Flock Cameras Face Backlash Even as New Study Shows Anti-Theft Benefits
The same technology that helps catch car thieves can just as easily be turned toward tracking ordinary people without cause, and the growing wave of vandalism shows how deep that unease already runs.
Flock cameras are automated license-plate reader (ALPR) systems made by Flock Safety that use cameras and software to capture vehicle images, read plate numbers, and alert participating law-enforcement agencies to vehicles linked to investigations or watch lists.
Their use has expanded rapidly in cities, neighborhoods, and businesses as a tool for locating stolen cars, missing people, and suspects. Data is shared through large regional networks that enable agencies to exchange information.
Flock cameras have now joined data centers as the focus of concern and complaint. Critics argue that the systems enable warrantless tracking of ordinary drivers, can be misused or accessed without adequate oversight, and may disproportionately target “marginalized communities.”
One of the biggest concerns regarding ALPRs is how they both create and reinforce racially biased policing. My colleagues, Drs. Jonny Finn and Andrew Baird, and I recently completed a landmark geospatial analysis titled “Surveillance Inequality: Race, Poverty, and the Geography of ALPR Deployment.”
Our study of 614 cameras in the Hampton Roads area found that race and class are the primary predictors of where these cameras are placed. (It is worth noting that Hampton Roads officials did not release the locations of these ALPRs willingly; they were forced to do so by a federal judge.) The ALPRs completely encircle Norfolk State University, the region’s only public HBCU, for instance.
Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs has sent a letter notifying Flock Safety that he intends to terminate a contract with the controversial company. https://t.co/0nCxbQ29yt
— WATE 6 On Your Side (@6News) August 24, 2026
These devices have also become the target of vandalism.
The Dallas Police Department says there has been an increase in Flock cameras being destroyed.
“We lose that visibility and that investigative value from those cameras that are vandalized,” said Sgt. Adam Reinhart.
At least 25 Flock cameras have been vandalized so far, Reinhart says.
“It’s become popular to cut down Flock cameras. And so we’re just seeing that trend here in Dallas. Along with, you know, throughout the country,” he explained.
Winona police are investigating after all eight of the city's Flock cameras were cut down and stolen. It's the latest city in the state to experience Flock camera theft or vandalism; cameras have been reported stolen or damaged in Duluth, Plymouth, Fari… https://t.co/0nAGHFk999
— KSTP (@KSTP) August 5, 2026
Fighting crime and ensuring there are consequences when laws are broken is a necessary part of civilized living. One important question to address is if Flock cameras work as advertised.
A study by Ian Adams and Scott Mourtgos found that police agencies adopting fixed ALPR networks saw an estimated 11% drop in vehicle thefts over the following year. It also found higher vehicle-theft clearance rates, although the authors caution that some of that increase may reflect broader anti-theft efforts already underway, and recovered vehicles were located about six hours sooner on average.
Adams and Mourtgoss argue that these potential public-safety benefits must still be weighed against documented risks of misuse and recommend independent audits, limited data retention, and strict access controls. Their analysis, published in City Journal, hit three key points.
Our analysis produced three results. First, in the year following ALPR deployment, motor vehicle theft declined about 11 percent relative to comparison agencies. The decline held through the end of the year—a sign that it’s the cameras, not the publicity around them, driving the change. The same agencies’ other property crime did not fall at similar levels, which is what you would expect if the cameras were making the difference rather than some citywide shift in crime or reporting.
Second, arrests rose, with clearance of vehicle theft increasing about 16 percent. Complicating the story, the increase begins in the final months before the recorded activation date. That reflects the reality that departments often buy cameras as part of a broader push against vehicle theft. Still, the pre-trend suggests that not all of the increase in clearance can be attributed to the ALPRs themselves.
Third, while the cameras did not detectably accelerate the return of stolen vehicles overall, among vehicles that were recovered, the typical recovery arrived about six hours sooner, a small but significant change. Why didn’t the return rate for all stolen vehicles go up? The likely reason is that a camera-driven recovery requires a stolen car to pass an active camera with a readable plate that has been entered on a hot list, followed by an officer free to respond. Most recovered vehicles are instead located by their owners or found abandoned or crashed. And if they’re not found quickly, they’re often not found at all.
Flock cameras clearly get results: an 11 percent drop in vehicle theft and faster recoveries are hard to dismiss, and the units have proven valuable to law enforcement.
But effectiveness alone doesn’t settle the debate.
The same technology that helps catch car thieves can just as easily be turned toward tracking ordinary people without cause, and the growing wave of vandalism shows how deep that unease already runs.
Christoper Goodson, a Florida police officer faces criminal charges after allegedly misusing AI-powered Flock camera to track his ex-wife 717 times pic.twitter.com/SBfU4VE7KX
— internet hall of fame (@InternetH0F) August 20, 2026
Flock has already begun addressing security concerns.
Likely because of public scrutiny and lost business, Flock Safety founder Garrett Langley released new policy changes to strengthen public trust and create a society where “safety and privacy can coexist.”
The changes, he said, fall under three categories: Safety, security and accountability:
Data sharing is now disabled by default, searches are recorded in audit logs and customers can set their own retention periods within applicable legal requirements, Langley explained.
Flock also reduced the default retention period for license plate reader data from 30 days to seven days, after which the data is deleted unless an agency has configured a different retention period. Flock said it also does not sell customer data, use it for advertising or share it with third parties without the customer’s permission.
The smartest path forward isn’t banning these cameras or giving police unchecked access, but pairing their crime-fighting value with real audits, data limits, and accountability.
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Comments
I don’t for a single minute believe that the primary purpose of Flock cameras is finding stolen vehicles or ones involved in crimes.
That’s a by-product.
It’s for surveillance of the general population. Period.
I think it, for many of the customers it’s the opposite. They generally think they can just surveil enough to bring down crime. But there’s this lure of that secondary effect of the power to control with enough data. Same pull do-gooders have always felt, “With this power I could fix everything and make utopia.”
You’re so hysterical. As if we can’t be surveilled by the phones in our pockets. You’re afraid of a camera that takes a picture of your license plate on your way to the dentist.
You can leave the phone at home or turn it off.
The problem with Flock and other systems is their saving and storing data on cars and people who have done nothing wrong.
The way it should work is simple. Law enforcement is looking for a car and license plate number. They put it into the system and it starts looking for it.
When the system scans a plate or car, if it doesn’t match what the system is looking for, it’s discarded. What actually happens is that data is stored.
