The great American police state has come to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Imagine booking a vacation to get away from big brother’s facial recognition cameras and license plate readers, only to find out the local police are using them.
Soon you too, can visit beautiful New York City (NYC) in the Caribbean.
What am I talking about you ask? NYC is nowhere near the equator.
Former NYPD policeman and Virgin Island Governor Kenneth Mapp, is turning a beautiful vacation destination into a police state that will rival NYC.
Mr. Mapp has sent local police to train with the NYPD to spy on everyone. This month, the NYPD commissioner is going to vacation, sorry I meant visit Mr. Mapp and the Virgin Island Police Department (VIPD) police to ‘mentor’ them.
“The modernization will include the roll out of a new technology infrastructure, a beneficiary of which will include the use of license plate readers and facial recognition systems, “as we try to ensure that we keep track of folks who are committing crime in the Virgin Islands, and ensuring that they are brought to justice in a rapid way,” the governor said. A timeline for the roll out was not given.”
What family, wouldn’t want to be spied on during their vacation?
Future Virgin Island police control room
image credit: Traces of Reality
Above is a picture of the NYPD’s real-time crime center which uses facial recognition and license plate readers to spy on residents.
It won’t be long before DHS, creates a real-time crime center in the Virgin islands.
What does mentoring mean for the VIPD police department? Will they be using radiological detectors and create a DNA database of everyone just like their friends at the NYPD? How long before the VIPD uses Z Backscatter x-ray vans to spy on tourists?
How long before they ‘stop & frisk’ tourists?
Crime in the Virgin Islands is decreasing
Just like their friends in New York, the police and Governor use public safety concerns and crime statistics to justify spying on everyone. The VIPD claims, homicides have increased 25 percent in 2016 but the truth is violent crimes are decreasing.
The Virgin Island Consortium claims that, “homicide was the only crime on the chart that increased year-over-year. Rape fell from 51 cases in 2015 to 33 in 2016; robbery fell from 154 cases in 2015 to 82 in 2016; felony assaults fell from 647 cases in 2015 to 422 in 2016; and burglary dropped from 896 in 2015 to 632 in 2016.”
According to Wikipedia at least 3 million people visit the Virgin Islands every year, and have a population of approximately 106,000 people. The truth is, crime on the Virgin Islands is minuscule compared to NYC, which had a record low crime year in 2016.
Think about those numbers for a second, over three million people visit the Virgin Islands every year and their biggest crimes are assaults and burglaries. Sounds like any other vacation destination (Hawaii had 2,400 assaults and 1,200 burglaries last year.)
When an informed public has the correct data, it becomes apparent that facial recognition and license plate readers are about control and surveillance.
So if you’re planning a trip to DHS’s newest vacation destination smile, the police will be with you everywhere you go
https://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2017/08/us-virgin-islands-being-turned-into.html
These efforts are disgusting, and I’ll cross the Virgin Islands off my vacation list for good.
Here’s what I don’t get, though. If all this spy tech works as advertised, why are the clearance rates for murder (and other crimes) dropping? Statistics show that police around the country are, on average, solving a LOWER percentage of murders than they did in decades past (even though the murder rate itself has been dropping since the 90s). And this still applies to cities that have extensive camera networks, a good example of which is Chicago. Fewer than one in five murders are solved there, and the rate is undoubtedly far worse for other crimes.
BMF: It’s not about crime control, its about control.
I agree with that. But I’d still expect them to use these systems for crime control anyway. It could be argued that maintaining the status quo requires social stability, and that means they can’t just be letting people kill each other.
Hell, people even still get away with bank robberies in this day and age. I suppose part of the reason is that everyone is aware of the surveillance and takes precautions.
“Mr. Mapp has sent local police to train with the NYPD…”
Who were trained in Israhell.
‘Nuff said.
turning an island into pure hell ,, might not be a good idea for the person doing it..
only 3 ways to escape an island
air .. easy to cover
water .. slow
death … permanent solution
Door # 3.
For THEM.
Hi everyone, as one who lives here in the VI, I can tell you first of all we don’t have the money to buy into this technology and don’t have the personnel to operate them. That being said, its a short sail to another island nation no matter how slow.
Do they ‘allow’ you to own guns there?
Homeland Security/NYPD will be funding facial recognition and license plate readers. Don’t be surprised to find NYPD vacationing, sorry I meant working to spy on everyone in the Virgin Islands.
The Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority wants to install surveillance cameras to spy on everyone:
Bill No. 32-0066, an Act making an appropriation from the Anti-Litter and Beautification Fund to the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority (W.M.A.) for the purchase of surveillance cameras to be installed at selected bin sites, was favorably approved by the Committee on Finance on Wednesday and forwarded to the Committee on Rules and Judiciary.
The measure secures $500,000 for W.M.A. to procure and install cameras that would serve to either catch those who participate in the illegal act, or as a deterrent to those contemplating it.
http://viconsortium.com/virgin-islands-2/waste-management-to-install-cameras-at-bin-sites-in-effort-to-quell-illegal-dumping-if-blyden-sponsored-measure-is-approved
I’ve been to St. Thomas, nice place to vacation. Which is why this crapola makes no damned sense (well for the criminal psychos it doesn’t have to not make sense, right? And it doesn’t have to make sense, because they will profit anyway). If it it that much less privacy than, say, next door neighbor British Virgin Islands, or St, Kitts and Nevis (which has volcanic hot springs), or Antigua, or St. Maarten/St. Martin, or many other Caribbean Islands, then that means the US Virgin Islands is going to lose tourism (really it’s only source of income), and thus shoot itself in the foot. Unfortunately, it’ll be the feet of the US Virgin Islands business folks that gets shot, not the criminal psycho elites!