Tag: Evil Bastards

Flock News Update

Surveillance Society

More from The Grand Canyon State:

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said she will conduct a review of the state’s use of Flock cameras and other automatic license plate readers.

This summer, several Arizona local governments have either ended their contracts with Flock or adjusted their policies with the company.

Mayes said her analysis will consider how Flock cameras are being used, the impact they are having on Arizonans’ privacy and possible Fourth Amendment violations.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects Americans from “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Richie Taylor, communications director for the attorney general, said Arizona towns and cities “have been grappling with these questions on their own, and that’s part of why this review is needed.”

“Issues of constitutional rights and privacy are too great to be decided in isolation at the local level. Attorney General Mayes believes these are questions that deserve a coordinated, statewide approach,” Taylor told The Center Square.

Needless to say, Satan’s representative is right on it:

Paris Lewbel, a spokesperson for Flock, said the company’s license plate readers “capture still, point-in-time images of vehicles in public view.”

“Agencies own and control their data, access is limited to authorized users, every search requires a documented reason, and each search creates a permanent audit trail,” Lewbel told The Center Square.

“More than 40 courts across the country have determined that fixed license plate readers do not violate the Fourth Amendment and cannot track the whole of an individual’s movements,” he added.

Lewbel said misuse of Flock technology is “completely unacceptable,” noting when it does occur, the company believes “accountability matters — including in the cases Arizona agencies are currently reviewing.”

Oh sure. Here’s a newsflash:  the fucking courts don’t decide what is or is not a Constitutional abridgement:  the People decide, not the courts and especially not law enforcement.  And we’ve decided we don’t like being spied upon.  A few stolen cars being retrieved doesn’t counterbalance the Fourteenth Amendment, just as a few gun accidents don’t counterbalance the Second.

So there’s one simple response to all that glib claptrap:  FOAD, you and your godless, snooping company.

Flock News Update

Asshole Cops, Surveillance Society

Here we go again:

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.

Flock News Update

Surveillance Society

And the hits just keep on coming — this time, from Sweet Home Alabama:

The company is Flock Safety, and it runs the largest mass surveillance network in American history, with more than 100,000 cameras by its own count. But don’t be confused; these aren’t run-of-the-mill red light cameras. Every Flock camera photographs every vehicle that passes by, around the clock, whether anyone suspects a crime or not.

On any given Saturday in Alabama, a man can leave his driveway, gas up, run by the gun shop for ammo, shoot all morning at the range, and be home for lunch. He hasn’t broken any law or bothered a soul. And in more of our towns than you’d guess, a camera on a pole photographed his truck at every stop and filed it in a searchable database owned by a private company in Atlanta.

And the record contains far more than your tag number. Each image becomes a searchable record containing the plate, time, location, direction of travel, make, color, body type, and other identifying features. Flock calls this part of their system the “Vehicle Fingerprint,” and their own materials advertise the ability to conduct searches using unique vehicle details, including bumper stickers and decals. That matters in Alabama. A Gadsden flag, Glock sticker, BamaCarry decal, or other Second Amendment message on the back of a truck is not just something another driver sees at a red light. It’s now a searchable data point tied to that vehicle, the owner, and your movement.

These cameras came into Alabama the way kudzu did: quietly, then… boom, everywhere.

And it gets worse:

But here is the craziest part: most of it arrived by consent agenda and contract renewal. The Legislature never voted on a statewide surveillance network. Yet ALEA’s administrative rules let plate reader data sit for five years, the longest of any state, per a 2026 legislative survey, and require every read to feed a statewide registry once ALEA stands it up.

That should stop every gun owner in their tracks. Alabama law, through Act 2024-232, prohibits the government from keeping a list or registry of privately owned firearms or their owners. Gun owners fought hard to secure that protection. Yet today, Flock has effectively created a searchable, five-year archive showing which vehicles with Second Amendment decals park at gun stores on Fridays, attend gun shows, or regularly visit shooting ranges. It may be built from “license plate photos” instead of firearm records, but for all practical purposes, it’s a hard registry of gun owners.

Got the Warm & Fuzzies yet?

Eerie Silence

Anarchist thugs, Marxists, Riotous Assemblies

Has anyone noticed that this summer — traditionally the season of Antifa etc. riots — has been rather quiet in the streets?  I mean, we had the token anti-ICE silliness in Minnesota and a couple other places earlier in the year, but after the necessary roughness, the desire for such activity seems to have dissipated somewhat.  Also, it was kinda cold for outdoor bedwetting.

Since then, though, not much activity among the common gripes of the Perpetually Aggrieved Set — climate, racism, capitalism and all the rest — and I have two theories for reasons why this is the case.

Firstly, there are elections coming up, and maybe — just maybe — the stringpullers and astroturf layers have got the word out for their crowd of Useful Idiots to hold off for a while.  (I know, that’s maybe a little far-fetched, because the Aggrieved are always on a hair-trigger, and I’m not sure how any kind of chiding would work on them.)

Which means that my second theory is probably the correct one:  there’s no money for rent-a-crowd transportation, no money for those pre-printed signs with their dreary slogans, no money for vans to deliver bricks, Molotov cocktails and other necessities for a decent Lefty riot, and no money to incentivize the lamestream media to fan the flames.

Of course, there’s the fact that the Soros crowd and fellow criminal organizations (e.g. ActBlue, CAIR and the SPLC) are being investigated by the Treasury Department for their funding of illegal activities, so they’re hiding out (for a while, one suspects).  As Scott Bessent has stated:

“When you see these protesters, someone is financing them,” Bessent explained. “There are safe houses. When you see the 300 people with the same laser that they’re using to blind DHS agents in courthouses in Portland, someone bought those lasers.  So these groups that are engaging in this — we have the authority, and we are examining them.”

Then:

“What we do is follow the money — just like we followed it with the mafia. We’ll find out who’s done this.”

Yeah… perhaps using non-profit orgs to channel the money into these activities was only going to work with the Three Blind Mice of the Biden era.  So this would be the time to shut them down, permanently, with perp walks and orange jumpsuits much in evidence.

The treason- and criminal trials and public hangings can follow soon after.

Alternative Tool

Psychos

I guess this answers the age-old question, “If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?” — this time in Sweden:

An 18-year-old man armed with a sword unleashed his violent rampage at the Brinell School in Fagersta, northwest of Stockholm on Friday, just days after the school had resumed from its summer break. 

‘The person killed in this incident is a young 17-year-old female. Her family has been informed,’ police said on their website without giving any other identity details.

Minnea, a Brinell student who went to the school to honour the victims on Saturday, told the SVT broadcaster: ‘It’s terrible to think that someone you sat at the same table with, someone you talked to, is suddenly dead.’ 

Two boys, a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old, were seriously injured, with one requiring emergency surgery. 

A third person was also wounded, but police did not give any details on them. 

Police said the suspect had been arrested after being shot at by officers, and that the case was being investigated as murder and attempted murder. 

The alleged perpetrator was not injured during his arrest.

…which means that the Swedish fuzz need to spend a little more time at the range. methinks.

Here was an earlier such event, only in Britishland, so of course the cops there weren’t carrying guns — probably because all the ARMED POLICE! in the area were busy taking down people who had been posting Bad Things on Teh Intarwebz.

What’s also disturbing is the apparent random nature of all these things — I mean, as opposed to Muslim assholes going crazy on the infidels they encounter in their “adopted” countries.  It seems as though these psycho swordsmen could pop up just about anywhere for a little gladiatorial practice.

So it’s one more reminder for us here in Murka to carry our guns every time we walk out the front door.  (But I’m preaching to the choir here, aren’t I?)