Flock Camera Vandalism Continues Around America, While 100 Communities Reject ALPRs (clickorlando.com) 102
Dozens of Flock cameras have been vandalized around Dallas Texas in the last six months, reports a local news station. In Utah, ABC News reports, a county sheriff's office even said Wednesday a Flock camera was even vandalized within days of its being installed. And in the Minnesota city of Winona, "Every Flock license plate reader camera operated by the Winona Police Department has been sawed off and stolen in what investigators believe was a coordinated theft," according to local media:
All eight cameras were taken August 1, according to the Winona Police Department. A patrol officer first noticed the cameras had not sent any alerts in 24 hours. When officers checked the locations, they found the cameras had been cut from their poles and taken. The poles were left behind.
Two additional Flock cameras on the Mississippi River Bridge, owned by Buffalo County, were also stolen in the same manner...
The thefts are part of a broader national trend. Flock cameras have been vandalized and cut down in communities across the country.
When someone in Florida filmed a damaged Flock camera lying in the grass in Florida, their footage attracted 980,000 views on social media, according to a local news report, with the uploader saying "Most of the people that are commenting are against Flock cameras." But that report adds it's one of at least five cameras recently damaged just in Florida:
- In another incident, investigators "found the black camera and its pole lying on the ground."
- Two days later, sheriff's deputies found a camera destroyed "with pieces scattered on the ground. Deputies reported the damage appeared to have been caused by a blunt object."
- On July 31, "Police said two camera poles had been intentionally cut in half, causing an estimated $10,000 in damage to the system."
In West Virginia 20-year-old Wesley Jackson has been arrested for allegedly vandalizing Flock cameras, with another 20-year-old (a university student) now arrested for being his accomplice, according to a local news report. Ironically, Jackson's arrest was made possible partly by information from... automated license plate readers.
But the Washington Post notes there's now a flood of Facebook commenters jokingly offering to provide a fake alibi: "Couldn't have been him — we were out counting blades of grass," said one of the 29,000 commenters on a post about the arrest from the local news station WDTV. Others attested that the man, Wesley Jackson, had been helping them "replace the roof on a homeless shelter," "playing halo 2," "changing the tires" on their car or giving their "doggie a treat" at the time the cameras were destroyed.
Meanwhile, the anti-surveillance group DeFlock reports 100 communities have now rejected automated license plate readers. Wednesday an Arizona county sheriff explained to his local Board of Supervisors why he will not renew his office's contract with Flock when it expires next month. Local Arizona media reports: "We have a camera system that can do facial recognition technology and can start building a data set on what our citizens are doing on a day-to-day basis," Teeple told supervisors. "That, in my training and experience, is a huge Fourth Amendment violation."
Recently an Arizona man even told his city council he'd be launching AI-powered satellites to monitor "where government officials go, where they stop, who they meet with, and when they return home," reports 404 Media: It would be no different than how the city monitors its citizens using Flock cameras, he said... He said he'd already started compiling profiles on their vehicles, spouses vehicles, children's vehicles, and planned to combine that data with Bluetooth signals, advertising IDs, and commercial data sources, "so our authorized users can replay the movements of every government official and their immediate family," he said. Local businesses would be invited to join the network, to "protect" officials while they shop, eat at restaurants, and move around the city.
And CNET reports "a quiet battle is happening across the US" between "towns working to adopt Flock Safety systems and those trying to ban them entirely." From major cities like Los Angeles canceling its Flock contract to towns wrapping Flock AI cams in plastic bags because Flock won't take them down, it's a wild time for surveillance and questions about government accountability.
The thefts are part of a broader national trend. Flock cameras have been vandalized and cut down in communities across the country.
When someone in Florida filmed a damaged Flock camera lying in the grass in Florida, their footage attracted 980,000 views on social media, according to a local news report, with the uploader saying "Most of the people that are commenting are against Flock cameras." But that report adds it's one of at least five cameras recently damaged just in Florida:
- In another incident, investigators "found the black camera and its pole lying on the ground."
