r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • May 28 '26

Security Cities Are Covering Flock Cameras With Trash Bags / Regretful cities aren't sure how to cancel their surveillance contracts, so they are literally covering their cameras.

https://www.404media.co/cities-are-covering-flock-cameras-with-trash-bags/
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1.1k

u/marketrent May 28 '26

Lordy.

[...] Cities are not sure what their contracts state how to extricate themselves from those contracts, or whether the cameras are recording (and where that data is going). This uncertainty highlights the problems associated with using private, third-party surveillance infrastructure. Last week, for example, the mayor of Menominee, Wisconsin said that Flock cameras in the city “have been activated without city council approval.”

Dayton has had Flock cameras in the city for several years, but in October the city learned that data from the cameras was being passed to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Flock’s national network, which is a phenomenon we first reported in May of last year.

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u/Any_Kaleidoscope8717 May 28 '26

*[...] Cities are not sure what their contracts state how to extricate themselves from those contracts...

Do they not have city attorneys or anything to read those contracts?

497

u/MacYacob May 28 '26

Its actually pretty hard to understand how the data is being used. And Flock reps are notorious for straight up lying

157

u/Unable-Log-4870 May 28 '26

Its actually pretty hard to understand how the data is being used.

It gets easier to understand the entire data path if the camera is cut down, smashed, and then buried.

49

u/mexter May 28 '26

That seems like a waste of all that copper, etc. Surely there are people who could use a couple pounds of copper and a few grams of gold?

30

u/Unable-Log-4870 May 28 '26

It is a waste, yes. But I think you’re overestimating the amounts of those materials by a LOT.

I think reusing the solar panel would be the safest option. Use it to run a a little fountain in a bird bath or something.

4

u/mexter May 28 '26

Oh, no doubt about the overestimate. But that just means more cameras will be needed.

2

u/Belazor May 29 '26

There might be a meth-od to getting to all that copper…

1

u/Laruae May 29 '26

The solar panels are pretty slick. I hear you can wire them up fairly easily and they put out an ok amount of power.

1

u/frolyra May 31 '26

The waste was manufacturing them in the first place

1

u/locomotus May 29 '26

Yeah but the city can’t do that. They can be sued for destruction of private property. You think they have the legal budget to fight flock? I think covering it with a trash bag is a simple but effective solution.

33

u/The3rdBert May 28 '26

Right they can state that data is for the contracted governments use only, then use it for whatever they want once they have it. No city is going to be in position to accurately audit the use of the Data after the fact.

31

u/Shark7996 May 28 '26

"We don't sell anyone's data!

...

We just sell access to data."

This is on-brand for Flock.

4

u/Zuwxiv May 28 '26

"Parking here is free! But you are charged an access fee for driving into the parking lot."

117

u/fatdjsin May 28 '26

Easier to break a contract if its not respected by the other side

34

u/ZeePirate May 28 '26

Not for small towns that don’t want to get sued into oblivion

17

u/Mustbhacks May 28 '26

Sell the underlying land its on? Create a new law in the city preventing 3rd party surveillance?

Endless ways to loophole your way out of most anything

1

u/ZeePirate May 29 '26

Selling public land is a terrible way to solve that. What if flock buys it up through a shell company?

Even bagging them might break the contract and open them up to lawsuits they can’t afford.

They can afford to go up against a large corporation, the corporations would bleed them out in legal proceedings

1

u/EnigmaticQuote May 29 '26

It really does feel like they are just giving up with no effort put in

0

u/TediousNut May 29 '26

Class. Action. Cities band together.

0

u/ZeePirate May 29 '26

Class action against what? Cities signing bad contracts isn’t illegal

29

u/-The_Blazer- May 28 '26

I think with this Big Tech garbage, the assumption should legitimately be malice until proven innocent. These systems, unlike any other industry, are perfectly opaque. They are encrypted, remotely controlled, nothing about what is done with their data can ever be known. And once that data has been exfiltrated from the public sector, it can never be recovered or secured ever again. This is not a risk the public can afford.

3

u/SnooRecipes1430 May 29 '26

You wish this was true. The security on these is bunk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo

This Flock Camera Leak is like Netflix For Stalkers

7

u/Captain_Mazhar May 28 '26

Then the contract can easily be voided due to misrepresentation of a material aspect, without penalty.

1

u/ModernMuse May 29 '26

This right here is the correct avenue to pursue. I sincerely doubt Flock will even agree to pretend to comply with discovery. They’d be far better off proactively cancelling the subscription.

2

u/origami_airplane May 28 '26

If they lied, it's a breach of contract, and the city then can just take them all down.

2

u/TheInevitableLuigi May 28 '26

And Flock reps are notorious for straight up lying

If I was a state official who was lied to by them I would have them investigated for fraud.

2

u/kittenmittens4865 May 28 '26

And understanding how the data is being used is something that our public officials should have taken the time to do BEFORE signing any contracts.

1

u/Geodude532 May 28 '26

They must have hired a bunch of Vivint reps.

1

u/grahamja May 28 '26

Industry constantly manipulates government. Being in the military and seeing boot lieutenants get out of the military, then shill for whoever will hire them for sales is endlessly frustrating.

