▲ 274 points
back
169 comments
Flock was pitched as the triumph of technology over criminality. It's surveillance network was supposed to end crime. However, when people witness extreme criminality thriving unpunished at the top levels of U.S. politics, the lie becomes evident. Flock isn't about ending crime. It's a tool of control to be used by criminals.
Who watches the watchers? Everyone.
It's a nice idea. Everything is backwards right now. It should to be the other way around: random citizens should be essentially anonymous while all members of the government are surveilled 24/7. Surveillance should scale with power.
This is a perspective I hadn’t heard or considered before.
Often times common crime (petty/violent) is viewed as a totally different area as white-collar crime or corruption. But they’re related.
As someone who’s had bikes stolen and car broken into, I sympathize with the desire for surveillance (especially in San Francisco). But Flock has no safeguards against cops using it to stalk ex-wives or misusing a partial match.
I put privacy over ending crime. That’s the unspoken stance everyone needs to decide on. Ubiquitous surveillance will end most crime but do we want that if the cost is our privacy?
>Who watches the watchers? Everyone.
Maybe everyone should be keeping an eye on more things than they have been.
For this to work as a public service it needs to be a public service.
All the streams should be live and easily available in real-time to the public who should have an ongoing say in where they want cameras and where they do not to begin with, along with frequent citizen reviews regarding things like relocation.
Detectives are just going to have to face facts no differently than everybody has already admitted there are not enough cops to watch all the cameras all the time, so nobody can deny if the public eyes got involved the amount of stolen property recovered would be through the roof compared to what the department can ever accomplish no matter what. So there is no valid excuse if you are serious about public service or curtailing crime.
I would think the wisest communities would only allow commercial cameras as a public service beyond reproach, and as a fairness gesture should never have to pay anything whatsoever for not only the camera and the stream but all the related software that is supposed to be so helpful to the public.
Assuming Flock is going to sell the data to whomever they can well beyond complete local control whether they are supposed to or not, at least the locals who allow the cameras shouldn't have to pay anything ever. In fact they should always be licensing each public camera on strict terms so Flock can pay the community more than the cost of ongoing administration along with getting all the data and the latest state-of-the art local processing in the deal. If they really want to be a public service instead of having the public consider them a public nuisance.
>helping government agencies respond if a camera is damaged.
>“We’ve planned for it,” the company wrote, adding that protection plans are available for purchase.
No no no no no, this is so wrong, Flock should always be paying the local communities just to have each camera in place and if they can not generate enough community goodwill to keep vandalism from escalating it should be a cost they alone should bear.
Flock should be expected to do just fine in places that were never considered a "free country" to begin with and where things like freedom and liberty don't ring a bell.
If you're in the USA why even start out just the opposite of the American way if you were capable of anything that was more worthwhile?
Passed an old guy sitting on the side of the road with a lawn chair today, he was holding a pool skimmer with cardboard attached at the end to block a flock camera. There was a local news story about it [1]. Happy to see it.
[1] https://www.cltampa.com/news/a-77-year-old-republican-man-is...
> and the FlockHopper app can be used to navigate without passing any of them.
Didn't know about this! Pretty neat
Well that is just art and quite the signal.
I'm sure my politics are very different than that man's, but at least we agree on the fact that Flock fucking sucks.
Someone should start a surveillance company and put up their cameras pointed at the politicians houses.
If they then try to get them taken down using legal action they could sue under equal protection clause.
Edit add: Make data stream of cameras public for general population but charge if LEO or aggregate data search.
I've done a lot of thinking on this, even crowdsourcing the coverage with people standing on sidewalks using their phones with a specific app, which collects similar data. Stand near the court house, politicians homes. However Flock tends to say that the people that contract them own the data to get around a lot of the liabilities, so they themselves "don't own the data". That is the hard part to emulate as a citizen who doesn't have same protections as a cop or city council.
I'm going off personal research though so I could be wrong.
When people feel like their voice isn’t heard, this is the inevitable result.
On some level, it feels like (some) politicians haven't realised this, or have forgotten it.
We can either have a functioning democracy and justice system, where responsibility is delegated to people whose job it is to uphold society's values, or we can have individual people that do job themselves. If a judge or police officer isn't going to carry out justice, then eventually people are going to do it themselves. That tends to get messy, so we stopped doing that with good reason, and built institutions to better service justice, but if the institutions aren't doing their jobs, they should be reformed or thrown out.