- Two days later, sheriff's deputies found a camera destroyed "with pieces scattered on the ground. Deputies reported the damage appeared to have been caused by a blunt object."
- On July 31, "Police said two camera poles had been intentionally cut in half, causing an estimated $10,000 in damage to the system."
In West Virginia 20-year-old Wesley Jackson has been arrested for allegedly vandalizing Flock cameras, with another 20-year-old (a university student) now arrested for being his accomplice, according to a local news report. Ironically, Jackson's arrest was made possible partly by information from... automated license plate readers.
But the Washington Post notes there's now a flood of Facebook commenters jokingly offering to provide a fake alibi: "Couldn't have been him — we were out counting blades of grass," said one of the 29,000 commenters on a post about the arrest from the local news station WDTV. Others attested that the man, Wesley Jackson, had been helping them "replace the roof on a homeless shelter," "playing halo 2," "changing the tires" on their car or giving their "doggie a treat" at the time the cameras were destroyed.
Meanwhile, the anti-surveillance group DeFlock reports 100 communities have now rejected automated license plate readers. Wednesday an Arizona county sheriff explained to his local Board of Supervisors why he will not renew his office's contract with Flock when it expires next month. Local Arizona media reports: "We have a camera system that can do facial recognition technology and can start building a data set on what our citizens are doing on a day-to-day basis," Teeple told supervisors. "That, in my training and experience, is a huge Fourth Amendment violation."
Recently an Arizona man even told his city council he'd be launching AI-powered satellites to monitor "where government officials go, where they stop, who they meet with, and when they return home," reports 404 Media: It would be no different than how the city monitors its citizens using Flock cameras, he said... He said he'd already started compiling profiles on their vehicles, spouses vehicles, children's vehicles, and planned to combine that data with Bluetooth signals, advertising IDs, and commercial data sources, "so our authorized users can replay the movements of every government official and their immediate family," he said. Local businesses would be invited to join the network, to "protect" officials while they shop, eat at restaurants, and move around the city.
And CNET reports "a quiet battle is happening across the US" between "towns working to adopt Flock Safety systems and those trying to ban them entirely." From major cities like Los Angeles canceling its Flock contract to towns wrapping Flock AI cams in plastic bags because Flock won't take them down, it's a wild time for surveillance and questions about government accountability.
What a waste (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
You're assuming that most politicians care what people want.
That's most important is what the corporations want. The value of a total surveillance state is a great secondary benefit for the fascists currently in power, too. You don't have to imagine being tracked down and harassed, if not outright prosecuted, for protesting or campaigning for the 'wrong team.'
=Smidge=
Re:What a waste (Score:4, Interesting)
Madison took out cameras, and the county took them down shortly afterward because it wasn't worth it without the others.
Watch how quickly data centers and cameras have started to become local issues. You have some people who ignore it, but more than a few have ended up recalled. One police chief was told to "Do your job instead of sitting on your butts, or are we supposed to slash department funding because the cameras do all your work." Oh you'd better believe that got that chief on the back foot.
Of course the assistance of the cameras is vastly overstated by Flock. They took credit for auto theft going down in Denver... except it had already been going down BEFORE the cameras were installed... and continued AFTER the cameras had been removed.
Plenty of politicians do care what people want (Score:2)
It turns out education is ludicrously expensive when you're trying to teach people who don't just learn everything on their own. In the past we would split kids into two groups the ones who would learn on their own, aka the academically inclined and then the ones who needed to actually be taught. We
Re: (Score:2)
You're assuming that most politicians care what people want.
Especially in this administration. Unless I'm mistaken and most people actually want a ballroom, arch, gilded statues, extensive gold White House decorations, 8 foreign wars/conflicts, higher gas, food, fertilizer costs, tariffs, legal/ethics violations, more greed and self-enrichment, mass incarcerations and deportations for mostly non-criminals (being in the U.S. w/o permission is a civil, not criminal, infraction), etc... Did I miss anything?
Re:What a waste (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing I can infer from your reply is that you do not understand what either (or both) "fascist" and "socialist" mean.
