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Legislation Killed Would Have Effectively Blocked Police LPR, Including Flock
- Lonestar1440 5mo ago[flagged]
- K0balt 5mo agoIdk. Collective small harms vs individual harms. Along a similar line, speed limits should be reduced to 35mph maximum for non-emergency traffic, it would save thousands of pointless deaths every year. But the small harm of time wasted in traffic is -worth- the. sacrifice of thousands of lives, as it turn out.
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoI am not harmed when I go through a toll plaza or an express lane. Nor when I pass a flock camera. You are boxing with phantoms, I think.
- macintux 5mo ago> Nor when I pass a flock camera. You are not, or at least, you think you are not. How far removed are we from the federal government revoking the passports of everyone who attended a No Kings rally, anywhere in the country?
- Lonestar1440 5mo ago... And what do you think stops them from revoking the passports, today? Do you think it is Courts and the looming Midterms; or are they just flummoxed by the lack of good surveillance data? It's really a fantasy and a silly Taboo. Our Democracy will live or die by politics, not silly rules on data collection at the margins.
- macintux 5mo agoWe’ve never had a central data store that would make it practical to achieve such a feat. Now we have one that could answer questions like this, forever. Mass surveillance at scale is not a trivial problem to solve, but Flock is both making it happen and making it clear that they are fine with enabling bad actors to take advantage of it.
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoThe FBI has been an IBM customer for a very long time. Like maybe the "cheap cameras everywhere" part is novel + important, but "central data store" truly is not. Slippery reasoning like this is how silly taboos get perpetuated.
- anigbrowl 5mo ago[dead]
- dghlsakjg 5mo agoWhile I don't love the FBI's history of data collection, there is a world of difference between warehousing data from government records, and building a graph of warehoused data from all possible sources and selling access to any small town police chief that can convince the city council to pay for it. Plus, data in FBI custody is nominally subject to laws and oversight in a way that privately held data is not.
- dghlsakjg 5mo agoGlobal entry privileges have been revoked for people present at legal protests based on facial recognition. Not a fantasy and the taboo has already been broken. While losing access to global entry without due process isn’t the same thing as revoking a passport, it’s awfully close. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/minnesota-woman-says-her-global-entry-nixed-after-agent-run-in?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/minnesota...
- K0balt 5mo ago
- TimorousBestie 5mo ago> How far removed are we from the federal government revoking the passports of everyone who attended a No Kings rally, anywhere in the country? Many trans people have already had their passports revoked, for some there is no path to obtaining one again, and it is deeply unsettling to me.
- croes 5mo ago> I am not harmed when I go through a toll plaza or an express lane. Yet. The jewish people had no problem that the government had detailed lists including the religion. It helped the Nazis killing many jews. Total surveillance will always be abused like every other invasive law. First it’s against child abuse and terrorist, then organized crime, then crimes like theft, then littering and jaywalking, then swearing in public
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoWere the lists really the problem though? Or was it the Genocidal Intent? The first mass killings, on the Eastern Front, made no use of such sophistication and had no need of it. It's always Politics.... Terrible ones in the case of WW2 Germany.
- croes 5mo agoYes, the lists where the problem because it is a lot easier to find your victims if you have a list of their addresses. You‘ll never know when the next group with bad intent get access to surveillance data. Every crime organization would be glad to have the opportunity to find witnesses in witness protection. Was a lot harder back then.
- amanaplanacanal 5mo agoBy that logic, why bother requiring search warrants? As long as government doesn't have bad intent, it should all be fine.
- dghlsakjg 5mo agoYes, the lists were a huge problem. In places where the germans had access to identity information survival rates among jews was much lower. The Danish government refused to provide data about Jewish citizens to the occupying germans, and simply didn't comply in general with anti Jewish efforts. 99% of Danish jews survived the war. In the Netherlands, where there was initially a policy of compliance, the occupying germans got their hands on the lists of jews and only 25% of Dutch jews survived.