The same can be done for people. Police put an image in the system, say a missing child, and it starts looking for that child. This will generate lots of false positives of course, which is why you need humans to review it.
The false positives and those that are not a match should be discarded. They aren’t. There have already been people accused of crimes who, if you look at them and what law enforcement was actually looking for, are clearly not a match.
I saw something the other day were a cop accused a woman of being a porch pirate and had a number of pictures. There was a few problems that the cop was to stupid and hidebound to pay attention to.
Right off the bat, the woman he was accusing had hair that was far longer than the woman in the pictures. I believe she was also taller. It didn’t matter to that cop, “The computer is never wrong!”
That cop never even bothered to look at the footage, and refused to show it to the woman he accused unless she first confessed.
That’s not Flock’s fault, it’s entirely the cop’s. He ignored the instructions that come with the system, on how to use it. Probably never read them.
Understood. And when I read comments, and I see your side, nearly always agree with you. The system provides for complete total surveillance of all citizens. What you were really counting on is that the people in government will not abuse this. It is clear beyond the shadow of a doubt after George Floyd and Covid, that the government will abuse its powers. So now we are setting a system of complete total surveillance of all citizens that we know with certainty is going to be abused by the government. I support those who are tearing down the cameras as acts of civil disobedience, and in support of the constitution. I might possibly feel differently if they were not AI attached to it so that human beings had to go through every frame to analyze it rather than AI. I see that more as analogous to application for Firearms where it is not digitized stand, the police must actively go through every piece of paper so they are only going to spend that kind of energy if they are truly looking for a criminal. I think this is abusive.
No, I’m not counting on that at all. This was not a case of abuse; it was a case of misuse, which is a very different thing. The cop thought he had solid, unimpeachable evidence that the woman was a thief. He refused to show her that evidence because he was a dick, but he honestly thought he had it. Because he’s an idiot; too stupid to hold the job he has.
I’m not talking about this case in particular. I’m talking about the government surveilling churches during covid, parks during covid, beaches during covid. Or the reports of police surveilling their exes. Or the government surveilling people who protest against the government and want to find all the other people who sympathize with them. Or spying on Catholics. Or all the other abuses from the previous administration. This is Nazi and Communist surveillance. The founders of the country built a government assuming people are wicked and incentivizing goodness, in contrast to communism or leftism that assumes people are good and righteous.
Right. The problem is not only the technology but that it gives absolute power or absolute knowledge of every person and every action to the government and then trusts the government will not abuse it. I don’t like to name call and ad hominem is generally a loser’s argument, but you really have to be an idiot to believe the government is so righteous and acts with such integrity that they are unlikely to abuse this awesome power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I mean you have to ignore 2000 years of human history to believe this will not be used unjustly.
FWIW from about model year 2010 most vehicles come standard with a GPS tracking system. Every time you start your engine you’re being tracked.
Flock isn’t a stand-alone ‘big brother’ whose demise would slay the dragon of govt intrusion into our lives, far from it. We’ve allowed ‘big brother’ to be assembled piece by piece, year after year. The public passively allowed its creation over the last 25 years beginning with the Patriot Act.
The path to privacy victory is in the true battle over the retention, access and use of the massive amounts of data being captured, compiled, sifted, stored,packaged, sold and misused not just by govt or flock but by every corporation, bank, financial institution.
“The public passively allowed its creation over the last 25 years beginning with the Patriot Act.”
The motivation for a totalitarian surveillance system began when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The reason we’re getting closer to totalitarian surveillance is that our technology is getting better.
In addition to the tech getting closer to achieving what you describe (IMO its already here and has been for a long while) is the growing impulse to ‘let the authorities and/or experts handle things’ which SHOULD have been extinguished with the Covid Mania fiasco exposing exactly how totalitarian our leadership class/technocrat class actually are. Yet many still believe the ‘gov’t is here to help/has your best interest at heart’. See the growing comfort level/support for commies and socialism.
I’d add to this the unwillingness by almost all to refuse to participate in the surveillance regime of cell phones and vehicle gps. I haven’t carried a cell phone in a dozen years. It’s liberating not to have an electronic leash of people calling/texting incessantly as well as not giving big brother an easy way to keep tabs. Most people would recoil from the idea of ditching their cellphone and reverting to ‘analog’ as much as possible. They’d rather have convenience than liberty.
You own your phone and can shut it off or leave it at home. You can also choose to minimize it’s use. You have zero control of Flock data.
Newer cellphones can still transmit GPS when turned off via Bluetooth. Plus turning it off doesn’t erase your last location nor the prior historical profile of your daily/weekly/monthly movement. Most people are incredibly predictable b/c they follow patterns. It’s comfortable to do so, go to the grocery every Tuesday evening, go.to the gym at the same time M/W/F, take the same running route T/T/S, drop off the kids for.school at 0715 ….All those gonna have onsite cameras, ring data, traffic cameras to record and confirm your presence.
Flock isn’t the end of the discussion its the beginning. Killing off flock doesn’t reverse the existing surveillance regime.
Among other things, the flock cameras are reported to be able to use tech similar to facial recognition.
So if you have dents, decals, missing paint, scratches- even if they can’t catch the plate number they can still tell with over a 90% accuracy who owns the car reportedly.
Not sure why anyone would like this spying with the fascist democrap party’s long history of abusing the system.
Dems could have shown hitler some perversions even he hadn’t thought of.
I agree with grizzly completely.
They are putting these in front of all the public Gun Ranges here in South Florida.
There is of course, no reason to do that unless you’re interested know who has a gun and where they go to practice with it
IMO the battle over surveillance in public has long ago been lost. There’s zero expectation of privacy in public. Period. Get rid of flock cameras tomorrow and you’re still recorded by ring, ATM, traffic cameras, business, other drivers with their dash cams, cell phones …being recorded in public is gonna happen with or without flock.
At this point the larger issues are;
1. where does all this data go/where is it stored
2. who controls access to the data storage
3. who is authorized access to the data
4. for what reasons may the data be accessed
5. who monitors compliance with safeguards for accessing the data
6. what automatic penalties exist (no discretion/no mercy) for improper access of data, unauthorized use of data, failure to establish/adhere to safeguards and failure to monitor
These control measures are where the real issues arise; unaccountable agents of the State misusing public resources with impunity. That’s a fight we can win.
