10 ms·

Evanston orders Flock to remove reinstalled cameras

411 points by ptk 1y ago

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
Is there a good public list of Flock Safety cities? Would be particularly interesting to see where they are in blue states.
- asteroidburger 1y ago
  There's a crowdsourced collection of ALPRs in OpenStreetMap. deflock.me/map has a display of that data.
- jbotdev 1y ago
  They don’t have a public list, but this blog post conveniently has a map of their locations: https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/introducing-law-enforcement-network https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/introducing-law-enforcement... Judging by the places they advertise, it’s mostly smaller cities/towns. I think the larger cities in the US tend to run their own cameras.
- jer0me 1y ago
  You can search for cities' transparency portals. Not sure if every Flock customer has one though. site:transparency.flocksafety.com
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    Ex Flock employee - they do not. Your best bet for determining Flock usage is to ask the agency directly and/or look at council meeting minutes, etc. In my county, multiple law enforcement agencies are not on Flock's transparency portal, despite posting fairly regularly on FB about "responding to a Flock hit on a vehicle".
- sour-taste 1y ago
  Because it's relevant to many on this site, most bay area cities are users
- thaumaturgy 1y ago
  The best you can get is https://deflock.me/map https://deflock.me/map, which is crowd-sourced, and therefore both incomplete and inaccurate. Cities tend to resist public records requests for camera locations. But Flock is currently in ~5,000 communities around the country. They have managed to spread very quickly, and very quietly, and the public has only become aware of it relatively recently. There is also a good site at https://eyesonflock.com/ https://eyesonflock.com/ that parses data from the transparency pages that some places publish.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    https://www.muckrock.com/foi/list/?q=Flock https://www.muckrock.com/foi/list/?q=Flock https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/ https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/
- dawnerd 1y ago
  They installed some here at a Home Depot parking lot right when the ice raids started. It was weird that only the home deport owned portion of the parking lot got them which lead to some investigation into who put them up and sure enough flock has a contract with HD. Blue city in SoCal with lots of migrant laborers.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    So, if I understand you correctly, Home Depot was actively collaborating with ICE to get their best customer lures arrested? How the fuck does that make sense?!
  - bob1029 1y ago
    Home Depot has had an incredibly aggressive retail theft problem for about half a decade now across virtually every market. Their response of putting 10 ALPRs in each store's parking lot and locking up everything seems rational based upon what I've seen. There's something about stealing Milwaukee tools that gets certain groups of people very excited. They even have some tool manufacturers designing activation at checkout mechanisms to discourage theft. I have a hard time believing this stuff is making them any money or is a secret government arrangement. It seems purely about loss prevention in the case of HD. They have been an easy target up until recently. Home Depot seems like the one compelling win I've seen so far regarding these cameras. You'd have to be pretty crazy to try and steal tools these days. The speed with which law enforcement can react to these signals is incredible. I don't necessarily like the implications for other things but it does make shopping in certain retail environments feel much safer. So, cameras in the HD and Apple Store parking lots seem acceptable to me based upon the risk these businesses endure. Cameras in public I don't like, but without them the ones in private wouldn't be able to accomplish as much (I.e., interception of felony retail theft suspects while they still have all of the evidence on them).
    - delfinom 1y ago
      Home Depot is still garbage at shoplifting preventation. Can never walk in and buy a p-trap kit without every one of them missing parts.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >Would be particularly interesting to see where they are in blue states The answer is going to be "the snooty inner ring suburbs and wealthy rural-ish commuter communities that already had overstaffed PDs harassing teenagers"
  - Cheer2171 1y ago
    https://deflock.me/map https://deflock.me/map Check your assumptions, the Bay Area and LA are littered with them. They're in Berkeley for fucks sake.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      I was thinking Fairfax county VA when I wrote that but Berkley fits the bill really well too. Big enough to have enough "real city" problems to get people who have no real existential problems worried, but not enough to keep the police/security busy with "real crime", small enough these people can think that there's serious accountability preventing mundane abuse/misuse (whereas almost nobody in NYC would think that there's accountability for any misuse that isn't regional news worthy) and rich enough to not have to seriously care about resource allocation toward unnecessary security apparatus.
  - ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
    >>Would be particularly interesting to see where they are in blue states >The answer is going to be "the snooty inner ring suburbs and wealthy rural-ish commuter communities that already had overstaffed PDs harassing teenagers" TFA is about Evanston, IL[0] which is in Cook County[1] and abuts the city of Chicago. It is relatively wealthy, but is certainly not a "rural-ish commuter community," in fact it's not suburban either. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evanston%2C_Illinois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evanston%2C_Illinois [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County%2C_Illinois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County%2C_Illinois
givemeethekeys 1y ago
Why sue? Why not impound and fine like they would illegally parked vehicles?
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  The cameras are not meaningfully worth a whole lot of money.
  - hiatus 1y ago
    And neither is a beater but they still get impounded.
  - KaiserPro 1y ago
    Indeed, but the data they get from them is.
  - MSFT_Edging 1y ago
    They'd be worth something to a handful of reasonably competent hackers. There's no way these things are actually secure, they're IOT devices after all.
jbotdev 1y ago
Additional info on the “pilot program” they took issue with: https://apnews.com/article/immigration-abortion-license-plates-cameras-cc5f29df94a29ee2c6c2feb2151c8f5e https://apnews.com/article/immigration-abortion-license-plat...
donmcronald 1y ago
Even though it's become commonplace in the last 20 years, I'm still shocked to see how companies can pretty much ignore the law, do whatever they want, and have everyone involved shielded from any kind of significant consequences. In situations like this, I think the person at the top of the chain that told employees to perform the illegal installations should be arrested and charged. On top of that, the company should be fined into bankruptcy. If the directors knew about it any companies they're involved with shouldn't be allowed to conduct future business in the municipality (or state).
- mothballed 1y ago
  They were co-operating/conspiring with CBP as an extension of the federal government. Most likely the feds said they will tie up whoever challenges them in federal court. They can play jurisdiction fuck fuck games and then flip between it being a search, it being necessary for safety, that the city/county was obstruction a federal investigation, and all other nonsense. Don't think your company could just put up cameras and post the location of LEO and they'd let you get away with something like that.