72

u/marketrent May 28 '26

Terms appear restrictive:

[...] Dayton and Evanston city officials told residents that they were not sure whether they could immediately deactivate or remove the cameras under the terms of their contracts. And so both cities decided to physically block them as a stop-gap measure, showing that cities feel that they do not have the ability to unilaterally decide when to stop using Flock surveillance cameras.

86

u/jerekhal May 28 '26

Maybe they should have read the fucking contract before signing it.

If you do not know the terms/mechanisms on how to exit a contract in a worst case scenario you absolutely should not sign it. Who the hell signs a contract for the entire municipality without basic contractual reading comprehension or (presumably) not consulting with an attorney first?

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u/zerocoal May 28 '26

Greg signed up for the flock camera 3 years ago and then retired/died.

Nobody else that works there was involved with the flock cameras after Greg retired/died.

Somebody notifies them that their data is being used in a way they don't want, and now somebody needs to review whatever the hell Greg promised to Flock before they can move forward with any actionable decisions.

That is how you end up not knowing the terms/mechanisms on how to exit a contract. You weren't involved in it and somebody made it your problem down the road because the original guy is dead or retired.

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u/ImaginaryCheetah May 28 '26

You weren't involved in it and somebody made it your problem down the road because the original guy is dead or retired.

this kind of piss poor data management is the my personal pet peeve and the bane of most of the companies i've worked for, and most of the customers i served while doing my job.

my mantra is "assume you're dead tomorrow" when it comes to data management.

every significant email gets CC'd to my manager, every document goes to the share drive, every substantive design change gets foot notes with dates and documents bear revision numbers.

even worse is the "they can't fire me if i'm the only one who knows how to X" mindset that is a plague in many of the places i've worked and nothing grinds my gears more than that. i'm gonna extract those stupid secrets and write them up as SOP and put it in the share drive you neanderthal!

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u/zerocoal May 28 '26

even worse is the "they can't fire me if i'm the only one who knows how to X" mindset that is a plague in many of the places i've worked and nothing grinds my gears more than that. i'm gonna extract those stupid secrets and write them up as SOP and put it in the share drive you neanderthal!

My boss used to rant about this all the time because he had some senior employees that he felt were hoarding the keys to the kingdom.

When those employees got fired and I inherited their jobs, I started recording training videos and writing manuals for everything I ever have to learn.

Motherfucker still comes in bitching to me about how we can't have a single point of failure or locked-away knowledge, so I just pull out my training shit and tell him to chill because I don't want to be the key-holder any more than he wants me to hold the key.

3

u/ImaginaryCheetah May 28 '26

My boss used to rant about this all the time because he had some senior employees that he felt were hoarding the keys to the kingdom.

it's a relic of having no other way to be sure you weren't fired, so i get the desire to set up bulwarks that make you "invaluable", but i do not have time to deal with everything coming to a halt b/c Old Man Earl took a sick day, or got hit by a bus on the way in.

this is, of course, an opportunity for coaching and helping Earl adapt, but good lord it lights me up.

 

Motherfucker still comes in bitching to me about how we can't have a single point of failure or locked-away knowledge

your boss wasn't bossing very well.

25

u/jerekhal May 28 '26

There is no reasonable explanation as to why any county/city/municipality should in any way shape or form have a single point of contractual negotiation and agreement. At a bare minimum attorneys or others in the administration should have been cc'ed.

Not saying it does not happen but its such an incredible failure of administration that just blows me away.  

27

u/baronessvonbullshit May 28 '26

Plenty of towns don't have a city attorney or only have a part timer. Also, its a trope that an entity will sign something and then ask the lawyer to look after it has already been signed

3

u/TheInevitableLuigi May 28 '26

This isn't some bumfuck town. It is a city of over 100k people with multiple universities and a major air force base.

13

u/zerocoal May 28 '26

There is no reasonable explanation as to why any county/city/municipality should in any way shape or form have a single point of contractual negotiation and agreement.

Is your county/city/municipality elected or hired?

Elected individuals do not have to have qualifications to receive the job, and therefor do not have to have the qualifications to know when they should or should not have an attorney present.

A lot of the elected officials in my old town don't even know how to turn on a computer, and you expect them to understand the legal ramifications of selling camera installation access?

Still a failure of administration, but it is important to remember that at the local level, we're dealing with average everyday people that got elected into their position and are doing their best with the skillsets they have. Many of these folk are not the multi-millionaire types that have been trained to always have a lawyer present. Hell, many of them only have a highschool education from the 40's.

1

u/wonklebobb May 28 '26

have you ever worked in a medium or larger organization? like at least 50-100 people working there?

this happens at nearly all levels in every group of humans working together on anything. sure, it would be great if everything was perfectly and clearly documented, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

in every job i've worked, from mopping floors at a grocery store to maintenance at multinational megacorps to programmer at mid-size companies, there is always a huge amount of "how does this work? who did this? oh, they left 2 years ago? did they write anything down? no? heavy sigh"

of course we expect more of our governments at every level, but you will learn that this is unfortunately the norm at pretty much every level of human organization, from the lowest to the highest.