Another important, winnable fight is over ‘open fields’ doctrine and attempting to tether it back to an actual ‘in plain view’ standard. So when agents of the State use their own unaided eyeballs (no telescopic lens/binoculars, no thermal/IR images, no drones) while driving past/walking a beat and see for themselves (unaided) a potential infraction then that’s a fair use of open fields. Entering into a property to get a closer/better look, to look behind a barn or a row of trees or using anything to aid the naked eye is not a fair use of ‘open fields’.
Best take on Flocks that I’ve seen so far.
Not having an expectation of privacy in public does not correlate to the government having the authority to monitor us while we are in public. There is a difference between casually “observing” us (as a police officer may occasionally do simply because you happen to pass through his line of sight) and monitoring/recording as much of our public sojourning as is technologically possible.
This!
Why is there a difference? Was there ever an expectation in the 1780s that if a constable noticed you walking on a particular street and not behaving suspiciously he had to forget you, and was not allowed to tell his fellows about it, or write it down in a log?
We just lived the difference with COVID.
These can and will be turned against us just as they are being turned against the British.
It’s not hard to catch REAL criminals, they are not smart. They are usually running loose because a liberal element of the criminal justice system gave them endless second chances. Get rid of that liberal element and you eliminate the need for these cameras.
This is not that. This is more Soviet in nature. It is completely comprehensive. The government has constant total surveillance of you and everyone else at all times. This is more Akin to government paid in performance as in the Soviet Union or again as in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, where all the citizens are encouraged to spy on everyone else, and you cannot trust anyone.
You should watch the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project. (A seriously under-appreciated sci-fi film and highly recommended to all.) In the movie, a defense computer takes control of the world. It considers its creator, Dr. Forbin, its most dangerous enemy and puts Forbin under 24/7 video surveillance. Watch the movie and then ask yourself, “Would it have been OK, or even merely more acceptable, if the computer put everyone under surveillance?”
Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done. Just because it may be lawful does not mean it’s morally or ethically correct, nor does this “correctness” make it wise, nor less susceptible to abuse. You sound like you’re 12 years old and don’t know enough history to know how dangerous this is.
HIGHLY recommended. One of the best movies I’ve ever seen. It stayed with me for weeks. For weeks I reviewed it and it was just in the back (and front) of my head. EXTRAORDINARY movie.
Sure let’s grant that and stipulate that flock does just that. Then let’s Thanos snap all the flock cameras out of existence. This does nothing to preclude other means of gaining the data in bulk from other sources. Explain how we prevent the govt from acquiring the images, video and GPS data to accomplish much of the same thing from alternative sources.
My solution would work but won’t be adopted. Congress gonna have to pass a statute declaring that all user/consumer data (including gps, images/video) are the property of the individual and may not be used for any purpose without:
1. Express consent by the individual in each separate instance of data
2. Corporations may not capture data, make recordings, store such data.
3. Such data may not be stored, sold or transferred
4. All govt entities at every level are prohibited from purchasing or receiving such data without an explicit warrant issued via an adversarial process hearing with all exculpatory evidence presented on the record.
Obviously this up ends the business model of practically every tech company and many other consumer product companies which have made monitoring, gathering, using/selling individual and consumer data a part of their business plan.
To be very clear I am NOT arguing that flock system is an unalloyed good, far from it. I am simply pointing out that the technology exists and has been deployed. Cameras are ubiquitous. AI is gonna be ubiquitous very shortly.
I don’t see how the ‘toothpaste’ gets put back in the tube. No one seems to be offering up any solutions other than ban flock b/c we don’t like like it. That’s not a practical path to limit govt power and misuse of power.
I have already suggested exactly your solution to the problem.
The problem isn’t private entities. Private entities do not have other powers and authority that are associated with government. Government access to the data is the problem. Government should be limited in its ability to access or acquire data on individuals who are not subjects of criminal investigations. (And in such cases, we already know that government abuses even its lawful authority. This is a separate problem, but the solution overall is not to lower the bar, but to raise it.) It should not matter that third parties have already acquired the data.
It is said of individuals “If you haven’t done anything wrong then you have nothing to hide.” We reject this, yes? Why would anyone accept the proposition “If you have nothing to hide, you should submit to the government’s collection of as much of your personal information as it can acquire by any means”? Both of these propositions have something in common – we can reject them as inversions of the proper relationship of the government to the people.
In the “Person of Interest” TV series, one of the selling points for contracting out the totalitarian surveillance and AI system to a private company was to provide the government with plausible denyability.
I definitely disagree about private entities. They are absolutely a problem. Govt WILL seek out the data they want. If its in corporate hands often the corporations will buckle and voluntarily hand it over WITHOUT a warrant. We’ve seen that play out repeatedly.
The only way to end that and to gibbie’s point about flock buying data to integrate with their own to build out a very exacting profile of every aspect of an individual’s daily activity …is to upend the apple cart. Gonna have to throw the ‘money changers out of the Temple’ so to speak by Congressional Statute that puts ownership of all data back to the individual requiring explicit permission for each instance of data sharing and only allowing gov’t access to such data via a warrant issued by an adversarial hearing with all exculpatory evidence fully disclosed ….and severe,AUTOMATIC/Non discretionary penalties both criminal and civil for any deviation from very strict procedures and no presumptions of immunity for anyone involved including the Judge and DA (no more LEO submitting warrants they gotta hand off to the DA to present it and argue v a public defender before a Judge on the record.
Excellent! I submit item
1a. What other databases are the Flock data integrated with?
Yikes!
They are very likely …Legion.
“… found that race and class are the primary predictors of where these cameras are placed. ”
Could it be because race/class and crime rates are correlated?
Fat fingered the downvote.
Yeah, if the study found no correlation between crime rate and camera location, that would be valuable information indeed!
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
These same rights apply to our privacy in our means of travel. But help me out here. How do these flock cameras violate the 4th? What’s being searched or seized? Our presence in public is just that. Public.
What’s your basis for that? Did people in the late 18th century believe they had a right to travel without anyone taking note of it? I don’t think they did. I think they had an expectation that their persons would not be searched when they were on the street; that’s explicit in the 4A. I also think they thought of their private carriages and their baggage as extensions of their persons, and not to be searched except when crossing a border. But I don’t think they expected that passersby, including constables, would not notice them passing by.
You are making the assumption that the Flock cameras only see public property.
There are Flock cameras that have been pointed at the entrance to a shopping center. There have been Flock cameras that have caught the front of houses of worship.
One camera was pointed at a street and the image captured the driveway and front door of a private home. Every time they exited their property or returned, the Flock camera captured them. On their property.