=Smidge=
Re:What a waste (Score:4, Insightful)
Well it's weird you had to both sides this,
I'm sure most people here understand the implications of orwell but socialism gone wild isn't the global threat of the day the way fascism is at the moment.
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
You're saying workers coops want to acquire more power? That trade unions want cameras on every street corner?
I appreciate that half the people here, probably because they're American, think "socialismimsm means anything I don't like that involves the government" but that's not what it means. And the people self identifying as socialists in government right now, from AOC to Bernie, are not, actually, in favor of cameras on every street corner.
Some political parties, especially in Eastern Europe, identifying as socialist formed governments that were dictatorships. Others, such as those in Western Europe, were and still are democratic, and fought hard for your rights to be unrelated to your wealth.
I know it's hard when you've been subjected to this kind of propaganda about socialists since you were capable of understanding English, but stop believing propaganda.
Re: What a waste (Score:1)
Trying to tell an American to stop screaming shit about socialism is like trying to tell a small dog to stop barking.
Re: (Score:3)
What should we do about our socialized infrastructure?
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And, if one isn't careful, it isn't hard to creep up on a mode where it seems like giving the state this little bit more power is no biggie. My guy is running the show, it fixes a real problem and it isn't a big deal, right? And at some point you've crossed a line.
However.
Here we are. The barbarians are not at the gate; they are literally redecorating the White House. And you're worried about fantasy commies.
Perhaps w
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The idea that every individual human is equal to another is not one I buy. Who is in power matters. I know fatalism and disempowerment are hip right now, but some people are better than others, and change is possible.
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Initial resistance like this is expected and nothing more than a speed bump to the people that want this. People who understand the dangers get tired, complacent, or if necessary harassed and convicted. People who don't understand get converted by propaganda or just by wanting to be part of 'their side' and argue in favor of these things (nothing to hide, think of the children, etc.).
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
90% of hijackings, including Lockerbee and 9/11, were government intelligent funded psychological operations. Even the shoebomber was basically put there by the FBI.
The government wishes it was even 10% as powerful as you imagine it to be.
millimeter scanning [Re:What a waste] (Score:3)
Interesting comment, but in fact, millimeter wave machines are well understood to be harmless (millimeter waves are non-ionizing), and while they may have false positives, the response to a positive in airport screening is not to arrest people, but to do search to see what caused the positive. Eliminating mm scanners would mean more, not less, intrusive scanning.
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In the end the politicians don't give a fuck about what people want or being moral or anything like that. They have an agenda. They're acting the exact same way that conspiracy theorists have been claiming all politicians think like for decades, except it looks to me like now the conspiracy theorists have gotten into government they feel this is a way they have a right to act, rather than something they should be changing.
Add to that the rampant corruption in American politics that's always been there, but
The message [Re:What a waste] (Score:4, Interesting)
Did politicians get the message that people don't want these yet?
It's slightly more complicated than that. The problem is, "the people" are afraid of crime, and what they want is the police to have the tools to track down and arrest criminals. So the message the politicians get is a contradictory one: "give the police the tools to make our neighborhoods safe from crime! Whatever it takes!" and simultaneously "we don't want government surveillance!"
If you don't like it, you will need to convince people that civil liberties are more important than stopping crime.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish it were easier to convince people. However far to many believe in the if your not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about.
Except who decides what is wrong and right has seen some shifts. Multiple times throughout our history.
Taken too far (Score:5, Informative)
But the Flock thing takes it way too far. Grandpa Gas and convenience store does not have the ability, nor incentive, to put me behind bars, but Flock and its implementation is a system of people who count convictions as talking points for the next election cycle.
We already have a case - and I'm sure there are more - of a woman who came within inches of being killed because of a wrong ID. Hauled out of her vehicle at gunpoint. Twice.
So the Flock Cameras are a tool of people who make mistakes, don't correct them , do not care to correct them, and are supported by a system that uses arrests and convictions as swag. What could go wrong?
