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Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

seattletimes.com

361–370 of 470 posts

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Redactions are necessary to protect innocent members of the public If these controls don't exist inside the organization, they shouldn't exist for the public either.

I think it would generally be a good thing for cops kicking down doors to have working body cameras; the state's monopoly on violence is easily abused, and should be carefully monitored. But if the cops get the wrong address for their no-knock warrant, kick down my door, and find me jerking off in my bedroom - I would prefer the footage not be made public.

Your best defense against this obvious attempt to obstruct justice is "but my penis may be exposed"? Really?

This community really turned around its stance on transparency and openness in the blink of an eye. It's baffling.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#362
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start at Boren Ave and walk down Pike Street. Film it.

You don't even need to film it, it's on Google Maps Street View: https://maps.app.goo.gl/cdyFttFsQPhpBHR48 That street view was filmed taken two months ago, when it was still warm and nice out, so tent activity would've been at its peak. I wish I had seen your post earlier because I literally walked that stretch of road earlier this evening -- a couple friends of mine from out of town are going to the Patti Smith sho…

Thanks for the link.

In the interest of saving myself an hour of time uploading a video, I’ll attest that yes—that street view is as “average day on Pike” as it gets.

To be clear, there are homeless who walk around the area… and Capitol Hill isn’t exactly the nicest area these days. 3rd and Pike isn’t nice. But Seattle in 2025 isn’t real-life World War Z.

Parent commenter should visit sometime.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

i will never tire of the irony of a man who owned humans being lauded as a freedom fighter.

Whatever you're doing at the moment, I'll bet somebody 200 years from now will condemn it.

It might not even take that long, at the rate we're progressing.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#364

I'm in the PNW and they put Flock cameras up in my area recently. Nobody likes them (libs or cons), and we've seen some rather creative approaches to uh...disabling them. One person took a pipe cutter to the mount and spirited the whole unit away, another apparently fired a shotgun slug through it, somebody else looks like they used it to relieve their anger problems with a metal pipe. Flock cameras, America's bipart…

Some guy I once met in a bar told me that he liked to mix a 1:1 solution of elmer's glue and water, put it into a spray bottle, set the nozzle to "stream", then squirt it all over the lens of a traffic camera near his house which he found offensive. His logic was that this made more sense than destroying the camera, because he could do it over and over and over: the company operating it would have to send someone out…

This is the best way to handle it because if the company presses charges they just look ridiculous.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way to see where they are located? Or which cities are installing them? Hadn’t heard of them til this week

The security cameras deployed in Lowe's and Home Depot parking lots are Flock. All the better to track your movements, citizen.

They have a very “citizen pick up that can” feel to them.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the perspective of a beat-down Seattlite that thinks all the problems are just "normal". I lived there for a very long time, and have lived in several other major cities since then. Seattle's problems are not "normal". And they should not be normalized by thinking this is just how it is . It is not that way in other places.

All the west coast port cities (SF, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver) imho have always had a similar s.hole vibe. For most of the last 40 years SF was the worst. But now Seattle has the top place. Clearly complex issue with many causes but also clearly someone in SF did something to improve the situation and someone in Seattle didn't do that thing.

Seattle was highly functional for a while. When the tech industry grew, the region attracted a huge population of people from California and it destroyed the local and state politics. SF policies came to Seattle and in a worse way. SF has at least swung back a tiny bit but Seattle hasn’t, and it’s why there is rampant crime, trash, and encampments.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were okay with it when they assumed, I think naively, that only guilty people had anything to hide. Now that we've got someone willing to throw all rules and morals to the wayside in charge, they've understandably begun to reassess.

Sure wish Americans could understand the issues before they happen. Not after it's too late.

Stupidity is not exclusive to Americans. It's something that unites all of mankind.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can find them listed here. https://deflock.me/map#map=5/39.828300/-98.579500

Which is better than Flock's "Transparency" Report. I live in WA, ex-Flock employee, and in my County, half of the agencies with Flock agreements are not on their Transparency portal. And at the very least - why can't you search the Transparency Portal? You have to try each and every agency name. Let's try https://transparency.flocksafety.com/ ... NoSuchKey The specified key does not exist. index.html [redacted] [red…

> And at the very least - why can't you search the Transparency Portal? You have to try each and every agency name.

Was it different in the past? It seems like it'd be beneficial to Flock and their customers to make obtaining this information as obtuse as possible, while maintaining the vaguest appearance of "transparency". If they could charge you $10 per search, they probably would.

As an aside - can I ask why you left Flock? I assumed that the people who would've wanted to work there would be fully invested into the idea. What changed your mind?

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redactions are necessary to protect innocent members of the public. Going through all the footage from every officer every single day to perform these redactions would require a huge amount of manpower. That may change with new technology, but until it can be automated reliably, the WA legislature got this right. With shit like traffic cameras, I don't think redactions are necessary, although it would be nice if all…

> Redactions are necessary to protect innocent members of the public If these controls don't exist inside the organization, they shouldn't exist for the public either.

They the controls do exist, just not at the capacity required to do it for literally every single hour of footage recorded by body cameras. Hence why they do respond to requests for specific incidents but not blanket or bulk requests.

If they had to do this for all footage then the police department would likely respond by decreasing field officer counts to reduce footage, as well as shift resources away from law enforcement activities and towards redacting the massive volume of footage.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when it’s all tied into the ECU and you can’t remove it. Ugh… You’re right. It’s a start. There’s also https://www.deflock.me

On some vehicles it’s easier than others. Unfortunately it’s a great idea to research before making a purchase decision.

Is local jamming or removing their antennas a viable strategy? Seems like it could be easier to just make them unable to phone home, rather than trying to surgically rip out the bundle of hardware and software responsible for it while leaving everything else intact.
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