Slashdot Mirror
ATF Puts Up Surveillance Cameras Around Seattle ... To Catch Illegal Grease Dump (muckrock.com)
v3rgEz writes: Last summer, Seattleites noticed that utility poles around town were showing some odd growths: A raft of surveillance cameras that, under Seattle's strict surveillance equipment laws, shouldn't have been there without disclosure and monitoring. But Seattle Police said that they weren't theirs, and one enterprising citizen followed up with a series of public records requests, only to discover that they were actually the ATF's cameras — on the watch for grease dumpers. Now the requester is fighting for the full list of federal surveillance watching over Seattle, and answers to how often federal agencies pursue what appear to be purely local crimes.
What kinds of questions are on these odd, growth afflicted, utility polls?
Why is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms interested in illegal grease dumping? Illicit grease disposal is a potential environmental, water quality, and combustion hazard issue; but that's more the EPA's thing, perhaps local authorities, maybe FBI if it's a interstate conspiracy.
Does somebody think that Tyler Durden is skimming off the grease to manufacture nitroglycerin for Project Mayhem and his anarcho-primitivist insurgency?
Grease dumping? Grease dumping?
1) How the hell does that fall under the ATF's jurisdiction?
2) Who dumps something they can sell as a (heating) fuel?
3) Does Seattle actually have that much of a problem with french fries that they need federal intervention?
4) Why can't you dump a biodegradable substance? Better bulldozed into an empty lot than rotting in a landfill for 150 years...
I guess its been a huge problem for a while: http://www.seattlepi.com/local...
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
You still need to refine and filter used grease to make bio diesel. That costs money on the small scale and oil prices have been dropping lately.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
maybe this surveilance slope wouldn't be so slippery if you stopped illegally dumping grease on it!
We'll just get the feds to do all the monitoring and share their information because they don't have to listen to the local ordinance. It's like the local departments that use the federal civil forfeiture rules when their city or state tells them they can't steal from their citizens anymore. I wish federal courts would start smacking departments that do this hard, both collectively and individual officers and higher.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
WTF does the ATF have to do with illegal grease dumping? What's that? Nothing at all?
They have neither the jurisdiction nor the interest in these crimes. If they're claiming it's for policing this kind of stuff, it's a big fucking lie.
This is just making shit up to allow them to put up cameras, against local laws, and then refuse to explain what the hell they're doing.
Yet more evidence that law enforcement doesn't give a crap about the law.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If the ATF is monitoring the sewers for secret bomb makers, dumping cooking grease into a storm drain would create a false positive. Watch fight club if you don't understand how to make explosives from used fat. Restaurants are supposed to have grease traps to prevent grease from going into the sewer in large quantities, but those cost money to clean out. It is common for low end restaurants to illegally dump their grease. Installing a camera to see if it is restaurant employees are dumping grease straight into the sewer drain seems more reasonable than A. a stake out with people in a car for X weeks until the grease dumped is discovered or B. a military style raid based on a false positive. But that doesn't mean people shouldn't question it, just that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the ATF to be interested in illegal grease dumping, ie eliminating a false positive.
Glad they only use surveillance to get terrorists. Lipid terrorism here
Grease = tryglycerides = fatty acids + glycerin
Glycerin + Nitric acid = Nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin + diatomaceous earth = Dynamite
Dynamite = Profit!
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Who needs God when you have Big Brother looking up your asshole?
It isn't too much of a surprise that the economics of producing biodiesel from used restaurant oil are shaky; and it also wouldn't be much of a surprise if on-site/near-site illicit dumping by individual operators looking to avoid paying for collection would be pretty common; but I am a little surprised that, if you are going to go to the trouble of collecting the stuff, it isn't economic to burn in less demanding applications.
Coal-fired power plants, say, are much less picky about the details of the fuel than internal combustion engines or combined cycle gas turbines are(plus, given the sheer volume of coal involved, you could get rid of a lot of grease without changing the behavior of the fuel by much) since the fuel doesn't interact with the intricate moving parts; and whatever nasty mixture of grease, fried food scraps, carbony bits, etc. should release more energy when burned than it takes to get burning, and probably has lower sulfur, mercury, and similar contaminant levels.
Near the coast, "bunker fuel" might also be an option. Since operating costs depend heavily on fuel costs, and there are few air quality regulations once you get out of port, large ships burn some of the nastiest dregs of oil refining that nobody else wants; because they are cheap and because it's easier to deal with very high viscosity fuels when you are operating large, purpose built, engines. Given the horrible crap that gets used, you might not even need to strain used grease for it to qualify as an improvement.
Darn, they slipped away!
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
and it also wouldn't be much of a surprise if on-site/near-site illicit dumping by individual operators looking to avoid paying for collection would be pretty common
Uh, restaurants get paid for their grease, this might not be the case right now since soybeans had a good year last year and crude is so cheap that biodiesel isn't going to be in high demand, but over the last 10+ years it's been the case. That's why people working on B90 conversions have to be sure to ask the restaurants before they take grease for their vehicle.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The nitroglycerin can also be used to make nitrocellulose, and from there to smokeless powder, putting it squarely in the ATF's purview.
Here's how it actually works.
The BATF is old and outdated, whose duties should properly be broken up and parcelled out to more relevant federal agencies (FDA, FBI, and so on).
Consequently, every couple of years they look for a big flashy bust that will put them in the news to justify their budget.
And so in recent years the BATF has given us Ruby Ridge massacre, the siege at Waco, the "fast and furious" scandal (where the BATF gave guns to the Mexican drug cartels, said guns were later used to kill a US border patrol agent), amd so on and so on.
