Flock ALPR Cameras

no4mk1t said:
What was that line from Cool Hand Luke?

"What we have here, is failure to communicate."

View attachment 40474

“You Will Not Speak On Flock Tonight”
Madison County NC

To discover who truly holds power over a society, pay attention to who people are unwilling—or not permitted—to criticize. In a free society, no government, institution, corporation, or individual should be beyond public scrutiny. Accountability begins where open criticism is still allowed.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. That phrase is easy to recite, but much harder to live by. Madison County Residents seem to be revoking CONSENT.

In Madison County, North Carolina, dozens of citizens showed up to speak about the use of Flock automated license plate reader cameras. Many came expecting the opportunity to address their elected officials during public comment.
Instead, they were told to select a single spokesperson. When members of the audience objected, the chairman responded, “You will not speak on Flock tonight.” According to the board, the public comment policy allowed them to streamline discussion by limiting a group sharing the same position to one speaker.

Residents argued they were not a single organized group, but individual citizens with different concerns and perspectives.
Whether you support Flock cameras or oppose them is almost beside the point.
Public trust depends on people believing they can stand before their government and be heard. When citizens leave feeling that their voices were limited on an issue they care deeply about, confidence in government can erode. Consent isn’t maintained by force or by procedure alone. It’s maintained when people believe their participation matters.

This isn’t just a story about license plate readers. It’s a story about the relationship between government and the people it serves. If citizens increasingly believe their concerns are dismissed rather than addressed, they may begin to withdraw something every government ultimately depends on: the consent of the governed.
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Time for a civil liberties lawsuit. Sue the shit out of the city.

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I received a link from a buddy learning Motorola also makes surveillance cameras.
And the city council got lit up by the locals:

cowboystatedaily.com

Green River Residents Shut Down License Plate Reader Camera Project

A vocal crowd converged Tuesday on the Green River City Council meeting and opposed a $112,000 federal grant for the police department to install license…
cowboystatedaily.com cowboystatedaily.com
 
If you had the feeling that these cameras popped up everywhere almost overnight, you'd be right. :mad:
Two years ago, there were hardly any. Even one year ago, there were less than half what is out there today. Most have appeared in the last year, like an invasive species left to populate unchecked.

I'm kinda curious how they can manufacture this many that fast. How many factories must there be in China to keep up with this rate of dispersal. :unsure:


View: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1939252980067938
 
Here is my concern. These cameras can be used to spy on the US and potential movement of troops and military activities by other countries. Those looking to get these removed should take the angle they are not safe for national security and are being used beyond their stated functionality.
 
no4mk1t said:
Gee, what practical application would there be for one of these? :unsure:


View: https://www.facebook.com/reel/26708274578872505
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It only cost $20k! While this laser gun tickles my tech bone, I can reliably and predictably put a copper projectile in a cantaloupe at 400 yards with a $500 rifle, cheap bipod and modest scope that costs around the same. Also get set up and take that shot in under five minutes. The final score is cheap patrol rifle 1, laser 0. Game over.
 
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Bongo Lewi said:
It only cost $20k! While this laser gun tickles my tech bone, I can reliably and predictably put a copper projectile in a cantaloupe at 400 yards with a $500 rifle, cheap bipod and modest scope that costs around the same. Also get set up and take that shot in under five minutes. The final score is cheap patrol rifle 1, laser 0. Game over.
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Didn't say I would buy one.
Would be nice to borrow it for a couple of nights of drive-by DeFlocking though. :devilish:
 
The Endless Parade...

A sheriff’s deputy in Georgia has been fired and taken into custody after officials say an audit revealed she had misused the county’s Flock License Plate Reader system.

Former Greene County Deputy Quinsha Goss is facing charges of violating her oath of office and violating the prohibition on law enforcement retaining license plate data obtained from automated license plate recognition systems.
Authorities say an audit of the system on June 30 found that Goss had accessed the system for personal reasons multiple times over a three-month period. While details about the alleged unauthorized access remain limited, officials say she had conducted searches involving at least one license plate without the required law enforcement justification.

Goss was arrested on Tuesday, and her employment has been terminated, the sheriff’s office said in a release. The investigation remains active.
Goss’ arrest and firing come just a day after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested five police officers in Albany, Georgia, accusing them of misusing their access to that city’s Flock Safety System. All five have also been fired.
In June, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office charged and fired two of its supervisors for allegedly misusing the county’s system.

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no4mk1t said:
Didn't say I would buy one.
Would be nice to borrow it for a couple of nights of drive-by DeFlocking though. :devilish:
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A far cheaper laser could fry the CCD or whatever they are calling those sensors now. Mount it to a drone. Low chance of you being identified as the perp.

For the record... As I mentioned it would be cheap and easy to take these things out with a bullet as long as you have line of sight. But nimrods who actually do take a shot at these devices are going to go to prison. Discharging a weapon in a populated area is a guaranteed felony conviction. Destruction of public property - without a firearm being involved - is a far lesser crime.