BotOx (Score:4, Informative)
So darkox was making pro russia posts as far back as the mid 2010s just an interesting FYI
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people just don't want to be spied on by entities unknown for no good reason at all. Or, as one of your forefathers allegedly opined, they prefer their freedom to surveillance for more "safety".
But in every society there are "those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety". A naturally intelligent MAGAt like yourself, who thinks short-term, doesn't see much farther than own nose and fails to grasp the point of people needing privacy and not being suspect by default is
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I am not writing in support of flock cameras. You and Compact Disk Reader are are deeply stupid. I don't even know where to start. You all can call me whatever names you want and brigade with your disagree mods but it does not change the fact that everything you support hands dangerous people more power.
You fools can run around going derp derp derp "flock" all you like but at the end of the day. Even if you get them taken down, big if, Target corporation and friends will just put them up. Someone will b
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Look up WAMI. Been going on since Afghanistan, and the technology has come home. [spatialintelligence.ai]
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You can call everyone stupid as much as you want but if your solution is "no license plates" and limiting public photography in public spaces you way as well be proposing we all get some Tinkerbell fairy dust and float ourselves to work.
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No, the solution to Flock is not "no license plates" and "no public photography" as that's stupid.
The solution is to break Flock up. The problem with Flock is that adding one camera adds value to the Flock network. A town adds a Flock camera, and the network gets more valuable as anyone can search data from that camera.
So if your neighborhood HOA puts up a Flock camera (and they were the primary customers a decade ago), now police from across the nation has access to that camera as well.
That would be fine,
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yeah for sure I get that and I agree, the actual response is to have your local town break contract and/or ban them from installing in your area which also means electing people who would support such actions.
Flock may have had the best of intentions in the beginning.
And that's the core of the issue, Flock's interest is naturally going to be to turn a profit which may or may not align with the interests of the citizens or the towns.
Re: (Score:2)
All you motherfuckers are gonna pay. You are the ones who are the ball-lickers. We're gonna fuck your mothers while you watch and cry like little whiny bitches.
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You're writing in support of surveillance state, dear, and it is obvious. You call the people who don't like being monitored "criminals" or "paranoid", it is right there in your post. And when you've got nothing to reply with, you open your Sean Connery mouth.
But I like how you've accepted that corporate totalitarianism is inescapable and how you insult the communities who try to get rid of surveillance through democracy.
In short, you were unable to put up a reasonable counterpoint, so you erupted in profan
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Even if you get them taken down, big if, Target corporation and friends will just put them up. Someone will buy and aggregate the data. The police will have it again...
It's not about where they put the cameras, it's about access to the data.
The police won't have it again in my city, because we forced the City Council to cancel the contract.
If they replace a contract that the City Council forced them to cancel with a similar contract, without going to the City Council for permission, we'll end up with the new Chief of Police, and that contract also cancelled.
My advice: If your city government doesn't respond to community demands... elect different people.
Another point is t
Re: (Score:2)
Most people just don't want to be spied on by entities unknown for no good reason at all. Or, as one of your forefathers allegedly opined, they prefer their freedom to surveillance for more "safety".
And considering what is happening, it appears not many agree with him. I noted I have no issues with businesses having cameras. They have a reason, be it theft, liability, or other things that might happen. But widespread surveillance of everyone without a reason is pretty INGSOC'ish. I mean if total surveillance in the name of stopping crime is a good acceptable things, and as he notes, he finds false positives also acceptable, we better put cameras inside houses, a lot of crimes occur inside private hom
Re: (Score:2)
Mass surveillance is a management tool of the powers that be first and foremost, and that's its worst application. If you know there is a file somewhere with things you don't want known and there is someone who can access it, officially or otherwise, and make your life a mess, you'll be extra careful and listen to that someone.
That was what the Soviet camp ran on, that was what KGB/Stazi's main occupation was, gathering kompromat [wikipedia.org] for the purpose of total control. Incidentally, I hear that was what the Dull
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Re: (Score:3)
Most people just don't want to be spied on by entities unknown for no good reason at all.
