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The best part is that flock owns the cameras and the poles so even when the contract expires the cameras keep running and recording data that flock can sell to
by etdznots 3mo ago
The best part is that flock owns the cameras and the poles so even when the contract expires the cameras keep running and recording data that flock can sell to e.g. CHP, LASD, FBI, Palantir; and LAPD can just call them and access the data
the flock scam was engineered to be resilient to political pressure by giving departments and jursidictions this fake exit ability while the data continues to be harvested, it is a noose that only tightens; the amount of flock cameras recording only ever goes up not down.
- gxs 3mo agoI didn’t know this but it’s the kind of stuff our tax dollars pay for and ultimately why I’m so disgruntled about the high taxes we pay - especially in the middle class No problem paying taxes - my entire gripe is with what what the moneys spent on
- wilg 3mo agoThe US has below average middle class tax rates. But luckily we can just choose what our tax dollars are spent on through democracy! The main problem is nobody agrees about anything and lots of people are really dumb and can't handle the responsibility of electing competent people into government.
- clickety_clack 3mo agoIt would be a mistake to assume that people who don’t agree with you are really dumb.
- mcdonje 3mo agoThis is naïve. The US government is less democratic than advertised, and there are many factors for that. Not going to write a tome, but if you're going to point a finger at one group, it shouldn't be private citizens.
- wilg 3mo agoThis is a common coping mechanism, but the US is quite democratic and almost any objection you have about corporate control or whatnot can be easily overridden by getting like 100,000 more people to agree with you.
- gxs 3mo agoCan you explain here without an LLM? Really curious to hear more about this Unless all of congress is included in that 100k, I’d love to hear a plausible scenario where this is actually achievable and not merely some clever edge case you found
- polshaw 3mo ago>Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... especially note figure 1.
- the_real_cher 3mo agoIm not sure I agree that a two party system for 400 million people allows us to choose what our taxes are spent on.
- wilg 3mo agoIt does exactly that.
- bmau5 3mo agoWould love to see someone vibecode an explorer for seeing how their jurisdiction spent their taxes. Denver has a decent explorer here: https://www.denvergov.org/transparency/checkbook#/home?year=2026 https://www.denvergov.org/transparency/checkbook#/home?year=...
- thesuitonym 3mo agoWhy do you need to vibecode an explorer when financial analysis tools are a dime a dozen?
- smalltorch 3mo agoYeah it's kinda crazy you can't legally take them down even if they are banned/contract expires. IKE Skelton, a county commissioner took it into his own hands and they were pressing felony charges on him. Not sure what ended up happening. Basically flock wouldn't respond to take them down, he felt it was his duty to remove them, he brought them back to his office, and then the state hunted him down. Here is a podcast about it. https://internationalflavor.podbean.com/e/the-surveillance-state-strikes-back-the-trial-of-camden-county-s-defender/ https://internationalflavor.podbean.com/e/the-surveillance-s...
- glaslong 3mo agoI'm curious how they could prevent taking them down if the local gov doesn't renew the contract? Presumably they're installed under some works dept land/pole/utility access permits that allow them the space and electrical, which all goes away and requires their removal. Sorry if this is answered in the pod, don't have time for it immediately.
- smalltorch 3mo agoId have to re-listen as well for all the details. But I think this is slightly different than the headline here. In this case, the county voted for an ordinance banning them. Ike was threatened saying your going to be charged this is potentially state property, he did a sunshine request to see that they were privately owned by flock. Then he requested flock take them down but they didn't. After a few months he decided he will enforce the ordinance as the sheriff refused too. He took them down brought them to his office. Then later 5 state officers (4 in plain clothing, one in uniform) were looking for him at his house. He brought them to the cameras and said here have them back. Still got charged with theft somehow... Moral of the story, that doesn't really sound like democracy to me. That sounds like kinda the opposite of democracy. Anyway it's worth a listen if you have time. This isn't how these things should go and shows there is a little more than meets the eye here. Even if citizens perfectly execute democracy, these things may not budge. And there is a larger net of protection keeping these in place.
- 3mo ago
- jonahx 3mo agoIs there any realistic road to having them outlawed nationwide? Eg, ignoring probabilities here, could a wildly successful grassroots program where it became an issue as politically salient as immigration or abortion eventually lead to legislation banning them?
- NewJazz 3mo agoProbably? Would be easier to develop drones to rip off the solar panels.
- snovv_crash 3mo agoBlack spray paint is less effort
- jachee 3mo agoPaintballs are even better, environmentally and effort-wise. Especially if the propellant tank is pressurized using a solar powered compressor. (Theoretically, of course. I wouldn’t advocate destroying private property.)
