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Cities Are Covering Flock Cameras With Trash Bags
(www.404media.co)
Black spray peint works even better.
Grinders work too.
Just toss that soggy sandwich right at the lens.
It's not as good as the headline sounds, but it's even more important:
The city of Dayton, Ohio has covered its Flock automated license plate reader cameras with black trash bags in part because police there are unsure whether the cameras are still active and the city also doesn’t seem to know whether it is allowed to take the cameras down. The move comes after months of resident outrage, a scandal in which the city was sharing Flock camera data for immigration enforcement apparently on accident, and a $30,000 audit into how the cameras are being used.
It's incredibly fucked up that cities don't know who's accessing the cameras and don't know if they can legally remove them
We need to dismantle this shit and prosecute all the people who bribed them into the system. The reason it's happening everywhere, is no one is being held accountable.
Start throwing people in actual blue collar prison for this shit, and the people giving and receiving the bribes won't be so quick to do it.
As an aside, I grew up using the phrase "by accident" and I find that it has been slowly replaced with "on accident". Back to the issue at hand, I totally agree with your sentiment.
They mean two different things...
The airplanes engine went out by accident when a part failed.
Or
The pilot forgot to deploy landing gear which caused a crash landing on accident
It's about if someone made a mistake or if it was random chance.
People don't understand it means two different things, and use them interchangeably. It was used incorrectly here, it should be "by accident" because that implies a human was at fault, "on accident" absolves everyone involved from blame.
Never thought of it that way. Makes sense, now I don't have to think it was the Mandela effect.
Yeah, it's honestly super interesting how language and word choice change perception.
I remember reading something a while ago that just due to the English language's structure and various idiosyncrasies, just using it makes people more selfish.
And it's happening on such a basic level, it's almost impossible for people to notice. It just colors every communication in a veneer of "me first".
They will never see prison or justice until the common people take back the power to put them there. This is their plan. Same shit, different venue. Financial, wage, privacy, surveillance, due process, and enforcement violations/transgressions/iniquities, all, point in the same direction.
Basically, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it." Can only change through direct and persistent opposition and action against bad faith actors.
Basically, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” Can only change through direct and persistent opposition and action against bad faith actors.
The trick is noticing when it happened two years ago...
Or at least realizing that as soon as billionaire media started shitting on the DNC was when people need to support it.
It's just wild after finding out mainstream media covered for Biden and enabled trump...
They believe the billionaire owned media are really on our side for some stupid fucking reason
Basically, be gay and/or do crime. Your life depends on it.
We need the gayest of crimes to make a comeback. Stonewall style.
Essentially (and as usual), there needs to be consequences.
No consequences, no change.
So yes, you are right.
No consequences, no change.
That's wrong. Without consequences there will be change, always to the worse, always seeing if they can get away with even more insane things.
This hardly feels like a useful comment. It's implied from the context that change here is shorthand for desirable change.
And if we are being pedantic, you are also wrong: there will be unspecified change, changes in fact, which may be good, bad, neutral or irrelevant. Also not a very constructive point to add: we all know this.
The fuck you mean "legally allowed to remove them"? You put them up, you're paying to use them, just take them down and don't use them!
Contractors put them up, a private contract is in place, tampering with the 3rd party equipment could make the city liable. It's incredibly dumb that someone signed the agreement in the first place, but also every city near me has done so and my own city is adding more constantly. So they have to get lawyers to break the contract and get contractors to come remove the equipment. Sigh.
I'm sure they signed some really stupid long-term contract with Flock, which may limit their ability to take them down and/or stop paying for them.
Rule of law doesn't exist in the US any more. Just knock em down and tell flock to shove it
Flock is part of the authoritarian state apparatus. I’m sure you would get a visit from ICE or the cops. They have these things fucking pointed at each other there are so many in my city. I just wish the meth heads would start dismantling them for parts. Fuck flock and ICE.
Unlikely. And less and less likely with every camera you pull down.
You can grab one of these at lowes:
and also likely find a flock camera in the parking lot to try it on..
Aren't Flock cameras packed with copper and other components with high resale value?
I heard there's two gold bars in each one!
Yeah and they also have trackers in them and batteries, so folks have discovered you need to negate these features before doing anything else, even moving to another location.
Would that be a bucket of water or large magnet?
The UK found a good way to deal with automated speed cameras. Hang a used tire over the camera, fill the bottom of it with diesel, toss in a match. Camera gets roasted extra crispy and pretty much everything inside is garbage so the whole thing has to be replaced.
I wonder if that would work here?
Jokes aside, it is really disturbing that cities are afraid of this company. Doesn't say good things.
I'll bet we could break those boxes down successfully. Not every component will be traceable.
If the pieces can fit through a 1mm mesh screen, you won't be having any more traceability problems.
Though I've always been partial to a nice big scoop of thermite for that purpose.
I volunteer as tribute to do this in my town.
What do we do when the cities aren't regretful?
Use the cameras for target practice, just make sure you're either not caught on camera or you're not identifiable. There's also a bunch of valuable metal inside them, including gold and copper.
Advertise that fact to tweakers with helpful stickers. Got it.
Vote for better politicians.
How? The voting populace in my city is dumb and rich and neoliberal. They drive expensive cars and shit on the poorer parts of the city and generally make life hell for people who aren’t white or aren’t rich.
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Good news; you can make someone regret just about anything if you try hard enough.
A neat protest for these cameras would be replicate local officials license plates, place them on vehicles and just drive them all over the place, speeding, running lights and all kinds of crap
Or just place a dozen license plates on one vehicle ...
or on the back of a truck with an automatic window -> only show all the license plates when in front of a flock camera, hide them again after
Unfortunately, license plates are but a small fraction of what these things can capture. Your face, gait, and voice, for example.
You know the ankle weights that meatheads wear while running? Put two on one ankle. That'll screw their gait algorithm. Face: a ski mask, a bit of paint, or some dangly reflective decorations hanging off the front of a hat. Voice: STFU.
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These things also identify paint scratches and dents/stickers for when it can't read the plates. I'm not so sure this would do much to poison the data
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If they have IR cameras, then likely they can see through these types of plastics. This might just be a bullshit surface level action while still allowing for mass surveillance by the tech fascists
Remove the cameras, but the people who put them there are still in place. You think they're just going to give up on their dream of omniscience?
People like that go until they are stopped, then will keep pushing.
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this post was submitted on 28 May 2026
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