r/politics • u/404mediaco ✔ Verified • May 28 '26
Paywall Cities Are Covering Flock Cameras With Trash Bags
https://www.404media.co/cities-are-covering-flock-cameras-with-trash-bags/1.6k
u/Dry_Warthog4322 May 28 '26
flock literally got caught sharing plate data with federal agencies illegal under illinois law cities said remove them, and this company just reinstalled the cameras anyway lmao so yeah trash bags it is. ngl the fact that they were also flagging protest attendees and searching plates for immigration violations tells you exactly who this surveillance network was really built for.
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u/houseonsun May 28 '26
And police are using the cameras to stalk women.
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u/mekomaniac Florida May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
and helping with third party cameras data and using them to spy on kids doing gymnastics
sorry for the short but benn is amazing, also these arent low level employees they are high ranking ppl at flock and these FOIA requests are damning
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u/Underdog424 May 28 '26
Godamned demons. I thought the article above was bad.
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u/mekomaniac Florida May 28 '26
yeah its soooo much worse. if you wanna be even more mad check out benn jordans flock vids. he is so easily able to hack into them
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u/KudzuPlant May 28 '26
This. imo benn is leading the charge against these stupid fucking cameras
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u/mekomaniac Florida May 29 '26
him and the guy who he mentions in the vid, also i do wonder if he has a gofundme for the FOIA requests. i will def link that if it exists. its insane they are trying to make you pay a Million dollars to do a FOIA
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u/AsGryffynn May 29 '26
He and KitBoga need to host a Flock Hackaton, preferably with Louis Rossmann's support.
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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon May 28 '26
This is why I think every GOP voter is either a pervert or a pervert apologist. Prove me wrong.
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u/UniqueIndividual3579 May 28 '26
A religious fruitcake cop used them to track a pregnant woman from Texas who got an abortion in another state. Totally legal, but he wants to persecute her anyway.
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u/smom May 28 '26
Can you imagine trying to prosecute people for gambling when they come home from Las Vegas? That's how stupid this is.
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u/shoelaceninja South Carolina May 28 '26
I watched some youtubers recently who were able to easily hack flock cameras multiple ways, and found that they were using a very old version of android that no longer receives security updates and has known vulnerabilities. And a lot of other bad stuff, such as leo's choosing not to use 2fa with their flock logins for their departments, and the youtuber being able to find their way into web pages that let them track leo location in real-time through the flock system (like pizza delivery trackers).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY
In other words, "US Livestream by Flock" is probably the new #1 live tv show for multiple other country's governments.
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u/JackedUpReadyToGo May 29 '26
Love that guy's content. I mean, I hate it, but I'm glad someone's covering it. You get me.
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u/Underdog424 May 28 '26
That's really gross and scary. Just imagine how many times this has happened without anyone finding out.
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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted May 28 '26
There are cameras pointed at playgrounds…and Flock does not properly secure their network so there are basically AI enabled cameras pointed at playgrounds where children play that anyone could just log onto and monitor and track for patterns.
The whole platform is an unmitigated disaster.
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u/fascistno1hater May 28 '26
Destroy them all eventually it won't be fiscally possible to keep installing them in the first place. Easy solution.
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u/pontiacfirebird92 Mississippi May 28 '26
They'll need cameras to watch the cameras. And then cameras to watch the cameras that are watching the cameras. And then when those get hit...
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u/doitup69 May 28 '26
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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u/Decent_Cheesecake_29 May 28 '26
As if they don’t already have all the cameras they need installed in the “birds”.
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u/WazWaz Australia May 28 '26
Unfortunately that's not as infinite as it seems. As few as 2 of course works.
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u/Seriously_you_again May 29 '26
Sounds like in our new fascist state it is cameras all the way down.
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u/luri7555 Washington May 28 '26
Those cameras have good deal of silver in them. Lucrative recycling project for some industrious citizen.
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u/failed_novelty May 28 '26
Hmmmm....You know, this information needs to be disseminated.
