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MORE ON ATTRITION FROM MARCH 16 2016 ARTICLE
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Ken
    Hopefully you are growing accounts over and above the lost ones.  We were an agent for the largest US cellular carrier and they referred to this loss as churn.  This churn was monitored and maintained at less than 4 %.
Ron Best
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CAMERAS - FEDERAL LAW
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Ken,
     First, thank you for all of your support of the industry.  As you know we at the National Training Center recommend your contracts to the students in our Alarm Business class for company owners and upper level managers, and we also recommend that company owners and managers sign up for your emails about legal issues.  You provide a very valuable service.
     We are re-writing our video class and we automatically refer to your information as the go to source for anything legal.  I felt that there was a federal law about not being able to use cameras in certain places, and my boss said that he was sure that was only a state issue, and that since we teach our classes in all states we couldn't make a slide about that.  He suggested I check your website and sure enough, you reference only state laws.
     I checked further and found this:
 
Federal Video Recording Statute
Sec.
1801. Video voyeurism.
1801. Video voyeurism
(a) Whoever, in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, has the intent to capture an image of a private area of an individual without their consent, and knowingly does so under circumstances in which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
(b) In this section—
(1) the term ‘‘capture’’, with respect to an
image, means to videotape, photograph, film, record by any means, or broadcast;
(2) the term ‘‘broadcast’’ means to electronically transmit a visual image with the intent that it be viewed by a person or persons;
(3) the term ‘‘a private area of the individual’’ means the naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast of that individual;
(4) the term ‘‘female breast’’ means any portion of the female breast below the top of the areola; and
(5) the term ‘‘under circumstances in which that individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy’’ means—
(A) circumstances in which a reasonable person would believe that he or she could disrobe in privacy, without being concerned that an image of a private area of the individual was being captured; or
(B) circumstances in which a reasonable person would believe that a private area of the individual would not be visible to the public, regardless of whether that person is in a public or private place.
(c) This section does not prohibit any lawful law enforcement, correctional, or intelligence activity.
    Now I notice that this is from 2004.  Is this still current?  Has it been superseded by some other federal law or been stricken down?  I'm just curious why you don't reference it on your website?  I'd love to be able to prove the boss wrong but more importantly, before we teach it to students, we want to be absolutely sure we're teaching the most current and correct information.  We also reference your website as a guide to the individual state laws since we know you keep that current.
    Thanks for your assistance,
Dave Watkins
National Training Center
www.nationaltrainingcenter.net
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RESPONSE
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    I asked Jesse Kirschenbaum,Esq to check this out.  Here is his response:
    The Video Voyeurism Act of 2004 is still current law but should have minimal, if any, effect on the security industry.  This law criminalizes the recording or photographing of someone while naked in an area where that person expects privacy.  It does not deal with the installation of cameras that are used for that purpose, it merely applies to whoever uses those cameras to do that actual recording.  This law is really aimed at “peeping toms.”  Also, this law only applies to recordings or photographs while at sea or on federal land.  So unless you are in a federal building or on federal land, the law of whatever state you’re in will control. 
Jesse Kirschenbaum, Esq
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CENTRAL BUYING DEALER ACCOUNTS
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Ken,
    We are considering purchasing an alarm company that we are currently monitoring already.  Could you please advise the course of action we need to take including hiring someone like yourself to advise in this purchase.
Sincerely,
Kathy
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RESPONSE
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    I have to assume you are not only a wholesale central station but operate a retail side, installing and servicing alarms.  I suppose if you're only providing monitoring you don't require a retail side to continue monitoring the subscribers, but a wholesale central station isn't usually in the business of buying retail accounts.  
    As the central station you're in a unique position to be able to evaluate the accounts and assume ownership of the monitoring agreements in a seamless transition.  You'll need a lawyer to paper the transaction and engaging me is as easy as making a call.  
    You're going to want to see the subscriber contracts, payment history and service records.  That information will enable you to evaluate the accounts.
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REPROGRAMMING TERMINATED ACCOUNT
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Ken,
    I came to an agreement with this customer, who is allowing us to remove the cellular communicator since it remains our property as per the contract. As far as the program in the system, are we allowed to remove everything and set it back to the factory settings as per your contracts?  Or should I leave it alone and just disable communication?
    Thank you,
Marc
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RESPONSE
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    Since you've reached agreement to remove the communicator, which probably means reprogram the panel so that it won't call your central station, that's all you should do.  Your subscriber owns the installed system and has a right to continue operating a local system.  Unless the subscriber has completed the monitoring term you are not required to provide codes or default the system to manufacturer codes [that may be different in certain jurisdictions].