  - euroderf 1y ago
    > Most likely the feds said they will tie up whoever challenges them in federal court. They can play jurisdiction fuck fuck games and then flip between it being a search, it being necessary for safety, that the city/county was obstruction a federal investigation, and all other nonsense. This sounds like some sort of legal procedures adopted from the USSR.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - oblio 1y ago
      Well, you're probably right for some types of procedures. But this type of thing (surveillance cameras) would actually fall under state security and be ordered by the Central Committee and done top down without any comments anywhere along the line (because everyone understood what was good for them). You're probably thinking of the "we're making the wrong type of tractor ball bearings"/"we're making broken consumer radios" type of issue where yeah, they'd give you the runaround.
fakedang 1y ago
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety
- tamimio 1y ago
  Literally looks like every stereotypical villain in any “crime prevention” movie, which is usually the puppet of some other entity behind him.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  "Are we the baddies?"
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    Yes. Absolutely. We incrementally pushed society to this point by incrementally approving more and more surveillance and government intervention across a myriad of issue until it ultimately built up the institutions and precedents and honed the workflows that we're now seeing used for stuff that even the stupid are at least kinda uneasy about.
IlikeKitties 1y ago
So Fun facts about digital cameras like these: Strong infrared leds at night blind them completely. They sometimes even switch into daymode and become useless at night. Also, lasers are usually not enough to destroy the ccd sensor but only cause small dots to appear[0]. But a Spraycan on a stick can be very effective and of course a silenced airgun for those hard to reach places can be very effective. [0] Lab Test here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNWNQb2AvQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNWNQb2AvQM
- privatelypublic 1y ago
  Firing projectiles to destroy cameras (it doesn't matter how the slug is thrown) is... oh why bother, people won't change. spray-chalk on a stick.
  - IlikeKitties 1y ago
    But airguns are usually much less regulated, much quieter and easier to supress and the legal liability for firing an airgun somewhere vs a firearm is usually much different. And they usually have enough power for that purpose without risking too much colleteral damage.
    - hopelite 1y ago
      I don’t even think an airgun could really have an effect, but for anyone contemplating this kind of thing, please at least deconstruct the device and put it into something different looking. There is no point in getting offed with impunity by some Idiocracy goon because he saw a finger gun. Better use of one’s efforts could be to support legal challenges of this clearly unconstitutional mass surveillance by the government through its corporate, or in this case, YC cutouts.
      - IlikeKitties 1y ago
        There are airguns available otc with the power equal to roughly a 45 ACP fired from a pistol. I doubt these cameras can resist that.
etchalon 1y ago
If these were installed without authorization, I assume citizens can rip them down without the same.
- userbinator 1y ago
  Or more likely, make use of the 2nd Amendment on them.
  - Ancapistani 1y ago
    I've given this a lot of thought. Unfortunately, in addition to being dangerous to others, this approach pretty much always comes with increased exposure to prosecution and increased penalties. The optimal approach seems to be vandalism - spray painting over the front of the cameras, placing other objects to block their view, or permanently blinding them with lasers. All of these things are still illegal and would likely subject you to the legal system, but they at least require on-site intervention to remedy and keep the actor out of prison (but maybe not jail). The least risky approach I've found is also the least effective - they're often on public property, so place _yourself_ in front of them. It takes them out of commission for a while and should be legal. Coordinated action would likely get the attention of Flock, law enforcement, and the media. Unfortunately, even that could be construed as "interfering with law enforcement operations" or similar, and/or conspiracy if you're organizing or participating in mass resistance. If the federal government decides they want to step in on Flock's behalf, they could put you under the jail. :\
  - phyzome 1y ago
    Discharging firearms in proximity to occupied buildings, very intelligent.
  - qmr 1y ago
    Know your target and backstop. What goes up must come down.
- dawnerd 1y ago
  Black trash bags would be a cheap, non damaging way to cost them money removing them.
zombiwoof 1y ago
[dead]
zombiwoof 1y ago
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jbullock35 1y ago
There is a larger issue that other commenters are missing: > The city has paid the first two years of that extension but would still owe $145,500 for the final three years if the contract is upheld. The city intends to terminate the contract on Sept. 26 under its notice to Flock, but the company is challenging that termination, and the dispute could escalate to litigation. The city is trying to terminate a contract with Flock. Under that contract, the city agreed to pay Flock for three more years of service. Flock maintains that the city doesn't have the right to nullify the contract. The linked article says almost nothing about the contract dispute, but another article [1] has some details. I don't know whether the city is correct about its power to terminate the contract, or whether instead Flock is correct. Either way, I wonder whether Flock is re-installing the cameras out of fear that, if it doesn't, it will be voiding its right to future payment under the contract. [1] https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/08/28/flock-challenges-citys-termination-of-contract-for-license-plate-readers/ https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/08/28/flock-challenges-c...
- conartist6 1y ago
  I would think the commission of state crimes would have an impact on the contract. If the city does nothing they would be an accessory to those crimes
  - ocdtrekkie 1y ago
    The core of the debate is that Flock has "fixed the issue", and hence doesn't think the contract should be escapable, the services provided today are ostensibly legal. Definitely a question for lawyers on how the exact terms shake out, if the city has an out or if Flock met their obligations by fixing the access issue.
    - pyrale 1y ago
      > Flock has "fixed the issue" Strong office space vibes in this one [1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is
Orochikaku 1y ago
Relevant video about Flock's ALPRs https://youtu.be/vWj26RIlN_I https://youtu.be/vWj26RIlN_I [18:56]
Ancapistani 1y ago
Community note: it is my understanding, based on teardowns that I've found online, that Flock cameras should be assumed to contain a cellular modem and at least one GPS receiver. At least some have been found to contain an addition, obfuscated GPS receiver.
- debarshri 1y ago
  Yes, worked for speed camera company. It does have a cellular modem connecting over VPN or some tunneling with cloud infrastructure.
- IlikeKitties 1y ago
  So they aren't even hardwired to the net and can easily be jammed with commonly available Jamming hardware?
  - cosmicgadget 1y ago
    Pretty casual about committing federal crimes.
    - IlikeKitties 1y ago
      Not an american, here in germany you'd barely get a fine if they even bother to prosecute you for using a jammer for a few minutes here and there. But I don't yet have to deal with ai powered surveillance cams by private companies in my city.
      - kube-system 1y ago
        Well that is too bad. I am glad it is taken seriously here in the US because wireless jamming is a serious public safety issue.
        DaSHacka 1y ago
        > Well that is too bad. I am glad it is taken seriously here in the US because wireless jamming is a serious public safety issue. Yet evidently we don't care about an actual massive public safety issue in the form of these cameras cataloging each person's habits and frequented locations and freely handing them out like candy to any organizations willing to fork out the cash. Go figure, at least people can't jam the cameras, imagine how bad that would be...?
camillomiller 1y ago
Would destroying the cameras be a legitimate act of social disobedience, considering that the company shows a total defiance and lack of respect for the law and society? I would argue it is.
- stavros 1y ago
  I would agree.
- patrickmay 1y ago
  No, no, that would be wrong. https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Thermite https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Thermite
motbus3 1y ago
It would be a shame if people starting to break it
tamimio 1y ago
That city should just make it legal that the citizens can paintball or spray those cameras anytime and anywhere.
- mbf1 1y ago
  This will escalate - every new car on the road comes with a bevy of cheap cameras integrated - I get 360 degree views when backing up from my 2018 Chevy Bolt. It's really only a matter of time before license plate scanning computers get integrated - there's already a cellular modem integrated into the vehicle - I don't use or pay for that feature, but it's an opportunity.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    Cop and other enforcement cars routinely get plate scanner cameras built in these days, so... that's already there.
  - kotaKat 1y ago
    There's already a full cottage market of ALPR-on-cellphone applications. They can just mount a cellphone on the windshield and it's gonna run ALPR all day every day. Same thing with fingerprint capture - they've now just got mobile apps to take a picture of your hands and submit for print processing.
  - reaperducer 1y ago
    This will escalate - every new car on the road comes with a bevy of cheap cameras integrated Back when DOGE was making headlines and a certain car salesman was using the Oval Office as daycare for his kid, there were a people on HN and elsewhere noting that every Tesla could easily be turned into a roving real-time government surveillance unit.
  - drnick1 1y ago
    I unplugged the cellular modem from my car and I suggest you do the same. These days it is basically impossible to buy a car without one, and if carmakers don't listen, we have to take matters into our own hands.
sschueller 1y ago
https://deflock.me/ https://deflock.me/
- DoctorOW 1y ago
  One of the closest points in my area is Made/Operated by: "Unknown". Very helpful. In my general area there are almost 100.
  - gs17 1y ago
    Operated by: "Unknown" is going to be very common. One popped up near my work recently, and I have no idea who "operates" it officially.
- Bender 1y ago
  Neat. There's only one city in my state that has these cameras. Its the wealthy blue city of Jackson Hole [1] that can't manage to fix potholes. I only pass through that place when taking someone to the airport. Curious if they were able to read my previous military plate which changes number every 5 years. Now I want to get one of these things to play with to see how it interprets my plate. I think I can see a flock on a pole in the live stream. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoUOrTJbIu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoUOrTJbIu4 [live camera, town square]
- nxobject 1y ago
  Thankfully, in my city, it seems to be all retail parking lots. But it’s disturbing to see other very, very adjacent cities go all-in on flock.
  - delfinom 1y ago
    Same in mine very large suburb. Pretty obvious why they are putting them in Home Depot parking lots too given the amount of shoplifting we've gone through the last few years.
sschueller 1y ago
"Move fast, break things" seems to me that is also the Trump admin's MO at the sacrifice of democracy. The SV mantra has moved up into politics and is causing permanent damage. If rules aren't enforced why would anyone follow them?
Animats 1y ago
There's a Flock camera at the end of my driveway. I'm next to a city line, so it's a reasonable location. I wonder if I can file a CCPA request and get a list of my comings and goings.
- boston_clone 1y ago
  …or someone could knock the damn thing offline.
  - SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago
    No that’s vandalism, what you do is get a nice printout of the exact view the camera has and just plop it in front of the thing, like a for sale sign or something. Tape if you have to.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      Engaging official channels instantly gets you on a list. These institutions aren't stupid, they're evil. Easier to just back a trailer into it or something. And if some scrappers haul the downed pole off a week after that you didn't see them. Furthermore, it's beyond naive to care about whether it's technically vandalism. You can't beat the establishment within the law because the establishment makes the law.
      - SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago
        In theory, constitutional rights would be the ideal tool of choice on your second point. Of course that requires a civil suit against the state and really expensive attorneys. To add to your point, it’s naive to believe that those protections are effective for anyone who isn’t incredibly wealthy at this point. The issue is most people can’t afford to take a case all the way, let alone start one.
        mindslight 1y ago
        Our constitutional rights have been effectively nullified - first with a slowly creeping "it's fine if a corpo does it", then with "it's fine if the President directs it", and now recently with a shameless full-on embrace of both.
boston_clone 1y ago
sounds like it’s your civic responsibility to take these devices offline.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  I mean, your local enforcers have publicly stated they're annoyed about them there. What are they gonna do other than wring their hands and say "oh no, anyway" if they go missing?
_cenw 1y ago
Aside the topic, but I wonder how HN, as a community, and as a moderation team, weighs this on the intellectual curiosity vs primarily politics scale. This seems politics to me. Very important politics that a lot of people in tech have a special interest for, but politics nonetheless, and much more pressing topics seem to be absent through the on-topic rule.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  That rule is ... kind of nonsense anyways. One can't be intellectually curious and not think about politics. Politics is applied intellectual curiosity.
  - _cenw 1y ago
    This does not seem to be a prevalent opinion on here, and I was trying to be diplomatic, but I guess it still comes out as "why is it OK to post / comment politics here if it's a less contentious topic many people on HN care about, but I regularly get downvoted for even relating information to my association with a demographic group forcefully enlisted to the front of the culture war". Orange site bad.
    - ipaddr 1y ago
      Because this has a tech angle and its local. Plus it connects to big tech companies collecting data on everyone. Which is different from a Gaza discussion which has no tech angle and two sides telling each other what the other side has done.
      - _cenw 1y ago
        Calling anything "local" to HN is pretty funny US-centrism, for someone posting before 8 AM EST. And I'd never call what's happening in Gaza a "culture war", that would seem trivializing - although my issue seems to be escalating more and more as well.