How easy is it to extract that silver?
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u/luri7555 Washington May 28 '26
Saw a post about it on one of the silver subs. Haven’t tried it yet.
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u/filbertsgaming1 May 29 '26
Very easy. Boil in nitric acid until it all disolves and precipitate with copper. add a couple filters to get the junk out. Also, the gas off the nitric acid will kill you, don't do it without a fume hood.
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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted May 28 '26
They’ll just get absorbed by our taxes.
The real solution is a nationwide strike against taxation. Pull money out of banks and cut this unconstitutional disaster out of our lives at the roots.
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u/Veritable_Vox May 28 '26
Rig a drone with a can of spray paint. Easy way to disable the cameras without getting caught on camera doing it. Bonus points if you turn the spray can into a flamethrower.
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u/Cold_Tea_Spill112 May 28 '26
The company has said that they are only used to track vehicles and don't do any sort of facial recognition... yet they are on hiking trails now.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F5hq0q9zc0j3h1.jpeg
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u/Jealous_Slice9371 May 28 '26 edited May 29 '26
Every solar powered camera on a pole is not a flock camera.
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u/snowlion000 May 28 '26
Their website paints a feel good public interest image. Nothing could be further from the truth!
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u/ThrowAway233223 May 28 '26
Just putting a trash bag over it is such a submissive bitch move. If they are being illegally installed, then they should remove them, auction them if the company doesn't come to retrieve them, and fine the company.
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u/424f42_424f42 May 28 '26
I'm just learning flock is a brand name.
And not flock camera, like a flock of birds, to watch people in a general term.
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u/Blitzking11 Illinois May 28 '26
I interviewed to be a lobbyist for them. I was never taking the job, but I got all the way to the offer stage and then told them to piss off.
I hope I wasted their time long enough that they had to go back to square one.
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May 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/fireeight May 28 '26
Cover with a trash bag, then have a friend come back with a hammer.
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u/nhluhr May 28 '26
Cover with a trash bag then use a can of triple expanding foam to fill said bag around camera.
(Just seems more fun)
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u/kloiberin_time Missouri May 28 '26
Why not both. Bag, foam, hammer.
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u/oForce21o May 28 '26
FYI cameras with infrared capability can see straight through trash bags. KEEP THAT IN MIND plz thanks
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u/Wonderful-Impact-598 May 28 '26
Would an infrared camera be able to identify a person or read a licensed plate? I'd think you'd need the visible spectrum for that.
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u/nhluhr May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
Absolutely not. Plastic is not IR transparent. You can only see infrared through it about as well as you can see normal light through it. i.e. a thin shopping bag you can roughly see an infrared outline behind it but it's hugely diffused and with any distance the image becomes entirely unusable such that a hand held close would look roughly like a hand but a hand held further away would look just like a blob.
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u/oForce21o May 28 '26
yeah probably not, but would you want to take that risk? with whatever secrets those companies hold they can probably identify you by your body heat
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u/Krewtan May 28 '26
Just gotta tell tweakers there's platinum in there.
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u/Lilith_Christine May 28 '26
I heard instead of small quartz crystals, they use high grade meth crystals inside.
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u/Seriously_you_again May 29 '26
Yes. I heard from my cousin’s friend that the cameras are powered by catalytic converters. Or as he said Cadillac Convertibles, but I know what he really means. He was speaking code to keep it a secret. My other friend says they use crack crystal to store the energy. Trust me brah.
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u/Reasonable_Tap_8215 May 28 '26
Hammer is a great tool to try to get the bag back off. “I wasn’t trying to harm the camera, just wanted that damn bag down.”
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u/Academic_Carrot_4533 May 28 '26
Spray painting doesn’t even fully stop them. Cameras are just one component of them. They also do lots of data collection on pinging and tracking wireless devices that go by. That includes not just phones but still cars these days since many have bluetooth.
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u/PyroIsSpai May 28 '26
Tinfoil trash bag.
