And then we have this little collection of reindeer games:
A quiet battle is happening across the US right between towns working to adopt Flock Safety systems and those trying to ban them entirely. From major cities like Los Angeles canceling its Flock contract to towns wrapping Flock AI cams in plastic bags because Flock won’t take them down, it’s a wild time for surveillance and questions about government accountability.
But what happens when you start seeing Flock’s now-recognizable solar panels and AI cameras going up in your neighborhood? What happens when they start to recognize your car or even individual people?
I don’t want to say what I really feel, at this point, because I may get into trouble. Still, being who I am, I can’t help thinking of this kind of solution:
Then, purely in the spirit of scientific inquiry, I’m wondering if this might work:
Curious, that’s me. But if you’re going to test the stuff, you may want to get some soon before it mysteriously starts to vanish off the shelves at Home Depot, or from Amazon’s warehouses.
That paint’s not cheap, by the way. I haven’t seen any advice about how to use it for the desired effect, either. Just spray it on? Spray it on a plastic cover over the plate? How many coats? Maybe someone is just trolling. Maybe it’s Rustoleum pumping up their business. It’s intriguing, but ridiculous at the same time. I can see the Flock team now, “Hey Bob, here’s that idiot in the Subaru who sprayed his plates. Look how shiny they are!”
Also you don’t suppose Amazon will tell Flock that I ordered a case of this stuff and now I will get a Flock camera pointed at my house like the guy in the YT video who complained to his local gubmint and one appeared in his yard.
Plus, the paint only works at night when its camera lights me up? Now, I don’t go out at night because nothing good ever happens at night, but if I did I might be invisible to one small slice of surveillance. More if I leave my phone at home and don’t stop anywhere and stay off the tollroad and don’t buy anything … and don’t comment on weblogs.
Big Brother is watching. Many cities and towns are getting cameras & scanners of some brand & type, Flock or others.
People are very focused on discussing the data centers which are visible and easy to find and know about – all the while shitloads of these camera & scanner PRIVACY INVASION DEVICES are being installed in many places.
While it is true that there is no expectation of privacy in public, I personally think there is a HUGE difference between a ROAD PIRATE (aka the cops) sitting on the side of the road watching traffic and observing an infraction such as speeding, a tail light out, improper lane change or impaired driving and then deciding to pull the offender over for the observed offense VS some centrally monitored camera & scanner that invasively scans plates and vehicles and starts running data on many things about the vehicles owner, its driver or the cell phone that the driver may have.
This is not only the death of privacy, but a huge step towards a police state.
My .02 cents, which ain’t worth much, is that this definitely starts to cross the line in terms of being an “Unreasonable search and seizure” and also I think this violates the 4th amendment. It is a slippery slope.
This is some vile shit.
I wonder if there is a more discreet way to disable and / or destroy these things without being caught? People are shown in news articles and online news cutting these things down or painting the lenses etc but you could easily get caught doing this.
I wonder if it is possible to make a device that acts like a mini EMP to disable these foul and wicked devices?
I’m also betting that many of us, if not all of us, HAVE BEEN FLOCKED.
# FUCK BIG BROTHER
# FUCK THE NANNY STATE
I’m really curious to see Ghost Snipers comments about this post and about the privacy invasion devices.
Regarding the proliferance of surveillance cameras (SC) people are mentioning that no one has an “assumption of privacy” while out in public I believe this is misdirection and I believe “Targeting” is where the focus should be. Let me ‘splain.
Scenario 1:
Your family is sitting on a blanket at the beach enjoing the sun, sand, and surf and the family 20 feet away is doing the same thing, as well as many other people all over the beach, a public place.
The guy on the next blanket is taking cellphone piks of his family and your family and others are invariably in the background, though possibly blurry due to the distance. Hell, his family may be in the background of the piks you are taking of your family. No harm done, right?
Scenario 2:
A guy on the beach sets up a tripod with an expensive pan-n-zoom Nikon video camera right in front of your family and turns it on and walks off, controlling it remotely from his vehicle in the parking lot.
