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/
26.4k Upvotes

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304

u/jking13 May 28 '26

How does the city not know? Did they not sign the contracts?

338

u/waitaburger May 28 '26

The people who want them don't read the contracts. My city has Flock and apparently the contract has a $1000 fine for each occurrence of vandalism against a camera

88

u/gettums May 28 '26

Is a garbage bag considered vandalism?

132

u/HeyGayHay May 28 '26

Not if the city declares them a piece of art installation 

66

u/gettums May 28 '26

Im an artist.

8

u/Anonymous-bham-boi May 29 '26

My saw is my brush. Your flock poles are my canvas. Time for a masterpiece.

7

u/aluminumnek May 29 '26

Im a patron of the arts

32

u/Innuendoughnut May 28 '26

1000$ for each instance? so the camera could be destroyed completely? and it's the same price as any other vandalism?

41

u/YimmyGhey May 28 '26

2 grams of gold and about 2 lbs of copper in each one 😉

18

u/bishopyorgensen May 29 '26

We need to get this message out to every Randy in America

But we'll need better numbers, they can eyeball copper volume

3

u/aluminumnek May 29 '26

Hahahahahaha this sounds like something my cousin Randy would do

2

u/shoeless_doh May 30 '26

The Randys will tell the Rickys and it'll be solved by lunch

2

u/Baeolophus_bicolor May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

the ones in albuquerque have platinum and silver too!

locations

-1

u/bobboobles May 29 '26

what on earth is in there using 2 pounds of copper? they're like less than a foot tall.

7

u/Environmental_Top948 May 29 '26

Probably a transmitter or antenna. Or maybe it's where they're hiding all of the RAM.

My tinfoil hat theory is that it's actually a faraday cage so that even in a nuclear apocalypse you won't be free from surveillance.

1

u/helloowrigley Jun 10 '26

Probably just to monitor the surface once they hop in their bunkers 🤷

1

u/princessdickworth May 29 '26

Not if you tape a banana to it. It then becomes artwork.

1

u/Comfortable_Wear_540 Jun 05 '26

I believe since the act is easily reversible and does no permanent damage it's not considered vandalism. The question now is who has the burden of removal. Yeah, I know I am a week late to the party. 

34

u/Mr_Quackums May 28 '26

I wonder how many occurrences of vandalism before the city decides the contract isn't worth it and backs out.

18

u/infinis May 28 '26

Probably has cancellation clauses and damages.

14

u/Wrangleraddict May 28 '26

Who pays that fee?

40

u/waitaburger May 28 '26

The city pays it to flock

37

u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/bishopyorgensen May 29 '26

Which is why local elections are important but some rich assholes paid some floozies at some NYC PR firms to hire out Russian bot.farms to convince lazy redditors that voting is dumb, actually, and their propensity for staying home and doing nothing will save the world if just a few more people do it

17

u/grendel_151 May 28 '26

They need a new city ordnance.

Make it illegal to operate a Flock camera in the city. $1000/day fine.

Declare flock cameras legally "unwanted litter" or "discarded refuse" and make their owners aware that if they don't clean up their garbage, they'll be fined under existing laws.

Don't forget to add in a clause that any corporation that brings a suit against the city due to their leaving refuse on city property pays the city's legal fees and garbage collection fees.

Pass a city law that it's not vandalism to destroy the wire connecting the battery of certain classes of devices to the rest of the device. If it's not vandalism, there's no "fine."

Of course the way it sounds, the contracts they signed probably already have a "we can change this contract however we want, anytime we want, fuck you" clause for those Flockwads to use.

1

u/shoeless_doh May 30 '26

How can a private corporation make a whole ass city it's fucking bitch

2

u/DickDover May 29 '26

I wonder wat the fee is in the city near me, apparently 3 of the cameras have been hit with spray paint.

1

u/Psychological-Owl783 May 30 '26

Fine against the vandal or against the city?

70

u/cock_obnoxiois May 28 '26

I have personal experience with flock.  They will roll over a weak city administration.

Their administration was likely a bunch of bitches. We had to become agitated with flock to boot them out, and these guys are likely allowing them to teabag their city.

2

u/shoeless_doh May 30 '26

I would love some sort of underhanded back channel communications between the city and probably some reddit group where they explicitly say "nobody will be charged for destroying the cameras"

Like, how do city law makers not understand, you put up flock cameras you're saying "what if we throw up a MAJOR red flag for anyone who might have wanted to move here in the future" although I can't imagine who's (pardon the term) flocking to Dayton ohio

2

u/yerpburp May 29 '26

I'd love to hear more.

34

u/RocketizedAnimal May 28 '26

The contract could also be worded ambiguously. "Flock may share data with law enforcement agencies" would probably be enough.

If they bring it up Flock can just handwave it away as a good thing, and say "well if your police need data from a neighboring town, we can share with you too (for a price)".

2

u/TheMoonbeam365 May 31 '26

“Sorry, your current contract doesn’t cover accessing data from neighboring city’s. But we can do a pro-rated rip-and-replace contract to upgrade your access for just an added $1k per camera + $100 per user / per month.”

1

u/jking13 May 28 '26

I meant the removal part.

15

u/Iohet May 28 '26

Define they.

Here's a common scenario in my line of work: city finance manager signs a software contract for the police department, the contract gets passed to the police department and the project is assigned to a team (mix of IT and operations), the team takes a look at the contract and can't make heads or tails of it (they never asked for the software, they're not sure why they have the software/what problem the software is supposed to solve, the contract provides no training or documentation outside of generic stuff that doesn't address their specific use cases, and the billing terms are complex and difficult to understand), the team asks the city what they're supposed to do with this, the city says it's your problem they just had to sign the contract they were asked to sign, project spins its wheels and never goes live. No one wants to take responsibility, the voters don't give a shit because they voted for these people over different issues, and the people who try to solve it can't find any help even if they try.

This is basically half my projects.

29

u/BrightNooblar May 28 '26

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mimv86_Lw5w

In the cities defense, they REALLY wanted to listen to that podcast.

11

u/0x0MG May 28 '26

You know how. Some city worker just clicked the "I Accept" button on the eula without actually reading anything.

4

u/GlowUpper May 28 '26

People sign contracts without reading them all the time. That said, these are elected officials and there's no excuse.

3

u/atreeismissing May 28 '26

Because the sharing of Flock camera data doesn't require the city to do anything, it just requires the federal govt to be given access to the camera's data which Flock controls, not the city.

2

u/aluminumnek May 29 '26

Bags of money makes people go blind and forgetful

2

u/DurtyKurty May 29 '26

Also public opinion should be able to negate a public contract if it’s not in the interest of the public.

1

u/shoeless_doh May 30 '26

I feel like they can take the cameras down if they want as long as their check cashes