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Knee-jerk Flock panic threatens a tool that’s making our cities safer
NY Post ^ | 8/21/26 | Rich Lowry

Posted on 08/21/2026 3:35:30 PM PDT by Libloather

We have met the enemy — and it is watching us.

There’s a growing backlash against Flock cameras, the automated license plate readers that have become ubiquitous across the country.

The cameras take images of license plates and store them in a searchable database that police departments can query in the course of their investigations.

Opponents of the cameras consider them an instrument of Big Brother, who’s not only watching, but constantly recording and tracking.

Vandals have disabled and stolen the Flock cameras, and even shot them.

There’s a movement to get jurisdictions to cancel their contracts with Flock (the leading such company, but not the only one), and it’s met with some success.

Los Angeles just let its contract with Flock lapse, citing “serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues.”

There’s a reason, though, that police departments so rapidly adopted the cameras — they are an extremely useful investigative tool.

It is certainly true that the technology, like any power we give the police, can be mis-used.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Outdoors; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: cities; deflock; flock; panic; security
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To: SaveFerris

BTTT.


121 posted on 08/22/2026 11:47:16 AM PDT by captmar-vell
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To: jeffersondem

“let’s try to fine tune this a little.”

“Let’s” try? Who’s “let’s”?


122 posted on 08/22/2026 12:22:55 PM PDT by MayflowerMadam ( "Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurrReichied away". - B. Franklin)
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To: MacNaughton; MtnClimber; captmar-vell

The Chinese Social Credit Score System
will be the model for most of the World 🌏🌎🌍

Among the Western World, United Kingdom
more specifically Great Britain will be
among the first to deploy it

Followed by Sweden, Germany and France

I AM just guessing but... /Shiny Side Out


123 posted on 08/22/2026 1:19:07 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They Did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: jeffersondem

IOWs we should just accept all the technological surveillance being used against us.


124 posted on 08/22/2026 2:27:25 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Marxist Media works hand in glove with the Democrat terrorists.)
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To: SaveFerris
I guess this is a nothing burger to the Flock apologists.

New Database Documents Over 100 Cases of Cops Abusing Flock Surveillance Cameras

Police have used Flock cameras to stalk their exes, track abortion patients, and spy on protesters—among other abuses.


125 posted on 08/22/2026 2:46:31 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Marxist Media works hand in glove with the Democrat terrorists.)
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To: Fledermaus

Its a false equivalency to equate a hammer with a city-wide surveillance camera system


126 posted on 08/22/2026 3:07:58 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

I was discussing abuse.


127 posted on 08/22/2026 3:22:03 PM PDT by Fledermaus (Sen. John Thune is a bigger enemy to the GOP than any Democrat.)
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To: TigersEye
“IOWs we should just accept all the technological surveillance being used against us.”

Who doesn't love a lost cause: “No one clung longer to the Confederacy than I did, and I can say with the champion of another lost cause that if Troy could have been saved by this right hand even by the same it would have been saved.” - Colonel John S. Mosby

This in his memoirs, long after Mosby became a Republican and served in the administration of President Grant.

I admire you for sticking your finger in the dike here and there; but if you intend to hold back the global technology tide it is not going to work. It is just that simple. It is not going to work.

And with your use here of the electric computer - I'm guessing you may have a cell phone and credit card too - I don't know that you are actually trying to stem technology in your own life.

What I see others doing, even in our own little town, is to use all the technology they want but to insist on having veto power on technology that others may want but they themselves see of little benefit to themselves.

Since Betty doesn't have a four year-old grand daughter Betty sees zero need for a Flock camera to return the kidnapped grand daughter she doesn't have. So Betty goes to the town hall meeting and adamantly says “No Flock camera anywhere, anytime” or she will smash Council member Smith's name on the worldwide web - and tell everyone his home address.

Yes, Betty will do that because she thinks that is in her own best self-interest.

128 posted on 08/22/2026 5:50:09 PM PDT by jeffersondem
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To: arthurus
“I think it is already established that everything on your smartphone is going to databanks, many in China.”

I specifically asked Worldwide Military Surplus Sales to label the pallet of .50 API tracers “Farming Tools.” I didn't know they would connect the dots.

And the UPS driver promised not to say anything about the 20 five-gallon buckets of nitrogen-purged hard red wheat he delivered. I should have memorialized him next to the putunias.

129 posted on 08/22/2026 6:08:49 PM PDT by jeffersondem
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To: jeffersondem

If you think that freedom in the U.S. is a lost cause then we have little to nothing in common politically or personally.


130 posted on 08/22/2026 6:10:45 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Marxist Media works hand in glove with the Democrat terrorists.)
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To: Fledermaus

The hammer is held by one person and only abuses one person. The cameras are controlled by many and allow for abuse of anyone and everyone.

Its a poor comparison from any angle.


131 posted on 08/23/2026 5:31:50 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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