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An interactive map of Flock Cams

deflock.org

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Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#191

Post by mbrameld »

sciencejerk wrote: post #175

I personally know 3 victims of brutally violent crime. Flock would have detected, but maybe not prevented, two of these cases, where violence occurred in broad, open daylight near main roads and highways. Crimes occurred in left-leaning, anti-police small midwest city. All of the victims were women. I would encourage anti-Flockers and anti-authority individuals out here to question their motives and make sure that th…

It sounds like your point is that people should be willing to give up their privacy in return for the chance of detecting (not preventing) violent crimes.

I think it's also disingenuous (or at best, completely naive) to pretend like harm from Flock and other surveillance is hypothetical/theoretical. Here are just 2 recent examples of REAL harm:

https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/crime/2026/01/12/men...

https://kenoshacountyeye.com/2025/12/12/deputy-on-leave-accu...

You can guarantee that there are many more that haven't been caught.

Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#192

Post by cm2012 »

stri8ted wrote: post #162

It's clearly true there have been abuses as a result of this technology. And its also clearly true criminals have been caught as a result of the cams, that otherwise would not have been. If you believe the costs of the the abuses, and potential abuses, exceed the benefit, then at least be honest about the trade-off, because there are real benefits. Personally, I believe the costs, on net, are worth the benefits. And…

I strongly agree with this take.

Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#194

Post by Forgeties79 »

stri8ted wrote: post #172
Forgeties79 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question to you is: how are you assessing the costs? Do you know how many crimes have been stopped as a result of these cams? Do you know the extent to which our privacy is being lost and our data is being used against us or others?

I take into account publicly available information (news articles), factor in personal anecdotes, and reason about human nature and incentives. I know the extent of reported abuses, and I do my best to extrapolate. It's not perfect, but such is life. To be clear, even if we all agreed on the data, I still would not expect everyone to take the same position. There are subjective differences in values.

I get that but at the very least one should demand evidence to their efficacy

Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#195

Post by thephyber »

pc86 wrote: post #155
carefulfungi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should assume every police cruiser has a plate reader, too.

They do, especially in cities and wealthy suburbs (and honestly a lot of poor rural areas too). The difference is these typically don't zap that data up to a central database that any agency in the country can access, the way Flock does if only because the security people at Flock are a joke.

No they don’t. You are conflating “any” with “every”.

In my city, the plate reader cop cars have 4 smallish boxes, each mounted above a quarter panel. At most about 1/20 of the police cars for my local PD has these installed.

It’s more likely that private sector cars have them installed because car repo companies will pay bounties for license plate hits on a car they have an active repo contract for.

Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#196

Post by qubidt »

sciencejerk wrote: post #175

I personally know 3 victims of brutally violent crime. Flock would have detected, but maybe not prevented, two of these cases, where violence occurred in broad, open daylight near main roads and highways. Crimes occurred in left-leaning, anti-police small midwest city. All of the victims were women. I would encourage anti-Flockers and anti-authority individuals out here to question their motives and make sure that th…

This implies that the harm caused by this broad surveillance technology is "hypothetical/theoretical", when there is long history in this country's government using private companies to launder otherwise illegal surveillance of political activists[1].

And even if you ignore the historical parallels, there are already cases of: officers using Flock systems to stalk dating partners[2][3], immigration enforcement using Flock data to track targets[4], and ICE/CBP bypassing the systems in place that let local jurisdictions choose not to share with federal agencies[5].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Goals_Foundation

[2]: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2026/01/12/menasha...

[3]: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2026/02/24/mpd-off...

[4]: https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...

[5]: https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2025/10/21/leaving-t...

Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#197

Post by pseudalopex »

stri8ted wrote: post #162

It's clearly true there have been abuses as a result of this technology. And its also clearly true criminals have been caught as a result of the cams, that otherwise would not have been. If you believe the costs of the the abuses, and potential abuses, exceed the benefit, then at least be honest about the trade-off, because there are real benefits. Personally, I believe the costs, on net, are worth the benefits. And…

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#198

Post by pseudalopex »

ergocoder wrote: post #170

I'm gonna get downvoted for this. But I'd like cameras in my neighborhood. Sure, there's a security risk but there's also a risk of not catching criminals due to lack of evidence. Tons of crimes aren't prosecuted due to the lack of evidence. A security risk doesn't impact average people, and it can be handled more easily.

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#199

Post by JKCalhoun »

sodality2 wrote: post #10
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It may technically be possible to route a drive around them That's an interesting idea...

https://dontgetflocked.com/

Cool, but…

I was hoping for an online game, maybe Escape From Flockopolis.

Driving sim (using Google street view) where you try to avoid the Flock.

Re: An interactive map of Flock Cams

#200

Post by JKCalhoun »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #31
snailmailman wrote: post #5

This is a quite scary map. They are all over my local area. It may technically be possible to route a drive around them, but if you take the most convenient path between any two points at least one camera will spot you. I'd have to leave my neighborhood through back roads and enter local shopping areas through sidestreets. This data shouldn't even be collected in the first place, let alone consolidated into a nationa…

wow. quite literally the only ones in my area are surveilling the county park / community center. that's creepy. I'll just have to assume they're doing something creepier at the public library.

Saw two in my area on the map.

I drove out to investigate, ended up adding two more to the site.

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