- K0balt 5mo agoHarms of this sort tend towards societal harms toxic to democracy like chilling effects and loss of social cohesion, but you definitely could end up being much more directly harmed by invasive antiprivacy technologies.
- torpfactory 5mo agoThe problem is right now LPR data is available to just about everyone who wants it for any reason as long as they are part of law enforcement. They are using it, for example, to crack down on dissent, to stalk ex lovers, and to enforce abortion restrictions that are constitutionally dubious. If we are to maintain our liberty, the vast power such a surveillance apparatus should either not exist or only be accessible through an adversarial court system (i.e. a search warrant). (1) https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/how-cops-are-using-flock-safetys-alpr-network-surveil-protesters-and-activists https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/how-cops-are-using-flo... (2) https://local12.com/news/nation-world/police-chief-gets-caught-using-license-plate-cameras-to-track-his-ex-girlfriend-228-times-arrests-charges-probation-flock-safety-follow-stalk-new-boyfriend-broke-up-out-of-town-misuse https://local12.com/news/nation-world/police-chief-gets-caug... (3) https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas-sheriff-claimed-license-plate-search-was-missing-person-it https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas...
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoWe need to tighten the legal guardrails around this data and punish cops who misuse it. This would move society in a positive direction. Making the data itself a Taboo, just to avoid jailing bad cops, does not.
- cindyllm 5mo ago[dead]
- arvid-lind 5mo ago> punish cops just say you're not being serious and save us the time.
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoThis is such a silly perspective and it stands in the way of making things better. Cops are not going away. And we're not going to hide from them through Cyber-Libertarianism. We can either accept the status quo or, yes, push for more accountability from the agents of the state.
- nullc 5mo agoWrong metric-- the person caught would have almost certainly been caught absent it, making it easy to overstate the benefit. When someone with access-- potentially LEO but the access set is much larger-- uses the data to stalk and harass someone you'll usually never know that the ALPR camera was the data source. So its easy to overstate the contribution and understate the harm. But if you talk a step back you can see the dramatic change being made to our world: making it impossible to go about your life without being constantly tracked, cataloged, and having your history made available to who knows who, for who knows what purpose, for who knows how long (but probably forever).
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoWhy would they "almost certainly" have been caught otherwise? This is a load bearing component of your argument and it seems thin. From my perspective, you are synthesizing a harm while ignoring the clear and concrete contribution.
- lelandfe 5mo agoSynthesize no longer: https://ij.org/police-have-reportedly-used-license-plate-readers-to-stalk-romantic-interests-at-least-14-times-in-recent-years/ https://ij.org/police-have-reportedly-used-license-plate-rea...
- dghlsakjg 5mo agoYour argument cuts the other way too: the article doesn't say anything about the crime being unsolvable but for AI cameras that are part of a private nationwide surveillance network. In fact, the only mention is via the police PR department, which presumably has an interest in making these cameras palatable to the public. There's nothing to say that a regular CCTV camera couldn't have been just as effective, or that normal police work wouldn't have gotten the job done ("We found him by his license plate" isn't exactly cutting edge applications of an AI panopticon, nor does it require cameras at all.)
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- croes 5mo agoHow about GPS tracking for every step outside your house. Would also help prevent and solve crimes. No privacy on public roads. There is also something like proportionality.
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoHow about we eliminate Police entirely, since they will inevitably misuse any power we give them? Of course we have to strike a balance. We just disagree on where "cameras on a public road" fall on the scale.
- croes 5mo agoHow about implementing proper limitations first for the abused powers they already have? If someone proved he can’t handle a car you wouldn’t give him a truck, would you?
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoFair point. I'll never argue against greater police accountability. This would indeed be the best outcome. A framework of accountability we all trust and modern tools to do their job.
- AlienRobot 5mo agoYou don't have an expectation of privacy. I do. I don't want to go outside and have my every move recorded. There is something deeply disgusting about that notion.