Your wife decides to go cool off in the surf and that camera pans and zooms right in close on your wifes jiggling cakes. Because you are in a public place, no problem, right?
What is the purpose of the camera in Scenario 1?
The camera owner is taking pictures of HIS family.
What is the purpose of the camera in Scenario 2?
The camera owner is taking pictures of YOUR family.
See the diff?
I’ll add that the 2nd guy is taking your piks without your permission (didn’t even ask) and is doing so without just compensation.
How do you know what he’s going to do with those piks?
Is he going to incriminate you some how?
Use them to blackmail or harrass or stalk you?
Over the past few weeks I have seen numerous incidents where law enforcement personel have used the SC databases for nefarious and criminal purposes.
At dive medics place he argues against the databases but not the cameras.
I on the other hand am against the cameras, without which, no database would be required.
Essentially, you don’t get to intentionally steal my image without prior written consent and agreed upon compensation and terms.
Remember, there are people here in the US that earn thousands of dollars by selling their images, why should you be any different?
By the way – there is a movie about this same
type of stuff – it is from 1998 and it is called
“Enemy of the State”
It stars Gene Hackman and Will Smith among others.
Hollywood movies seem to have predicted / foreshadowed the future.
There is no expectations of privacy on the road, so I am not too worried about that. I would like to see a ban on giving tickets with traffic cameras. That is BS on stilts.
That — There is no expectation of privacy in public — is the conclusion of statists who have been allowed to run amok in the spirit of cooperation. There is nothing in the law or the situation that demands that situation or belief should continue indefinitely. Perhaps this should be the impetus that persuades We the People to instruct the statists on the error of their ways. Personally, I believe it is long past time that America instituted a privacy ethos similar to that described in Asimov’s Caves of Steel. Meantime, the small acts of monkey warfare seem to indicate a consensus among the hoi polloi.
In encouragement of that, I note that Waze has started posting locations of what they call “Police mobile camera[s]” along the roadside. I support this effort and encourage all and sundry to contribute to it as they are able.
It is cute that you think these cameras being there or not will make a difference in any of that. I am not a fan, but principles are principles and there has literally never been an expectation of privacy on a public road.
On the flip side, the idea that the government can give a person a ticket without personally interacting with that person (or even know that person was actually there) is another mater all together and vastly changes our interaction with the government.
Suppressed subsonic .22. Done. Very little noise, effective, cheap. Fire from out of camera vision. continued as needed.
No. It is questionable whether “expectation of privacy” is constitutionally viable. Who decides whether you have such an expectation? Yuou? Oh no; a court does. So it’s not YOUR expectation of privacy, it’s THEIR expectation of privacy. Is is reasonable? Again, according to who? You? Again, no.
Moreover, it is an accumulation of information problem; they’re not just tracking a license plate, they’re building a profile of you and your vehicle. Bumper stickers gets you political/social leanings, Organizations, associations. Add to that where you go, when you go. Add to that your cell phone data (also being tracked and accessed by authorities without an warrant), and your internet data (also kept and available) and the State is building a profile of you.
Any government that can abuse its authority WILL abuse its authority. It’s as inevitable as the sun rising tomorrow. We know that constitutional limitations on government intrusions limit law enforcement effectiveness (“The right of the people to be secure in their houses, persons, papers, and effects . .” remember that?); we accept that limitation because we recognize that government will abuse its authority and no one wants to live in such an Orwellian society.
That you accept it tells me that you are a sheep, willing to do as you are told, always. Did you dutifully surrender your firearms? limit your magazines to 10 rounds or less?
NEVER surrender ONE INCH on your personal liberties without a fight. You may win some of those fights, you may lose others. You will have to decide which hill your are willing to die on.
suppressed .22. Quite, quick, effective. Repeated as needed. Meanwhile, make your voice heard with your local city and county authorities. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, remember?