It is not so much the idea of being seen in public, but rather what the data can be used for. For example, the Flock system has a feature that with the push of a button, a route map of where your car traveled today can be generated. That means the government can track – not just see you on the road passing the friendly officer, but track – where you work, where you worship, what store you frequent, where your kids go to school, when you leave in the morning, when you arrive back home, etc.
That really does seem like a governmental overreach.
The Institute for Justice has reports on Flock cameras and their abuse.
https://ij.org/the-ij-database-of-alpr-abuse/
No, he isn’t. Just because you’re on private property doesn’t mean you’re not in public. Anything visible from public property is public. There is no reason why a camera on the street shouldn’t record your driveway and front door, and even inside your hallway when your front door happens to be open. Nor is there any reason why a camera on the street shouldn’t point into the front door of a church or a store. After all, there’s certainly nothing wrong with a constable being positioned there, is there?
Furthermore, even inside a church or a shopping center you have no expectation of privacy, because you are still in public. Everyone and his brother-in-law can see you. So there’s no fourth amendment problem with the government having spies and/or cameras inside those places; affixing the cameras permanently would require the owner’s permission, but having them carried by someone wouldn’t.
There is an expectation of privacy.
There is a massive difference between the government seeing you walk into a store through happenstance, and the government tracking where you went, how long you stayed, the route, etc.
That’s clearly unreasonable.
Whatever activities that occur in public view don’t have the same expectation of privacy as those that occur in your home or behind a fence. If your neighbor across the street has a ring camera and/or security cameras then you’re likely getting recorded every time you walk out your front door or mow the front lawn. If you had a fence/wall and your neighbor was mounting a camera on a pole specifically to record over/behind that wall to view your teenage daughters using the backyard pool then you’d have a much better argument.
The problem is not what is seen, but who is seeing it.
There is a difference between a private citizen filming something, and the government filming private property.
In the case of Katz v. United States. the Supreme Court noted that on one’s property, there can be a reasonable expectation of privacy.
In the concurring opinion, Justice Harlan postulated a two prong test to determine whether the actions of the government violated the expectation of privacy:
1. The individual has exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy.
2. The expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.
Sorry….hit the wrong button.
To continue……
I don’t believe that anyone (certainly a vast majority of people) would think that the government filming a private residence 24/7/365 without any rhyme or reason is “reasonable.”
I don’t think its reasonable for ANYONE to point a camera at someone else’s property 24/7.
Even ff recorded by an ordinary person on their ring and that data in private hands the govt can access it with a warrant …often without if the company just hands it over.
Then to gibbie’s point …what is to prevent a company from buying up ALL the various camera feeds from ring and similar devices. Add in public facing feeds from exterior security cameras and ATMs. Combine with traffic camera data. Include purchasing of cell data and other consumer data …including the products you buy online and IRL.
Not a thing. In fact I’d be surprised if a company hadn’t compiled all that and is adding flock data. Remove flock but not all the other ubiquitous cameras everywhere and not much changes.
It certainly doesn’t alter the fact that if any camera is pointed at your front yard, front door, driveway and that data is uploaded then someone has it in storage and the govt can access it. More indirect maybe but certainly not difficult.
Katz is pretty much inapplicable to cameras especially ‘in public view’. Certainly so with your example of a front yard/driveway. Now a fenced backyard? Sure that’s a much different situation. IMO that’s where we should be focusing our initial efforts: to renew the tether of ‘in plain view’ to ‘open fields’.
I’d suggest that if you’re in your.drive way and or front yard and made zero effort to effect any barrier for privacy then you’re gonna have a hard time convincing anyone you should have an expectation of privacy from observation. Heck, go walk out your house buck naked tomorrow morning and water the lawn. I can almost guarantee the neighbors will call the Cops and the Cops ain’t gonna listen to your arguments nor will the judge. Buck naked within a 8ft fenced backyard is much, much different than in your wide open front yard.
The cameras are becoming ubiquitous. There’s a difference between “being visible” in public to all casual observers (including government agents and officers) and having a person or other entity monitoring and recording our every movement. A person who records our movements in public without good cause is called a “stalker,” and stalking is considered a form of harassment. Government has no “good cause” to record the movements of anyone who is not suspected of a crime.
Also, we have a government of enumerated powers. It does not have a general authority to monitor and record all our public movements. Not having a right to privacy in public neither generates nor bestows upon government the authority to operate within that vacuum. “No right” does not correspond to “government authority.”
No, we don’t. Only Congress is limited to enumerated powers. State and local authorities are not, unless their constitutions or charters explicitly say so. States, by default, have a general police power, which certainly covers this.
But even the federal government has police power in DC and in other areas where it has exclusive jurisdiction, and also on federal property everywhere, and that would include the power to have its constables log everything they observe.
State governments are controlled by their constitutions that served the same purpose in regard to their administrations as the federal Constitution serves in regard to the federal government. Indeed, the federal Constitution was the model for every State’s constitution. (It shouldn’t require noting that no political subdivision of a State can exercise any authority that the State doesn’t have itself and therefore does not have to delegate to a subdivision.)
That is not true. Stalking, as a form of harassment, means visibly following a person, making sure he knows you’re following him, for the purpose of making him uncomfortable.
And it means doing so persistently, not just on one or two occasions. When George Zimmerman followed Little Saint Trayvon he was not stalking him. He was following him to see what he was up to, which was his complete right. He stopped when the police dispatcher told him they didn’t need him to do that, but he would have had every right to choose to continue. It would only have become harassment if he did it every time Martin went out, making sure he saw it.
Simply untrue.
“Legally recognized acts of stalking extend far beyond physically following someone. They include:
Surveillance and Monitoring: Following, watching, waiting, or tracking a person using physical presence or electronic tracking devices (cyberstalking).”
Stalking can take place without the awareness of the target. Or do you contend that after the discovery of the stalking that none of the stalker’s previous activities (that may be revealed by investigation) is stalking because it took place without the knowledge of the victim? Or that stalking is OK so long as the perpetrator remains unknown to the victim? (Even if not illegal, wouldn’t stalking be considered morally and ethically wrong? Does the lack of restraint on a government activity automatically make that activity morally and ethically correct?) Obviously, the victims of stalking feel harassed and unsettled because the mere fact of being stalked creates the potential for it to escalate into situations that present physical (and other) dangers to the victim. Now you can tell us we have nothing to fear from government because it never abuses its lawful authority.
9th and 10th Amendments.
