It seems really obvious as soon as I read it, but for some reason as I've been working locally in my neck of the woods against Flock and worrying about it snowballing it hadn't really occurred to me that the snowball could work the other direction as well. The emergent effects of more and more deployments into a single unified storage/search system has always been the new and scary part. But "the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts" of course necessarily means "the parts are worth less than the whole" too. So managing to stop or reverse a deployment in your own locality, however small, also serves to help reduce the capability to everyone else across the nation whether they agree or not. That's really hopeful.
As the article notes, in some cases a locality might try to switch to a competitor, but the competitive community pressure here is still useful. Seems like a rare time where it creates an actual direct incentive to consider what will be popular amongst the people all over, even if certain LEAs etc personally might want more.
Yes, the whole is worth more than the individual parts. It's like if you're trying to catch someone who robbed a home, you may have a camera to catch the car and license. Great first step, but cars used in crimes are often stolen. So you follow the car, and then you enter a dead zone where anti-flock activists prevented cameras. You're now at a dead end.
So I guess that's a win as that first camera is not very useful. And this is a good thing? I don't see your point.
It seems that you are deliberately misunderstanding or not addressing the GP.
Your pro-flock argument is fine on its own. Delete the second paragraph and make your argument independently of the GP.
You did not address the primary argument against Flock cameras - the erosion of civil liberties (privacy) is not worth the higher rate of prosecution / conviction.
Well, that's the thing. Many crimes weren't solved, for precisely the problem that Flock solves. I never thought I'd rally in support of mass surveillance, but when criminals can brazenly flee a scene and not be pulled over because pulling over a suspicious vehicle is now considered "profiling". I find myself supporting an idea I used to be against.
Almost nothing like what is seen in police procedural television series, that’s for sure.
Although there is (allegedly) a fun feedback loop that cops more and mor expect their jobs to be like police procedurals and try to solve crime as if reality was shaped by Dick Wolf.
Imagine coding like it’s shown in the Matrix, or Grandma’s Boy.
Can someone enlighten me why Flock cameras are worse than the average security camera? How is it such a big topic now when their large network suggests that they've been in operation for quite some time by now?
Louis Rossmann likes to point out that the "CC" in "CCTV" means "closed circuit." Traditional security cameras are displayed maybe in a security booth in real time somewhere, and then recorded onto an on-prem hard drive. When the drive fills up the oldest video is overwritten. They're only ever looked at after recording if there's a reason to look at them.
The Flock cameras, on the other hand, upload all data to Flock which stores all video forever. They also do image recognition to identify license plates as well as other identifiable information (they've claimed to not do facial recognition but the implication is they can).
They then make this searchable so any cop with a flock login can put, say, your license plate into a flock search and it will give him a complete record of all your movements all across the country.
Network effects. Massive difference between police having to go talk to a local business owner or private citizen and say "hey, there was a robbery here, can you please go pull the footage you got last night at 8pm and see if you can share it with us please?" and being able to do a one-click nationwide query.
the best place to start, if you're legitimately curious, would probably be the many news paper articles and the many recorded city meetings where flock's controversies are brought up.
They have not been in operation for quite some time now. The large network is not a product of a long and steady roll out, but instead significant financial investment - much of which coming from people who are on record saying that democracy is a flawed system and other authoritarian soundbytes.
Flock is a large panopticon used to control the population. It became apparent recently how Flock cameras would be used by a new administration to purge law abiding workers and residents whose only crime was their immigration status. Whether you agree or not with the policy of this purge, you still witnessed the frightening efficiency with which authorities could now track and enforce whatever policy would come down the pipe. It made clear through show of force the new threat to a free people.
If it were a single camera or location, there is much less ability to track and attempt to coerce a large population.
Just one data point, but I've been to many policing conferences since 2020 and I think one of the main drivers of the Flock problem is a disconnect between what the public understands 'crime prevention' to mean, and what is sold to police under the same verbiage. Something I believe strongly is that healthy public safety requires both responsive action and crime prevention. When I talk about this, I will show quadrants with axes for Give/Take and Planned/Responsive, and try to get people to classify their public safety activities to see where they fall. To me it should be somewhat balanced. Everything concentrated in Take/Responsive is an incomplete strategic plan.
However, most tools available to police are designed to be responsive; they help catch a criminal that has already done something bad. This is not crime prevention. Nothing was prevented. Anyone living in an American city knows these cameras don't prevent much.
