Free downloads
Four documents a commercial buyer can actually use, including in a procurement we are not bidding in. No form, no email address, no follow-up call you did not ask for. Click the file and it downloads.
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Every regulatory document carries the date its underlying regulation was checked, on its first page and in the footer of every page.
Free resources
Every regulatory document carries the date its underlying regulation was checked, on its first page and in the footer of every page.
Before the survey
What to have ready before we walk your building. Who can authorise a penetration, whether anyone has the recorder password, what each position has to prove. None of it is mandatory; every answered item is a question we do not come back for.
Federal procurement
For federal contractors. The Part A and Part B distinction that decides whether the statute reaches your own building, the five entities named in the text, and the eight things to establish. Includes citations you can check yourself.
Cannabis compliance
The surveillance requirements for a California cannabis licensed premises: continuous recording, the resolution, frame rate and 90-day retention minimums, the five categories of area, and how narrow the cultivation-only carve-out really is.
Procurement
A structure for soliciting bids you can actually set side by side. Requirements stated per position rather than as a shopping list, plus the interoperability, cabling, procurement and licensing clauses most security RFPs leave out.
Why there is no form
Almost every security company puts a form in front of a document like these. We have not, for three reasons worth saying out loud.
The first is that we have nothing to do with your email address. There is no system here waiting to receive it and no sequence it would drop you into. Collecting personal data with no purpose behind it is worse than not collecting it, and a form that exists only to feel like lead generation is exactly that.
The second is that gating destroys the point. The reason to write a Section 889 checklist is that a procurement officer somewhere finds it useful and sends it to a colleague. Nobody forwards a form.
The third is consistency. Every page on this site argues that the useful thing we do is tell you the truth about your building whether or not you buy anything, including at survey. Charging an email address for a compliance summary would be the opposite of that, and you would be right to notice.
Use them in a procurement we are not bidding in. Send them to someone else. You do not need to tell us.
How these were written
A PDF gets forwarded, printed and quoted with none of the surrounding context, so these carry more sourcing discipline than a web page does, not less.
The Section 889 and § 15044 documents restate what those texts actually say. Where a commonly repeated claim is not in the text, it is not in the document, and in two cases the document says so explicitly because the misreading is widespread.
On the first page and in the footer of every page. Regulatory status changes, and a summary in circulation with no date gives a reader no way to know it went stale.
No rate cards, no cost ranges, no “starting at”. We do not publish those on the site and a downloadable file is not a loophole in that.
No crime figures, no industry percentages, no enforcement rates, no client or project counts. Where a number could not be traced to a primary source it was cut, not softened.
No model numbers, no resolutions, no coverage distances, no wattages. Those are properties of specific products in specific rooms, and a generic figure in a document you will still have in three years is a liability.
Including what we do not hold. Every document says plainly that we have no C-10 or C-16 and do not work on fire alarm systems, and that no body certifies an integrator as compliant with any of these rules.
Related reading
The Section 889 checklist is a working summary of a much longer treatment at NDAA compliant security cameras, which covers why the brand on a camera does not identify its producer and how TAA compliance is a separate test that can return a different answer.
The § 15044 summary sits alongside dispensary and cannabis security, which covers how those requirements shape an actual design, not just what they say.
Three of these four have interactive counterparts under tools: the Section 889 checklist as a Section 889 checker, the § 15044 summary as a readiness checker, and the RFP template’s cabling clauses as a cable run length checker. The PDFs are the version you can circulate; the tools are the version that does the arithmetic.
The survey checklist is the practical end of commercial camera installation, and the RFP template draws on the same material as structured cabling and our writing on what ONVIF does and does not guarantee. More of that operational writing is on the blog, and the sourced statistics resources are under guides.
Two boundaries, as on every page here and in every document above. We work on commercial premises only and not on private residences. And we do not hold a C-10 or a C-16, so we do not work on fire alarm systems; that is coordinated with your own licensed fire alarm contractor.
