Houston PD can now force certain businesses across the city to turn over surveillance camera footage without obtaining a warrant, after a city of Houston ordinance went into effect Tuesday.
The ordinance, which passed Houston City Council in April, requires owners of convenience stores, nightclubs and bars, sexually oriented businesses and gambling rooms to install surveillance cameras that "provide an overall view" of the outside of their buildings. Owners must record and store surveillance footage 24 hours a day, seven days a week, regardless of their hours of operation.
The new policy also requires business owners to install and position each of their cameras "in consultation with HPD" and gives narrow specifications for the type of camera and format of video storage. "Any failure to comply" with any part of the technical provisions of the ordinance is punishable by fine.
Notably, HPD can also obtain surveillance footage from any businesses covered in the ordinance without obtaining a search warrant, and even levy fines on owners who don’t supply the footage within 72 hours of HPD's initial request. However, advocates warn that this provision threatens Houstonians' fourth amendment protections against warrantless surveillance.
"Warrants help to ensure that police action is supported by probable cause," the ACLU of Texas and Texas Civil Rights Project wrote in a letter to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Police Chief Troy Finner on Tuesday. "Without such a requirement, the ordinance emboldens the police to demand that business owners turn over days or weeks of surveillance footage as part of fishing expeditions to discover trivial infractions committed by business owners, employees, customers, or passersby," the letter's authors argued.
The advocacy groups also warned in the letter that "Black Houstonians—already disproportionately stopped, arrested, and shot by the police—are likely to be even more heavily policed and criminalized as a result of this ordinance."
The controversial policy is part of One Safe Houston, Mayor Turner’s sweeping initiative to combat violent crime in Houston. paid for by $44 million in federal pandemic relief funds.