So that's the situation. A worthless pack of screw-ups looking to justify their budget every couple of years.
Look for some clueless McDonald's owner to get caught illegally dumping grease, and paraded in front of the cameras for a few months.
The BATF is a stupid, worthless department(*) that was moved from the Treasury department to the Justice department as part of the Homeland Security act.
(*) Here's a quote from Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.):
“The ATF is a scandal-ridden, largely duplicative agency that lacks a clear mission. Its 'Framework' is an affront to the Second Amendment and yet another reason why Congress should pass the ATF Elimination Act,"
flow right past State boundaries.
Not in Seattle.
Have gnu, will travel.
Grease can also be used as an animal feed supplement. My chickens love bacon grease, or used frying oil mixed with their feed. I don't understand why anyone would just dump perfectly good grease. It should be easy to find someone to take it, and possibly even pay for it.
My guess is that the grease is just a cover story, and the real purpose of the cameras is something else entirely.
Biodiesel is a huge win on smallish boats. Diesel fumes make many people sick. Biodiesel fumes just make people want to eat french fries.
Couldn't they sell it instead of dumping it?
They would probably make a lot more selling all the bullshit in that "We're just looking for grease dumpers" story as fertilizer.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
That seems like a... unique way to get around local surveillance disclosure laws: Ask the feds to do the surveillance for you, and just piggy back on them. It's a disingenuous attempt to circumvent the law, sure, but it is awfully creative.
Ask yourself why the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is hunting down grease dumping instead of, say, the EPA?
OMG!!! BACON flavored EGGS!!!
How do your chickens feel about hash brown potatoes?
This could be big, eliminate two items from breakfast but still have the same arterial clogging.
Find a statin manufacturer and apply for a grant right away.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Yup, when asked why they were there, someone thought fast..." Yes, it's to catch.......grease dumpers..... Ya thats what they're for...grease dumpers......Because there are not laws against catching grease dumpers are there.....
Waste oil burning heaters are very simple and easy. you can easily use this stuff and burn it cleanly to generate power, hot water, or even just heat for a building.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Actually once you get to the nitroglycerin step you are squarely in the ATF's purview, since they regulate explosives. "ATF" is an anachronistic acronym; since 1970 agency's full actual name is "The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives".
But glycerin is a commonplace an innocuous chemical widely used in cosmetics and food; you can buy it by the barrel without raising any eyebrows. It makes no sense to reason that fats are under the purview of ATF because you can produce glycerin from it.
I tried to google the source of the grease story, and it appears that back in 2011 SCL asked for ATF's technical assistance in tracking down grease dumpers, but that the camera placements currently in question are for use in a current investigation by the Puget Sound Regional Crime Gun Task Force.
So no big mystery about why the ATF is tracking down grease dumpers, that's just a misreading of the evidence trail.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Don't normally respond to ACs, but the closest link I could think of is that the BATF is actually the BATFE today, they added in explosives a while ago.
One of the ingredients of your standard 'fertilizer bomb' is generally diesel, but most high-lipid sources would do.
That being said, it's the other half of the bomb formula that's actually hard to get, as opposed to pulling up to any fueling station with some yellow cans. Well, the color doesn't really matter, but yellow is the convention for diesel.
Still, as you say, this is an overreach by the ATF, and should have been done by the EPA in concert with local authorities.
I don't read AC A human right
Look up "Civil Asset Forfeiture" and you'll see that local police departments have been 'teaming' up with the Feds for years to bypass local and state controls in order to seize money that they can funnel straight into their departments.
I don't read AC A human right
the better question is what are they REALLY looking for. I dont buy this story that they are looking for grease in the slightest, its not their job
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Grease can also be used as an animal feed supplement. My chickens love bacon grease, or used frying oil mixed with their feed. I don't understand why anyone would just dump perfectly good grease. It should be easy to find someone to take it, and possibly even pay for it.
My guess is that the grease is just a cover story, and the real purpose of the cameras is something else entirely.
It's PETA looking for people feeding grease to chickens.. or so I've heard.
My guess is that the grease is just a cover story, and the real purpose of the cameras is something else entirely.
That's my guess also.
The emails and things have a discussion about a camera near 23rd ave and Jackson, and one of the people in the emails guesses that it might have been placed on the pole by Walgreen's, to monitor their parking lot. Here is a link to Google Maps, centered right about the power pole in question. Here is a direct link to street view looking right at the camera mounted on the pole. If you look around, you'll notice that there are no drains on the street in that area where someone would pour grease. The closest drains are at the intersection of Jackson and 23rd, and there are poles that would have a much better view of those drains than the pole with the camera (and it's a little conspicuous to pour grease down the drain at an intersection with lights). The Google car drove around that parking lot, and if you wander around there you'll notice that the camera isn't on the pole in those shots. Directly in front of the Magic Dragon Chinese restaurant (next to Papa Murphy's pizza), there's a drain cover that does actually look a little bit stained (weird, I know). But there is a pole that is closer to that drain and restaurant, and still, why the hell would the ATF care about people dumping grease down a street drain?
If you go back to where the pole with the camera is in street view and look at the parking lot across Jackson, there are a couple women walking through the parking lot wearing hijabs. There's a store/restaurant back there called East African Imports, next to the Navy recruiting office, and it looks like there's also a marker for the Islamic Presentation and Invitation Center, which lists an address at 2301 S Jackson, which is that corner.
I bet the ATF/FBI is watching the Muslims instead of grease dumpers, but I should probably just get back to work.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black