374
top 40 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] SouthFresh@lemmy.world 152 points 2 months ago

Someone's upset they're not getting their kickback.

[-] TipRing@lemmy.world 74 points 2 months ago

Flock should have splurged and bought two more councilmembers.

[-] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 135 points 2 months ago

Can't read the whole article but this guy is clearly a moron. People can choose to not carry a phone with them but nobody chooses warrantless surveillance being conducted and paid for directly by the government

[-] BonsaiBoo@lemmy.world 47 points 2 months ago

Well at least the government and big tech companies have a perfect record of keeping sensitive private data safe! /S

He also recognizes the need for more privacy protections for cell phone and internet users but is clearly only interested in having a little tantrum and not in actually helping anyone.

[-] SaltySalamander@fedia.io 2 points 2 months ago

Can't read the whole article

https://archive.is/WGZoe

[-] Boppel@feddit.org 86 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

toddler minded. thats embarassing for an adult person.

[-] Know_not_Scotty_does@lemmy.world 38 points 2 months ago

It seems to be a requirement for certain governmental bodies these days.

[-] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 81 points 2 months ago

In an earlier February city council meeting, Flowers said, “I believe personally that guilty people act defensively. If you don’t have anything to hide, then it shouldn’t be a problem. I also believe when you are in a public space, your privacy kind of goes out the window because you are in essence in a public place.”

This guy really has a thing for spying on everyone in his town against their wishes, I wonder what he's hiding

[-] Enkrod@feddit.org 6 points 2 months ago

Someone needs to follow people like that around with a camera for weeks. And when they inevitably crack, just ask if they have anything to hide and state that in a public place all privacy goes out the window.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 58 points 2 months ago

It would be interesting to learn how big his kickback from Flock is.

[-] SynAcker@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 2 months ago

It's probably something comically small. Like $5k. Most politicians are cheaper than we think.

[-] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 months ago

I am continually shocked at how cheaply people hold their honor

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 47 points 2 months ago

Awww. Someone's kickback is contingent on a successful installation of spy cameras.

[-] DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 40 points 2 months ago

What a fucking candyass. You have to wonder if the fuckwhit was getting kickbacks or something… I just can’t imagine any other reason for that kind of behavior.

[-] UltraBlack@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Learned a new fancy word today thank you!

[-] DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

Here to help ;-) Which one was it?

[-] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago
[-] DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago

LOL …whole sentence, basically :-)

[-] UltraBlack@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Candyass. What a powerful word... I shall make good use of it

[-] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

It's an older insult, but it checks out. A "classic", if you will.

[-] dangling_cat@piefed.blahaj.zone 31 points 2 months ago

Conspiracy: flock is a blackmail machine. This council member is doing it out of fear

[-] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If I was a member of a law enforcement agency who actually cared about the public good, I would run a sting operation on this guy, because Polymarket is running the chances on him accepting future bribes at 100%.

[-] flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago

Gotta invent that agency first

[-] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

I was writing that for the FBI agents that lurk around here inventorying the commies, hoping that if they have no shame, at least they would be careerist enough to go after an easy win.

[-] diabetic_porcupine@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago

Well why don’t we just ban oxygen then?!?!

[-] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 4 points 2 months ago

But only for people with 100 million or more dollars net worth.

[-] dukeofdummies@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

And yet something tells me that if someone followed him around with a camera crew 24/7 he would be deeply concerned.

If anything a faceless invisible entity following you should be even more horrifying.

[-] Bitflip@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 months ago

Gotta wonder with a town that small, how many restraining orders it would take to make it illegal for Flowers to enter city limits.

[-] Randelung@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Get the fucking money out of fucking politics. Solves around 90% of all conflict of interest issues.

[-] HikingVet@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Can't read the entire article unless you have an account, soooo....

[-] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago

Try Reading Mode, it gives you this:

After months of discussion and outrage from residents, the city council of the tiny town of Bandera, Texas voted 3-2 to immediately end its contract with the surveillance company Flock. In the aftermath of the vote, one of the dissenting council members crashed out and said he would be introducing measures to ban cell phones, the internet, cameras, and nearly all technology in the town of roughly 900 people.

Bandera had a state grant to install eight Flock Safety AI license plate reader cameras in the tiny town. The technology proved to be incredibly controversial, with residents repeatedly turning out to city council meetings to say that they did not want government surveillance in the town; the poles that the cameras were installed on were repeatedly destroyed by vandals in protest, leading the town to have to replace them at their own expense. Last week, the town formally decided to abandon its contract with Flock entirely.

After the vote, Councilmember Jeff Flowers, a staunch Flock supporter, said that if people in the town wanted privacy then the city council should basically ban all technology, essentially calling people who did not want government surveillance hypocrites. Flowers said he would propose a series of new regulations at an upcoming city council meeting, which he is calling the “Bandera Declaration of Digital Independence.” In a letter posted by the local newspaper, the Bandera Bulletin, Flowers said that in the name of preserving privacy he would suggest the city go back to the days of 1880.

💡

Do you know anything else about Flock? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at jason.404. Otherwise, send me an email at jason@404media.co.

“For months, I have listened to the outcry regarding License Plate Recognition (LPR) technology. I have seen the eyerolls, and I’ve even been met with ‘Nazi rhetoric,’ the dangerous claim that believing in accountability and community safety is somehow equivalent to totalitarianism,” Flowers wrote. “Comparing a neighbor’s desire for a safe street to a dark chapter of history is a classic case of comparing apples to oranges; it is a distraction used to avoid the reality of the threats our town faces today.”

Flowers said that at the next city council meeting he will propose “a total ban on all cellular and GPS-capable devices for all operations within city limits. If we are to be truly ‘private,’ we must leave our smartphones at the city line.” He will also propose “a total ban on outward facing cameras,” and “a total termination of all internet services and electronic record-keeping. We are going back to 1880, paper ledgers and cash only.”

This post is for paid members only

[-] FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 months ago

This post is for paid members only

Heh

[-] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

I, for one, am glad that some politicians finally realise the privacy problems that come with GPS and cellular devices!

What?

[-] mechoman444@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Looks like all that lobbying has gone to waste.

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

This is why I stay the hell away from small or rural areas. They are run by the most insane people.

[-] quick_snail@feddit.nl 7 points 2 months ago

You realize that this town just voted to ban Flock, right?

That makes it more sane than almost all towns in yhr country

[-] stoly@lemmy.world -4 points 2 months ago

Not really. This is normal for libertarians. It all comes down to then being allowed to do whatever they want without interference. Flock = interference.

[-] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

And, it's never in a good way. Like, they're never insanely good people.

[-] ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com 4 points 2 months ago

Bwaaaahhhhhhh...

this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
374 points (98.7% liked)

Not The Onion

22224 readers
1162 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, ableist, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS