Florida Bans Flock Cameras From State Highways (www.wctv.tv) 49
schwit1 shares a report from WCTV: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he's removing Flock camera from state roadways. The announcement comes amid a growing concern over the misuse of automated license plate readers. On Monday, DeSantis ordered all Flock cameras removed from what he calls the 'state highway system' within the next 30 days, which would include interstates like I-10 and I-75. That order led to several sheriff's departments like in Franklin, Liberty and Putnam Counties to announce they're ending their own license plate reader programs. According to the Florida Department of Transportation memo, if the cameras aren't removed from the state right-of-ways within 30 days, then the state government will take them down on their own. The memo also says FDOT will deny any other permits for cameras in the future.
Brevard County has followed suit. (Score:2)
Re:Brevard County has followed suit. (Score:5, Interesting)
They brought the "growth at all costs" tech mindset to something that required far more consideration.
No private entity is a good actor here but pretty plain to see the difference in how Flock does things versus the other gorilla sized private contractor in the space, Axon who already has experience in handling this type of data. They are actually starting to poach out Flock's business [yahoo.com] and I imagine they will be far more discrete about doing the same things.
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Do you think discrete means "good"?
Open the schools!
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That's just sad man. Have some self respect.
Re:Brevard County has followed suit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Flock has really screwed up its marketing. It feels like they are a bunch of Techbros that don't understand peoples fear of privacy violations.
It isn't that they don't understand. They don't care. Why should they? The law doesn't apply to them, and lesser being exist to be controlled by their superiors. Just ask them.
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Also, remember if you have a newer car, pull apart the dash and unscrew the permanent cellphone modem antennas. Screw resistor packs to them to keep your data private.
Wow! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been very dismissive about all the noise about individual Flock camera take downs. But this, a state level and from a state as large as Florida, seems quite significant.
Hooray for Florida. Fuck Flock and everyone that thinks they're a good idea.
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It's mostly performative. All it means is the cameras just can't be on the public right-of-way adjacent to state roads. Ones mounted to a pole in the parking lot of a Dunkin' Donuts, pointed at the road, are still perfectly cromulent.
Source: I live in Florida. This is how the state's Republican leadership pretends to be productive and the low information voters love it. If you think Florida "solved" the Flock camera problem, see - propaganda works.
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It really depends on the business. Some stores actually want to have cameras to catch/deter shoplifters. I could also see gas stations, payday loans, liquor stores, etc. being onboard too if the price was right.
Flock will probably have to tweak their pricing a bit, but I doubt they're going to go away.
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It's because they can't prevent them (Score:4, Interesting)
This is necessary and important because if you put them in wealthy neighborhoods people there have time out of their day they can take to organize petitions to get them banned and removed. Poor people can't do that because they're too busy working three jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment they share with five guys.
If the human race put the kind of effort into science and societal advancement that they put into screwing over the poor we would have faster than light travel by now.
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Re:It's because they can't prevent them (Score:5, Interesting)
This is necessary and important because if you put them in wealthy neighborhoods people there have time out of their day they can take to organize petitions to get them banned and removed. Poor people can't do that because they're too busy working three jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment they share with five guys.
You have this entirely backwards. People in Florida's gated communities love their security. Every gated neighborhood I've ever been has security cameras pointed at the entrances and exits, and some even have an actual human making copies of the driver's licenses of everyone who enters. The residents with transponders or barcodes to enter? Yep, that activity is automatically logged, too.
Most of the people physically protesting Flock cameras are college (age) kids [wbtv.com] and this retired guy with a pool pole. [wusf.org] They're generally not wealthy.
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Bingo, go on Nextdoor in most places but especially Florida and you'll see scores of people who absolutely are in support of Flock cameras. Florida is the home for the nosey neighbors photographing every kid walking by and every stereotypical overbearing HOA.
In my area there was a lady posting pictures and trying to track down someone who took a mango from their tree which hangs over the sidewalk. She was calling the police! That's the folks we are dealing with there.
Re: It's because they can't prevent them (Score:2)
You're witnessing how any given issue can become partisan. Politicians here in California want it in the name of safety, (see, for example, Gavin Newsome's comments) and apparently rsilvergun thinks it's necessary to follow rich people around (to what end, who the fuck knows with him, there's no rhyme or reason behind anything he says or does.)
I've been keeping an eye on something similar with 3d printers.
https://planet3dp.com/legislat... [planet3dp.com]
I don't care what the motivation is, a good thing is a good thing no m
Congratulations on missing the point (Score:2)
What I'm saying is that putting the cameras everywhere means that the abuse could be applied to everyone instead of carefully applying
Re: Congratulations on missing the point (Score:2, Interesting)
What difference does it make with you?