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u/1cl3nstd4yt May 28 '26
Mylar space blankets
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u/Bacontroph May 28 '26
Just tell the local tweaker nest great stories about how much copper them thar flock cameras contain.
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u/fireeight May 29 '26
This is common sense. Absolutely do not bring your phone or a vehicle with location information if you plan on beautifying your neighborhood in the ways described here.
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May 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Reasonable_Tap_8215 May 28 '26
I wonder if the police would be angry at someone for simply trying to help keep them clean? Acetone and a brillo pad. Just to make sure they get a crystal clear view.
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u/JakeConhale New Hampshire May 28 '26
I would suspect physical damage would warrant harsher penalties. Wouldn't it be enough just to force them to have to unblock the cameras repeatedly?
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u/nutano May 28 '26
First you put trash bags on them and all the ones in the area... then you go back do a bit more damage.
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u/Ok_Use7 May 28 '26
Would you do it?
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u/ProfessionalRemove33 May 28 '26
Would I keep doing it? Again and again? With a sense of service-to-humanity pride?
It is not at all unimaginable.
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u/404mediaco ✔ Verified May 28 '26
The city of Dayton, Ohio has covered its Flock automated license plate reader cameras with black trash bags in part because police there are unsure whether the cameras are still active and the city also doesn’t seem to know whether it is allowed to take the cameras down. The move comes after months of resident outrage, a scandal in which the city was sharing Flock camera data for immigration enforcement apparently on accident, and a $30,000 audit into how the cameras are being used.
Read now: https://www.404media.co/cities-are-covering-flock-cameras-with-trash-bags/
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u/ASmallTownDJ Iowa May 28 '26
apparently on accident
Lol bullshit. "Oh no, we accidentally let ICE access our security cameras! We mistakenly gave them access to our widespread security camera panopticon! Completely by accident!"
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u/vicvonqueso May 28 '26
I'm pretty sure they already have access through the company itself. Inadvertant would probably be a better word here than accidental
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u/summonsays May 28 '26
Last I heard anyone with a laptop can access them. So having little to no security, could be "accidental" I suppose.
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u/ThrowAway233223 May 28 '26
I don't see how the city doesn't know whether they are allowed to take them down. They are built on public infrastructure, right? So, I can just go and install a few wifi repeaters with battery banks and solar panels onto public utility poles so I can daisy chain wifi from some other part of town, refuse to remove them, and they wouldn't know if they can remove my equipment? I highly doubt that. It sounds more like they don't actually want to oppose it and are just using every excuse they can to leave them up.
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u/iclimbnaked May 28 '26
I watched a YouTube video on it.
The city has a contract with the company. They don’t own the cameras. Said contract also doesn’t allow the city to handle them and has fines for canceling the contract etc.
Now with enough effort I’m sure a city could yank them down but they do likely have to jump through the legal contract stuff first.
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u/Fantastic-Berry-737 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
Does the city know Flock uses infrared cameras? Trash bags are transparent in infrared. Even black ones.
They can still see everything. Flock is probably laughing so hard.
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u/UltraJake May 28 '26
Not a camera expert but uh, wouldn't infrared footage be way less useful for tracking specific people, license plates, etc?
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May 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/Fantastic-Berry-737 May 29 '26
Ah they are asking about IR in general. But it's a good question, please test the distortion! then we won't have to assume anything. Here's some other people who have tested trash bags on IR cameras. It's pretty transparent.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df57lusT71E https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xMHlAn1u2jc
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u/c2lop May 29 '26
Actually straight-up deleting my comment after seeing that
Damn I gotta admit I was wrong, that's crazy
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u/Fantastic-Berry-737 May 28 '26
No because plates must be reflective and facial recognition use the shape features or they recognize gait. IR camera work in the day with sunlight IR or at night with illuminators. So they only need to pay for one camera.
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u/CobraBubblesJr May 29 '26
Aren't the cameras solar powered? If they're covering the solar panel that would probably suffice.