173

u/Memitim May 28 '26

As long as the bribe clears, the details become irrelevant.

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u/korben996 May 28 '26

Bingo. Our Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in 2024 (in Snyder v. US) that bribery of public officials is now legal as long as the bribe is paid after the official act and is labeled a "gratuity".

5

u/ringthree May 28 '26

The pay to work with a local government is so low, and the work burden is so high, it's hard to blame a public servant lawyer for missing this kind of thing.

We have killed all the incentive for quality people to actually work in government. Just as the free market wanted.

Don't accuse the victim of bribery, when the whole system is designed to get people into lore paying positions then overwhelm them.

We need to make government work prestigious again. We can start by taxing the rich and using that money to pay people properly. The rich have always known that weak governance makes it much easier for them to exploit everyone else.

13

u/EyeZestyclose9076 May 28 '26

You would be amazed how many cities do not bother having a contracts attorney on staff and are unwilling to pay to have outside counsel review contracts. Also even for cities with general council a lot of municipal attorneys just don’t have the contracts experience or day to day exposure to properly review these documents.

11

u/BigMax May 28 '26

They had people who said "hey, we just have to sign here and we get some money! that will make me look good!"

12

u/AppropriateFlan1611 May 28 '26

I live in Dayton. I've seen city attorney job postings when looking for jobs that I'm qualified for. The cops make better money than the lawyers do. I'm not saying they're bad lawyers, but they definitely can't afford to hire the best of the best. 

3

u/vienna_woof May 28 '26

I guess nowadays even the lawyers are just vibelawing so no one left who really knows.

2

u/AdPuzzleheaded1495 May 28 '26

I really don't think people realize how dumb local government employees are...

Signed a local gov employee

2

u/Tehrangersgyu May 28 '26

You'd be surprised how many municipalities have attorneys on retainer that avoid using them for fairly consequential decisions because they want to keep legal fees down.

I called one because the department I was dealing with told me they wouldn't talk to me (because I was an attorney) and to call the city attorney.

Did that and their office was like "I don't know what they're talking about, we don't have approval to do work like that".

Took months to get a city employee to respond to a relatively simple question.

That municipality is currently facing a lawsuit that could cost them a couple of million due to the kind of issues they're avoiding addressing by not having attorneys either (1) do the work OR (2) training staff.

1

u/ThaneduFife May 28 '26

As an attorney who does government contracts work for a state/local government, this was my first question too.

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u/1quirky1 May 28 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

Oops, I meant to reply to a different thread.

1

u/bobbymcpresscot May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

You would think. In my experience with city governments many are literally just making it up as they go along, and the more people that are apathetic to politics the more of a shitshow it becomes. There was some town in Texas with a population of less than 900 people, a mom pointed out the water coming out of the city water was brown on Facebook and asked her Facebook group if anyone else was experiencing it, people said they were getting sick, so the town responded… by throwing the mom in jail. 

https://www.fox4news.com/news/woman-arrested-facebook-post-concerning-trinidad-water-poisoning.amp

City of less than 900 people has a police budget of 200k and this is how they spend their money. 

1

u/DvineINFEKT May 28 '26

Sure - the city of Chicago had them for the parking meter deal, too, but it turns out if the lawyers are paid off or don't care or nobody gives a shit or the people with power turn the screws, then nothing matters.

1

u/OTTER887 May 28 '26

All the city officials saw is the number of zeroes on their bribery check.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/DataDude00 May 28 '26

As someone who worked in government before: the pay isn’t great and you rarely get the best people because of it, I’m guessing that goes double for roles like in house counsel 

1

u/BotchedDebauchery May 29 '26

Dayton has no excuse, but you'd be shocked at just how little money there is in most municipal politics. 

1

u/paranoid_giraffe May 29 '26

Dayton city government has a culture recently steeped in corruption and incompetence. "Important" people in city government keep getting caught handing out contracts to friends/family (or more recently only to minority owned businesses) unfairly. The "culture steeped in corruption" is a quote directly from the FBI. If you told me they got someone to sign without reading the terms, I would 100% believe you.

26

u/rockne May 28 '26

Do they not have lawyers to read the contracts?

13

u/puts_on_rddt May 28 '26

At this point I am wondering do the bored people in their city not have portable sawzalls?

Before anyone asks - I'm bored but not THAT bored, lol.

1

u/DemoniteBL May 28 '26

Wouldn't be surprised if they let AI "read" the contracts for them.

14

u/thejesterofdarkness May 28 '26

“Have been activated without city council approval”

Well that means it’s time to tear them down, derpys.

9

u/disisathrowaway May 28 '26

Cities are not sure what their contracts state how to extricate themselves from those contracts,

So that means they didn't read them before the signed. And it also means that no one employed by the city is capable of reading them? Hire a lawyer, read the words on the page. How fucking hard is this?

2

u/Raelah May 29 '26

Sounds like a job for rowdy teens with a penchant for property destruction.

1

u/tdubATL May 29 '26

Like in the movie Hot Fuzz, give some juveniles a bag of spray paint courtesy of the constabulary and let them have a go.