- dietr1ch 3mo agoDestroying public property is bad in a general sense, but not enough to describe the situation here. Would you take the knife out of your robber? Or is that stealing private property? Surveillance endangers society/democracy and it's a threat too
- crote 3mo agoWhat gives them the right to install and operate those cameras? I would have assumed that the license for placing them on public property was inherently linked to the services they provided to the local government. But if it's not tied to that, does that mean that anyone can install cameras anywhere? What grounds would they have to give permits to Flock while refusing them to other interested parties, like StalkingMyEx LLC. and CopTrack Corp.?
- ibejoeb 3mo agoI don't have the answer, but I wonder if they are considered a utility and operate on utility easements. Then we have to look at the county and state, too. On the other side, I've read they operate a considerable number of private installations, too. Even that is suspect, too, in that there is existing case law affirming that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in "the whole of their public movements."
- engineer_22 3mo agoThey’re not utility. But you don’t have to be a utility to construct in the right-of-way.
- ibejoeb 3mo agoGood point. Then, if the contract lapses, who is responsible for that infrastructure? Does flock have to tear it down?
- kulahan 3mo agoProbably some legal question that won’t get answered until there is a strong pressure to do so.
- engineer_22 3mo agoNo, because they have other customers.
- 3mo ago
- tedggh 3mo agoWith Marc Andreessen, the boy from rural Wisconsin, major investor and ambassador of Flock Safety, now part of the federal government, expect the number of Flock civil surveillance systems to increase even more.
- sirsinsalot 3mo agoIn the UK the government put up ANPR cameras to enforce a clean air zone. People with electric saws love pulling them down. They're only as permanent as their protection.
- riedel 3mo agoJust out of curiosity: doesn't the US have any laws against private surveillance of public spaces? As a European I find this quite irritating (not saying we do not have problems as well with more and more cams installed and risks related to an increasing number of e.g. parking lot cams)
- alex43578 3mo agoNo, you don’t have an expectation of privacy on a public roadway, public parking lot, etc.
- bluefirebrand 3mo agoThis norm around privacy was kinda set before the concept of mass surveillance became a thing, though. Maybe we should revisit it and rethink what privacy means. People shouldn't expect privacy in public, sure. They should expect they may be overheard or witnessed. But that's not really equivalent to mass surveillance and long-term recording "You should not expect privacy in public" does not imply "you should expect no privacy and you should expect everything you do is recorded and stored forever"
- alex43578 3mo agoI don’t see why you should expect any privacy in the middle of a public road. What are you doing there that is private? I think everyone’s threat model is severely miscalibrated if they are threatened by being recorded driving somewhere via Flock, yet use a phone or social media account. There’s way more meaningful threats to actual private matters than Flock.
- bluefirebrand 3mo agoPeople tracking your in-person movements and behaviors is way more threatening than people tracking your online behaviors You are seriously clueless if you think otherwise
- njovin 3mo agoIANAL but if this is actually true then they're violating California law. I submitted a CCPA request to them to give me and delete everything they had on me. Their response is that they own no data, and I have to make the request to their customer, whomever that may be. If they're retaining any identifying data about me and then selling it to new customers, they are explicitly violating CCPA.
- bix6 3mo agoThat’s nice you got a response from them. I did not.
- mistercheph 3mo agoIANAL, but making some assumptions to fill in gaps, it seems they are avoiding having to comply with CCPA and other privacy laws like this: they harvest camera data and retain the images probably forever, but only turn it into identifying data on demand for customers. So you really do have to go talk to the customer, because Flock never "has" any identifying data about anyone, they just have anonymous images that when mixed with a model happen to produce identifying data. This allows them to promise that they don't keep any data and have strict retention policies etc. to jurisdictions that are on the fence or where the contract-purchasers are constrained by law in some way, but they can transfer identifying information at any point in the future to any customer, by mixing raw data and a model.
- bix6 3mo ago> but only turn it into identifying data on demand for customers. How could this seriously hold legal weight? The data is identifiable. Just because it’s gated by some transformation doesn’t mean they are magically not holding my identifiable information.
- mistercheph 3mo agoReading the definition of personal information from CCPA (https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_statute.pdf https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_statute.pdf), I'll produce the relevant parts: 1798.140 (v) > “Personal information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. Personal information includes, but is not limited to, the following if it identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could be reasonably linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household." The phrase "reasonably capable of being associated with" seems like it would apply against this transformation argument, but later: > (2) (A) “Personal information” does not include publicly available information or lawfully obtained, truthful information that is a matter of public concern. > (B) (i) For purposes of this paragraph, “publicly available” means any of the following: > (II) Information that a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public by the consumer or from widely distributed media. So I think the above comment was wrong, this might be the actual way around it, AIUI courts have long established that individuals don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy from being photographed or recorded when in public, so it seems like public surveillance footage is actually exempt from CCPA even if it can be reasonably linked with personally identifying information.
