The best part is that flock owns the cameras and the poles so even when the contract expires the cameras keep running and recording data that flock can sell to e.g. CHP, LASD, FBI, Palantir; and LAPD can just call them and access the data<p>the flock scam was engineered to be resilient to political pressure by giving departments and jursidictions this fake exit ability while the data continues to be harvested, it is a noose that only tightens; the amount of flock cameras recording only ever goes up not down.
Yeah it's kinda crazy you can't legally take them down even if they are banned/contract expires. IKE Skelton, a county commissioner took it into his own hands and they were pressing felony charges on him. Not sure what ended up happening. Basically flock wouldn't respond to take them down, he felt it was his duty to remove them, he brought them back to his office, and then the state hunted him down.<p>Here is a podcast about it. <a href="https://internationalflavor.podbean.com/e/the-surveillance-state-strikes-back-the-trial-of-camden-county-s-defender/" rel="nofollow">https://internationalflavor.podbean.com/e/the-surveillance-s...</a>
I'm curious how they could prevent taking them down if the local gov doesn't renew the contract? Presumably they're installed under some works dept land/pole/utility access permits that allow them the space and electrical, which all goes away and requires their removal.<p>Sorry if this is answered in the pod, don't have time for it immediately.
Id have to re-listen as well for all the details. But I think this is slightly different than the headline here.<p>In this case, the county voted for an ordinance banning them. Ike was threatened saying your going to be charged this is potentially state property, he did a sunshine request to see that they were privately owned by flock. Then he requested flock take them down but they didn't. After a few months he decided he will enforce the ordinance as the sheriff refused too.<p>He took them down brought them to his office. Then later 5 state officers (4 in plain clothing, one in uniform) were looking for him at his house. He brought them to the cameras and said here have them back.<p>Still got charged with theft somehow...<p>Moral of the story, that doesn't really sound like democracy to me. That sounds like kinda the opposite of democracy.<p>Anyway it's worth a listen if you have time. This isn't how these things should go and shows there is a little more than meets the eye here. Even if citizens perfectly execute democracy, these things may not budge. And there is a larger net of protection keeping these in place.
Didn't know about sunshine request - the website[1] - until I searched for this term!<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.sunshinerequest.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sunshinerequest.com/</a>
This is just FOIA. You don't need any special website or process; just Google [(your state) FOIA] or [(your municipality) FOIA officer]. In Illinois, you can simply email free-form requests for documents and start a 10-day clock on the public body's side.
The problem is following up. It's hard to understand the process, and what to do when the public body doesn't respond.<p>If nothing else, the Sunshine Request site is a good place to get form emails for these requests from.
Im not sure if there is a way to verify that the one he is talking about, but for public records request muckrock is great.<p><a href="https://www.muckrock.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.muckrock.com</a>
> he did a sunshine request to see that they were privately owned by flock. Then he requested flock take them down but they didn't. After a few months he decided he will enforce the ordinance as the sheriff refused too.<p>yeah that's basically theft then. The cameras are probably a lot of money and so the dollar number put it in felony territory.
Moral of the story: never talk to the police. Even if you yourself are police.
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> I'm curious how they could prevent taking them down if the local gov doesn't renew the contract?<p>IANAL but based on the facts available to me, they can't. It's a sham held up by intimidating local officials. The cameras were installed on public property, that's that.<p>If they somehow keep this nonsense running for very long, I'd anticipate a Meigs Field-esque incident at some point.
If the cameras and poles are private property then, contract or not, taking them is theft is it not? You'll get in trouble taking lime scooters and throwing them in the lake regardless of whatever contract exists or doesn't exist.
> installed under some works dept land/pole/utility access permits<p>Another option might be right of way or easement permitting, similar to how utility poles and such are regulated as private property with an allowance to be in a public space. If the provider got a permit to use the right of way separate from the contract, then the provider would retain the same right to be there as any other infrastructure.
You can definitely take the cameras down. We did, there was zero drama.<p>On the other hand, it wouldn't be surprising if a single county commissioner got in trouble for just deciding by fiat to take civic infrastructure down himself. That's not a power county commissioners have. Was there a county board vote <i>authorizing</i> that action?
In this case, law enforcement selectively enforced local laws. So the commissioner exhausted his options. And flock didn't seem to be bothered by breaking the local laws and their action was <i>inaction</i>.<p>So what else are you suppose to do? I think it's reasonable to decide that if no one is enforcing the new local law, that it may be the commissioners purview and authority to enforce after exhausting all his options.<p>Charging the commissioner with felony theft is clearly just bullying at that point.
> So what else are you suppose to do? I think it's reasonable to decide that if no one is enforcing the new local law, that it may be the commissioners purview and authority to enforce after exhausting all his options.<p>County commissioners are generally legislative officers. While the legislative body is smaller, this really no different than a member of Congress deciding that the they don’t like the way DOJ is enforcing federal law and deciding that gives them arbitrary power to take whatever action they feel is appropriate to manifest the intent of the law.