Oh no, they don't want -themselves- to be spied on. Any/Everyone else can be spied on. But most people not wishing to be spied on aren't doing anything "wrong" that should be concerned with. All the other people who need spied on -are- doing wrong, probably. Just keep an eye on them, you'll find something soon enough. But "us", we're just average and honest citizens, you don't have to bother with us. It's -those- folks, the ones over there...
Re: (Score:2)
Or, as one of your forefathers allegedly opined, they prefer their freedom to surveillance for more "safety".
Sure... if you have absolutely no idea what they were talking about you could claim that's what the forefathers opined about.
There's so many reasons you can make to justify what you're trying to say about flock cameras without demonstrating to the world you think that flock cameras are a taxation issue. Hint: "liberty" was the people's ability to tax themselves. "safety" was about frontier defence. The entire quote was based on a bribe and it is one of the most misapplied quotes out there.
In the word's of t
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The issue is the searchable record generated from a interconnected network. There's been proven middle ground in many other places where there's a set of records that require a warrant to look up. Just like the phone company makes a record of calls for billing, but a warrant is needed there.
The non-digital analog is pretty clear where no one would think it an invasion of privacy to see your neighbor at the grocery store. But it'd be pretty creepy if you posted a mass of people around the whole country that
Re: (Score:2)
This set of people is dwarfed into insignificance be non-criminals who are also being caught on camera. And the problem with that isn't false positives, it's true positives: non-criminal John Doe's car was spotted at a certain place at a certain time, so let's make that fact available on the market. That way, we can target him with ads, increase his insurance pr
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D'oh, but DarkOx, I actually do agree with you on something: the license plates are there and they're visible in public. We don't need Flock to have our privacy compromised; everyone can do it.
We haven't denied our adversaries the capability; we're just trying to regulate their good intentions. That strategy doesn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the diseases of which Flock is a symptom is runaway crime, which is itself a result of wrong thinking laws, court rulings, and political philosophies. No one would be installing these things if criminals were actually kept in prison.
Re: Taken too far (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Step 1: Make a lot of crimes, such that everyone is at least technically a criminal
Step 2: Stop enforcing the laws against traditional property crimes (theft, vandalism, burglary, etc)
Step 3: Propose cameras, claiming to use them to solve crime problem. People rejoice
Step 4: Use cameras to catch all those crimes you made in step 1. Continue to fail to enforce laws against traditional property crimes.
Step 5: Put on trollface, ask citizens who are being fined and jailed and having guns stuck in their face [jsonline.com] "
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Nobody plated up their horse or their horse cart.
Not actually correct. License plate laws in various jurisdictions go back to at least the late 1700's.
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"Flock and its implementation is a system of people who count convictions as talking points for the next election cycle"
Close, it can easily be used to decide who gets to vote in the next election cycle. Does anyone, aside from some knuckle dragging Maggots, trust the current regime with that data?
So those gas and Bank cameras are part of it (Score:2)
There is a city in California where if you want to open a business you have to put up cameras for your business and then you have to share that footage
Re: (Score:2)
The argument that everything in public spaces should be freely accessible to the public is a bit flawed when you start recording the information, indexing it and making it searchable, and setting up automatic searches and alerts, and combining it with public and law enforcement databases (which is what Flock does).
Give me access to 24/7 recordings of all public places in the US, indexed an
Eight?? (Score:2)
>"Every Flock license plate reader camera operated by the Winona Police Department has been sawed off and stolen in what investigators believe was a coordinated theft, [...] All eight cameras were taken"
8? LOL! We had over SIX HUNDRED of those privacy-raping devices as of mid-last year in my metro area. Probably up to 700 by now.
Re:Eight?? (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like the freedom fighters need to get busy then.
Re: (Score:2)
Hell Donald Trump just sent a bunch of protesters to prison for the rest of their lives for being at a protest. You would think that would be bigger news that a bunch of innocent people who just happened
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non-destructive (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
A rock, a string and a Dollar Store helium balloon.
With a politicians tag number taped to the balloon...