- ericjmorey 3mo agoDane County, Wisconsin Sheriff's Office took steps to prevent unauthorized surveillance. "With the contract set to expire on May 31st, the Sheriff’s Office informed Flock Safety that all 26 cameras must be removed by that date. When removal did not occur, the Sheriff’s Office took steps to ensure the cameras were not in use and placed covers over them." https://www.danecounty.gov/PressDetail/11899 https://www.danecounty.gov/PressDetail/11899
- tptacek 3mo agoThe Flock contract I read from Oak Park, where we designed what I think are the country's most restrictive ALPR rules and ultimately took our cameras down, did not allow Flock to continue running, recording, and selling data after we turned the cameras off. In fact: they explicitly didn't allow them to sell the data at all. Can I ask where you got this idea from?
- cadamsdotcom 3mo agoThank you for pointing this out, I would just assumed the parent commenter was correct.
- tptacek 3mo agoWe didn't really negotiate the contract, either; these were just their stock terms. Does someone have a Flock contract that says something else? A reminder: for most munis deploying Flock, these contracts are public record; you can just ask for them.
- mistercheph 3mo agoreproducing the same links as above: https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-dropped-against-camden-commissioner-in-plea-deal-over-license-plate-cameras/article_431cfbe3-6052-41a1-a75d-0d91f32db9bd.html https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-droppe... https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flock-cameras-after-company-fails-remove-them-following-contract-expiration/ https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flo... https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surveillance-cameras-with-trash-bags/ https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surv... https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-contract-termination-talks-persist-after-cameras-reinstalled-city-orders-cease-and-desist/ https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-c... https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-months-flock-cameras-come-down-after-canceling-contract https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-... And these are just the cases where the municipality wants the cameras taken down, GP also talks about the cases where they just want to sate the public while keeping law enforcement and lobbyists happy. LA is a great example, the inaction of letting the contract expire in no way means that the cameras will be taken down, if no further action is taken, those cameras stay up, and law enforcement will continue to have access to all flock's alpr data. And further it's unclear if the "data" governed in these contracts applies to the CCTV footage or the data produced for the customer by transforming the footage with models into identifying information. Given that flock has a profit incentive, it's reasonable to assume these contracts are written adversarially to maximize Flock's ability to persuade jurisdictions to sign the contracts and Flock's ability to use all of the data they harvest to maximize profit, we have enough examples of this in the 21st century to know this isn't paranoid, this is the basic playbook of all surveillancetech/adtech companies and they have all used language in contracts that is confusing to nonexperts that affords them maximum leverage to store all the data they harvest permanently and use it however they want.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- ibejoeb 3mo ago>LAPD can just call them and access the data Can they? Does anyone know the terms of these contracts? Does flock just look the other way if a licensee just gives away the data to some other entity without getting a fee for it? I can see arguments on both sides from flock's perspective, i.e., revenue vs lock-in.
- mistercheph 3mo agoThere are dozens of ways for it to be done, but here's an example of how Austin PD worked around contract termination: https://www.kut.org/crime-justice/2026-02-12/austin-tx-apd-flock-cameras-license-plate-readers https://www.kut.org/crime-justice/2026-02-12/austin-tx-apd-f... The network effect value far outweighs the lost revenue from a single local contract.
- mcdonje 3mo agoDoes the city own the land the poles are on?
- fsckboy 3mo ago>The best part is that flock owns the cameras and the poles so even when the contract expires the cameras keep running and recording data that flock can sell if the cameras continue recording, LA can subpoena those recordings on an as needed basis.
- xbar 3mo agoCity can eminent domain those pole locations to put up their own solution.
- Eextra953 3mo agoIf this is the case then people can pressure their representatives to make this against the law. The people have agency here.
- mmmlinux 3mo agoWhat prevents another group from installing a sign directly in front of a flock camera.
- shevy-java 3mo agoIs that legal though? Usually the poles stand on public ground, so there is no way, in my opinion, that the ground on which the poles stand are owned by that company.
- __MatrixMan__ 3mo agoDo they have the resources to consistently clear camera obstructions, or are they relying on police to do that? The wind can be just devilish in its ability to coincidentally tangle opaque films up with cameras and solar panels.
- petcat 3mo ago> lock owns the cameras and the poles Flock may own the camera and the physical pole, but I find it hard to believe that they own the ground the poles are installed in. Almost definitely owned by the Department of Transportation.
- inemesitaffia 3mo agoPalantir ?