> So what else are you suppose to do?<p>File a civil suit and get a court order for their removal.
Again: if it's one commissioner, he doesn't <i>have</i> any options. The only power a county commissioner has that you don't is voting on motions.
re: the commisioner:<p>> In January of 2024, the Camden County Commission passed a county ordinance banning the use of all automated license plate readers in the county (a 2023 ordinance had banned all static license plate readers, but the 2024 ordinance expanded that to include all automated license plate readers). In that ordinance, commissioners cited "numerous complaints" about the cameras "and the potential of unwarranted/inappropriate monitoring of its citizens [sic] freedom of movement and travel in violation of their right of privacy, unreasonable search and seizure and other constitutionally protected rights[.]"<p>> The ordinance also stated, "Any Automated License Plate Readers currently in violation of this Ordinance shall be immediately removed. If identification of ownership is listed on any such device, the listed owner shall be notified to remove said device. Any device not removed within 30 days of notification to remove said device may be removed by Order of the Camden County Commission."<p>My understanding of this case was that the commissioner was charged with theft because even though the county had an ordinance requiring flock to take the cameras down, and they had failed to do so, it was not lawful for him to remove them himself and then take possession of them because they were the property of Flock.<p><a href="https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-dropped-against-camden-commissioner-in-plea-deal-over-license-plate-cameras/article_431cfbe3-6052-41a1-a75d-0d91f32db9bd.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-droppe...</a><p>Re: zero drama taking down cameras, there has been quite a bit of drama:<p><a href="https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flock-cameras-after-company-fails-remove-them-following-contract-expiration/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flo...</a><p><a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surveillance-cameras-with-trash-bags/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surv...</a><p><a href="https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-contract-termination-talks-persist-after-cameras-reinstalled-city-orders-cease-and-desist/" rel="nofollow">https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-c...</a><p><a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-months-flock-cameras-come-down-after-canceling-contract" rel="nofollow">https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-...</a><p>And final re: in many if not most of these cases the jurisdictions don't actually want to take the cameras down, they just want public pressure to let up a bit, and agencies are known to share flock data between each other, so law enforcement, the public, and lobbyists are all made happy by terminating the contract without removing the cameras, it is the smart thing to do politically.
I don't know much of anything about any other jurisdictions. I'm saying that my municipality took the cameras down with zero drama. I'm on one of its commissions with oversight on this.<p>(More precisely: there was drama, but it was all public drama from residents who didn't want the cameras taken down.)
Sounds like his only recourse was to sue the county as a private citizen for failing to enforce their laws? Or something like that. Going vigilante, as much as I like it in this case, is still illegal.
If Flock can put them up, can I/my city just decide to put signs or lasers in front of the cameras?
What gives them the right to install and operate those cameras? I would have assumed that the license for placing them on public property was inherently linked to the services they provided to the local government.<p>But if it's not tied to that, does that mean that <i>anyone</i> can install cameras <i>anywhere</i>? What grounds would they have to give permits to Flock while refusing them to other interested parties, like StalkingMyEx LLC. and CopTrack Corp.?
I don't have the answer, but I wonder if they are considered a utility and operate on utility easements. Then we have to look at the county and state, too.<p>On the other side, I've read they operate a considerable number of private installations, too. Even that is suspect, too, in that there is existing case law affirming that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in "the whole of their public movements."
And what's standing in the way of cleaning them up as litter?
No, the right-of-way is not anything-goes. The property is legally owned by the deed holder of the real property thru which it passes, but practically the right-of-way is managed and maintained by the jurisdiction claiming the right-of-way, i.e. municipal, county, state government agencies. Installations need to be permitted by the agency.
Dane County, Wisconsin Sheriff's Office took steps to prevent unauthorized surveillance.<p>"With the contract set to expire on May 31st, the Sheriff’s Office informed Flock Safety that all 26 cameras must be removed by that date. When removal did not occur, the Sheriff’s Office took steps to ensure the cameras were not in use and placed covers over them."<p><a href="https://www.danecounty.gov/PressDetail/11899" rel="nofollow">https://www.danecounty.gov/PressDetail/11899</a>
IANAL but if this is actually true then they're violating California law.<p>I submitted a CCPA request to them to give me and delete everything they had on me.<p>Their response is that they own no data, and I have to make the request to their customer, whomever that may be.<p>If they're retaining any identifying data about me and then selling it to new customers, they are explicitly violating CCPA.
That’s nice you got a response from them. I did not.