Over Reporting. Again. (Score:3)
Flock is probably installing hundreds of cameras per day, across the county. A measly 8 cameras get taken down and it's "big" news?
I'm all in favor of the complete elimination of Flock and all its ilk. But if you think these insignificant, yet touted, events mean anything, you're fooling yourself. Flock is consuming America like an incoming tide. Government bodies want it. A few pearl clutchers want it. The bulk of the population is indifferent, if they are even aware. And the small few nay sayers and vandals aren't gonna make a dent.
Re:Over Reporting. Again. (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like the only the dramatic Flock camera destructions where they're being cut down or dragged away by a truck are really getting reported. The ones where they are being silently destroyed by pointing a high power green laser at the camera sensor are not.
I can imagine that Flock doesn't want people to know about how easily they can be disabled, so they aren't really reporting that on the news.
very large anti-static pouches (Score:1)
While the city that is placing plastic bags over the cameras is making a step in the right direction by blocking the view of the camera it does nothing for the rest of the system, namely the electronic tracking aspect. Placing a large mylar type anti-static bag over the camera would probably work better in that it should block the electronic portion of the system also.
I wonder if a military/police dazzeler and a radio signal jammer would be effective also.
Re: (Score:2)
Actively jamming radio signals is a violation of federal law. It's not necessary, as you point out a mylar bag should do the job. If it doesn't there's a variety of types of foil-lined bags, or you could easily make bags with aluminum screen mesh. The camera is the primary tracking problem though, that's the principal sensor. Audio is also a problem but not on the same level.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: very large anti-static pouches (Score:1)
Yes you are correct about jamming being a violation of the FCC. While I agree two wrong do not make a right. Isn't cutting down and destroying property (the systems) a violation of a law also?, interfering with law enforcement by obstructing the cameras view, and what about the constitutional violations created by mass surveillance or a searchs of persons, place or things without probable cause?
Lesser invasive systems have been deemed anti-constitutional like plain old traffic light cameras over the years a
Re: (Score:2)
All I'm saying is that jamming is illegal so it's not an improvement over just cutting them down, which is illegal. It seems to me to make sense only either to just cut them down, or render them temporarily inoperative with a bag which might be legally better than cutting them down.
Re: (Score:2)
I am not a lawyer, but bagging them to interfere with the signal might actually be just as federal a charge as a jammer, whereas cutting them down is likely only a State charge.
Usually federal charges are a lot worse. The food might be better, but you'll be there a lot longer...
Re: (Score:2)
Finally, after all these years, the tinfoil hats finally finally finally can protect our freedom from a giant evil conspiracy.
Tin foil brigade, call up all your friends, mobilize, your day has come!
SlashFlock (Score:2)
News for the observed, Stuff that's captured
The amount of gold in the cameras (Score:4, Funny)
I think a part of the issue is the amount of gold and other precious minerals in the cameras.
People are using AI to find out about the cameras and the AI is scrapping comments like this and telling people about the gold. Then people take down the cameras to look for the gold.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
An copper.
"An istory" is bad enough, but you really say "an opper?" For real?
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Yes, utterly amazing the amount of gold in Flock cameras. Gold contacts on the circuit boards, gold in the sensors, gold everywhere. They need it to make sure the cameras can hold up long-term when exposed to heat, cold, humidity, etc. Probably $30-$50 worth of gold per camera. Only a company completely bankrolled by the modern surveillance-state economy could afford to make such high quality circuit boards and sensors, then just put hundreds of thousands of them on bridges and flimsy poles all over the
Politicians don't care what citizens want... (Score:3)
People still believe the US is a democracy. It's not. Politicians are owned by companies and do their bidding.
Re: (Score:2)
Up to a point. Its all about how much the politicians can get away with. Granted, that is quite a bit before they're voted out. Peoples memories are also shorter than the time between elections unless it is really a significant fuck-up on the politicians part.
Re: (Score:2)
Up to a point.
When a politician with a net worth of $150K enters office with a $120K salary, and exits 8 years later worth over $500 million, there are no limits.