  - lurk2 1y ago
devoutsalsa 1y ago
If I were a corrupt government official I would: - install these cameras everywhere - make the data available for everyone via an API - make content about how we're all being spied on - form sponsorship deals from Incogni & DeleteMe - profit
forkerenok 1y ago
> This decision came after Illinois Secretary of State [...] discovered that Flock had allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois cameras in a “pilot program” against state law, and after the RoundTable reported in June that out-of-state law enforcement agencies were able to search Flock’s data for assistance in immigration cases. This illustrates the textbook argument for why mass surveillance is bad: these tools can quickly end up in the wrong hands. Play silly games, win silly prizes.
- burnte 1y ago
  > these tools can quickly end up in the wrong hands. With respect, they ALWAYS end up in the wrong hands.
  - EasyMark 1y ago
    The people pitching for said surveillance are always the wrong hands if they're from the government. "We here from the government, we're here to help" are very scary words, and be careful if you take them up on the offer
    - burnte 1y ago
      I don't really want private parties doing mass surveillance either.
      - EasyMark 1y ago
        me either, but their power is limit. Governments can ruin you forever and even disappear you without any real consequences
        ab5tract 1y ago
        Governments can equally allow private companies this same capacity.
        burnte 1y ago
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
I feel as if ALPRs are already a fact of life. Not thrilled about it, but that’s sort of what license plates are for (ALPRs are really just automated cop eyeballs). The most disturbing thing, is the behavior of the company. It’s pretty clear that they have a separate contract with the feds, and that contract is the one they care about more. It’s also an illustration of the faustian bargain that customers make, when establishing these types of contracts. That goes for regular customers, like consumers of social media, SaaS, or data storage apps; not just municipalities, running ALPRs and redlight cameras. It’s like a roach motel; your data checks in, but doesn’t check out. Camel’s nose, and all that. Basically, all of SV’s business, is about gathering data. That’s why my solitaire apps keep trying to get me to sign onto public challenges and leaderboards. As lots of folks here have indicated, this behavior will only be changed, by truly holding corporations and corporate directors (and maybe also shareholders) accountable. That’s pretty difficult, in practice. I guess it shouldn’t be easy, as we’d have endless frivolous litigation, but it shouldn’t be impossible, either.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Licesne plates were never intended to be recorded all the time to create a data set of who went where when. They were so that in the non-standard case where something other than "business as usual" has happened an owner could be identified.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    You're right, of course, but the real issue is the lack of corporate accountability, and data stewardship. Since HN has a lot of folks that really don't want people talking about corporate accountability, the discussions are pretty much guaranteed to devolve into macguffins. Case in point: notice how fast this discussion will dive off the front page. Happens quite frequently, when the topic is one that makes certain folks uncomfortable.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      Because having the .gov build and maintain the lists would be so much better? The problem isn't that "evil capitalists are doing the thing" it's that anyone is doing the thing.
me_vinayakakv 1y ago
There was a YouTube video published about them yesterday - https://youtu.be/vWj26RIlN_I https://youtu.be/vWj26RIlN_I It is really amazing how much power and impact private company can have on public.
daft_pink 1y ago
Wow. License plate readers are everywhere.
- toephu2 1y ago
  Is that a bad thing? I would imagine the only people who don't like this are criminals. But why are so many seemingly law-abiding citizens here up in arms about it?
  - xp84 1y ago
    A ton of people hold some of these core beliefs, which are subjective (meaning not exactly provable/disprovable) and aren’t subject to critical reevaluation: • the federal government cannot be trusted when the president belongs to the other “team” regardless of whether the election was fair • all decision makers in such a government are seeking a fascist and racist agenda that is a threat to all of us, and they are also seeking to harm anyone who even uses their First Amendment right to speak against them. • therefore, they cannot be allowed to enforce immigration laws at all because we cannot trust them to not make any mistakes/break any rules • the dangers of those rules being broken outweighs any dangers posed by criminals who happen to be undocumented immigrants. • also as a result they cannot be trusted with any data that could aid in enforcement of laws or aid them in pursuing their political enemies.
  - gs17 1y ago
    > I would imagine the only people who don't like this are criminals The problem is that the system doesn't only work on criminals, there's rarely enough oversight to prevent abuse, and it's only going to get more invasive. There's been case after case where cops use it to stalk their ex-girlfriends/ex-wives or similar, for example: https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article291059560.html https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article29105...
  - patrickmay 1y ago
    They collect data that allows tracking the movement and locations of individuals to a reasonably high degree of fidelity. Governments cannot be trusted to protect this data or to use it legally and responsibly.
exabrial 1y ago
Legal questions aside, thats another thread, hypothetically speaking, would a burning laser pointer be effective on these?
jmward01 1y ago
Documenting the downfall isn't enough. What are people going to do about it? Get involved with your local government. Go to city counsel meetings. Join local boards. This is one city that is doing the right thing but more cities could do the right thing if people showed up and demanded this type of invasive blanket search is blocked. We slipped slowly into this but we can claw it back by just showing up.
qmr 1y ago
These are not "license plate readers". They can and do identify vehicles based on a myriad of other factors. Paint wear, dents, roof racks, bumper stickers, and more. There's currently a suit filed against them for 4A violations, with supporting case law. I'm also investigating possibility of a federal suit or suit against my municipality for the same. Previous case law has ruled cell phone searches with historical data are a 4A violation and illegal without a warrant.
throwmeaway222 1y ago
> This decision came after Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias discovered that Flock had allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois cameras in a “pilot program” against state law, and after the RoundTable reported in June that out-of-state law enforcement agencies were able to search Flock’s data for assistance in immigration cases. Well it's obvious then that if it's helping to deport illegals, then keep going!
drnick1 1y ago
Nothing a big, heavy mallet can't solve.
- qmr 1y ago
  I was thinking more super soaker paint? They are mounted quite high.
AfterHIA 1y ago
My family is from Evanston and I'm 100% behind this. Evanston isn't a town where the people want mass tech surveillance and I guarantee you knowing my cousins and shit that if you fuck around the wrong way you'll learn the meaning of, "try that in a small town" in a fucking hurry.