I had this thought just the other day. It is not possible for any governing body to completely ignore the governed unless the governed have no issues that that lead to speach/action. There will always be a petition/revolt/exodus which results in the governing body hearing the governed.
Violence and destruction are perfectly natural ways of communicating. Some animals use sounds and almost all use body language.
One could even argue communicating over the phone or internet lacks the destructive component. Irl behavior is heavily modified by it.
Verbal communication is a work in progress. We really want it to work. Sometimes you have to make people listen. Get them back in the program :)
NO! Even if your voice is heard, the state doesn't need to track your every move.
Lets instead talk about the growing vigalante action by Flock corporation refusing to allow cities to remove cameras from their property after the contract is cancelled. Some cities have been forced to cover the cameras with trash bags.
https://www.404media.co/flock-objects-to-our-removing-their-...
https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flo...
Local politicians need to coordinate to remove their Flock cameras at the same time and pass laws to prevent any new one from being put up. Flock doesn't have the resources to sue every single one of them, especially if every city commits to dragging out the process for as long as possible by creating as many legal hurdles as they can, all of which Flock would have to have a court rule on.
Kind of like how practically every Scientologist filed suit against the IRS over CoS having their tax exempt status revoked, to which the IRS eventually relented.
If I were a city government, I would just start charging Flock rent.
This isn't a vigilante movement. These cameras are being installed without any constitutional basis. And people don't need legal authority to correct an unlawful camera installation problem that cities are not handling.
Perhaps you meant it's not a vandalism movement?
Flock is a vigilante movement.
eh? it's still vigilantism if they're 'correcting' something unlawful?
There is a growing counter-tech neo luddite movement forming, and I think its going to get very large. At some point we need to step back and ask - why are we simply accepting technologies that erode freedoms and subjugate the masses
Well because the people who control countries (some countries call them kings, others call them billionaires and politicians) said we should.
I'm proud to have mapped an impressive amount of cameras. You see a lot of things on a bicycle.
I also add non ALPR cameras. There are multiples more of those. I see no reason those can't detect license plates either.
Congratulations, Flock, on establishing the most successful honeypot of all time!
No matter what the level of corruption, no matter which side of the surveillance state you support, no matter which side of the cameras you're on, Flock has a way to shine a spotlight on you and bring you out of the closet!
Currently following a YouTuber who knows all the roadside regulations for signposts and he points out how the Flock poles are all installed dangerously wrong, and will surely impale the next driver to crash out on the shoulder!
This one [0] by chance?
@theguardrailguy is great, love his work, highly recommend.
> Congratulations, Flock, on establishing the most successful honeypot of all time!
No way man that award goes to cloudflare
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
the problem with pitching Flock as "the triumph of technology over criminality" is that because of all the bogus edicts, an average american commits three felonies every single day. and whoever picks who gets prosecuted for what, is the owner running the plantation.
Three Felonies a Day http://www.harveysilverglate.com/books/ In 2006, the Code of Laws of the United States of America: 200000 pages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code) with 500 pages/week it's about 10 years just to read it, i.e. to have a chance not breaking it (but this wrongly assumes that it's not growing meanwhile). In 2012: Federal Code: 75000 pages, Tax Code: 72000 pages.
The Criminalization of Everyday Life http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=42372 http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175781/
John Stossel's Illegal Everything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiJB8YuDBQ John Stossel - Technically, That's Illegal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf-uPAItVtM
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.” — Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp...
I think it should depend on what residents living in the street want with several tiers. Public cam, paywall, law enforcement 24/7 or for a specific case, encrypted court order only, fake cams.
Each with different aproval requirements. A public cam would require 100%. Fake cams req only one vote. etc
Related:
H.R.9800 - Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act - https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/9800...
Not to be too cynical but
>No Federal agency may purchase, deploy, operate, access, or contract for any automated surveillance system that identifies, tracks, or records individuals [. . .]
Emphasis mine.
Am I wrong or does this 1. not outlaw the purchase of the data, just the systems themselves, 2. not outlaw the use of the data unless it was obtained by the federal government through a system they have purchased, and 3. not outlaw local or state law enforcement from buying it, just outlaws the use of federal funds to buy these systems.
So flock feed the data through brokers instead of directly, correct? Or am I reading this wrong?
