Are you being required to install surveillance cameras at your own cost?
We want to hear from you!
Houston officials are moving to enforce an ordiance that requires various businesses to install surveillance cameras at their own cost and turn footage over to the police without a warrant.
The City Council passed the ordinance on April 20th and it will go into effect 90 days from that date. Any business that does not comply with the ordinance would be subject to fines of $500 per day.
The law requires “bars, nightclubs, convenience stores, sexually oriented businesses, and game rooms” to install surveillance cameras with sufficient lighting at all places where customers are permitted, keep the cameras running 24/7 and store all footage for at least 30 days. Upon request from police, businesses will be forced to turn their footage over within 3 days.
This ordinance tramples the Fourth Amendment rights of business owners, infringes on property rights, and unfairly saddles certain businesses with thousands of dollars in new expenses to install high-definition surveillance cameras and to archive their footage so it’s available for police on demand.
The decision of whether or not to install surveillance cameras at a business should be up to the owner, not law enforcement or city officials.
Please fill out the form below and provide information to see if we can help defend your rights.
The Institute for Justice is a nonprofit, public-interest law firm dedicated to the protection of constitutional rights, including the Fourth Amendment and private property rights.
IJ successfully represented two Tennessee landowners in a lawsuit challenging warrantless surveillance cameras placed on private land in Tennessee.