Get the Flock out!

[Shropshire Slasher]

First it was data centers. Now it’s Flock cameras.

Cities were sold on the promise that these cameras would only shoot license plates and only store them for 30 days. Welp, they’ve turned out more intrusive than that and the natives are getting restless.

Client Challenge

 

[maumann2]

Just went to the Flock website. Oh, they claim they're taking privacy and the Constitution into consideration ... but from the angle of "crime itself is an invasion of rights." But who's determining that a crime is being committed OR deterred?

Guess what? That becomes a very shadowy "guilty until proven innocent" based on what the camera records. And Flock doesn't actually care that law enforcement might either use their information or share video/photos in a way that the cameras weren't meant to capture.

So the only way your lawyer can ask for a review of the camera footage is IF they know specifically what was recorded and how it was used. Police have a piece of evidence but no actual proof of criminal activity EXCEPT they're using it as if that proof exists.

Yet another step down the slippery slope of what's protected under the Bill of Rights. Would love a class-action suit to determine "illegal search" based on whether the state-issued license plate on your car constitutes what law enforcement is allowed to presume is illegal activity. There's a clear Fourth Amendment violation, just as if a LEO can't stop you and conduct a search without consent or a signed warrant.

 

[I Should Coco]

Also worth noting is WHERE in town these cameras are installed. Out here in Central Washington -- surprise! -- it's predominantly in the areas of town where Latinos live. Even though those usually aren't the most high-traffic intersections.

Hmmm ...

 

[maumann2]

Not a Flock issue, but got a letter in the mail this week from Washington County, Virginia, showing a screen grab of my truck going through a "work zone" along with a radar image of 73 mph.

Yes, that's my truck. Yes, I was on that section of I-81 during the time and date, which was a Saturday afternoon. Yes, I'm all for work zone safety when workers are present. And there were at least a dozen work zones along that stretch of freeway.

So it's not worth the $100 check I wrote to drive back up and argue it. But it does bring up the issue of video surveillance being used as AI law enforcement.

It smacks of the tried-and-true "speed trap" towns located all over the southeast and west -- including nearby Baldwin, Ga., which gets more than 50 percent of the city's revenue from police stops. Waldo, Callahan and Starke in Florida come immediately to mind, as well as Ely, Elko and Battle Mountain before I-80 was completed. Any place where the speed suddenly plummets from 65 to 25 without gradual decreases raises eyebrows to me.

Are cameras and radar maintained and calibrated? Was there adequate warning? Have there been workers injured or killed there? If it's a weekend and no workers are present, do "work zone" speeding violations still apply? If so, my bad. Again, everything appears legit and I paid the fine.

If it's just a reason for that part of Virginia to bring in some revenue to pay for the project, shame on you. One telling sign was the fact that the return address on the envelope was Baltimore, Maryland, not Abingdon. That's a bit sneaky.

 

[waterytart]

I watch a lot of British detective shows. There’s an almost obligatory scene in each episode where the sergeant tells his superior, «We’ve tracked him on CCTV from X to Y, but then he turned off on a country lane and we lost him. »

It’s coming here.

 

[MileHigh]

Out here, Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins have had Flock cameras and now banned them. And we also have a bunch of work zone cameras and places looking to keep them permanently. I've gotten a handful of them over the years. Never paid them since they weren't given by a law enforcement officer. Never had my registration/licenses renewals denied because of them. They are only revenue-makers and not about safety.

 

[Bubbler]

Having spent the last year doing cop reporting, I can tell you these things are being abused to the hilt.

Yes, they do get some bad dudes with their help, but there is no consideration about the civil liberties issues inherent with someone just driving down a street being used to ID people.

Probable cause? Ha! What’s that?

 

[Bubbler]

I watch a lot of British detective shows. There’s an almost obligatory scene in each episode where the sergeant tells his superior, «We’ve tracked him on CCTV from X to Y, but then he turned off on a country lane and we lost him. »

It’s coming here.

It’s already here.

 

[FileNotFound]

Just happened practically right outside my front door: https://www.wspa.com/news/local-news/greer-police-officers-fired-license-plate/

 

[dixiehack]

It smacks of the tried-and-true "speed trap" towns located all over the southeast and west -- including nearby Baldwin, Ga., which gets more than 50 percent of the city's revenue from police stops. Waldo, Callahan and Starke in Florida come immediately to mind, as well as Ely, Elko and Battle Mountain before I-80 was completed. Any place where the speed suddenly plummets from 65 to 25 without gradual decreases raises eyebrows to me.

In a rare fit of good sense, Alabama passed a law a few years ago stating that cities can get no more than 10 percent of their budget from traffic citations. After that they are welcome to keep writing tickets, but the rest of the money goes to the crime victim compensation fund run by the state.

 

[Batman]

Posted this on the AI thread a couple of weeks ago, but it's a great example of how dangerous these cameras can be.

An editor for The Drive, an automotive web site, had a loaner from Range Rover for a test drive around Minneapolis. Unfortunately, a few days prior, the company had misplaced a license plate in Los Angeles during a photo shoot with a similar vehicle. The LAPD entered it into their system as a stolen vehicle, but because of the unique way New Jersey (where the car was registered) does its manufacturer plates it resulted in a typo.
Fast forward a few days, and this guy found himself surrounded in a suburban Minneapolis parking lot by four cops making an aggressive stop on what they believed to be a grand theft auto suspect. Turns out, the Flock cameras had issued a national alert for the plate, it got a ping on this particular plate (which was the wrong plate), and had been tracking the guy around town for four days before the cops were finally able to corner him.

Thankfully, everybody kept their heads and this turned out well. It's easy to see how it wouldn't in a different situation.

How Flock Cameras Wrongly Tracked Me for Days Over ‘Stolen’ Plates and Sent Police After Me

 

[SixToe]

They are only revenue-makers and not about safety.

This is the answer

 

[Neutral Corner]

A 77-year-old Republican man is staging a solo protest against St. Pete’s Flock cameras

 

[Roscablo]

Out here, Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins have had Flock cameras and now banned them. And we also have a bunch of work zone cameras and places looking to keep them permanently. I've gotten a handful of them over the years. Never paid them since they weren't given by a law enforcement officer. Never had my registration/licenses renewals denied because of them. They are only revenue-makers and not about safety.

It easily got banned in Fort Collins and the cameras are already gone. Of course there were plenty of bootlicking social comments about how the police can't do their jobs now.

Fort Collins has had cameras since I was in college. There are four permanent ones at intersections that I can think of, and have always had vehicles capable of speed photos that they would move around to usually the same spots. I have gotten caught by the cars twice, although I am pretty sure both times they were in front of the worker's residence because they were side streets and have seen them there since. Both were sort of close to schools, though. I have gotten another speeding flash at one of the permanent ones because, funny enough I was trying to make the light and didn't think about the speed! Safety be damned.

With expansion of Colorado rules on this crap, such as the cameras being in the construction zones, Fort Collins now has a bunch of portable machines they move around too and keep them in a spot for a few weeks. They get blasted on Reddit pretty much immediately when they get moved, and have also been vandalized quite a bit.

It is definitely working out, too. This from a news story from earlier this month: "Fort Collins expected to bring in about $5.2 million in photo enforcement revenue last year. Instead, the program made about $2.9 million, with $2.7 million going toward operating expenses, according to city documents."

So, yeah, safety.