392
There's a few in a town nearby, owned by the city, looking at a roadway. Then there's three, with no owner information, all looking into a Lowe's parking lot.
I'm so glad this is slowly getting more solid traction. For more viewing and reading pleasures on the topic,
Videos:
Breaking The Creepy AI in Police Cameras - Benn Jordan
Breaks down the technology and deployment of the systems. Builds his own and shows strategies to beat the analysis of your data.
Austin City Council is playing games & I've had enough. - Louis Rossmann
Liveview's facial recognition discussed in person with sales director.
Citizens address Austin Mayor on AI Surveillence cameras; AS EXPECTED on September 25th part 1
Louis Rossmann attempted to address the surveillance systems in his local town, couple of other videos on his channel showing the hurdles and bureaucracy that's making it harder to address these situations.
Everyone Should Ask Their City Council About This... - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder
Another video detailing ALRP's (automatic license plate readers/flock safety systems) and their uses in local and interstate areas
EFF Members' Speakeasy: Police Surveillance and ALPR - The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Articles:
Data Driven: What Is ALPR? - The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Lots of articles listed in here, one of the major groups trying to spread information on these programs.
The city I work in installed Flock cameras. City Council was clear they were only to be used to flag license plates for active felony warrants, silver alerts, and Amber alerts.
In less than 48 hours they were using them to give out tickets and track people who had turned in Open Records requests regarding the police department.
Guess it's our job to go around destroying them then
They are a tool for terrorism. ACAB
A. C. R. A. B.
All Crabs Really Are Brilliant
I’ve heard of Amber alerts for lost kids but are silver alerts for lost older folk?
Yup. In California we even segregate the alerts based on race for some fucking reason. Black people don’t get the same normal alert that every other ethnicity gets, they get an EbOnY aLeRt.
Wtf? I know there were several that you don't see very often, but for race? wtf!
what i duckducked and its true lmao
this is the first time I've seen someone use that term
I like it. keep it up
Hmm, needs a bit of workshopping IMO. How about "I duckduckwent" instead?
Just duck it...
I've duckduckgone
Yea, but they are usually more about someone with dementia finding the car keys and driving off than kidnappings.
That happened to my grandfather more than once. He was in the neighborhood but would lose his bearings, not realizing that we was three blocks from home. A bit nuts.
Yep
I found this to be the most interesting part:
You might think this sounds like it violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. Well, so does the American Civil Liberties Union. Norfolk, Virginia Judge Jamilah LeCruise also agrees, and in 2024 she ruled that plate-reader data obtained without a search warrant couldn't be used against a defendant in a robbery case.
Last time I read about this issue was before this happened. Finally the ball is bouncing back a little. Hope to see more of it.
Neat map that compiles how many weekly contributions are made around the US to the deflock map
man that is fucked up
why are republicans not going crazy over this?
same reason most democrats don't
it said "worldwide" on the website but its actually just the us
Damn there are a couple in my tiny rural town, they appear to be high up though.
Anyone have tips or ideas about how to disable or destroy them?
Maybe a paintball gun would be effective? I'd make sure you aren't in view and wearing proper equipment though.
Ah! I didn't even think of that, and I own one. Good call.
These also have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. I'm convinced that they also connect mac addresses of your devices to determine who is driving. I also suspect that they use facial recognition when possible.
Don't most modern Phones randomize their Mac Address for every wifi? My Samsung does by default, you need to manually disable it so you don't get thrown into the captive portal every time you reconnect to a public wifi
The facial recognition would be done by whoever they send footage to.
Wouldn't be shocked about the hardware addresses though.
The cameras themselves are simply trail cameras with GPS and a cell signal. The images get sent to a server for processing. I'm also sure that they send at least some images to be read by humans manually.
I feel that this should be the biggest issue in US national news. And although I do not consume much main stream news I have only ever seen blogs and small circulation articles on the issue. Like how can any one on either aide of the political divide be ok with shit?
Watch the Louis Rossmann thing in the Austin hearing... the mayor of whothefuckever he is actively out-of-ordered anyone mentioning those cameras... except the representatives of the company that makes them, who got to speak, twice, uninterrupted.
There is good traction on the federal lawsuit in Norfolk. Your absolutely right this is a bipartisan issue. It will set huge precident if IJ wins the case. At the very least, LEO needs warrants to use the system. Right now it's the wild west.
IJ posts updates of the case here. They have already tried to derail the lawsuit multiple times but they have been able to push through all the appeals thus far so it can actual go to a jury trial.
Thank you for sharing this
several reasons:
they both think they're in control of it... but mostly because the people funding most of them (same people) are telling them not to.. often in the form of police unions and relevant organizations
any party large enough to win anything is going to be mostly co-opted... you gotta vote for individuals... not parties.
Because Trump supporters will say, "I don't do anything wrong so it doesn't matter, it'll only catch libruls"
And Trump administration people will say, "Well they won't use it on me ever and we can use it to inflict maximum suffering on our enemies"
Most Democrats will and have said the same thing.
Oddly... Trump admin people know better than that... but I'm not expecting them to actually do anything differently than what you suggest. Probably both are already captured by whatever data has already been found on them.
so much for the fourth amendment
The Third Party Doctrine obliterated the fourth amendment.
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
392 points (99.5% liked)
Privacy
42322 readers
644 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS