In stopped clock is right twice a day news, Florida is moving to ban Flocks from state highways.
Aside from Florida, there is a bunch of momentum all around the US now. Some cities just moved to another ALPR vendor like Axon. That sucks ofc. But many have eliminated ALPR entirely too, after citizens spoke out! Some cities had a constant stream of ppl speaking at city council meetings about it, months on end, dozens of ppl in every meeting.
It’s harder to deal with Flocks on private property. Like Home Depot and Lowes. A city gov terminating its own contract, doesn’t stop Home Depot. I dream of a coordinated, nation-wide boycott of co’s that put private Flocks in their lots. And letting them know exactly why.
Let’s keep the anti ALPR momentum going. It’s starting to see results. And don’t fall into the illogic of thinking it’s not perfect, therefore it’s useless.
Monday’s order did not affect cameras on private property or on local rights-of-way — where 98% of the surveillance cameras are located
FLORIDA BANS FLOCK CAMERAS ~practically nowhere~
No, that is untrue. I hate this kind of defeatism.
It is true by a simple count of cameras, most in Florida remain. But that is not the right metric, unless you planned a tour of every Lowes and Home Depot and w/e in the state. Getting them off the state highway system is a big deal. And more and more cities are starting to terminate contracts too.
Just because the whole problem isn’t solved in a single stroke, does NOT mean we should minimize how important each step is.
Yes. But I don’t have to go to Home Depot or Lowes or w/e. Contrast, it is effectively impossible to avoid the Flock network on public roads. They capture cars and bikes and pedestrians.
So even if most of the cameras remain by simple count, it is still a very big deal to get them off public highways. And the more cities who join, the better that will be too.
Are they allowed to point at roads if they’re in private parking lot? That is unclear to me
Not sure, TBH. The ones in private lots near me seem pointed to surveil the lots, if I go by the de-flock map. But I would be surprised if a few didn’t pick up short segments of the public roads sometimes.
So my guess is it happens, but it’s still a big improvement on having that PLUS the public road network too.
Defeatism. Defending public spaces is important
What is defeatism? Making sure headline-only readers have an accurate understanding of what has happened?
Florida is leading the way?! Huh. This tells you how bipartisan this issue is. It’s just so blatantly unconstitutional.
It really is. While back, I saw a poll, can’t remember the city. But just over 90% of the local citizens there wanted Flocks gone. Rest were either unsure, or in favor of Flocks.
90%! You can’t get 90% of Americans to agree that 2+2=4.
I’m no fan of Republicans, but tbf a decade+ ago the vast majority of politicians opposing ALPRs were Republicans (still, their implementation was largely biparisan - it’s just that Dems had very little on opposition side compared to Repubs).
This comment is dubious at best. “Vast majority” X Doubt. Republicans definitely don’t get credit here due to otherwise being aligned with the police state. Also ALPRs are not what Flock and Axon are doing. It’s mass surveillance.
My cousin’s dad was recently T-boned in an intersection, he was ok but his car was totaled. Before paying him out the insurance company bought the high res footage of his car in a grocery store parking lot just minutes before the collision. The company sent him an itemized list with zoomed in shots of every scratch, dent, windshield crack etc and knocked off $5,000+ from his payout. That’s why it’s called surveillance capitalism 🤑
I think as stories like these become more common, you’ll see more people willing to vote out politicians who refused to outlaw these. Just imagine if these things were allowed to be used for traffic tickets, they wouldn’t last one election cycle!
axon cameras coming to a neighborhood near you
-Florida
These stores host flock and other cameras on the premise of: it deters crime, decreases theft, shoplifting, and other criminal acts and is a net benefit on that basis. Privacy makes them no money. As far as they’re concerned they’d put cameras in your cars and homes to make sure you’re not stealing from them.
You have to break that calculation so it costs far more than it can save to host these. Cutting down cameras doesn’t incur anywhere near large enough a cost to change that calculus and there’s a good chance Flock pays for the new cameras not the store. A boycott would be hard to get them to acknowledge as being connected to their hosting these kinds of surveillance systems and the people who put them in and keep them there would try to strongly deny a correlation so it would need to be a militantly disciplined, well organized campaign.
The problem is you need the media to help you organize such a widespread and well-telegraphed in message boycott campaign and the media is fully on the side of Flock and regarding any vandalism of Flock and similar ALPRs as a case where they desperately want the person caught and will air their photos to attempt to help catch such a criminal monster. So the media would never broadcast such a campaign, would never even acknowledge it. Local news makes so much money off police stories, local crime fear-mongering, etc.
Of course there are other options to change the cost calculus but they’re not preferable due to legality issues.
Did I wake up in a alternate universe?
