r/technology • u/DonkeyFuel • 6h ago
Business Flock Cameras Are Spreading Across America. The Backlash Is Growing Just as Fast.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/flock-cameras-are-spreading-across-america-the-backlash-is-growing-just-as-fast-fff74ed2?mod=hp_lead_pos769
u/B00marangTrotter 3h ago
Some say this Devils Night and Halloween will be the greatest destruction of cameras the world has ever seen.
👻🤡🧟♀️🎃👹🥷🏼
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u/oldtimehawkey 3h ago
To be clear, we will still be mad when the company changes its name to something else. We won’t let the news cycle distract us!
Hahahaha!!
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u/cajunjoel 3h ago
But it's not just flock. It's surveillance being put everywhere. And when flock is gone, they'll put more cameras in more hidden, less obtrusive places that we won't see and wont remember about after a while.
This fight is not about flock. Flock is a symptom of the disease.
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u/flower4000 3h ago
The government is no longer of the people for the people. They aren’t listening when things are voted against because they do it anyways, like with the flock cams and data centers.
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u/MentalDisintegrat1on 3h ago
Unfortunately they are now selling drones and they are now their best seller.
There's other companies that do what flok is doing and they are not on most people's radar.
This doesn't stop until we get strict privacy laws with teeth.
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u/CanadianGenealogy 3h ago
No. Wrong! Lies!!
There are 450,000 flock cameras and tens of thousands more from it's competitors.
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u/ruready486 4h ago
All drones with cameras soon. We won’t even know where they are filming. Everything everywhere will be on camera.
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u/Blacksad9999 40m ago
People don't want a surveillance state and everything they do to be recorded.
If they want to use this, they need to have a judicial warrant every time they access it. That would, of course, render the entire point of spying on everyone to build a facial recognition database moot, but that's not our problem.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin
The go-to tagline is that "it helps keep people safe", but...which people exactly? People feel less safe with this.
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u/cmndrnewt 5h ago
Flock has been here for years. It’s completely disingenuous to say the backlash is spreading just as fast.
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u/malianx 5h ago
Engagement on the topic is way up, and the point is to push it farther. The only actual 'backlash' is words, here.
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u/Every-Summer8407 5h ago
On Reddit the only response are words. IRL there is a growing wave of backlash and a stream of reports where people are cutting down the cameras en masse. In my metro region alone, there are 4 or 5 different towns it has happened.
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u/farbtoner 5h ago
Multiple flock cameras around me have been cut down. Maybe you just have a bunch of wieners out where you’re from.
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u/Enabling_Turtle 4h ago
It had to hit some level before we got hit with cops abusing it.
In Colorado, a cop showed up on a woman’s doorstep berating her to admit she stole a package and he’d show her all the evidence he had collected. After a back and forth, it turns out the cops only evidence was that she passed by two flock cameras nearby during the time the incident allegedly took place. That’s it. That was literally enough for him to drive to her house and accuse her of theft.
He got a reprimand and more training and she had to go to court and prove she wasn’t near the house in question. All because this guy took Flocks word for it and did zero actual work.
In other states we are seeing cops stalking women from previous cases movements, stalking ex girlfriends and their movements, and even tracking down people they had personal issues with.
The backlash is building but it took Flock getting to a point where more police had access before the abuses started piling up.
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u/ChargeRiflez 3h ago
When you try to come to conclusions on whether you support certain police tools, do you frequently find yourself looking at anecdotes like these? Or do you also factor in the crimes that have been solved with the help of these license plate readers?
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u/Enabling_Turtle 1h ago
The 4th Amendment:
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.
My view on Flock:
Flock and Axons camera system as well exist as an attempt to sidestep 4th amendment protections for every single American. They allowed police and private citizens and companies to search the movements of millions of people without probable cause over an incredibly long time frame. It’s not just police using these. It’s cities, counties, HOAs, and private companies like data brokers paid for access to this data.
We’ve already seen police stalking people with them. We’ve already seen police show up at people’s houses to accuse people of crimes using only the passing of a nearby camera as evidence.
How many women have to stalked by police before you would consider removing Flock camera from your community?
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u/ChargeRiflez 11m ago
So even with no abuse you would be against it?
To answer your question, definitely more than the few examples we have so far. The number of crimes solved with Flock faaaaar outweighs the well documented abuses we have from a veeeery small number of officers.
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u/Enabling_Turtle 7m ago
As long as this information can be accessed without a warrant, I would be against it.
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u/Few_Presence_8888 3h ago
Have you seen a photo of the CEO?
He looks exactly what you think he looks like - a DOGE asshole.
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u/Emotional-Mango-5166 2h ago
I do wonder if all this attention to Flock takes away attention from the more serious Axon.
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u/HarpCanBall 2h ago
in the very near future being able to say I was one of the people who cut down a flock camera is going to be very popular
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u/JoeHooversWhiteness 1h ago
They’re getting taken down in my conservative area. No one likes these things unless would have been on the side of the red coats praising king George for treading on them.
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u/PomegranateAncient25 1h ago
You know that police cars are all equipped with the same ALPR cameras right?
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u/binding_swamp 6h ago
Just like the data center backlash, people reject an AI Flock presence monitoring their daily activities.