I am okay with ShotSpotter since shootings in public should be rare and responded to …
… but I don’t love mass surveillance. It’s all part of building a Chinese style dystopian totalitarian state eventually.
I don’t want to trade my liberty for a little bit more safety. I have the 2nd amendment to protect me.
It maybe technically legal, so what. We can legislate against it. Yeah I don’t have much expectation of privacy outside the home or on the Internet … doesn’t mean we have to give up every shred and just embrace total tracking everywhere with warrantless access to that data by the government
Time to start drawing lines and not giving in to safetyism
ShotSpotter doesn’t identify individual persons, or any persons at all. Completely unlike cameras.
The state is not accustomed to accountability or temperance. I thought we knew this, but apparently not.
It’s WHY we have a Bill of Rights. The Founders knew this potential existed.
Do a YouTube search on Flock cameras. Notice how many results are news reports about police or government officials misusing the system for personal or criminal reasons…
Search “flock cameras news”
– Four Georgia police department employees arrested after alleged misuse of Flock cameras
– Florida woman wrongfully jailed after police misuse Flock surveillance camera data
– Police across the country arrested for abusing Flock camera amid nationwide scrutiny
– Police misuse of Flock cameras sparks backlash
– Greene County deputy arrested, fired after allegedly misusing Flock cameras
– Shively police officer arrested after Flock audit uncovers thousands of unauthorized searches
– Federal agencies accessing ‘Flock’ camera systems in WA | FOX 13 Seattle
– Savannah police fires 6 employees over alleged Flock safety system misuse
– Police officer accused of using Flock cameras to track boyfriend’s ex-wife
Just be careful drawing conclusions from that “how many.”
Aside from the obvious partisanship in news, there is always the problem of bad news gets a lot of noise and good news rarely gets any. You cite 9 bad cases (I know, you’re just putting out a sampling), but there are guaranteed to be almost 0 good cases (bad guys caught) because cops catching bad guys “isn’t news.” It’s what they’re expected to do, and you don’t get a big award and pats on the back for merely doing your job.
I’m not saying it isn’t a problem, just to always watch out for letting it seem like a bigger problem than it is.
This is what government does – It abuses even its lawful authority. Why allow it the use of a technology that’s so easily misused and has such great potential for serious abuse?
When I go to a Town Council meeting I will ask how much revenue was generated from traffic “violations” that were caught on Flock. The revenue was the reason given for the cameras in the first place, hahahaha.
Virtually all your bullet points are about arrests or firings for misuse of the data. That doesn’t support the argument that Flock cameras are some sort of abusive free for all invasion of privacy—at least at the local level.
The legal precedent that people have no expectation of privacy anywhere outdoors has been around a long time. I know some of our local police/detectives and they use Flock cameras, drones, Ring cameras, cell phone tracking, in car license plate readers, and other technologies to rescue kidnap victims, trace car thieves, surveil criminal/gang activity, and to find dementia sufferers who wander off. This is all subject to administrative controls concerning appropriate use of various systems—abuse of systems being an arrestable or fireable offense.
Now, what the feds might do with any data they get their dirty paws on (your point “Federal agencies accessing [data]…” is a different question. I guess it hinges on what the feds have to go through to gain access. What are the controls for that? It’s a question I’ll ask my police friends. So, there may be strengthened safeguards institute, but what seems like a general “hair on fire” response to collection of Flock (and other data) strikes me as ridiculous.
What’s that Ben Franklin saying “he who gives up liberty for safety deserves nighter”
But what liberty is being given up here? There has never been a liberty not to be seen or tracked.
Suppose that instead of cameras, the police were to flood a crime-prone neighborhood with constables, who take note of everyone who passes them and thus know everyone’s business. Isn’t that what we mean by good-old-fashioned community policing, where the cop on the beat knows everyone who belongs in the neighborhood, and thus also knows who doesn’t belong, and observes what people are up to? How is this any different?
Well, if they knew everyone’s business, I would then still be troubled.
This is the problem. It’s not the instantaneous observation of public actions, it’s the observation across your entire life, then easily pulled together to use for control of you.
If someone gathered the data in person that Flock (and other stuff) gathers automatically, they would be charged with stalking. As a public official they would likely get charged with harassment. Because they would have to follow you all over. THAT is where the problem lies.
And, yes, that is LIBERTY – the ability to live in peace without being watched and hounded.
One of the primary reasons Western Civ was able to reach its pinnacle is because of the Christian concept of obedience to the law as a matter of conscience rather than fear. You made sure the law was just, then – because the law was just – you followed it. Flock surveillance is the inverse of that. It’s Big Brother. It’s “You’d best not even approach the line, much less cross it, because someone is watching you.”
Only if you had one person doing it, and he made sure you saw him following you. If you had a network of constables who simply observed what they saw and then chatted with each other and kept each other up to date on their observations, there would be no stalking or harassment. Ditto if someone were following you secretly, making sure you didn’t notice him; that’s not harassment. The FBI etc. routinely do that to people they actually suspect of something, and they’ve never been thought to need a warrant for it.
Wrong, Milhouse. Even if you had several>/em> people doing it. And then it would like be a conspiracy case of stalking. And, when the FBI does it, people have certainly made the case previously that it is harassment. Because it is – unless you have reason to believe a crime has been committed by the people they are
stalkingsurveilling.And, yes, it IS harassment if they’re doing it secretly. You not knowing about it only makes it a crime at which they haven’t yet been caught. Your argument is similar to “Is it murder if no body is ever found?”
If you want to band together with your Fellow Americans for a Peaceful Protest, they will know all your contacts. ALL OF THEM. Just Follow The Big Silver SUV.
The danger, at least, resides in how the technology can be abused.
This is where you can tell us all that government never abuses power or technology.
The liberty of going about one’s business without being tracked, duh. Whose business is it where someone goes during the day or how they got there and back? Don’t spew the “if you haven’t done anything wrong, why should you care” BS, please.
Since when is there such a liberty? What is your source that such a liberty has ever existed?
Going about without being tracked is my pursuit of happiness.
Are we stuck with only those liberties that existed at the time of the founding? What restraints are there on us that prevent the creation of new liberties? None, I’d say. We’re the masters here. Why should we settle for the argument that “no such liberty exists” when we can make one exist?
I propose that new rights and liberties can arise in response to government activity that is either not supported by law and/or is morally or ethically improper and/or merely objectionable or otherwise considered “wrong.” We are The People. We are the true judges of all government acts. We have methods and processes by which we can adopt “new” rights and liberties and enforce them.
