Local police team up with Ring doorbell cameras for porch pirate defense l ABC News
The short version: ABC News' cheerful segment on Nassau County police partnering with Ring glosses over how these doorbell-camera networks quietly normalize warrantless, on-demand access to private video for law enforcement.
Our Take
ABC News frames this as a feel-good holiday story: cops team up with Ring to stop porch pirates, everybody wins. What's missing is any scrutiny of what "partnership" actually means once nearly 700 police departments can request footage from millions of private cameras on demand. Ring has a long, documented history of handing over doorbell video to police without a warrant, and these formal partnerships make that pipeline faster and more routine, not more accountable.
This is the same playbook we track with Flock Safety's ALPR network — a for-profit surveillance company selling itself as a neighborhood safety tool while quietly building the infrastructure for a distributed, always-on tracking grid that never has to ask a judge for permission. One camera catching a porch pirate is a convenience. Hundreds of departments plugged into millions of residential cameras, plus license plate readers on every other corner, is a different animal entirely — and nobody voted for that architecture.
Credit to ABC News for putting a number on the sprawl, even if the tone stays celebratory. If you want to see how far this kind of camera network has already spread near you, check our map, and if you'd rather not just watch it happen, our take-action page has real steps you can take locally.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of ABC News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.