411 points by ptk 1y ago

Is there a good public list of Flock Safety cities? Would be particularly interesting to see where they are in blue states.

asteroidburger 1y ago
There's a crowdsourced collection of ALPRs in OpenStreetMap. deflock.me/map has a display of that data.
jbotdev 1y ago
They don’t have a public list, but this blog post conveniently has a map of their locations: https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/introducing-law-enforcement-network https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/introducing-law-enforcement... Judging by the places they advertise, it’s mostly smaller cities/towns. I think the larger cities in the US tend to run their own cameras.
jer0me 1y ago
You can search for cities' transparency portals. Not sure if every Flock customer has one though. site:transparency.flocksafety.com
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Ex Flock employee - they do not. Your best bet for determining Flock usage is to ask the agency directly and/or look at council meeting minutes, etc. In my county, multiple law enforcement agencies are not on Flock's transparency portal, despite posting fairly regularly on FB about "responding to a Flock hit on a vehicle".
sour-taste 1y ago
Because it's relevant to many on this site, most bay area cities are users
thaumaturgy 1y ago
The best you can get is https://deflock.me/map https://deflock.me/map, which is crowd-sourced, and therefore both incomplete and inaccurate. Cities tend to resist public records requests for camera locations. But Flock is currently in ~5,000 communities around the country. They have managed to spread very quickly, and very quietly, and the public has only become aware of it relatively recently. There is also a good site at https://eyesonflock.com/ https://eyesonflock.com/ that parses data from the transparency pages that some places publish.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  https://www.muckrock.com/foi/list/?q=Flock https://www.muckrock.com/foi/list/?q=Flock https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/ https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/
dawnerd 1y ago
They installed some here at a Home Depot parking lot right when the ice raids started. It was weird that only the home deport owned portion of the parking lot got them which lead to some investigation into who put them up and sure enough flock has a contract with HD. Blue city in SoCal with lots of migrant laborers.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  So, if I understand you correctly, Home Depot was actively collaborating with ICE to get their best customer lures arrested? How the fuck does that make sense?!
- bob1029 1y ago
  Home Depot has had an incredibly aggressive retail theft problem for about half a decade now across virtually every market. Their response of putting 10 ALPRs in each store's parking lot and locking up everything seems rational based upon what I've seen. There's something about stealing Milwaukee tools that gets certain groups of people very excited. They even have some tool manufacturers designing activation at checkout mechanisms to discourage theft. I have a hard time believing this stuff is making them any money or is a secret government arrangement. It seems purely about loss prevention in the case of HD. They have been an easy target up until recently. Home Depot seems like the one compelling win I've seen so far regarding these cameras. You'd have to be pretty crazy to try and steal tools these days. The speed with which law enforcement can react to these signals is incredible. I don't necessarily like the implications for other things but it does make shopping in certain retail environments feel much safer. So, cameras in the HD and Apple Store parking lots seem acceptable to me based upon the risk these businesses endure. Cameras in public I don't like, but without them the ones in private wouldn't be able to accomplish as much (I.e., interception of felony retail theft suspects while they still have all of the evidence on them).
  - delfinom 1y ago
    Home Depot is still garbage at shoplifting preventation. Can never walk in and buy a p-trap kit without every one of them missing parts.
potato3732842 1y ago
>Would be particularly interesting to see where they are in blue states The answer is going to be "the snooty inner ring suburbs and wealthy rural-ish commuter communities that already had overstaffed PDs harassing teenagers"
- Cheer2171 1y ago
  https://deflock.me/map https://deflock.me/map Check your assumptions, the Bay Area and LA are littered with them. They're in Berkeley for fucks sake.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    I was thinking Fairfax county VA when I wrote that but Berkley fits the bill really well too. Big enough to have enough "real city" problems to get people who have no real existential problems worried, but not enough to keep the police/security busy with "real crime", small enough these people can think that there's serious accountability preventing mundane abuse/misuse (whereas almost nobody in NYC would think that there's accountability for any misuse that isn't regional news worthy) and rich enough to not have to seriously care about resource allocation toward unnecessary security apparatus.
- ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
  >>Would be particularly interesting to see where they are in blue states >The answer is going to be "the snooty inner ring suburbs and wealthy rural-ish commuter communities that already had overstaffed PDs harassing teenagers" TFA is about Evanston, IL[0] which is in Cook County[1] and abuts the city of Chicago. It is relatively wealthy, but is certainly not a "rural-ish commuter community," in fact it's not suburban either. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evanston%2C_Illinois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evanston%2C_Illinois [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County%2C_Illinois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County%2C_Illinois

givemeethekeys 1y ago

Why sue? Why not impound and fine like they would illegally parked vehicles?

ocdtrekkie 1y ago
The cameras are not meaningfully worth a whole lot of money.
- hiatus 1y ago
  And neither is a beater but they still get impounded.
- KaiserPro 1y ago
  Indeed, but the data they get from them is.
- MSFT_Edging 1y ago
  They'd be worth something to a handful of reasonably competent hackers. There's no way these things are actually secure, they're IOT devices after all.

jbotdev 1y ago

Additional info on the “pilot program” they took issue with: https://apnews.com/article/immigration-abortion-license-plates-cameras-cc5f29df94a29ee2c6c2feb2151c8f5e https://apnews.com/article/immigration-abortion-license-plat...

donmcronald 1y ago

Even though it's become commonplace in the last 20 years, I'm still shocked to see how companies can pretty much ignore the law, do whatever they want, and have everyone involved shielded from any kind of significant consequences. In situations like this, I think the person at the top of the chain that told employees to perform the illegal installations should be arrested and charged. On top of that, the company should be fined into bankruptcy. If the directors knew about it any companies they're involved with shouldn't be allowed to conduct future business in the municipality (or state).