Just curious... are these cameras wireless or wired? Personally, I wouldn't waste time damaging them and suffer the very high risk of getting caught. I'd be thinking about countermeasures. As with people... it's far more effective to humiliate and discredit a non violent adversary than it is to shoot them.
 
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Former cop turned civil rights activist shows some more Flock unintended consequences...

Girl friend of wanted man has her car placed on the hot list and cops pull her over and interrogate her. No probable cause for the stop.
So, "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" isn't really true, is it? 🙄

Edgewater, FL is just South of Daytona.


View: https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1406201204652965
 
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Bongo Lewi said:
A far cheaper laser could fry the CCD or whatever they are calling those sensors now. Mount it to a drone. Low chance of you being identified as the perp.

For the record... As I mentioned it would be cheap and easy to take these things out with a bullet as long as you have line of sight. But nimrods who actually do take a shot at these devices are going to go to prison. Discharging a weapon in a populated area is a guaranteed felony conviction. Destruction of public property - without a firearm being involved - is a far lesser crime.

Just curious... are these cameras wireless or wired? Personally, I wouldn't waste time damaging them and suffer the very high risk of getting caught. I'd be thinking about countermeasures. As with people... it's far more effective to humiliate and discredit a non violent adversary than it is to shoot them.
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They are cell based, not hard wired.
You would need something to prevent the image from being captured. I imagine there is a way for the system to send the image later or again in the event of cell outage, so just blocking the cell signal temporarily won't work.
 
Like I said before, I think we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Several of these cops listed the reason for running a plate as "Test" or "Training" hoping it would get no further scrutiny. How many depts. run periodic audits to check for abuse? Not many I'll wager.

Five police officers just got caught misusing license plate camera data. The part actually worth paying attention to isn't the arrest. It's how it got caught.

The GBI charged five former Albany, Georgia officers, Tytianna Davis, Jade Jackson, Nicholas Richardson, Brittney Smith, and Issac Whitus, with Misuse of License Plate Data and Violation of Oath of Office. These are charges, not convictions, nothing has been proven in court yet. Richardson faces eleven counts, Davis faces five, the rest face one or two apiece. All five were fired before the case moved forward.

Here's what makes Albany different from most of these stories. The department requested its own investigation after a routine internal audit turned up the pattern, no victim came forward, no outside tip forced their hand. Reporting on similar cases nationally has documented at least 18 instances of officers abusing these camera networks, and in nearly every one of those, the abuse only surfaced after someone got hurt or scared enough to file a complaint. Albany's own paperwork caught it first, which is the rare part.

Georgia actually has a standalone crime for this, separate from generic misconduct charges, meaning lawmakers built a law specifically anticipating that people with legitimate camera access would eventually misuse it. This isn't even that law's first use in the state.
The bigger picture matters for every driver, not just the five officers in Dougherty County. These camera networks aren't only run by police departments. HOAs, shopping centers, and schools install them too, each one setting its own rules for who can search the data and how long it's kept. Every login is logged. Whether anyone actually checks that log is a different question entirely, and Albany just showed what happens on the rare occasion someone does.
Does knowing these cameras log every search change how you feel about the ones near your neighborhood?

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Took awhile, but someone old enough to remember the film finally made a meme... :ROFLMAO:

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I predict SOP will be TWO cameras watching each other as well as all the stuff we don't want them watching... 😠
 
no4mk1t said:
They are cell based, not hard wired.
You would need something to prevent the image from being captured. I imagine there is a way for the system to send the image later or again in the event of cell outage, so just blocking the cell signal temporarily won't work.
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Cell phone signals are remarkably easy to jam. You could build something to disrupt the connection with easily obtainable parts and a Arduino or Raspberry Pi kit. Of course, that's illegal and the FCC will act and the FBI will eventually apprehend you. It would fit in a box the size of a pack of cigarettes and would be battery powered. Even if the unit can capture images when off network, taking it off the network for hours at a time would be disruptive.

Another thought was to compromise the entire system (I have come to hate the word 'hack'). One could randomly insert photos of women from vintage 1960's Mondo Girls or Lace Undies magazine into the image database. Ask @Bobster if you can borrow his copy of those fine publications. Or use deepfake porno images featuring the faces of the local Mayor and Sheriff/Chief of Police. Or AOC. The idea being to discredit the integrity of the system. If dimwit cops can figure out how to access this system for their own nefarious reasons (stalking young women, tracking their ex, etc) then a clever nerd can certainly manage to get in.

Or... stating the obvious, get in and take the entire system down. Erase historical data. Change all the time stamps to the 23rd century. Other mischief.

If one accomplished any of this, in a court of law a good lawyer could establish that the system is flawed or unreliable and cannot be trusted as a source of evidence. It won't stop the trend of continuous surveillance but it would draw public attention more effectively than vandalizing the equipment.
 
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