In a recent lawsuit, a Brooklyn couple is taking legal action against the New York Police Department, alleging that a surveillance camera has been intrusively aimed at their bedroom. The couple, Pamela Wridt and Robert Sauve, assert that this invasion of privacy has greatly diminished their quality of life and the enjoyment they derive from their home.
The camera, reportedly installed in April 2022, has caused significant distress for Wridt and Sauve. As a result, they have been forced to take drastic measures, such as applying mirror tint to all their windows to regain some sense of privacy. “We can’t open them because if we do, we’re exposed,” Sauve explained in an interview with the Intercept. He lamented, “On very hot days, I like having my windows open. I can’t even do that.”
The couple’s complaint, as reported by the Daily Mail, details how the constant surveillance has led them to abandon routine activities such as using their front yard, opening blinds, or even allowing fresh air to circulate through their home. The omnipresent camera has cast a shadow over their daily lives, making them feel continuously watched in what should be their private sanctuary.
‘We had to mirror tint all our windows. We can’t open them because if we do, we’re exposed,’ Sauve told the Intercept.
‘There’s very hot days. I like having my windows open. I can’t even do that.’
According to the complaint obtainted by the Daily Mail, the couple no longer use their front yard, open their blinds, or open the windows widely for air, as the ‘presence of cameras’ looms over their property.
At first, they were unsure where the footage was fed back to, but they eventually learned that it was collected in the city’s surveillance network.
Wridt said in the suit that the ‘omnipresent surveillance’ is a ‘daily violation’ that has left her ‘unable to feel at ease in her own home.’
A couple in Brooklyn, NYC, have sued the New York Police Department over the ‘daily violation’ from surveillance cameras across the city (stock image)
She told the outlet: ‘Your home is supposed to be your safe space, and I feel very violated. It’s constant. It never goes away, that level and feeling of violation.’
With its technological abilities, the camera ‘can see potentially directly into any part of our house,’ Sauve told the outlet.
The suit alleged that ‘they, like all who live in or visit New York City’ have and would continue to be subjected to injury, intimidation and interference as long as the NYPD’s surveillance system remains in place.
New York City’s Domain Awareness System, or DAS, was described in the complaint as a ‘voyeuristic policing platform.’
DAS, according to the suit, allows the NYPD to collect information on the identity, location, banking details, vehicle information, social media activity, and friend groups of those in the city.
‘It combines these entries with civil and criminal records and converts them into digital profiles that chart people’s thoughts, plans, beliefs, and affiliations -reconstructing, in effect, the private lives of millions. It is virtually impossible to avoid,’ the complaint said.
The pair have claimed that the surveillance of their home infringes on their Fourth Amendment rights of a reasonable expectation of privacy in the ‘whole of Plaintiff’s movements and captures information about the privacies of life,’ the complaint said.
‘You are being watched,’ the suit ominously begins.
‘Today throughout New York City, the police are monitoring, tracking and cataloguing you. Nearly everywhere. Nearly all the time.’
The duo’s suit has sparked hope for further exposure of the private companies that have access to data collected by the NYPD ‘without limit,’ the complaint stated.
‘There is no one firm that is really enabling this mass surveillance. That’s what’s key to the lawsuit,’ attorney Albert Cahn of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, and one of the attorney’s representing the couple’s case, told the outlet.
The suit further claimed that, while the system has been noted as being used often in investigations, there have been no recorded cases of misuse of the system.
‘The ease and range of access magnify the risks of misuse, removing natural barriers that once constrained surveillance and enabling the constant monitoring of New Yorkers,’ the suit said.
‘With no oversight, officers enjoy broad discretion to search the DAS for purposes that may be departmental as well as personal.’
While defense of the system has pointed to the reduction in crime, the suit claimed that the surveillance system has had little effect.
It further noted that ‘the department had conceded that some of its most expansive programs did not produce any credible leads.’
The couple claimed that the block they live on isn’t a ‘hot spot for crime’ and questioned the motives for having such a level of surveillance (stock image)
Concerns for the abuse of the system were raised, namely over protected activity such as political expression, religious practice, or private association, the suit said.
The monitoring of their neighborhood, they told the outlet, appears to have ulterior motives as they say their neighborhood is hardly riddled with crime.
‘There’s no crime on our block. This is not a hot spot for crime. So of course your brain is going to go in other directions – why is it there?’ Sauve told the outlet.
According to a 2018 report from the office of the New York State Comptroller, violent crime in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood fell by 44 percent between 2000 and 2016 but it ‘remains a concern.’
The report also found the crime rate per 1,000 residents was ‘significantly higher’ in the area than the rest of New York City – 18.4 compared to 12.2.
Bedford-Stuyvesant accounted for 7 percent of all shootings in NYC in 2016 and 6 percent of gun arrests – despite accounting for less than 2 percent of the total population.
The couple has since sought to help inform their friends and neighbors of the threat of the surveillance system.
‘It’s like my greatest concern and my greatest fear was confirmed,’ Sauve said. ‘People that are oblivious to the whole surveillance state we’re in – they’re getting more and more comfortable with it being there.’
The Daily Mail has contacted the NYPD for comment.