mothballed 1y ago
They were co-operating/conspiring with CBP as an extension of the federal government. Most likely the feds said they will tie up whoever challenges them in federal court. They can play jurisdiction fuck fuck games and then flip between it being a search, it being necessary for safety, that the city/county was obstruction a federal investigation, and all other nonsense. Don't think your company could just put up cameras and post the location of LEO and they'd let you get away with something like that.
- euroderf 1y ago
  > Most likely the feds said they will tie up whoever challenges them in federal court. They can play jurisdiction fuck fuck games and then flip between it being a search, it being necessary for safety, that the city/county was obstruction a federal investigation, and all other nonsense. This sounds like some sort of legal procedures adopted from the USSR.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - oblio 1y ago
    Well, you're probably right for some types of procedures. But this type of thing (surveillance cameras) would actually fall under state security and be ordered by the Central Committee and done top down without any comments anywhere along the line (because everyone understood what was good for them). You're probably thinking of the "we're making the wrong type of tractor ball bearings"/"we're making broken consumer radios" type of issue where yeah, they'd give you the runaround.

fakedang 1y ago

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety

tamimio 1y ago
Literally looks like every stereotypical villain in any “crime prevention” movie, which is usually the puppet of some other entity behind him.
saubeidl 1y ago
"Are we the baddies?"
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Yes. Absolutely. We incrementally pushed society to this point by incrementally approving more and more surveillance and government intervention across a myriad of issue until it ultimately built up the institutions and precedents and honed the workflows that we're now seeing used for stuff that even the stupid are at least kinda uneasy about.

IlikeKitties 1y ago

So Fun facts about digital cameras like these: Strong infrared leds at night blind them completely. They sometimes even switch into daymode and become useless at night. Also, lasers are usually not enough to destroy the ccd sensor but only cause small dots to appear[0]. But a Spraycan on a stick can be very effective and of course a silenced airgun for those hard to reach places can be very effective. [0] Lab Test here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNWNQb2AvQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNWNQb2AvQM

privatelypublic 1y ago
Firing projectiles to destroy cameras (it doesn't matter how the slug is thrown) is... oh why bother, people won't change. spray-chalk on a stick.
- IlikeKitties 1y ago
  But airguns are usually much less regulated, much quieter and easier to supress and the legal liability for firing an airgun somewhere vs a firearm is usually much different. And they usually have enough power for that purpose without risking too much colleteral damage.
  - hopelite 1y ago
    I don’t even think an airgun could really have an effect, but for anyone contemplating this kind of thing, please at least deconstruct the device and put it into something different looking. There is no point in getting offed with impunity by some Idiocracy goon because he saw a finger gun. Better use of one’s efforts could be to support legal challenges of this clearly unconstitutional mass surveillance by the government through its corporate, or in this case, YC cutouts.
    - IlikeKitties 1y ago
      There are airguns available otc with the power equal to roughly a 45 ACP fired from a pistol. I doubt these cameras can resist that.

etchalon 1y ago

If these were installed without authorization, I assume citizens can rip them down without the same.

userbinator 1y ago
Or more likely, make use of the 2nd Amendment on them.
- Ancapistani 1y ago
  I've given this a lot of thought. Unfortunately, in addition to being dangerous to others, this approach pretty much always comes with increased exposure to prosecution and increased penalties. The optimal approach seems to be vandalism - spray painting over the front of the cameras, placing other objects to block their view, or permanently blinding them with lasers. All of these things are still illegal and would likely subject you to the legal system, but they at least require on-site intervention to remedy and keep the actor out of prison (but maybe not jail). The least risky approach I've found is also the least effective - they're often on public property, so place _yourself_ in front of them. It takes them out of commission for a while and should be legal. Coordinated action would likely get the attention of Flock, law enforcement, and the media. Unfortunately, even that could be construed as "interfering with law enforcement operations" or similar, and/or conspiracy if you're organizing or participating in mass resistance. If the federal government decides they want to step in on Flock's behalf, they could put you under the jail. :\
- phyzome 1y ago
  Discharging firearms in proximity to occupied buildings, very intelligent.
- qmr 1y ago
  Know your target and backstop. What goes up must come down.
dawnerd 1y ago
Black trash bags would be a cheap, non damaging way to cost them money removing them.

zombiwoof 1y ago

[dead]

zombiwoof 1y ago

[dead]

jbullock35 1y ago

There is a larger issue that other commenters are missing: > The city has paid the first two years of that extension but would still owe $145,500 for the final three years if the contract is upheld. The city intends to terminate the contract on Sept. 26 under its notice to Flock, but the company is challenging that termination, and the dispute could escalate to litigation. The city is trying to terminate a contract with Flock. Under that contract, the city agreed to pay Flock for three more years of service. Flock maintains that the city doesn't have the right to nullify the contract. The linked article says almost nothing about the contract dispute, but another article [1] has some details. I don't know whether the city is correct about its power to terminate the contract, or whether instead Flock is correct. Either way, I wonder whether Flock is re-installing the cameras out of fear that, if it doesn't, it will be voiding its right to future payment under the contract. [1] https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/08/28/flock-challenges-citys-termination-of-contract-for-license-plate-readers/ https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/08/28/flock-challenges-c...

conartist6 1y ago
I would think the commission of state crimes would have an impact on the contract. If the city does nothing they would be an accessory to those crimes
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  The core of the debate is that Flock has "fixed the issue", and hence doesn't think the contract should be escapable, the services provided today are ostensibly legal. Definitely a question for lawyers on how the exact terms shake out, if the city has an out or if Flock met their obligations by fixing the access issue.
  - pyrale 1y ago
    > Flock has "fixed the issue" Strong office space vibes in this one [1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is

Orochikaku 1y ago

Relevant video about Flock's ALPRs https://youtu.be/vWj26RIlN_I https://youtu.be/vWj26RIlN_I [18:56]

Ancapistani 1y ago

Community note: it is my understanding, based on teardowns that I've found online, that Flock cameras should be assumed to contain a cellular modem and at least one GPS receiver. At least some have been found to contain an addition, obfuscated GPS receiver.