This has been proven over and over again on both sides of the isle.
flock (Score:4, Insightful)
Incognito. (Score:2)
And the obvious is going to happen. Cameras will become harder to spot.
Conditions of acceptance (Score:3)
If the police were 100% trustworthy and the tech was used ONLY for the most serious crimes, I would be a supporter.
Sadly, neither condition is true.
Re:Conditions of acceptance (Score:5, Insightful)
If the police were 100% trustworthy
It's like Chris Rock said... "You can't have good cops who support and protect bad cops. Because as long as that happens, there only exist bad cops."
They will just take over the state governments (Score:2)
The Epstein class wants a government that can control you and they're going to get it. It'll be just big enough that they can own it but not so big that they can't completely buy it wholesale. That's the problem with the federal government and why they want to undermine the federal government power. The federal gove
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And then override the locals. Every time they want to do something people don't want that's how they do it. They have a name for it they call it government small enough to drown in a bathtub.
They're reportedly already doing that. The 404 Podcast recently interviewed an ex-Flock employee, who said that some municipal PD had completely bypassed the normal city-council funds approval process and signed the city up for a Flock contract using forfeiture funds.
Guillotines for everyone involved, and laws that all forfeiture funds go directly into a public ledger with absolute transparency on what they're used for. Or just get rid of civil forfeiture as an adjunct to criminal prosecution entirely.
Re: (Score:2)
Only if the citizenry doesn't have initiative and referendum, and the citizens are mad enough to get an initiative on the ballot.
If they are really mad in a non initiative and referendum state (e.g. Texas, New York) , then the elected officials might be voted out, but that rarely happens as the electorate mostly has to worry about the bottom level of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This is by design.
Re: (Score:2)
That's how it happened here... the City Council saw how angry people were and realized if they didn't act we'd use the ballot measure, and forcing us to do that would probably get them replaced so they cancelled the contract. Half of them had to do a 180 for that, but nobody cares that their first statements were on the wrong side, since in fact they did the right thing when the vote came up.
Ballot measures are by far the strongest tool for Democracy. And in a Republic, it keeps those "Democratic Traditions
People understand the risks of mass surveillance (Score:2)
I think the public may not recognize the extent to which they are tracked by phones, online activities, cars etc., but camera based surveillance is easy to understand. People understand just how dangerous it is to have a government that can track everything we do with our lives.
At a gun range in a national forest? (Score:2)
Besides the damaged Flock cameras in Florida, there is also now one pointing into the parking lot of the free range at the south end of the Ocala National Forest. Not pointing down the state road, but -in- the parking lot a half mile from the state road, and pointing towards the parked cars. *Why*? This is in a national forest, so it's not the locals who put those cameras there
The AZ man got it right (Score:4, Insightful)
A little consistency would be nice. (Score:3)
If it's okay to go through a major civic building, destroy things along the way, and injure or kill a few people in the name of civil disobedience, it should be fine to knock down some cameras. Perhaps you should even be able to claim some expenses for it.
Good! We need a return to a trust based society (Score:2)
Felony upgrade (Score:2)
"Just for that, We'll make an example of you, kid" 10 years in Jail/ $250000 fine non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Oh and we're banning you from ever holding a passport again./s
Tracking govt officials (Score:2)
I do like the idea of building a community sourced govt official tracking network. I'm sick of govt officials, both elected officials and unelected bureaucrats, passing and implementing laws that they don't feel should apply to them.
I wouldn't favor a system that tracks cops due to the specific hazards they already face daily, but I acknowledge that some people would believe that turnabout is fair play.
At last! (Score:2)
Finally, there's a sentiment that people ranging from MAGA to Democratic Socialist can agree on - "fuck ubiquitous state surveillance".
It's too bad that this is an issue over which proles of any political stripe are unlikely to prevail in the long term. It's also too bad that many on the Right side of the political spectrum won't understand a key point: namely that they voted for this, and that if they vote R again they'll be signing up for having their every move tracked and catalogued.
That's not to say th
Why wrap the cameras? (Score:2)