It is also (unfortunately) a very vendor driven industry. IACP is a big deal each year, and Flock / Axon / Motorola go all out on spending to influence decision makers.
Talking to communities, in my experience, they ask for crime prevention. People want the actual incident to never have occurred in the first place. When vendors go around saying they are solving crime once and for all, but all they deliver is surveillance, it builds distrust. It feels like lying, while the companies themselves get rich on public money.
Then they go on huge PR campaigns to tell the public actually what they're feelings is wrong and they should accept the surveillance. It's silly.
In the policing communications world, people often say trust is built in drops, and lost in buckets.
>Indeed, the broad backlash against Flock has grown so strong that the surveillance company last week announced mandatory new audit controls and lower default data retention periods for US users.
I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't call out how much bullshit was in that statement. They are just changing the default settings for new customers. That's it. All the deployed cameras remain the same, and new customers can just toggle those settings off of the defaults. It is so obvious that they were attempting to get credit for doing nothing, and reporters should call that out.
Vote with money, and spread the info about this cancer far and wide so everybody else votes with money. Its not a minor technical issue, the whole concept of how they operate their devices is amoral and/or unlawful in many parts of the world.
Thats the only stick with carrot these companies follow, rest is just empty PR not worth anyone's time.
I was wondering the other day, while reading about a woman thrown in jail based on a false report form Flock... How can Flock be fully insulated from the consequences of making thousands of false reports to the police? People can go to prison for less.
People go to prison for providing incorrect data without malicious intent? Are you sure? Anyway, working under contract with the police is not the same as calling in a report. Even if you wish it were.
I would like to live in a world where Flock is liable for providing unreliable insights to law enforcement, who then use it to infringe upon civil liberties.
If they’re not liable in specific circumstances, then at least they’re liable on aggregate for false claims of reliability.
Lots of forensic science is dubious, if not quackery. At least in court as the accused you can challenge such evidence with expert testimony. The uncharitable interpretation of your comment is that it would be just fine and dandy if citizens had no redress against Flock and law enforcement due to poor insights.
There is such thing as criminal negligence. Not saying that's what happened here, but people do sometimes go to prison for being uniquely bad at their jobs.
The same way my neighbors are insulated from consequences when they make an outright false complaint: they claim that they believed the information was true.
It would be interesting to me who you identify as “the state” in America in 2026, especially given the bureaucratic and executive upheaval of the past two years, and the newly-formed relationships between corporations and government agencies.
> Nearby Grand Chute canceled its Flock deal in early June, switching to a competing product from Axon. Grand Chute Police Chief David Maas told Fox 11 News that the Axon system “benefits the community in multiple ways and also respects resident privacy in a way that feels more comfortable, quite honestly.”
> Perhaps it’s the local summer diet of deep-fried cheese curds, corn on the cob, and Spotted Cow, but Wisconsin residents have been feeling pretty dyspeptic about Flock’s automated license plate cameras.
Or... perhaps it's because Wisconsin is a hotbed of progressive politics? Especially in the Madison area.
Wisconsin is a "purple" state, but that's somewhat misleading, because the people aren't generally "centrist". Rather, the state is deeply divided between left wing and right wing, as evidenced by Wisconsin's polar opposite Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson.
Do you believe that this somehow contradicts my point? You show an election result with a very small margin, less than 1%. I said in my original comment that Wisconsin is a purple state, "deeply divided between left wing and right wing, as evidenced by Wisconsin's polar opposite Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson."
Wisconsin is a hotbed of progressive politics. It's also a hotbed of regressive politics. Nowadays the urban/rural difference tends to be very stark.
What do you mean by "hotbed", then? Do you just mean, "there exists a party with that alignment?" What state is not a "hotbed of progressive politics" by this interpretation?
> What do you mean by "hotbed", then? Do you just mean, "there exists a party with that alignment?"
No, I mean very active and influential, achieving real, significant political results. The submitted article is about how they've achieved results, not only fighting Flock but winning and getting rid of Flock.
My links about the history of Wisconsin progressivism show that they were winning elections.
Right vs left wing is a silly idea. What does my position on health care have to do with my position on defense? Now consider the above question, but substitution any two of the thousands of different things the government does. At best the two are a loose alignment, but there is no unity.
Support for Trump is not crumbling. His base still supports him. What is crumbling is the alliance of "right wing" people who never really liked/supported Trump, but were willing to accept him for the alliance. This is enough to turn the next election, but the "right wing" (again, whatever that is...) is still there and mostly hasn't change positions.
