PCSurveillance.net - Company Blog

I saw this article on-line at www.wired.com (I also receive this magazine and think it is a great tech magazine for junkies like myself) and thought what a great article to post on my blog! Are these people crazy! I am an Ohio State fan and all I can say is there is no intelligent life in the “State up North”, Go Buckeyes! Please read below and let me know what you think!

$30,000 Will Buy Your Name on a Surveillance Camera

By Kim Zetter July 31, 2008 | 4:46:57 PMCategories: Surveillance

Flint, Michigan, wants surveillance cameras. But the city can’t afford the $420,000 it will cost to install about a dozen of the digital eyes around town. So the city and the maker of the cameras have come up with a sponsorship plan to rival Nascar’s.

For $30,000 the city will put your company’s name on a bullet-proof box that encases the camera.

Haven’t got that much cash? The city offers lower rates for small company logos or even an individual’s name. The cameras come with a bonus that’s sure to draw attention to your name or logo — a flashing blue police light that sits on top of the box and operates 24 hours a day (like the one pictured above).

The adopt-a-camera program is tax deductible.

But so far, the local Flint Journal reports, there have been no takers.

The company that makes the cameras, Flint-based Asset Protection Specialists, recently applied for a $1.5 million loan from the state to buy a facility in which to make the cameras that it’s hoping to sell to Flint.

With regard to the type of cameras that Flint is proposing to buy with $400,000 — known as PODSS for Portable Overt Digital Surveillance System — police in Baltimore, Maryland, where the same cameras have been used for a while, announced earlier this year that the cameras were ineffective and that they planned to replace them with more effective closed-circuit cameras.

Photo courtesy PODSS.net

Ryan Temple www.pcsurveillance.net