- garyfirestorm 5mo agoWhen a set of banal traffic observation cameras turn into surveillance of a particular individual, then you’re being unreasonably searched/tracked/stalked. This should require a probable cause and proper warrant "we want to identify this individuals movements because …" This is a clear violation of the 4th amendment.
- impossiblefork 5mo agoThe question though, surely can't be whether there's an expectation of privacy on public roads, but the total effect of knowing where people are at essentially all times through a combination of things like location data from phones, license plate readers, facial recognition etc. Whether there is an expectation of privacy can't be what matters, what matters has to be whether the total effect allows a level of control that is dangerous or might have chilling effects on speech or on participation in things that are controversial.
- lokar 5mo agoA better compromise is to require a warrant from a judge
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoYour terms are acceptable. That's not what the killed legislation did, though.
- amanaplanacanal 5mo agoDon't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
- downrightmike 5mo agowarrants are handed out like candy already
- rectang 5mo ago> Just yesterday, flock helped police catch a dude "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." — Benjamin Franklin
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoI don't regard complete anonymity on a public roadway to be an "Essential Liberty" and neither would the Founders.
- MisterTea 5mo agoYou are trying waaaaaay too hard on this topic today. Your HN account is already bombed out and likely rate limited. Go take a break from posting and go outside. Maybe wave to a flock camera. After all, you have nothing to hide.
- Lonestar1440 5mo agoIs a dozen replies on a forum really so much? And yes, I will wave to the SF speed cameras I pass today.
- jollyllama 5mo agoPeople always talk about "no expectation of privacy in public." Ok, so would you support total universal surveillance of 100% of public space? Or a drone that perches outside your house when you are inside, and then follows and surveils you everywhere you go when you leave?
- firefoxd 5mo agoIs there an easier way to make this statement? So did we kill a legislation that would have blocked Police license plate readers and Flock? Or because the legislation is killed, we can block Police license plate readers and flock?
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- bee_rider 5mo agoFrom the article, > IPVM verified that a bipartisan amendment that would have effectively blocked police LPR programs nationwide was killed at a House committee markup on May 21, 2026. Maybe the minimal edit is something like: “Killed Legislation Would Have Effectively Blocked Police LPR, Including Flock”
- FateOfNations 5mo agoIt also would essentially have blocked all traffic enforcement cameras (red light, speed, bus lane, school bus passing, etc.) too.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- ryandrake 5mo ago"Harry, I already said I liked it. You don't need to sell it to me!"
- rayiner 5mo agoEnforcement cameras seem like the least objectionable thing police do. They catch law breakers without the possibility of violent confrontations with law enforcement or bias. Why do people object to that of all things?
- SauciestGNU 5mo agoFundamentally people don't like being held accountable for their "wrongdoing". My state banned automated traffic enforcement aside from very specific circumstances, but we're stuffed to the gills with Flock cameras.
- MengerSponge 5mo agoBecause Flock data is used to prosecute the right kind of people. Automatic traffic enforcement doesn't allow any discretion, so elite folks lobby hard against it.
- overfeed 5mo ago> Automatic traffic enforcement doesn't allow any discretion Only if you place cameras uniformly. What you need to do to not rock the boat is exclusively place the cameras in "high crime areas", and you get a twofer: rich lawbreakers stay with off the radar, and you get a perpetual-motion machine for crime statistics.
- pimlottc 5mo ago"LPR", used 16 times in the article (including the title), stands for "License Plate Recognition"
- SoftTalker 5mo agoAI slop article.
- arjie 5mo agoOkay so it reads: > A recipient of assistance under title 23, United States Code, may not use automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling. Okay, I'm glad that's killed. I love the speed cameras near my home. And hopefully the future has every red-light backed by a red-light camera.
- camkego 5mo agoThe article contains the passage below twice. I mean how does that happen? No proofreading? Cut and paste editing. I am always surprised when I see this in professional new sources. —— That the amendment died quietly does not erase what its introduction signals: opposition to police LPR programs is reaching higher levels of the political agenda, and Flock is increasingly at the center of it.