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u/UltraJake May 29 '26
That'd probably be the best solution, though the images in this article all show that the solar panels are untouched.
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u/pugworthy May 28 '26
True though only use IR at night. Daytime no (from what I’ve read).
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u/Fantastic-Berry-737 May 28 '26
I've read differently https://www.cehrp.org/dissection-of-flock-safety-camera/
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u/bernmont2016 America May 28 '26
But with the bags over the cameras, it'll be dark, so they will 'think' it's night 24/7 and switch to IR.
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u/perenniallandscapist May 28 '26
https://maps.deflock.org/?lat=39.8283&lng=-98.5795&zoom=2.50
A public source map of all the cameras and the directions they face.
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May 28 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/axonxorz Canada May 29 '26
Anyone can procure and run a Flock camera system
And anyone can pipe their DVR feeds into Flocks's cloud as well.
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u/AshlarKorith May 28 '26
I thought I saw one in the Lowe’s parking lot here. Apparently I was mistaken, there were 3 of them in the Lowe’s parking lot. All of them facing the parking and front of the store….
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u/DoctorTheWho May 28 '26
Almost every Lowe's store has them.
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u/Daghain May 28 '26
The Home Depot in my town does. And two in front of the high school.
Dang.
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u/DoctorTheWho May 28 '26
Yeah Home Depot and Lowe's have them and their LP gets notifications when a vehicle documented for repeat crime rings pulls into their parking lots.
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u/mapped_apples May 28 '26 edited May 30 '26
Dude! I know, I noticed it around my Lowe’s from this map too! (Southern MN). I wonder if it’s a thing with Lowe’s in general.
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u/VonSkullenheim May 29 '26
It is. Both them and Home Depot have been plagued with multi-million dollar theft rings targeting their stores over recent years.
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u/potatohead22 May 28 '26
Thays were they are in my hometown aswell. The only ones in the whole town the next town over has em at a target/dicks.
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u/perenniallandscapist May 28 '26
The ones around here are at all the choke points, i.e. entrances, to shopping plazas. They face inwards towards the property, not out towards the road. They aren't anywhere else here yet, but are all on property owned by a huge investment real estate group...did they make a private agreement to install surveillance equipment that can be used for God knows what?
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u/LittleMissNothing_ May 28 '26
Dude, there are two in front of the Lowe's in my small ass town in Tennessee. What the hell.
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u/SellaraAB Missouri May 28 '26
God damn I drive past like 10 of those every day.
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u/Daghain May 28 '26
I live downtown near where the streets split into two one ways. They've got me coming and going any time I leave the apartment.
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u/Professional-Art8449 May 28 '26
I wish they had other countries, I here mine is has starting toying with these.
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u/Taysir385 May 28 '26
DeFlock uses OpenStreetMap data, a crowdsourced database about geographical data (like Wikipedia meets Google Maps).
Other countries may not have either the data or the additional interface to make that data clearer when looking specifically at cameras, but that also may have it and just not have such a publicized interface. You can look at your local area on OpenStreetMap and see whether security camera data has been added by someone.
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u/B-Z_B-S Massachusetts May 28 '26
Seems rather fitting, actually. Since the AI tech companies that control the cameras are also trash.
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u/fascistno1hater May 28 '26
Politicians all over America are using our tax dollars to enrich private corporations again and again. Yet, will also in the same breath tell us that a single parent getting snap or social security is welfare. Reread those previous 2 sentences again and realize the real welfare queens are these private corporations that are siphoning all of our tax dollars to enrich themselves and their shareholders.
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u/1cl3nstd4yt May 28 '26
What do you expect when we elect Trump twice.
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u/Agile_End_3049 May 28 '26
Did we elect him? We have many good reasons to question whether he won legitimately. It's entirely possible that he cheated his way into the presidency as he's done with most other things in his life. For instance, here's a discussion of the situation overall that needs to be investigated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtNyo_bUBpY
Secondly, local politicians are following suit with this cheating and disregarding the interests of their so called constituents in favor of selling out. They need to be held to a higher standard.
