The Nationwide Revolt Against Flock Safety Cameras

We all need to get behind the removal of these cameras. They are a significant means of imposing and maintaining a police state in a country where the bad actors are currently in control. The military just ended its relationship with Anthropic because of the ethical concerns of the CEO about how the military would use its product, which could include mass surveillance of all people in the US and the creation of a database with every move we make from the time we leave our home to the time we return if we live in areas with lots of surveillance cameras. The Pentagon turned to OpenAI, which evidently has no ethics and will allow the military to do whatever they want with its AI products. It is naive to think that Trump will not turn this weapon on the people in Democratic states and cities.

"Langley [the head of Flick] has a habit of hyperbole. Last fall, he offered the modest prediction that Flock will eliminate almost all crime in the U.S. within a decade. The technology is indeed praised by police for making it easier to catch certain criminals. But independent studies on its effectiveness are hard to come by. Flock has also been criticized for publishing exaggerated statistics to promote its products. In 2022, the company bragged that cameras in San Marino, California, had caused burglaries to drop 80 percent over five months; Forbes later reported that burglaries had actually increased in the years after Flock installed its cameras.

Even if Flock’s cameras and tracking network do help solve some crimes, critics say it’s not worth the cost to our privacy—not to mention people’s Fourth Amendment rights. Police have been caught illegally using Flock data to locate a woman seeking abortion services, stalk and harass people, monitor protests, and aid ICE. “At minimum, this dragnet surveillance means warrantless tracking of everyone on the road,” the ACLU warned last year. “At worst, it means a digital police state wherein law enforcement officials … can track protesters, political opponents, immigrants, patients, and others not suspected of any crime and use the information to hurt them.” (Dan Haley, chief legal officer at Flock, responded that “Flock is used … millions of times a year, and the incidences of abuse are few and far between.” He added that all evidence of misuse is recorded in Flock’s software.)


https://newrepublic.com/article/206992/flock-safety-cameras-alpr-deflock-resistance-nationwide