debarshri 1y ago
Yes, worked for speed camera company. It does have a cellular modem connecting over VPN or some tunneling with cloud infrastructure.
IlikeKitties 1y ago
So they aren't even hardwired to the net and can easily be jammed with commonly available Jamming hardware?
- cosmicgadget 1y ago
  Pretty casual about committing federal crimes.
  - IlikeKitties 1y ago
    Not an american, here in germany you'd barely get a fine if they even bother to prosecute you for using a jammer for a few minutes here and there. But I don't yet have to deal with ai powered surveillance cams by private companies in my city.
    - kube-system 1y ago
      Well that is too bad. I am glad it is taken seriously here in the US because wireless jamming is a serious public safety issue.
      - DaSHacka 1y ago
        > Well that is too bad. I am glad it is taken seriously here in the US because wireless jamming is a serious public safety issue. Yet evidently we don't care about an actual massive public safety issue in the form of these cameras cataloging each person's habits and frequented locations and freely handing them out like candy to any organizations willing to fork out the cash. Go figure, at least people can't jam the cameras, imagine how bad that would be...?

camillomiller 1y ago

Would destroying the cameras be a legitimate act of social disobedience, considering that the company shows a total defiance and lack of respect for the law and society? I would argue it is.

stavros 1y ago
I would agree.
patrickmay 1y ago
No, no, that would be wrong. https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Thermite https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Thermite

motbus3 1y ago

It would be a shame if people starting to break it

tamimio 1y ago

That city should just make it legal that the citizens can paintball or spray those cameras anytime and anywhere.

mbf1 1y ago
This will escalate - every new car on the road comes with a bevy of cheap cameras integrated - I get 360 degree views when backing up from my 2018 Chevy Bolt. It's really only a matter of time before license plate scanning computers get integrated - there's already a cellular modem integrated into the vehicle - I don't use or pay for that feature, but it's an opportunity.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Cop and other enforcement cars routinely get plate scanner cameras built in these days, so... that's already there.
- kotaKat 1y ago
  There's already a full cottage market of ALPR-on-cellphone applications. They can just mount a cellphone on the windshield and it's gonna run ALPR all day every day. Same thing with fingerprint capture - they've now just got mobile apps to take a picture of your hands and submit for print processing.
- reaperducer 1y ago
  This will escalate - every new car on the road comes with a bevy of cheap cameras integrated Back when DOGE was making headlines and a certain car salesman was using the Oval Office as daycare for his kid, there were a people on HN and elsewhere noting that every Tesla could easily be turned into a roving real-time government surveillance unit.
- drnick1 1y ago
  I unplugged the cellular modem from my car and I suggest you do the same. These days it is basically impossible to buy a car without one, and if carmakers don't listen, we have to take matters into our own hands.

sschueller 1y ago

https://deflock.me/ https://deflock.me/

DoctorOW 1y ago
One of the closest points in my area is Made/Operated by: "Unknown". Very helpful. In my general area there are almost 100.
- gs17 1y ago
  Operated by: "Unknown" is going to be very common. One popped up near my work recently, and I have no idea who "operates" it officially.
Bender 1y ago
Neat. There's only one city in my state that has these cameras. Its the wealthy blue city of Jackson Hole [1] that can't manage to fix potholes. I only pass through that place when taking someone to the airport. Curious if they were able to read my previous military plate which changes number every 5 years. Now I want to get one of these things to play with to see how it interprets my plate. I think I can see a flock on a pole in the live stream. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoUOrTJbIu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoUOrTJbIu4 [live camera, town square]
nxobject 1y ago
Thankfully, in my city, it seems to be all retail parking lots. But it’s disturbing to see other very, very adjacent cities go all-in on flock.
- delfinom 1y ago
  Same in mine very large suburb. Pretty obvious why they are putting them in Home Depot parking lots too given the amount of shoplifting we've gone through the last few years.

sschueller 1y ago

"Move fast, break things" seems to me that is also the Trump admin's MO at the sacrifice of democracy. The SV mantra has moved up into politics and is causing permanent damage. If rules aren't enforced why would anyone follow them?

Animats 1y ago

There's a Flock camera at the end of my driveway. I'm next to a city line, so it's a reasonable location. I wonder if I can file a CCPA request and get a list of my comings and goings.

boston_clone 1y ago
…or someone could knock the damn thing offline.
- SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago
  No that’s vandalism, what you do is get a nice printout of the exact view the camera has and just plop it in front of the thing, like a for sale sign or something. Tape if you have to.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    Engaging official channels instantly gets you on a list. These institutions aren't stupid, they're evil. Easier to just back a trailer into it or something. And if some scrappers haul the downed pole off a week after that you didn't see them. Furthermore, it's beyond naive to care about whether it's technically vandalism. You can't beat the establishment within the law because the establishment makes the law.
    - SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago
      In theory, constitutional rights would be the ideal tool of choice on your second point. Of course that requires a civil suit against the state and really expensive attorneys. To add to your point, it’s naive to believe that those protections are effective for anyone who isn’t incredibly wealthy at this point. The issue is most people can’t afford to take a case all the way, let alone start one.
      - mindslight 1y ago
        Our constitutional rights have been effectively nullified - first with a slowly creeping "it's fine if a corpo does it", then with "it's fine if the President directs it", and now recently with a shameless full-on embrace of both.

boston_clone 1y ago

sounds like it’s your civic responsibility to take these devices offline.

potato3732842 1y ago
I mean, your local enforcers have publicly stated they're annoyed about them there. What are they gonna do other than wring their hands and say "oh no, anyway" if they go missing?

_cenw 1y ago

Aside the topic, but I wonder how HN, as a community, and as a moderation team, weighs this on the intellectual curiosity vs primarily politics scale. This seems politics to me. Very important politics that a lot of people in tech have a special interest for, but politics nonetheless, and much more pressing topics seem to be absent through the on-topic rule.

saubeidl 1y ago
That rule is ... kind of nonsense anyways. One can't be intellectually curious and not think about politics. Politics is applied intellectual curiosity.
- _cenw 1y ago
  This does not seem to be a prevalent opinion on here, and I was trying to be diplomatic, but I guess it still comes out as "why is it OK to post / comment politics here if it's a less contentious topic many people on HN care about, but I regularly get downvoted for even relating information to my association with a demographic group forcefully enlisted to the front of the culture war". Orange site bad.
  - ipaddr 1y ago
    Because this has a tech angle and its local. Plus it connects to big tech companies collecting data on everyone. Which is different from a Gaza discussion which has no tech angle and two sides telling each other what the other side has done.
    - _cenw 1y ago
      Calling anything "local" to HN is pretty funny US-centrism, for someone posting before 8 AM EST. And I'd never call what's happening in Gaza a "culture war", that would seem trivializing - although my issue seems to be escalating more and more as well.
- lurk2 1y ago

devoutsalsa 1y ago

If I were a corrupt government official I would: - install these cameras everywhere - make the data available for everyone via an API - make content about how we're all being spied on - form sponsorship deals from Incogni & DeleteMe - profit

forkerenok 1y ago

> This decision came after Illinois Secretary of State [...] discovered that Flock had allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois cameras in a “pilot program” against state law, and after the RoundTable reported in June that out-of-state law enforcement agencies were able to search Flock’s data for assistance in immigration cases. This illustrates the textbook argument for why mass surveillance is bad: these tools can quickly end up in the wrong hands. Play silly games, win silly prizes.