Here’s the thing for me – generally speaking Flock cameras are going to punish (generally) law abiding people for minor infractions while not doing much to decrease serious crime.
until a few years ago when public opinion forced a change in state law, we had red light cameras. There turned out to be only modest declines in right-angle injury crashes but Increases in rear-end collisions resulting in injuries. The it came out that the yellow light time were altered downward to artificially increase violation revenue. In short they were artificially increasing “crime” to generate statistics and revenue. The worst thing though was that they were invisible enforcement done by machines with zero human involvement. The camera said you were guilty and the computer mailed you a ticket automatically.
Now imagine Flock cameras everywhere during the “Great COVID panic.” You might have driven up to a restaurant and parked, getting out of your car without a mask. The camera would spot you and identify your license plate (and your face) and issue you a ticket to be mailed to you for your walk across the parking lot.
Meanwhile while you’re in the restaurant youths in hoodies and face-masks are stealing your car. Note that the camera has no idea that the car has been stolen nor by whom. Then “The KIA Boys” still wearing their hoodies and masks use your car for a drive-by shooting.
I’d bet that neither race nor class played any role in how they are actually placed. Rather, I’d bet they were placed where the crime is. If race and class happen to be good predictors of where the crime is, “anti-racists” should ask themselves why that is so.
There’s also been a spate of police going around arresting and/or charging people based on automated Flock reports, without bothering to look at the evidence themselves first to verify that it’s accurate. This is directly contrary to the Flock company’s own instructions, which emphasize that a Flock alert is only a first step, and before acting on it one must check that it’s accurate. Police in areas that have this are always trained on that, but too many of them weren’t listening during training, or are too dumb to understand it, or are too lazy to follow the procedure. They lie to people’s faces, claiming to have them on camera committing an offense, when they don’t. None of this is Flock’s fault; it’s just cops being cops.
You mean, armed jackboots did what they pleased, without strictly obeying the ethical rules as etched in stone for them by corporate vendors? Heavens to Betsy, tell me this is not so!
Here is the reality: any power given to a government that CAN be abused… WILL be abused.
Not may be… WILL BE.
No, not “ethical rules”. These aren’t ethical rules, they’re the basic operating instructions.
I mean the TSA guys at the airport are just as “jackbooted”, so to speak, as other police. But they know that when the metal detector alerts that’s the beginning of the inquiry, not the end. They have the person empty his pockets and go through again. Then they scan him by hand. Then they go to a more personal and private screening. But unless and until they actually find something they don’t jump to the conclusion that it’s a weapon or bomb. And they certainly don’t try arresting someone purely on the basis of a ping. Not because it would be unethical, but because they know what the detector is for and the limits of what it can tell you.
TSA is a bad example and are not comparable to police in general.* When a person purchases a ticket to fly on an airline, he or she enters into a contractual agreement that the carrier will take the passenger from point A to point B so long as the passenger abides by rules required by the carrier. One of those rules is compliance with all security measures. This means that air travelers have sign away their rights to personal security and privacy.
*To a degree, driver licenses are evidence of agreement with the loss of some rights, obligating drivers to comply with certain police demands during traffic stops (without total loss of personal security and privacy).
Eventually, yes.
It’s why the Founders gave our national government so little power. Because if there’s no power, it can’t be used against you.
This is directly contrary to the Flock company’s own instructions
More importantly, Milhouse, it’s contrary to the foundations of our system of law. You have to have the evidence before you start charging people. Our system is supposed to stop fishing expeditions.
No. The point here is that the idiot cop thought he had the evidence. He wasn’t being evil, he was being too stupid to live. Certainly too stupid to have a position of public trust.
>This is directly contrary to the Flock company’s own instructions, which emphasize that a Flock alert is only a first step, <
This not *relevant*. It's the end user we are worried about. Not the vendor.
Training isn't the problem. Intention is.
It’s certainly relevant. Any time you use some tool, you need to know how to use it. You need to know which end of a hammer you hold. You need to know how to drive before you attempt to do so. These cops are not knowingly harassing people without evidence. They’re stupidly convinced that they have conclusive evidence! “The machine pinged; that means you’re guilty!” Just reading the instructions would inform them that that’s just not what the ping means.
It’s not “cops being cops.” It’s people being people – stupid, lazy, aiming for low-hanging fruit. This is why government needs restraint – because the people who are running it are not perfect. If Flock cameras were deployed for the best reasons with the mostest safeguards, the stupid and lazy people operating and using them would screw it up eventually. This is why we have a government of limited authority. If people could be trusted to adopt good laws and follow procedure perfectly, all the time, there would be no need for restraints on government power – it would never abuse its power. But that’s not how any system run by people works and that’s why all systems need not only guardrails in those spaces where it’s allowed to tread, but also “do not enter” and “no trespassing” signs to keep it out of spaces where it does not belong and/or has no authority to tread..
This 100%.
It appears Flock cameras and software make it too easy for “people to be people” and arrest/threaten folks who haven’t even come close to committing a crime.
Cops that abuse the technology do it because they lazy or evil, possibly both.
There is a reason sloth is one of the 7 deadly sins.
This is the same old statistical two-step that the tyrants always do.
“We installed Flock cameras and vehicle theft went down.”
Why vehicle theft? When you installed the cameras, did you say, “These are to fight vehicle theft?” No, you didn’t.
It’s because vehicle theft happened to go down, so it was a handy handle for you to take credit for something.
Target and Home Depot and Costco and other big-store retailers installed Flock cameras to combat shoplifting. Has shoplifting gone down? Nobody is saying, probably because it hasn’t. Are Home Depot’s cameras battling vehicle theft? Probably not, but assuming they are, Home Depot would be mightily peeved at having paid for a system that had no particular commercial benefit to themselves.
This is like when the gun banners invented a meaningless metric called “gun crime” so they could say “we banned guns in such and such a country and gun deaths went down.” They can be decimating each other with machetes, and actual bloodshed can be through the roof, but gun deaths is down. Especially the ones that were in self-defense.
ALPRs completely encircle Norfolk State University, the region’s only public HBCU, for instance.
Well, it’s also a hot spot for crime. If the people who surround NSU are a high density of criminals, then I would hope they would concentrate there.
Of course, I’d rather there were actual cops there. And when they catch evil-doers, they should convict them and send them up the river – properly. Then the authorities wouldn’t have to be there as much.
