Columbus police have paused their use of Flock automatic license plate readers after an officer was accused of searching the same plate more than 270 times over roughly 14 months.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that Mayor Andrew Ginther called the allegations against the officer “deeply troubling” in comments made this week as the city moved to immediately halt use of the cameras and cover them with bags to prevent further data collection. The city will also audit all Flock searches conducted by Columbus police, and City Council is drafting legislation to govern how the cameras can be used going forward.
Considering that these godless fucking snooping devices seem to be all over the United States, I think it’s time for federal legislation — it’s too big an issue to be left to municipalities and even states to address.
And I absolutely hate the feds to get involved in anything, except where Constitutional principles are involved — like here.
All of the Flock Cameras should be dumped into a large vat of molten lava
Or
We install flocks in jails and put all of the politicians who support flock being used in said jails and the citizens can watch via live stream the jail happenings.
Of course we will toss some serial murderers and serial rapists into the mix to keep the politicians company.
In this area, there were recently ballot initiatives to regulate patient to nurse ratios in various settings. If an industry won’t regulate itself then the government at some level will step in. politicians simply cannot be experts on every topic facing society so the chances of them passing good regulations are rather slim. So Flock and other companies in the spying industry had better get their act together or the local governments and the Federal government will step in. If the Feds want to get involved, all they have to do is cut off money for transportation projects to the states. The states will fold like a lawn chair