,
> and used hidden cameras to catch people in funny situations. It’s the
> U.S. government.
> 
> The Register reported on Jan. 21 the San Clemente City Council approved
> a plan to partner with U.S. Customs and Border Protection “to get a $1
> million camera and sensor monitoring system up and running on a hilltop
> at the Avenida Salvador Reservoir.” The vote was three council members
> for, one against and one abstaining. The snooping will be operational by
> the end of this month. The Feds will pay for everything.
> 
> The reason is to spy out “panga” boats, which bring illegal immigrants
> ashore. “We’ve had 18 panga landings on our beaches in the last year or
> so,” said Mayor Pro Tem Steve Knoblock, explaining his yea vote, as KABC
> reported from the meeting. He said that’s more than half the pangas
> landing in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
> 
> According to Wikipedia, Pangas are between 19 and 22 feet in length and
> powered by outboard motors. A typical panga, such as one intercepted off
> Oceanside in Jan. 2025, carries around 26 people.
> 
> “It not only looks over our entire town, but the camera can see all the
> way up to Laguna Niguel and Mission Viejo,” Councilmember Mark Enmeier,
> the sole nay vote, told me. He said the CBP told the Council the camera
> will have “special blinders” to block out spying on residences.
> “However, they can turn the blinders off at any moment if they think
> there is some smuggling operation occurring. I brought up issues of
> privacy numerous times at the Council meeting. My concerns were
> dismissed as being paranoid.”
> 
> He sent me images showing the camera’s line of sight would be clearly
> looking right into San Clemente homes.
> 
> The problem is the perennial one in America of protective surveillance
> vs. the Fourth Amendment “right of the people to be secure in their
> persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
> seizures.” That’s especially difficult these days when everyone wields a
> cell phone taking pictures of everything. On the positive side, private
> phone videos and police bodycams showed the abuses by ICE in Minnesota
> that killed two American citizens.
> 
> And just as your iPhone 17 is multiples more powerful than your 2001
> Motorola flip phone, thermal imaging has become much more invasive. AI
> now expands detection distance and provides “a fusion analytic that
> couples motion detection, neural network classification databases and
> behavior analytics,” explained Matt Strautman of FLIR Security in New
> Hampshire to SDM magazine, which focuses on security matters.
> 
> “If this camera is surveilling private property, it certainly raises
> Fourth Amendment concerns,” Marc Scribner, a senior analyst at the Los
> Angeles-based Reason Foundation, told me. He pointed to the 2001 U.S.
> Supreme Court decision Kyllo v. United States. In the case, a federal
> agent used a thermal imaging device to spy into the home of Danny Kyllo
> to detect if he was using high-intensity lamps to grow marijuana.
> 
> The majority opinion was written by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
> He said a search warrant is needed if “the Government uses a device that
> is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that
> would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion.”
> Enmeier said the CBP would not provide details of the camera that will
> surveil San Clemente. Then we have to assume whatever camera they use
> could violate Kyllo.
> 
> Unfortunately, Enmeier said there’s no movement by private citizens to
> contest the camera in court. A local ballot measure to overturn the
> Council’s acquiescence in the spying potentially could be placed on the
> Nov. 3 ballot. But there’s no movement there, either.
> 
> What San Clemente needs is the Minneapolis spirit of resistance that
> forced ICE to retreat from its abuses in Minnesota. The CBP should be
> required to deal with the panga boats without sinking the Bill of
> Rights.
> 
> John Seiler is on the editorial board of the Southern California News
> Group
> 
> John Seiler is also part of the problem.  He is a sanctuary city
> proponent.
> 
> https://www.ocregister.com/2026/02/18/john-seiler-surveillance-state-inva
> des-san-clemente/
> 
Good