Documents show that Amazon's Ring vets and authors public statements about Ring attributed to police and delays announcing partnerships with police departments
Amazon's home security company Ring has garnered enormous control over the ways in which its law enforcement partners are allowed … Tweets: @dellcam , @dellcam , @ericgeller , @dellcam , @snowjake , @rmac18 , @howelloneill , @mcwm , @b_haddy , @willoremus , and @alfredwkng Tweets: Dell Cameron / @dellcam : We obtained a tranche of emails between police officials and Amazon's Ring. They reveal that basically everything police say about Ring (even statements to reporters) passes through Ring's PR team, which also writes a lot of statements attributed to police https://gizmodo.com/... Dell Cameron / @dellcam : @carolineha_ Me & @mariojoze also got emails that show Ring advising police not to disclose their partnership w/ Ring publicly, at least for a time, so as not to conflict w/ media coverage of a separate subsidy program. (Ring initially asked for 50 days of silence) https://gizmodo.com/... https://twitter.com/... Eric Geller / @ericgeller : The Ring/cops partnership is exactly what you'd expect. Great reporting by @dellcam. https://gizmodo.com/... https://twitter.com/... Dell Cameron / @dellcam : @carolineha_ @mariojoze In response to one request, a Florida police department handed me a list of several dozen Ring owners, including their home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and device's MAC addresses. Police installed the devices at these homes themselves. https://gizmodo.com/... Jake Snow / @snowjake : The level of control in these contracts by Amazon and Ring over police departments is insane and unnecessary. Fantastic reporting by @dellcam and @mariojoze. https://gizmodo.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : Something truly wonderful about a near trillion dollar corporation telling tax payer-funded police departments how to communicate with the general public https://gizmodo.com/... Patrick Howell O'Neill / @howelloneill : “Ring not only provides police departments with talking points but widely seeks to secure contracts that grant it the absolute right to approve all police statements about its services.” https://gizmodo.com/... Mike Murphy / @mcwm : this is totally normal and not part of an Amazon-funded police panopticon https://twitter.com/... Brian Hofer / @b_haddy : We're finally crossing the rubicon: Amazon, the first corporation with policing power. All hail Darth Bezos! https://twitter.com/... Will Oremus / @willoremus : @wirecutter @daveyalba The one silver lining to Amazon's Ring working with police departments all over the country is that basically all of their communications are FOIA-able as public records and thus we get an endless parade of daily scoops like this one. https://gizmodo.com/... Alfred / @alfredwkng : Just one day after @carolineha_ 's story on Ring telling police it had partnered with 200 law enforcement agencies, @dellcam finds another internal document bumping that number up to 225. https://twitter.com/...