They install it? Bad intent
They remove it? Bad intent
There's nothing they could possibly do that you'd consider a win aside from changing their letter from R to D and set up a politburo. Then you'd consider everything they do to be a win. That's just how much of a shallow simpleton you are. You're a waste of time. Go whine up some other tree. And take a fucking bath.
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And you guys are getting rid of property taxes.
It needs 60% to pass, and because we're certainly not going to defund the police, you probably won't actually save any money. It'll just end up getting tacked on to the cost of other things, probably in the most regressive manner possible.
A funny thing about Florida's economy is that it's mostly based on people who've made their money elsewhere or are visiting with money that again, they earned somewhere else. If you actually are part of Florida's working class, the salaries can feel a bit worse than othe
Re: It's because they can't prevent them (Score:2)
Roughly 3.2 million. Though the housing costs there aren't too dissimilar to Phoenix, which is where I'm originally from. But you know what? They're a hell of a lot better than Los Angeles pricing, with more modern infrastructure and construction. Everything out here was built in the 1950s, most of it referred to at the time as "cracker box" housing, which means even for the 1950s, it was cheap shit construction, generally of worse quality than today's manufactured homes.
Rents here that are priced at about
Yeah but they control those security cameras (Score:2)
now you could argue that they don't really control that footage because the cops will make deals to get it, except that the cops know not to fuck with people who are living in expensive gated communities...
also People are going to be less concerned about having a bunch of security cameras around where they live versus around the gay bars they might be frequenting.
The basic problem here is that putting cameras on the
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Are the communities selling their camera data to the govt and private businesses? What's the profits-sharing agreement look like for the homeowners to have their data sold?
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They love security data that they control. Once they realize that cameras tell the world who loves kids most, cameras will be pointing at the birds.
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If the human race put the kind of effort into science and societal advancement that they put into screwing over the poor we would have faster than light travel by now.
Except you can't actually reach the speed of light with spacecraft sized mass. https://bigthink.com/hard-scie... [bigthink.com]
Good on the governor! (Score:2)
I was kind of surprised that DeSantis, of all people, was ditching Flock. Then my wife mentioned that perhaps he's concerned about his own comings and goings being tracked...
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As a Florida resident I can say that DeSantis does have convictions, I don't agree with many of them but unlike Trump he does actually believe in some things so sometimes he does make (to me) the right decision. Sometimes.
It also helps that he is lame-ducked and really after his 2024 crash-out he really doesn't have any political ambitions in the future, probably land himself a few cushy board positions.
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It also helps that he is lame-ducked and really after his 2024 crash-out he really doesn't have any political ambitions in the future, probably land himself a few cushy board positions.
Rick Scott has entered the chat.
Florida has a knack for allowing its political leaders to fail upwardly.
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Scott had better timing as a Senate seat was opened up right as he was leaving Governor and he had zero shame campaigning during his last year (didn't he get the rules changed to be able to do that as well?)
DeSantis has not made a play for the seat up this year and 2018 was also a much more favorable year for Republicans than 2026 is going to be, even in Florida. For as craven a political actor Scott is he's also just been lucky. DeSantis is popular but I don't know if he's popular enough to run in 2028 a
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The Supreme Court took a look at what was on their cell phone's and decided that warrants should be required after all. The powerful don't want their secrets exposed.
Similarly, in Washington State none of the judges who demand timber wolves be protected actually live where wolves might be found. Releasing a pack in their neighborhoods would undoubtedly change their minds, but that would be illegal.
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Re:Good on the governor! (Score:5, Interesting)
He's more concerned with trying to explain away his diverting of $10 million [cbsnews.com] obligated to pay for health insurance for poor kids that inexplicably went to two PACs then the Republican Party of Florida, all without anyone knowing who diverted the funds, including the people who were charged with managing the funds.
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Everybody conveniently "forgot" who directed them to divert the money. Go figure.
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I was kind of surprised that DeSantis, of all people, was ditching Flock.
I'm sure he'll be as successful at removing the Flock cameras from Florida as he was with removing the drag shows (NSFW). [savoyorlando.com]
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Trump preferred that COVID ran out of control, believing it would kill more Democrats than Republicans. Why do you think Trump would oppose cameras that don't cost him personally?
Democrats live in cities where these things are more effective. Trump would prefer to pass a law requiring these cameras to shoot suspicious people.
Political opportunism at it's finest (Score:2)
But it's because of the backlash we created that they feel they can take this action now. I'll take it.
Flock and it's ilk will be re-welcomed (Score:2)
with open arms.... After the election.
When something gestinks politically near a midterm election (what's that you say... no election is to be held regardless of what the constitution says) , you can count on it coming back after the politicians who would have voted for it get a new lease on life.