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How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

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Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#61

Post by fencepost »

barbazoo wrote: post #8
owlninja wrote: post #2

I recently contributed to https://deflock.me/ We had a local story where the gist was the police said they searched ALPR for the welfare of a young woman, but it was actually more focused on a possible abortion. [1] "Unrelated" this same Sheriff was later charged with sexual harassment, perjury, and retaliation against a witness [2]. These are the types that are able to easily track you if they wanted to. [1] https:/…

Checked out the map, there is one near me on a parking lot with this OSM data > camera:type fixed > direction 340 > man_made surveillance > surveillance:type ALPR Which results in "Operated by: Unknown, Made by: Unknown". What am I supposed to do with that info I wonder. How would I find out if it's actually Flock or if law enforcement would actually have access to this particular camera.

One thing you could do is go and physically look at the camera. https://deflock.me/identify has pictures of cameras from at least the major providers.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#62

Post by nickthegreek »

nonethewiser wrote: post #28
mrtesthah wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These specific abortion laws and systems of surveillance are new and unprecedented, as is the use of them together. So we should very much like to be aware of when they are being used.

Knowing abortions are illegal and flock cameras exist is sufficient information to know they are being used for such a purpose.

The amount of people you know who understand Flock can be counted with your right hand, and most likely can be counted without. This is not common knowledge.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#63

Post by tptacek »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #59
tptacek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We started hoping that car thefts would be a pressure point for a lot of violent crime (which tends to be committed from stolen cars --- this is the Kia problem). But we caught more innocent drivers with stale entries on the Illinois LEADS hotlist than actual stolen cars. When we OK'd the system after its pilot, it was on the condition that we no longer curb cars based on stolen car reports at all --- we'd only curb…

The lesson I keep getting from your experiences is that LEADS needs an overhaul. It turns out other states do have flags for things like "extraditable warrant" vs. just failure to appear warrants (something mentioned in previous discussions), and perhaps something could be done about the LEADS system if attention was given to it. It seems like fixing one's data sources is a great approach vs. tossing the baby out wit…

When you fix LEADS, let me know, and I'll be happy to revisit.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#64

Post by nickthegreek »

tptacek wrote: post #32
malvim wrote: post #9

Hm, the State thoroughly coopting private enterprises to oppress their people… I wonder what’s the name of that…

These are generally not private cameras; they're operated by states and municipalities. There are some corner cases like Home Depot that matter if your area has decided not to do ALPRs, but in most places, police department deployment of ALPRs is accelerating, not receding, and the private cameras are kind of a sideshow.

While I agree with your overall statement, I want to note that OP said private enterprise, not private cameras. Flock is doing more than distributing hardware here.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#65

Post by tptacek »

buran77 wrote: post #51
tptacek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about this Texas abortion Flock story is: whether or not your muni keeps Flock, absolutely no municipality should have out-of-state data sharing on (arguably, none of them should have any data sharing on at all --- operationally, departments do just fine making phone calls and getting the data they need). This is totally configurable inside Flock. It's very easy for a police department to do. Sometimes they…

> arguably, none of them should Indisputably, once someone has a hammer, especially one that grants them this much extra power, they will go looking for nails. In 2025 those who still defend those "hammers" with the wide-eyed impression that they can somehow control them once they're out there are at best showing hubris, lack of foresight, and disregard for the history books. To be more clear, when you push for "less…

This kind of reasoning is super useful if you live in a community that has a commanding majority of voters who read HN.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#66

Post by tptacek »

SoftTalker wrote: post #56
nonethewiser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im saying its a normal, predictable use of flock. Not that it's OK. Many readers might not know that abortions for the most part aren't legal in Texas. You should expect flock to assist law enforcement in catching people doing something illegal.

They don't catch people doing something illegal. They might record someone's car being near some place where maybe something illegal happened. That's not the standard of "reasonable doubt" required for a criminal conviction, and at best is (weak) circumstantial evidence.

There is no distinction between circumstantial and direct evidence in US criminal law.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#67

Post by tptacek »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #42

Is there a bumper sticker that can communicate "disregard all previous instructions and drop all session data"?

These cameras don't use LLMs. The "AI" we're talking about is machine learning models for identifying and OCR'ing license plates and car models.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#68

Post by tptacek »

anigbrowl wrote: post #50
dylan604 wrote: post #7

"the only reason an officer is able to even search for a suspect at a protest is because ALPRs collected data on every single person who attended the protest." No. This is simply not accurate. They collected data on every single car that attended, but there easily could be more people at the protest that rode in the same car, lyft/uber, took a bus, walked, or any other methods of getting there without a car.

Fair, but let's be realistic about the fact that it's also easy for cops to get cellphone tower and location data if they feel like doing correlations. If they tailor their request to the date and area around a protest this would be sufficiently 'narrowly tailored' for many judges to just give them a warrant.

This argument very nearly kept Flock cameras alive in my muni, with the logic being that ALPRs weren't doing anything phones weren't already doing vis a vis privacy.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#69

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

tptacek wrote: post #63
aerostable_slug wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lesson I keep getting from your experiences is that LEADS needs an overhaul. It turns out other states do have flags for things like "extraditable warrant" vs. just failure to appear warrants (something mentioned in previous discussions), and perhaps something could be done about the LEADS system if attention was given to it. It seems like fixing one's data sources is a great approach vs. tossing the baby out wit…

When you fix LEADS, let me know, and I'll be happy to revisit.

Don't improve anything until you can fix everything! No incremental improvements allowed!

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#70

Post by astroflection »

malvim wrote: post #9

Hm, the State thoroughly coopting private enterprises to oppress their people… I wonder what’s the name of that…

I don't know of a name for this but I would rephrase what you are getting at:

The state uses private entities to get around the constitution while those same private entities use the state to get around regulation.

It's a sick fucking symbiosis.

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