Anyone remember the TV series “Person of Intrest” from a few years ago? An AI computer system developed for the government to track people using cameras, audio, wiretaps and other surveillance methods is used for nefarious purposes but a backdoor put in by the main developer provides him with information on crimes and the misuses by the government which he responds to with a secretive team.
Seems like we could be on a path to something similar with respect to the government abuse.
Heh. I’ve been watching that lately on Amazon. I didn’t watch it first time around, but I’m finding it oddly satisfying now. (If still a little wooden and stiff in the writing.)
When you give government that much power, they ALWAYS abuse it.
Why should we worry? All of the John Brennans and Christoper Wrays in our government have my utmost confidence.
There are some technologies that should be denied to governments. If governments have shown us anything, they have shown us a disturbing propensity to misuse and abuse technology (as well as the law), to the detriment of the law-abiding citizen (while treating us as if we’re all potential criminals). The never-ending increase in the ability of governments to collect information about us that it has no right to know must be stopped. This won’t make us less safe than we are, it can only make us less safe than we might be. The additional safety comes at too high a price.
I’m a deputy prosecutor. The number of crimes I have seen solved just with my own eyes, because of FLOCK, is astounding. For the assholes who want to get rid of FLOCK because they don’t like their license plate being pictured when they’re on their way to the supermarket, go fuck yourselves.
Do you kiss your gerbil with that mouth?
By the way, awesome rewrite below. Too bad the “deputy prosecutor” didn’t realize there’s no delete button here.
Why should we bother? Next time there’s a “mask mandate” you’re going to fuck us.
You’re the tail wagging the dog. Our concerns, our rights, our personal sense of agency and autonomy are not up for grabs just because taking some of these things from us makes your job easier. We don’t exist to make your job easy. Our rights are meant to make your job more difficult. That’s the entire point of being able to exercise our rights to prevent government action – governments can’t be trusted to restrain themselves to only lawful and ethical acts. Therefore it (and you) are hobbled and restrained intentionally. Your attitude as exposed in your comment is evidence of the wisdom of such restraints. You, sir, do not understand your place. You are a public servant.
Well said Dave.
I’m a deputy prosecutor. The number of crimes I have seen solved with my own eyes is astounding. Anyone who would rather see crimes go unresolved because their license plate gets pictured on the way to the supermarket, you’re a selfish person.
Selfish? It seems law enforcement and government are the ones who are selfish. They would rather force us to live in an Orwellian world rather than do the heavy lifting.
Ah, yes, the persuasive ‘you’re selfish’ argument. I’ll bet you’re awesome with closing arguments.
Not for nothing but much of the implementation of Western Civilization depends upon ‘selfishness’ aka enlightened self interest. Our everyday lives are replete with examples of this at work in commonplace interactions. Particularly so for capitalism which works by harnessing the selfish/greedy nature of humanity by alignment of economic incentives instead of interference or failed attempts to preclude it in communism/socialism and totalitarian societies which demand conformity.
Insisting on your rights is always selfish.
Why, we should just do away with the lot of them, and be good little compliant collective bottoms.
Wow Mr Deputy Prosecutor, you have really shamed me.! Now I am all in favor of Flock systems.
What next? We don’t have time to get a warrant? Just give us a DNA sample and then we won’t bother you anymore?
Tracking stolen vehicles might be a nice benefit but the possibility of misuse is still too high. Do we want to be like the UK where the government monitors us 24/7?
The constant surveillance state issue is the biggest concern regarding these devices. It makes average people feel like they are being treated as if they are criminals by default, something nobody appreciates. In fact I would say it has the perverse effect of making people distrust their government even more when they are being treated like that. There’s also reason to suspect it’s gathering more than just video, if I could find it again I remember hearing about potential upgrades to these cameras that would allow them to gather up the signals, meaning info, coming off of the various devices we carry about with us every day. That would be another major privacy concern!
You think we’d be “safer” and/or have “less crime” if Flock were ubiquitous?
If that’s all you care about, I have a near 100% solution: Lock EVERYONE up.
There you go – you’ll know where everyone is at all times, and the crime rate will drop to near zero.
Is that what you REALLY want? If it’s “for the public good”?
That’s essentially what these Flock fanboys are arguing for.
Unless, of course, “public safety” is merely a pretext, and the true motivation is surveillance.
And if a lot of people’s pockets happen to get lined in the process… well, that’s the price you pay for “safety.”
There is a way to “lock everyone up.” It’s called “adopting communism.” Communist countries are penitentiaries that share their perimeters with their host nations’ national borders.
As someone who once patrolled the East German border and saw the guards, guard towers, patrol roads, dog runs, multiple fences topped with razor wire, and the minefields there, all deployed to keep people in, I have some understanding about the nature of such places.
It’s astonishing how many people fail to grasp the distinction between “no expectation of privacy in a public space” and “every movement tracked, monitored, recorded, and stored indefinitely surveillance.”
Haha! The “they’re the same” meme!
This is a keeper.
@ Leslie Eastman
So you wouldn’t have any problems if that Flock camera installed on that pole in your neighborhood peripherally also recorded every vehicle and everyone that visits your house 24 hours/365 days a year. After all, if you haven’t done anything wrong what do you have to worry about., right? Right?!??
Nothing to worry about until your face down on the ground with a gun pressed to your back by law enforcement being arrested because the Flock AI system misidentified your vehicle’s license plate as the one that committed the violent bank robbery a few hours ago.
Case-by-Case: Every Reported Flock License Plate Camera Error to Date
I never respond to questions based on fantasy scenarios. You can ask my husband about this policy.
If that were ever to happen it would have nothing to do with the camera in your neighborhood, which is functioning correctly, but with someone misreading a report from a different camera outside the bank, where you surely can’t object to cameras!
Again, as with all your responses, and I like you and I agree with almost everything that you say, you are completely counting on the government, not abusing this and acting professionally and not making mistakes. The example that was given could easily happen and I expect with a little Google searching has happened many times before when and over eager Officer gets a little too excited. This will multiply those episodes were in Officer is convinced there is a bad guy and gets a little too excited. You are completely counting on the integrity of the government to prevent abuse. I think every adult of average intelligence or greater knows that the government tends to see as much power as the public gives it intense to act as aggressively as the public calorie. This is not just a catastrophe waiting to happen. This is many catastrophes waiting to happen.