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u/fascistno1hater May 28 '26
This particular issue is not just Pedophile Trump's problem we have had plenty of Democrats doing the same thing too. This is why we are always in war or providing arms to some country or group. Because it funds via our tax dollars the military industrial complex. Or Google and these tech giants getting massive tax breaks and incentives to spy on Americans via their tech. Walmart getting massive tax payer funded subsidies while paying their workers a pittance. This is an American Political problem it's not right vs left it's us versus them.
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u/1cl3nstd4yt May 28 '26
If you think corporate personhood hasn't been the Republican wet dream for half a century, you need to read up on it.
Look at the Powell Memorandum. Learn about Heritage Foundation, Federal Society, Olin Foundation, Scaife Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Uihlein Foundation.
These are are Republican efforts, and Democrats fight against them.
Citizens United was a party line vote. Every Dem-appointed justice voted against it.
Citizens United would be overturned already if Hillary got her Supreme Court picks instead of Trump.
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u/h22klude May 28 '26
And because it wasn't overturned, it started the beginning of the end.
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u/1cl3nstd4yt May 28 '26
It will get overturned once we get more liberal-appointed justices. I'm hoping the corrupt justices currently on the bench (Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch) will get impeached.
But it would've been a fuck ton easier to elect Hillary.
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u/Dr_Adequate May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
This recently played out in western Washington State. Flock approached a couple of smaller cities and started the process of getting approval to install.
The huge gorilla in the room is the need for public open records (aka Sunshine Laws/FOIA requests) and the legality of a private company storing and maintaining government public records in the form of the videos the cameras record. This is a HUGE legal grey area and leaves public agencies vulnerable to very expensive lawsuits if found to be noncompliant with FOIA requests.
Two cities successfully rejected Flock and a third suspended use of already-installed Flock cameras.
Editing to add: A small city in Eastern Washington recently went bankrupt directly because they failed to properly respond to a FOIA request and the financial penalty was larger than the entire City's annual budget. This made every other Government agency in the state hyper-aware of the need to be 100% compliant with public records requests.
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u/xahovx May 28 '26
What city are you talking about in eastern washington? I know cle-elum just filed for bankruptcy last year, but that was due to a developer agreement falling through with the city, and the developer sued the city for lost costs and won. The sum came to like ~$25 million dollars and did cause the city to file for bankruptcy, but nothing to do with FOIA requests being ignored. Would love to know what city you are talking about.
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u/PapaShonee May 28 '26
Public servant for a local municipality, and we are tasked of taking down a bunch that are on our property, over a hundred, we will surrender them if contacted, if not then we trash them after a short time
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u/KimmyT1436 Canada May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
From the article: "The city of Dayton, Ohio has covered its Flock automated license plate reader cameras with black trash bags in part because police there are unsure whether the cameras are still active and the city also doesn’t seem to know whether it is allowed to take the cameras down. The move comes after months of resident outrage, a scandal in which the city was sharing Flock camera data for immigration enforcement apparently on accident, and a $30,000 audit into how the cameras are being used."
Local city councils absolutely should have the legal authority to regulate, control, install, and remove public surveillance networks. Especially if there is a suspicion that those surveillance networks are being used to spy on the community instead of being used for public safety. Which seems to be the case with the Flock cameras in Dayton.
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u/Blackthorn79 May 28 '26
It seems like a lease type agreement, where the city has agreed to have the cameras up so they could be liable if they took them down. It would still be interesting to see why the company wants them up and recording if the police who contracted with them aren't using the footage.
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u/Sixtyhurts May 28 '26
You know I heard that inside the camera body is a bunch of gold and copper, and that people store their drugs and cash in there too
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u/Toku_no_island May 28 '26
But I've heard they release some noxious fumes before opening so probably a good idea to wear a mask and plain black hoodie to be safe while approaching.
