Is the number of Flock Safety cameras in America going up or down?
US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
361–370 of 468 posts
Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
#362I drove into a very affluent subdivision this weekend, and like most others around here it had a flock camera recording every car on the way in. This camera, however, had the gall to advertise its presence as a neighborhood security measure. "Flock Safety watches this neighborhood" read the sign on the post, or some such. Of course the residents there had no choice but to accept its installation, as the local police…
> no choice but to accept its installation You might be shocked to discover there are subdivisions so affluent they can afford physical armed security and access control structures with far more invasive identification and logging procedures.
A few? / some? of the very richest and most exclusive have armed quick reaction forces of essentially off-duty/retired police and PMCs. I know of one by a fancy hotel where presidents, celebs, and other heads of states stay beside very rich residential neighborhood abutting fancy condos/apartments.
Interestingly, a lot of ordinary "gated" communities aren't as exclusive as their misleading signage suggests. For example, there are a number of areas where the sidewalks are indeed public and right-of-ways but display says the area is "private" when it is not as evidenced by county GIS data. Jeff Gray runs into this often in Florida. It's similar to the bogus "no parking" signs and hiding of public right of way access that routinely happens in Malibu.
Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
#363>[1] Would crime go up, down or stay the same if all surveillance cameras were removed? The answer to that is the only one that matters. At least 40,990 [2] innocent people died in the US in 2023, without significant outcry - that is, on the road, in car accidents. People in the US clearly value the freedom of driving over the deaths of innocent people. In 2023, there were an estimated 19,800 [3] homicides in the US.…
> People are not willing to sacrifice their freedom to save 40,990 people from cars, why should our constant locations be monitored? It's not binary. People are absolutely willing to sacrifice some of their freedoms to save lives. That's why we have speed limits, seat-belt and helmet laws, automobile safety regulations, DWI laws, etc.
have you seen how anyone online reacts when speeding or red light cameras are installed? or when parking becomes discouraged for sake of pedestrians or residents?
i am somewhat convinced that Americans views on cars is like that of guns, a absolute right that can and will not be infringed no matter how many must die
cars are more of a necessary “evil” than guns so the comparison is a little extreme so i don’t think the infringement of movement to cars is entirely irrational or unmetered, esp when in 99% of this country a car is absolutely required to live
Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm reminded of prepper forum discussions. Where some do little more than hoard supplies, weapons and gadgets yet don't network and build communities. In an actual societal breakdown scenario these isolated individuals will become loot drops for others who actually band together.
Heh, I never thought about that but its so true. If society breaks down on the extreme level they anticipate the smart thing to do is probably join a super tight-knit community with lots of young people - maybe the furries or the Amish.
I wonder whether The Walking Dead ever did episodes with a surviving Amish community among it's many spinoffs. Potential problem for them is being outgunned by any aggressive community nearby.
Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, the muh public roads false representation. Guess what, all the roads around me are private easements, all privately owned, and they are that way 90% to town. A good portion of my trips never touch a publicly owned road yet I'm still required to display my plate on them. We don't even have public, tax maintained roads where I live (I literally have to bring out a tractor and fix them myself when they wear down…
You should check on that. AFAIK you don’t have to display a plate unless the property owner (or HOA) requires it or it’s a state chartered private road like some turnpikes. Police may still hassle you over it but they shouldn’t. Many farmers have plateless farm trucks, people who live in the woods have plateless UTVs that they drive on private dirt and gravel roads, etc.
I looked this up in my state. They are exempt on private roadways that are only open to select persons via implied or explicit permission[]. They do not appear to be exempt on private roadways that have public access, which is what all the roads around me are. I cannot even selectively limit access on my own roadway because it has an easement for the public to pass. But I still fully own it and am responsible for all of the maintenance.
Therefore it does appear the plates are required even though they are fully privately owned roads and privately maintained. Because our roads don't meet the definition of 'private' road in my state even though they're completely private.
Not legal advice.
Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read this as 2020 was Covid related drop, it then returned to normal for 2 years, then began dropping again in late 2023. The covid blip is explained by what was going on at the time, nothing since 2023 has any explanation and could be flock
COVID makes it spike up (after a months long downward trend long before the cameras), not down. Nation-wide, incidentally. The cameras were added where the black rectangle is here: https://imgur.com/a/i00Gna0
There are two nearly identical peaks on this chart. The trough between them is Covid.
I’m not seeing anything I can call a Covid spike
Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So as much bad as you think it does, there are clear cases where its helped You can "justify" so much with that sentence, that it becomes meaningless. Also, it won't hide the fact that this surveillance infrastructure can cause much much more harm then it prevents. We've seen what it might do in repressive states and we see today that even those states which represented the idea of individual freedom on this planet…
>> "it won't hide the fact that this surveillance infrastructure can cause much much more harm then it prevents." " can cause much much more harm." Cars kill way more people than guns per year. Where do you draw the line on something as subjective as this? It has the capability to cause harm but has it to the degree you're talking about? Its debatable. Also, taking a serial killer who murdered 8 women and dismembered…
Serial killers are rare and limited in how many people they can realistically kill. We already have governments in the world who use increasing surveillance technology to crack down on public dissent and persecute minorities. Or pursue their war aims in other countries.
Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they only installed them based on collision/injury data, and that data identified mostly poor areas, you would be ok with it? Because this is what the data finds over and over. The people most harmed by red light running are the poor people who live in these neighborhoods.
Maybe! I might question the benefits of making the poor area even poorer via fines they likely can't afford. I might wonder if there are confounding factors like poorly maintained roads and vehicles at play. I might wonder if the yellow lights have the same timing as in the suburbs.
I might question why you are so opposed to interventions that save the lives of people in poorer neighborhoods (disproportionately not owners of cars).
Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the drones are "providing information" to the police, it's only a matter of time before their AI hallucinates something that gets someone killed. We've already seen AI gun detection services that report things like Doritos bags as guns.
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I don't trust the authorities to use information just for public safety and against legitimate criminal activity (in part because legitimate crime needs to be decided legally in court not just because of police suspicion).
There's too many examples where they've abused information for harassment, dubious arrests and prosecutions. And this can be systematic not just a few bad apples here and there.
We've already seen this with how ICE has conducted itself with more funding and surveillance.