I didn’t even know that this company existed until I read LawDog’s post on it here:
https://thelawdogfiles.substack.com/p/it-is-better-that-ten-guilty-persons
He includes a link to a map that shows positions of some of these cameras:
https://maps.deflock.org/?lat=39.8283&lng=-98.5795&zoom=4.00
This is purportedly a “privately owned” company that is basically in cahoots with various governmental bodies, which supposedly gives them an end-around when it comes to needing a search warrant. To me this is a distinction without a difference.
But if they’re privately owned they need a property owner to give them permission to put up their cameras, batteries, and solar panels. If we see one on private property we should all immediately cease doing business with them and talk to the owner or manager and let them know exactly why.
If they’re getting the permission of a government (city, county, or state) we should immediately contact them and let them know we will never vote for them again unless and until they have those permissions revoked and the cameras removed.
But I’m guessing that the backlash against this will come from the usual suspects instead of people concerned about the loss of liberty. It will turn out that the vast majority of crimes for which this ubiquitous surveillance system is used against will be some of the protected classes. Much like the collectivist/statist/authoritarians were originally all-in on police-worn body cameras; they stopped supporting their use when it turned out that in 99.9% of the cases that the body cams actually supported the police’s version of events. So it will probably be with the surveillance systems like these. I hope.
I’ve been giving this issue a lot of thought.
Not whether Flock should exist or not–that was easy.
No. It’s a sin against the Constitution.
But more how to stop these things.
See destroying them is a felony, and carries restitution and a large fine. So don’t get caught.
So I’ve been thinking about non-destructive ways to render them at least temporarily useless. One thing I’m thinking of is “bagging” them–getting a large bag of some kind, or maybe a cheap tarp and throw it over the solar panel and camera, then a cheap master lock and some cable to make it hard to remove.
Or putting up signs that say “Flock Camera Ahead–your politicians are tyrants”
As I had mentioned above
“I wonder if there is a more discreet way to disable and / or destroy these things without being caught? People are shown in news articles and online news cutting these things down or painting the lenses etc but you could easily get caught doing this.
I wonder if it is possible to make a device that acts like a mini EMP to disable these foul and wicked devices?”
– the scanners might still work through the bags or paint – even though the camera portion does not work.
Many places are using cameras and scanners together.
If there is a way to get mini emp creating devices – they could be used by people to temp disable and confuse these invasion of privacy devices much like people use reflective spray paint on their license plates.
# FUCK TYRANTS
So there’s two things here: One is how to **destroy** the device without getting caught. The other is how to disable the device in such a way as to NOT physically harm it, but do it VERY visibly so to “spread the word”.
To directly answer you question, yes, there are “EMP” like devices, usually called “directed energy weapons” or “high power microwave weapons” that will disrupt or destroy electronics.
The thing is that the standoff distance for those is less than for a suppressed 300 blackout, which would have the same effect, be cheaper and be more deniable if a LEO was to search your truck.
A couple minutes with a search engine will get you instructions on how to build an “EMP” device that will disrupt and possibly “brick” the Flock electronics. Maybe a bit more time with ChatGPT and Google will help you figure out how to build oen.
Me, I’m sticking with the idea of bagging them in bright colors. Maybe even with a sign.
In this blue state, several flock cameras have been “fixed” by the citizenry. The police are looking for leads. on their social media page, the support is for the citizens who put the cameras in their appropriate state.
A shotgun is too loud for foxing these cameras. How about a grinder, demolition saw etc? I wonder if people are using a plain white truck with a magnet on the side to some fake company then acting like an electrician and just pulling the cameras in broad daylight.
Liberals love the nanny state. Sadly many RINO’s do too.
Back in the 90s some agency made the mistake of putting a traffic camera next to a school near me. The kids delighted in putting bin bags over it.
Suppressed subsonic .22. Done. Very little noise, effective, cheap. Fire from out of camera vision. continued as needed.
Keep your smoke wagons handy motherfuckers because sooner or later you’re going to need them or you’re going to be some other motherfucker’s bitch.
Hmmmmmm … this paint is out of stock at Amazon and my local Home Depot.
That paint does not work.
All the data from the Flock cameras go to data centers to be processed. Why do we need all the data centers?
Where do you think this website is run from?