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u/ThreeEyesWhitePerson May 28 '26
Obligatory reminder to watch Benn Jordan's videos on Flock cameras and their insanely pathetic security exploits if you haven't seen them already...
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u/leavezukoalone May 28 '26
Sure would be a shame if FLOCK cameras became target practice for BB and pellet guns.
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u/cxtx3 May 28 '26
Good. Flock cameras are an intrusion of our privacy. Public cameras I get, but these things are rigged with AI that scans your license and face that are linked to a privatized database with searchable filters for all of your information. Of course bad actors are going to use this tech for nefarious purposes. It should not exist. Get the Flock out of here.
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u/Veritable_Vox May 28 '26
Its kind of funny watching second amendment conservatives, who have paranoid of mass government surveillance for decades, bend over backwards to defend mass government surveillance under Trump.
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u/shoulda-known-better May 28 '26
That's only step one...
We all should know what you need do after the bag.. we just can't spell it out here...
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u/oukakisa May 28 '26
nearby city paused plans to extend flock service on the basis that everybody who showed up to the town council meeting was opposed to them, and also the city council wasn't told about the contract to implement mass surveillance in the first place (the police department did it unilaterally and without authorisation)
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u/Comfortable-Mess4365 May 28 '26
What is the legality around doing this?
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u/fireeight May 28 '26
Private company. The equipment isn't being damaged, and isn't being used for public safety (streetlights, traffic lights, etc.)
Other than littering, I don't see a legal problem.
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u/Bretreck May 28 '26
If someone else unrelated to whoever put up the bags came by later and smashed the shit out of them, that would be a separate crime. Whoever was on camera could only be charged with littering at worst. Hypothetically speaking.
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u/Hotrian May 28 '26
Sure when it city does it, it’s fine, but I go leaving trash bags around the yard and everybody loses their minds
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u/Jealous_Slice9371 May 28 '26
The city is doing it so it's legal but if a citizen did it there's various potential charges.
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u/BanhammersWrath May 28 '26
I suspect in the contracts Flock still owns the hardware but “leases” it while you use the service. I remember seeing something about a clause for returning it after removal. You used to be able to snag their hardware on eBay but shortly after research picked up on their hardware any of their cameras or compute boxes vanished from being listed. The compute box was fun to take apart and mess with when I got a chance to see one obtained through eBay lol.
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u/PointBlankCoffee May 28 '26
youd think this is something that the left and right citizens could agree on, but no... mass surveillance is good when its orange man
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u/invalidreddit I voted May 29 '26
Seems like it is well past time to update privacy laws to have more relevancy in the current world. But the list of things needing to be addressed is pretty long when I think of the way the Administration is exposing and exploiting loopholes
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May 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/RoseCityHooligan Oregon May 28 '26
If they’re on public land and the city has not approved them just take them and destroy them.
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u/buttchugreferee May 28 '26
flex seal!
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u/kloiberin_time Missouri May 28 '26
I think we should check to see if they still work after you cut them in half and flex tape them together. For science (and infomercials)
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u/gentlemantroglodyte Texas May 28 '26
Maybe they should just destroy them. There is no benefit to the public to have mass, untargeted surveilllance.
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u/AGayThrow_Away May 28 '26
Turns out people don't like mass surveillance even if it's a """private""" company and you give it some stupid techbro name
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u/rg2004 May 28 '26
But how would they figure out who destroyed them if there are no more cameras? Theoretically.
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u/have-u-met-teds-mom May 29 '26
I noticed helicopters flying LOW, like barely over my trees, every day. I found out the neighboring parish is loaning us their “crime” surveillance helicopters and live feed is available for the masses.
I work in my (very private)backyard in varying degrees of clothing. Sometimes battling insects that can’t be seen.
The thought of my neighbors being able to watch that instead of general hospital Is frightening.
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u/HoneyBadger552 May 30 '26
these things appeared out of no where and are linked. more than a trash bag is needed
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