Pastors are getting in on Ring’s ever-growing surveillance state

God is always watching — and soon, thanks to Amazon, a bunch of church pastors may join in on the fun. 

According to the Baltimore Sun, the Seattle tech giant has partnered with a host of religious leaders to equip Baltimore residents with Ring surveillance cameras. Amazon reportedly helped the group of pastors secure $15,000 to acquire the Amazon-owned cameras that have gained notoriety as a privacy-violating, police-fueled creep show.  

Notably, these cameras will not be deployed at physical places of worship — often a sad necessity in an age of rising anti-semitism and white nationalist violence — but rather employed to bust people in the community. 

“The program,” explains the Baltimore Sun, “dubbed ‘Operation On Guard,’ will serve as a ‘virtual neighborhood watch’ in residential areas near Pimlico Race Course that have experienced an upswing in crime in recent years.”

Residents inclined to participate will get Ring cameras and floodlights for free or at discounted rates, and will reportedly be encouraged to give police access to the footage those cameras capture. 

At present, the program will cover 150 cameras at no charge. 

While added protections for crime-weary residents is indeed a good thing, Amazon’s shady history of working with police to install privately owned surveillance cameras around the country and control the messaging of their rollout make the entire thing a tad bit off-putting. 

Notably, at least in this case, Amazon wasn’t the one initially pushing this camera incursion. The Baltimore Sun reports that Pastor Terrye Moore reached out to Amazon about a potential partnership, and hopes to get even more cameras in her community after she has a year’s worth of data. 

“This is people, private citizens, who have a right to purchase a Ring doorbell camera and use it to help eradicate crime,” Moore told the paper. 

It seems that Jesus would help usher in a corporate surveillance state.