As the article notes, in some cases a locality might try to switch to a competitor, but the competitive community pressure here is still useful. Seems like a rare time where it creates an actual direct incentive to consider what will be popular amongst the people all over, even if certain LEAs etc personally might want more.
So I guess that's a win as that first camera is not very useful. And this is a good thing? I don't see your point.
Your pro-flock argument is fine on its own. Delete the second paragraph and make your argument independently of the GP.
You did not address the primary argument against Flock cameras - the erosion of civil liberties (privacy) is not worth the higher rate of prosecution / conviction.
Although there is (allegedly) a fun feedback loop that cops more and mor expect their jobs to be like police procedurals and try to solve crime as if reality was shaped by Dick Wolf.
Imagine coding like it’s shown in the Matrix, or Grandma’s Boy.
The Flock cameras, on the other hand, upload all data to Flock which stores all video forever. They also do image recognition to identify license plates as well as other identifiable information (they've claimed to not do facial recognition but the implication is they can).
They then make this searchable so any cop with a flock login can put, say, your license plate into a flock search and it will give him a complete record of all your movements all across the country.
(ironic URL)
Playgrounds with flock cameras allow folks I don't know to watch children live.
even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_Safety#Controversies is a good start
If it were a single camera or location, there is much less ability to track and attempt to coerce a large population.
However, most tools available to police are designed to be responsive; they help catch a criminal that has already done something bad. This is not crime prevention. Nothing was prevented. Anyone living in an American city knows these cameras don't prevent much.
It is also (unfortunately) a very vendor driven industry. IACP is a big deal each year, and Flock / Axon / Motorola go all out on spending to influence decision makers.
Talking to communities, in my experience, they ask for crime prevention. People want the actual incident to never have occurred in the first place. When vendors go around saying they are solving crime once and for all, but all they deliver is surveillance, it builds distrust. It feels like lying, while the companies themselves get rich on public money.
Then they go on huge PR campaigns to tell the public actually what they're feelings is wrong and they should accept the surveillance. It's silly.
In the policing communications world, people often say trust is built in drops, and lost in buckets.
I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't call out how much bullshit was in that statement. They are just changing the default settings for new customers. That's it. All the deployed cameras remain the same, and new customers can just toggle those settings off of the defaults. It is so obvious that they were attempting to get credit for doing nothing, and reporters should call that out.
Thats the only stick with carrot these companies follow, rest is just empty PR not worth anyone's time.
People go to prison for providing incorrect data without malicious intent? Are you sure? Anyway, working under contract with the police is not the same as calling in a report. Even if you wish it were.
If they’re not liable in specific circumstances, then at least they’re liable on aggregate for false claims of reliability.
Lots of forensic science is dubious, if not quackery. At least in court as the accused you can challenge such evidence with expert testimony. The uncharitable interpretation of your comment is that it would be just fine and dandy if citizens had no redress against Flock and law enforcement due to poor insights.
Bad shit has always been tolerated when done in furtherance of the state's goals.
They're just trading one problem for another
Or... perhaps it's because Wisconsin is a hotbed of progressive politics? Especially in the Madison area.
Wisconsin is a "purple" state, but that's somewhat misleading, because the people aren't generally "centrist". Rather, the state is deeply divided between left wing and right wing, as evidenced by Wisconsin's polar opposite Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson.
Ah, yes, Wisconsin. Famously more progressive than the bordering states of Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois (I'll give you Iowa).
Attitudes on surveillance follow economics more than anything else.
Wisconsin actually is famously progressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Progressive_Party
"Milwaukee is a city where socialists have found success to a greater extent than any other U.S. city" https://uwm.edu/lib-collections/mke-socialism/
Wisconsin is a hotbed of progressive politics. It's also a hotbed of regressive politics. Nowadays the urban/rural difference tends to be very stark.
No, I mean very active and influential, achieving real, significant political results. The submitted article is about how they've achieved results, not only fighting Flock but winning and getting rid of Flock.
My links about the history of Wisconsin progressivism show that they were winning elections.
Support for Trump is not crumbling. His base still supports him. What is crumbling is the alliance of "right wing" people who never really liked/supported Trump, but were willing to accept him for the alliance. This is enough to turn the next election, but the "right wing" (again, whatever that is...) is still there and mostly hasn't change positions.
Plenty if you're in charge of allocating finite resources. Look up "guns vs butter"