I don’t think Milhouse is ‘counting on’ that at all. He’s agreed that such abuses and unprofessional behavior by persons in government/law enforcement have occurred. I can’t speak for him, but he seems to me to be making two points. 1) the answer to such abuses occurring is not to ban the technology outright, as when used appropriately it can be effective in fighting crime. 2) the arguments for banning the technology outright on constitutional grounds don’t work, because being observed (even including being recorded and tracked) while out in public does not violate any constitutionally-protected rights.
Any technology can be abused (whether due to laziness, incompetence, greed, malice, etc.). Take, say, an AR-15. That’s a piece of technology that can and has been abused, with very bad consequences. Is the answer to that to ban AR-15s? Or is the answer to punish the people who misuse them?
Yes, I can object, even aside from you being wrong in your analysis of the hypothetical. I can object because the point of our Revolution and the Constitution that followed was to reduce the power of the state and place the power of governance back in the hands of the individual. It recognized that we were our own ultimate sovereign and should be treated that way.
This is why your pedantry (and that of so many others) fails you so often: Your focus on the immediate written expression so very often fails to dig deep enough to perceive the foundation.
Yes, the right to not be surveilled is there in the beginning. It goes to the very concept of “presumed innocent” and requiring warrants* – government should not be watching me constantly in case I do something wrong, it should only start looking when there is suspicion of actual wrongdoing by that person(s). We can only enjoy those freedoms as long as the individuals in our society are self-governing in the aggregate. When government decides we are not self-governing, then it is imposing.
(* One of the main precepts of requiring warrants is that you must have good reason (evidence, usually) to believe someone is guilty of a specific thing. IOW, that all citizens are innocent unless shown to be otherwise to some degree. This is the basic problem with aggregating the camera (and other) data – you’re gathering evidence on innocent people.)
@ Leslie Eastman
I’ll just put this here for your consideration:
Stalker Cams: How Officers Nationwide Have Turned Flock Cameras on Their Exes
You will note that I do have a reference to such above.
As Ronald Reagan said when the government says it’s here to help you (i.e., catch criminals via Flock cameras) you should be wary of its motive.
Here is something I would like to toss in for discussion:
Correlation does not equal causation
Now, I am too lazy to look at the dates covered by the study claiming car theft is down by 11% since the installation of the cameras.
However let’s note this report and speculate whether this was take into consideration which calculating the impact of cameras.
“Sept. 17, 2025 — Vehicle thefts in the United States fell 23% during the first six months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024*, according to a new analysis of reported thefts from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), the nation’s leading not-for-profit organization dedicated to preventing and combating insurance crime.
With 334,114 vehicle thefts reported in the first half of 2025, monthly totals of this type of crime remained consistently lower than in any month last year. These figures sustain a nationwide trend of significant declines in vehicle theft beginning in 2024.
After years of a pandemic-fueled surge in thefts peaked in 2023, stolen vehicle figures are now trending towards pre-pandemic levels. If current trends continue through the end of 2025, vehicle theft totals are set to decrease nationwide for the second consecutive year.
* emphasis added
https://www.theautochannel.com/news/2025/09/17/1579771-nationwide-decline-vehicle-thefts-continues-through-first-half-2025.html
Flock is straight up lying. There have already been dozens of whistleblowers from companies like car insurance companies that say they have total access to Flock cameras and are using them to deny claims by going back and looking at your car for the week prior to the accident to see if they can claim any damage was pre-existing.
They’ve already had multiple incidences of stalking by employees and law enforcement.
And oh by the way, they have a bunch of politicians and various connected people ‘whitelisted’ so that it is literally impossible to search their license plates. YOU will have every second of your life monitored, but the politician visiting his 3rd mistress is untouchable.
They aren’t using these cameras to clean up shoplifters or fare jumpers. They’re using them to harass normal people.
Screw these guys and screw these cameras.
YES THIS!
Either flock is a tool so necessary that we as a society allow implementation of an even wider, more intrusive surveillance state as a requirement/prerequisite for any semblance of public safety …OR its a tool to gather images, data, movements, activities of the public at large to sell/use for commercial activities without meaningful restraint.
Here’s a thought… Withdraw all objections to these cameras if, and only if, all the records are accessible to the public without restriction. I’ll bet the cameras would disappear within a week.
The nature of the cameras is a total complete surveillance of everything within their view and identification of every single person at all times. There is no safety built into the system. The safety is relying on the government to act with integrity and justly. We saw George Floyd and Covid that the government is very eager to abuse its power and prosecute and persecute innocent people. This entire system is completely dependent on the integrity of the government to do what is right. We know with certainty that the government will abuse its power. This is a Soviet or communist or Nazi system Quynh to every citizen spying on every other citizen. I support those who are turning down the cameras, the same as I would support those who sabotage the Nazi or communist system. If I had more guts and more risk tolerance I would do the same.
When the 4th Amendment was printed, the authors did not include that government cannot track the movement of the public. That’s because they knew that mass surveillance would have required the Constable to hire hundreds of deputies with horses to track the townspeople 24 hours a day. Physically impossible.
But if they peered into the future and saw what cameras with digital tech can do in 2026, they most certainly would have included language that forbade following people around without a specific warrant for each and every one.
The comments include good arguments on both sides. These cameras can be an effective law enforcement tool. I don’t support a blanket ban on Flock cameras, much less vandalizing them!
I think the problem is not the technology, but corrupt people and our corrupt society. Legislation won’t solve that!
I agree with Leslie’s final paragraph:
The smartest path forward isn’t banning these cameras or giving police unchecked access, but pairing their crime-fighting value with real audits, data limits, and accountability.
If the last several decades have taught us anything, it is that above a certain level there is no government accountability. If there was, half of Congress would be behind bars.
Wisconsin Cops Used Flock Over 100 Times To Track a Navy Veteran After He Lawfully Recorded a Traffic Stop
The true source of the threat… is powerlust within a society abundant with levers for the expression thereof…. My reading of history tells me that as long as the levers of power are there, people with powerlust will always arise and use them to evil ends. Whether the person at the lever of power is Jewish or Christian or Moslem or Black or Asian or whatever is not the problem… the lever is the problem. Shooting the guy with his hand on the lever won’t fix the problem.
–JASON AUVENSHINE
The Lord of the Rings is not about restoring the metaphoric Ring of Power to “the rightful king.” Frodo’s quest is rather to haul it back to the mountain of fire where it was forged in darkness, and destroy it — not merely to reassign government power to “the right party,” but to reduce and limit it for all time. The test of goodness and worth is the ability to say “no” to the offer of unlimited power.
–VIN SUPRYNOWICZ
If the government wants to stick a camera in your ass, you say, “thank you”.
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