Yeah it’s quite common it seems. Similar to the ULEZ camera takedowns. And the ULEZ cameras were also supposedly a tool of government control. As were SF’s speed cameras. And so on and so forth.
I am not convinced. I am happy with the speed cameras, and I’m happy with the ULEZ cameras, and I’m happy with Flock cameras.
The position that we must destroy state function is outrageous to me. We have a path to peace and safety and the ensuing prosperity. The cameras must be preserved.
How does a centralized power structure knowing every action millions of people take bring about "peace and safety and the ensuing prosperity"? I guess you didn't mean for most of us.
It's one thing if a democratically legitimized government entity is in control, like with ULEZ.
It's another thing entirely if a private oligarch owns the cameras.
Flock and ULEZ are not the same.
Undecided on Flock.
Totally decided against vandalism. Violations of the social contract suck.
Edit to invite explanations. If you approve of vandalism to flock cameras, what are your feelings about vandalizing abortion clinics, mosques or opposition political headquarters?
I would also ask, what are your feelings on vandalizing concentration camps? It's about authoritarian control, not bodily autonomy, or religious freedom.
Social contract also includes the expectation that, over all, businesses work for the benefit of society, not its detriment.
(in the comments here) there are some very interesting topics touched that would definitely warrant a discussion of their own.
One of these topics is how (in many countries) the government become the enemy of it's people - the politicians are aligning willingly (or with help of corruption) towards the rich elites (oligarchy). And they are building a failed state, two tier state - a system where the law only applies to the weak and the strong (plus politicians) can roam unchecked.
In theory the government is hired by sofereign to govern the country to the benefit of the people. In practice government can do just about any bad deed and there is noone to stop them. If you ever lived in 2nd or 3rd world country this is nothing new but the 1st world democracies have enjoyed wonderful egalitarian libral state for many decades and many of them are turning into authoritarian states. Or worse.
This doesn't conclude all my observations but I will stop myself here to see what other people think
So they knock out Flock. Then Axon comes in and replaces them with superior versions, built into streetlights and municipal infrastructure. The sentiment seems reasonable but any expectations that our overlords will ever abandon total control and surveillance is delusional. Something far more sophisticated than vandalism would be necessary, and I'm not sure anything exists. The value of public opinion is at an all time low and scheduled to continue dropping.
Edit: Our society begged for a technocratic rulership. We largely supported the process through our hardware and software purchases, but facilitated it too through decades of indolence and indifference until it got kinda too late. Aside from a few micro victories, mostly more symbolic than effective, I think the future is easily enough foreseen by imagining something a lot worse.
I think I may have a minority view about surveillance. At least I need someone to explain something to me.
Is the backlash really about privacy, or is the real problem a complete lack of trust in government?
Because if I thought someone would actually use the cameras to enforce the law, that's not actually such a bad outcome. You aren't supposed to speed, you aren't supposed to let your dog poop without cleaning up after it, and there's a bunch of other offences as well.
Why would I not support a hypothetical police that enforced these rules? Guy takes his dog for a walk, doesn't pick up, boom, cameras plus AI finds the person and issues a fine. Enforcing a social norm, cheaply. There seems to be evidence that it works with speeding: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250402181306.h...
The kind of story that I've actually come across is that someone with access to the public database abuses it. They peek into their ex girlfriend's records, that kind of thing. Obviously nobody thinks that's ok, and I can understand if the main pushback people have is that none of the first thing will happen and lots of the second thing will happen. But that doesn't seem to address the principle itself.
So what exactly is the argument for why we shouldn't have cameras catching people who break the law? Presumably we would have no issue with a cop seeing someone breaking the law, and enforcing. The issue comes up when we replace the policeman with a system that is always on and way cheaper to run than a cop.
EDIT
Just to be clear, I understand it if people don't trust the government. What I'm looking for is an argument other than that. Thus far every response has been along the lines of "you can't trust the government to use this fairly/correctly".
That's known, everybody can see that argument.
I want to know if there's a reason beyond that why widespread surveillance shouldn't be a thing.
They’re hiring software engineers!
Why is the company called Flock? Because the oligarchy and their police/government/tech enforcers view citizens as sheep. It's so flagrant, a sci-fi author couldn't come up with something more on the nose.
Flock is definitely not the only provider of this kind of surveillance. What is the real reason that this is getting so much media attention?