burnte 1y ago
> these tools can quickly end up in the wrong hands. With respect, they ALWAYS end up in the wrong hands.
- EasyMark 1y ago
  The people pitching for said surveillance are always the wrong hands if they're from the government. "We here from the government, we're here to help" are very scary words, and be careful if you take them up on the offer
  - burnte 1y ago
    I don't really want private parties doing mass surveillance either.
    - EasyMark 1y ago
      me either, but their power is limit. Governments can ruin you forever and even disappear you without any real consequences
      - ab5tract 1y ago
        Governments can equally allow private companies this same capacity.
      - burnte 1y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago

I feel as if ALPRs are already a fact of life. Not thrilled about it, but that’s sort of what license plates are for (ALPRs are really just automated cop eyeballs). The most disturbing thing, is the behavior of the company. It’s pretty clear that they have a separate contract with the feds, and that contract is the one they care about more. It’s also an illustration of the faustian bargain that customers make, when establishing these types of contracts. That goes for regular customers, like consumers of social media, SaaS, or data storage apps; not just municipalities, running ALPRs and redlight cameras. It’s like a roach motel; your data checks in, but doesn’t check out. Camel’s nose, and all that. Basically, all of SV’s business, is about gathering data. That’s why my solitaire apps keep trying to get me to sign onto public challenges and leaderboards. As lots of folks here have indicated, this behavior will only be changed, by truly holding corporations and corporate directors (and maybe also shareholders) accountable. That’s pretty difficult, in practice. I guess it shouldn’t be easy, as we’d have endless frivolous litigation, but it shouldn’t be impossible, either.

potato3732842 1y ago
Licesne plates were never intended to be recorded all the time to create a data set of who went where when. They were so that in the non-standard case where something other than "business as usual" has happened an owner could be identified.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  You're right, of course, but the real issue is the lack of corporate accountability, and data stewardship. Since HN has a lot of folks that really don't want people talking about corporate accountability, the discussions are pretty much guaranteed to devolve into macguffins. Case in point: notice how fast this discussion will dive off the front page. Happens quite frequently, when the topic is one that makes certain folks uncomfortable.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    Because having the .gov build and maintain the lists would be so much better? The problem isn't that "evil capitalists are doing the thing" it's that anyone is doing the thing.

me_vinayakakv 1y ago

There was a YouTube video published about them yesterday - https://youtu.be/vWj26RIlN_I https://youtu.be/vWj26RIlN_I It is really amazing how much power and impact private company can have on public.

daft_pink 1y ago

Wow. License plate readers are everywhere.

toephu2 1y ago
Is that a bad thing? I would imagine the only people who don't like this are criminals. But why are so many seemingly law-abiding citizens here up in arms about it?
- xp84 1y ago
  A ton of people hold some of these core beliefs, which are subjective (meaning not exactly provable/disprovable) and aren’t subject to critical reevaluation: • the federal government cannot be trusted when the president belongs to the other “team” regardless of whether the election was fair • all decision makers in such a government are seeking a fascist and racist agenda that is a threat to all of us, and they are also seeking to harm anyone who even uses their First Amendment right to speak against them. • therefore, they cannot be allowed to enforce immigration laws at all because we cannot trust them to not make any mistakes/break any rules • the dangers of those rules being broken outweighs any dangers posed by criminals who happen to be undocumented immigrants. • also as a result they cannot be trusted with any data that could aid in enforcement of laws or aid them in pursuing their political enemies.
- gs17 1y ago
  > I would imagine the only people who don't like this are criminals The problem is that the system doesn't only work on criminals, there's rarely enough oversight to prevent abuse, and it's only going to get more invasive. There's been case after case where cops use it to stalk their ex-girlfriends/ex-wives or similar, for example: https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article291059560.html https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article29105...
- patrickmay 1y ago
  They collect data that allows tracking the movement and locations of individuals to a reasonably high degree of fidelity. Governments cannot be trusted to protect this data or to use it legally and responsibly.

exabrial 1y ago

Legal questions aside, thats another thread, hypothetically speaking, would a burning laser pointer be effective on these?

jmward01 1y ago

Documenting the downfall isn't enough. What are people going to do about it? Get involved with your local government. Go to city counsel meetings. Join local boards. This is one city that is doing the right thing but more cities could do the right thing if people showed up and demanded this type of invasive blanket search is blocked. We slipped slowly into this but we can claw it back by just showing up.

qmr 1y ago

These are not "license plate readers". They can and do identify vehicles based on a myriad of other factors. Paint wear, dents, roof racks, bumper stickers, and more. There's currently a suit filed against them for 4A violations, with supporting case law. I'm also investigating possibility of a federal suit or suit against my municipality for the same. Previous case law has ruled cell phone searches with historical data are a 4A violation and illegal without a warrant.

throwmeaway222 1y ago

> This decision came after Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias discovered that Flock had allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois cameras in a “pilot program” against state law, and after the RoundTable reported in June that out-of-state law enforcement agencies were able to search Flock’s data for assistance in immigration cases. Well it's obvious then that if it's helping to deport illegals, then keep going!

drnick1 1y ago

Nothing a big, heavy mallet can't solve.

qmr 1y ago
I was thinking more super soaker paint? They are mounted quite high.

AfterHIA 1y ago

My family is from Evanston and I'm 100% behind this. Evanston isn't a town where the people want mass tech surveillance and I guarantee you knowing my cousins and shit that if you fuck around the wrong way you'll learn the meaning of, "try that in a small town" in a fucking hurry.