Map of Neighbors by Ring Partnerships (UPDATE)
(Last Updated: Aug 27 2019)
Ring has partnered with “over 225 law enforcement agencies,” according to police memos obtained by Gizmodo. However, as Ring has repeatedly declined to reveal information about their agreements, the extent of their partnerships has been unknown—until now. Compiled using a combination of news reports, press releases, and announcements on the Ring app, the map above contains 358 law enforcement agencies partnered with Amazon Ring. [There were 231 agencies on the map at publication]
Some caveats: the map doesn’t include agencies in the process of signing agreements or agencies with only subsidy agreements without further involvement in the Neighbors by Ring app. Also, the memo Gizmodo obtained is from April. Since new agencies are signing on nearly every day, the map is definitely incomplete.
I’ve also made a thread on Twitter with more information about these partnerships.
Feel free to use this for any purpose, but include a link back to this blog post. Please let me know at sgandlur@protonmail.com if you see anything missing or incorrect.
The words of Benjamin Franklin are prescient to our cavalier disregard for the never ending encroachment of government and private surveillance on our daily lives. To wit, Franklin wrote ‘those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety’. I’m sure George Orwell has been spinning in his grave for quite some time….
This may be a complete misunderstanding of what Benjamin Franklin was talking about. The quote is correct. It is, however, often misused. I understand the purposes for which others use it today. I only wish it weren’t used for a purpose that Franklin never meant, and that Franklin were not quoted out of context. Very often when used, it is meant in a way that is 180 degrees incorrect. He was referring to the frontier people’s “take what we can get” attitude engendered by their distressed nature from recent attacks upon them with no relief due to constant veto by the Governor of Pennsylvania of the Assembly’s passage of bills for taxes on land (the Penn’s land) for the purposes of frontier safety. All being vetoed, frontier people were willing to accept anything. This is what Franklin’s quote is about.
During the French & Indian War, the Penns (who essentially owned the land, i.e. the proprietaries) insisted that their deputy, the Governor, veto any bills that were for the purpose of the colony’s defence if it placed a tax on the Penn’s land. The Penns did so while offering to pay a lump sum, in an amount that was secret, that would therefore last an indeterminate amount of time, and was only presumably for the same full purpose.
In 1755, Franklin’s statement was meant to reveal that Liberty was lost if the Penn family decided, secretly, what and how much was used for defence rather than the decision coming from local legislature – and that, in doing so in this specific case, it was damaging to the local Assembly’s ability to govern locally and its consequent local Liberty — The Penns, as the King, lived elsewhere.
Further the safety secretly purchased might be paltry and, as a lump sum, temporary compared to what the local inhabitants needed. This part of Mr. Franklin’s letter was akin to him nearly throwing up his hands because bills could NOT be passed if they didn’t suit the King, the Penns (or the Penns to please the King), and the Governor (whose hands were “tied”) and because what would cause a veto was secret – And, on the other hand, specifically applied to this quote, frustration with those in the colony, who were wont to living as subjects, who were distressed already from ongoing attacks, who did not want to press the matter, and, as I presume from Mr. Franklin’s Virginia example, who, at the same time, wanted protection from “insidious attacks of small parties of skulking murderers”. Well… You can’t have both. That’s called deficit spending – a subject for another day.
What was truly in dispute was the ability of the local Assembly to pass local laws, levy local taxes, and establish security for the people of the colony in a fair way. This was in addition to the wake of what were once good relations developed with the Delaware and Shawanese “Indians”, relations that were poisoned by the French. The Penns, and or the King, were suspected of this as well. Franklin wanted good relations and certainly wanted to know why those that were cultivated at great expense had gone bad.
In fact, with regard to Amazon Ring “Partnerships”, this quote may actually be apt — not because of privacy issues or the encroachment of the government (which, in fact, may be part of the issue), nor directly from the potential pursuit of profit by way of an eyeball on your front door by using fear (See the FBI’s definition of Robbery https://www.ucrdatatool.gov/offenses.cfm ). Indeed, it is because of Franklin’s original meaning: very little spent for “safety” that lasts an indeterminate amount of time, with agreements that perhaps have not been made public. Mostly, his letter is about one veto after another in a way that the Assembly is made nearly useless, and the frontier, wanting some security, is willing to settle, willing to sacrifice good local government for secret agreements. If you find a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” feel to this letter, keep the Declaration of Independence in mind when reading, this letter being 21 years earlier. To wit, you’ll find these ideas expressed in this larger quote from his 1755 letter, obtained here from Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin, Written by Himself, And Continued By His Grandson And Others (McCarty & Davis, 1840), and which I quote in full, but, firstly, quote Franklin or his progeny on the reason for the fullness of the quote in his memoirs:
“The residue of this piece contains so full, so noble, and so affecting a recapitulation of the whole dispute, and sets the selfish conduct of the proprietaries and their deputy in so clear a light, that leave must be taken to insert it verbatim.” [As do I, and suspicion of the Penns in sowing discord between the colony and the native people becomes quickly obvious.]
“Our assemblies have of late had so many supply bills, and of such different kinds, rejected, on various pretences: some for not complying with obsolete occasional instructions (though other acts exactly of the same tenor had been past since those instructions, and received the royal assent;) some for being inconsistent with the supposed spirit of an act of parliament, when the act itself did not any way affect us, being made expressly for other colonies; some for being, as the governor was pleased to say, “of an extraordinary nature,” without informing us wherein that extraordinary nature consisted; and others for disagreeing with new-discovered meanings, and forced constructions of a clause in the proprietary commission; that we are now really at a loss to divine what bill can possibly pass. The proprietary instructions are secrets to us; and we may spend much time, and much of the public money, in preparing and framing bills for supply, which, after all, must, from those instructions, prove abortive. If we are thus to be driven from bill to bill, without one solid reason afforded us; and can raise no money for the king’s service, and relief or security of our country, till we fortunately hit on the only bill the governor is allowed to pass, or till we consent to make such as the governor or proprietaries direct us to make, we see little use of assemblies in this particular, and think we might as well leave it to the governor or proprietaries to make for us what supply laws they please, and save ourselves and the country the expense and trouble. All debates and all reasonings are vain, where proprietary instructions, just or unjust, right or wrong, must inviolably be observed. We have only to find out, if we can, what they are, and then submit and obey.–But surely the proprietaries conduct, whether, as fathers of their country, or subjects to their king, must appear extraordinary, when it is considered that they have not only formally refused to bear any part of our yearly heavy expenses in cultivating and maintaining friendship with the Indians, though they reap such immense advantages by that friendship; but that they now, by their lieutenant, refuse to contribute any part towards resisting on invasion of the king’s colony committed to their care; or to submit their claim of exemption to the decision of their sovereign.
“In fine, we have the most sensible concern for the poor distressed inhabitants of the frontiers. We have taken every step in our power, consistent with the just rights of the freemen of Pennsylvania, for their relief, and we have reason to believe, that in the midst of their distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Such as were inclined to defend themselves, but unable to purchase arms and ammunition, have, as we are informed, been supplied with both, as far as arms could be procured, out of monies given by the last assembly for the king’s use; and the large supply of money offered by this bill, might enable the governor to do every thing else that should be judged necessary for their further security, if he shall think fit to accept it. Whether he could, as he supposes, “if his hands had been properly strengthened, have put the province into such a posture of defence, as might have prevented the present mischiefs,” seems to us uncertain; since late experience in our neighbouring colony of Virginia (which had every advantage for that purpose that could be desired) shows clearly, that it is next to impossible to guard effectually an extended frontier, settled by scattered single families at two or three miles distance, so as to secure them from the insidious attacks of small parties of skulking murderers; but thus much is certain, that by refusing our bills from time to time, by which great sums were seasonably offered, he has rejected all the strength that money could afford him; and if his hands are still weak or unable, he ought only to blame himself, or those who have tied them.
“If the governor proceeds on his journey, and takes a quorum of his council with him, we hope, since he retains our bill, that it will be seriously and duly considered by them; and that the same regard for the public welfare which induced them unanimously to advise his intended journey, will induce them as unanimously to advise his assent. We agree, therefore, to his keeping the bill, earnestly requesting he would reconsider it attentively; and shall be ready at any time to meet him for the purpose of enacting it into a law.”