"Amazon’s Disturbing Plan..."? Come on. I agree this is scary and "disturbing", but doorbell cameras have been around for awhile. It's not like Amazon is the first to do this. Phrasing like that always makes me immediately distrust the article's intent, even if at face value what they are saying is something I agree about. Just because they are openly saying it in a patent, doesn't mean the other companies weren't already doing it in some other sketchy way.
With all that said, what did you think would happen when people openly started allowing listening/video devices on the inside/outside of their homes? Of course people (law or others) are eventually going to want a way to utilize that data if it's useful to them. The same way that I'm sure Facebook/Twitter/etc. work with law enforcement with their data.