Free Republic

FRANKLIN COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) — Pennsylvania State Police are still working to identify whoever has been cutting down Flock cameras throughout Franklin County this summer as a protest against the cameras is just days away. One of the cameras, located near the Lowes off Lincoln Way E. in Chambersburg, was cut down July 4 and replaced with an American flag. Then, sometime overnight Sunday into Monday, troopers said another Flock camera was cut down off Moly Pitcher Highway in Antrim Township. READ MORE | Cameras cut down, replaced with American flag amid Flock debate in Franklin County Pennsylvania State Police...

As concerns over law enforcement’s use of Flock Safety cameras intensify, there has been an increasing number of reports about police officers misusing the surveillance system for personal purposes. Officers all across the country have exploited the company's automated license plate reader cameras to track romantic partners or acquaintances in recent months. Despite claims that the cameras help police find and apprehend criminals, this new trend has raised even more complaints and criticisms about law enforcement agencies using the cameras with little to no oversight. CBS News reported that Habersham County, Georgia, Sheriff’s Office Deputy Christian Brewer was fired and...

Typically I report the news, but sometimes, rarely, I am the news. That time just came. Millions of people saw the story about my wife and I getting surrounded by the police after errors made by law enforcement and Flock Safety’s systems led authorities to believe I had performed grand theft auto with a $155,000 Range Rover. The body cam footage of the situation went viral. It was just weeks before my encounter with the law that we had an episode of The Drivecast featuring security expert and Ent.AI CISO Matt Hurewitz talking about how license plate cameras are tracking...

For weeks, Verona, Wisconsin tried to get Flock to remove the three automated license plate cameras that its city council had voted to stop using. Flock told city employees not to remove the cameras, and a Flock employee told city officials that they were unsure whether the cameras could be remotely disabled, which led the town to decide to put black plastic trash bags over them until Flock eventually removed the cameras itself, according to emails obtained using a public records request by 404 Media. The emails give insight into the process cities face while deFlocking themselves after voting not...

New Gallup data show that people are growing increasingly distrustful of major technology companies such as Meta, Apple, and Google, as well as a newer player in the surveillance industry, Flock Safety. Some people are even taking matters into their own hands by destroying the AI-powered surveillance cameras appearing in communities across the country. Flock Safety, a private surveillance technology company founded in 2017, has been earning a reputation as a herald of the much-feared Orwellian “surveillance state.” Although a private company, Flock’s business model operates by selling AI-powered camera and audio detection systems to local and state governments for...

An innocent driver is stopped by a gun-waving police officer who sics a dog on him and he ends up in jail for hours, or even days. It’s happening more and more in America, a new study confirms, and it’s all because the technology for machines to read license plate numbers, and report them, fails. The results are from a study by the Institute for Justice, which confirmed such cases coming up over and over. The list, large already, is growing: A Colorado driver was repeatedly pulled over after officers mistakenly put his license plate number on a Flock hotlist....

Hours before the sun rose on Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux’s first day on the job, an elderly man in a wheelchair was shot dead near Fair Park. Two days later, the new chief stood among a cluster of officers outside the suspected gunman’s home in west Oak Cliff. He was impressed by one tool the investigators had used to arrive there: the network of license plate-reading cameras scattered across the city. “I was like, ‘Alright,’” Comeaux recalled saying, referencing the April case months later in an episode of Bridging the Divide, the Assist the Officer Foundation’s podcast, “‘explain this...