IANAL, but making some assumptions to fill in gaps, it seems they are avoiding having to comply with CCPA and other privacy laws like this: they harvest camera data and retain the images probably forever, but only turn it into identifying data on demand for customers. So you really do have to go talk to the customer, because Flock never "has" any identifying data about anyone, they just have anonymous images that when mixed with a model happen to produce identifying data.<p>This allows them to promise that they don't keep any data and have strict retention policies etc. to jurisdictions that are on the fence or where the contract-purchasers are constrained by law in some way, but they can transfer identifying information at any point in the future to any customer, by mixing raw data and a model.
Is there any realistic road to having them outlawed nationwide? Eg, ignoring probabilities here, could a wildly successful grassroots program where it became an issue as politically salient as immigration or abortion eventually lead to legislation banning them?
A national ban is unlikely to happen. Big companies like Flock are incredibly experienced at paying off enough of the Congress to stop legislation they don't like. You're better off trying to focus your efforts on your local municipalities and the state.
Probably? Would be easier to develop drones to rip off the solar panels.
Black spray paint is less effort
Paintballs are even better, environmentally and effort-wise.<p>Especially if the propellant tank is pressurized using a solar powered compressor.<p>(Theoretically, of course. I <i>wouldn’t</i> advocate destroying private property.)
Hypothetically, of course, it would be even easier to just sneak up from behind and drop contractor bags over them.
There is no sneak up from behind in this system, or at least it can be very hard to target. You must know the full extent of the network, emerge from the blind spots, dismantle pieces, then return to the blind spots. Faster than they repair the machines.
> Is there any realistic...<p>SCOTUS could hand down another surprise decision:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatrie_v._United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatrie_v._United_States</a>
The Flock contract I read from Oak Park, where we designed what I think are the country's most restrictive ALPR rules and ultimately took our cameras down, did not allow Flock to continue running, recording, and selling data after we turned the cameras off. In fact: they explicitly didn't allow them to sell the data <i>at all</i>. Can I ask where you got this idea from?
Thank you for pointing this out, I would just assumed the parent commenter was correct.
We didn't really negotiate the contract, either; these were just their stock terms. Does someone have a Flock contract that says something else? A reminder: for most munis deploying Flock, these contracts are public record; you can just ask for them.
reproducing the same links as above:<p><a href="https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-dropped-against-camden-commissioner-in-plea-deal-over-license-plate-cameras/article_431cfbe3-6052-41a1-a75d-0d91f32db9bd.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-droppe...</a><p><a href="https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flock-cameras-after-company-fails-remove-them-following-contract-expiration/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flo...</a><p><a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surveillance-cameras-with-trash-bags/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surv...</a><p><a href="https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-contract-termination-talks-persist-after-cameras-reinstalled-city-orders-cease-and-desist/" rel="nofollow">https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-c...</a><p><a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-months-flock-cameras-come-down-after-canceling-contract" rel="nofollow">https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-...</a><p>And these are just the cases where the municipality wants the cameras taken down, GP also talks about the cases where they just want to sate the public while keeping law enforcement and lobbyists happy. LA is a great example, the inaction of letting the contract expire in no way means that the cameras will be taken down, if no further action is taken, those cameras stay up, and law enforcement will continue to have access to all flock's alpr data.<p>And further it's unclear if the "data" governed in these contracts applies to the CCTV footage or the data produced for the customer by transforming the footage with models into identifying information. Given that flock has a profit incentive, it's reasonable to assume these contracts are written adversarially to maximize Flock's ability to persuade jurisdictions to sign the contracts and Flock's ability to use all of the data they harvest to maximize profit, we have enough examples of this in the 21st century to know this isn't paranoid, this is the basic playbook of all surveillancetech/adtech companies and they have all used language in contracts that is confusing to nonexperts that affords them maximum leverage to store all the data they harvest permanently and use it however they want.
With Marc Andreessen, the boy from rural Wisconsin, major investor and ambassador of Flock Safety, now part of the federal government, expect the number of Flock civil surveillance systems to increase even more.
Just out of curiosity: doesn't the US have any laws against private surveillance of public spaces? As a European I find this quite irritating (not saying we do not have problems as well with more and more cams installed and risks related to an increasing number of e.g. parking lot cams)
I'm not a lawyer and I think this varies state by state, but I think that in general anyone is allowed to record in public spaces.<p>I think the general idea is that if you could (legally) go stand in that public space (sidewalks, roads, parks) and watch something happen then you're allowed to record what you see.<p>This is probably good - I think it's the basis of being able to record misbehavior (by private citizens and/or the police), for example.<p>In contrast you're generally not allowed to record stuff happening in a private space unless everyone's been informed that this will happen.<p>This is why you'll see signs saying "Warning - this place is under surveillance" signs on every single door going into a corporation that wants to use security cameras.
You are allowed to record stuff happening in private spaces depending on the situation and state you are in.<p>For example, you could photograph or record the dance floor in nightclub since dance floor is very public. However, the bathroom would not be allowed. Of course, the venue could make up rules and eject you for doing so.<p>Most of "Warning signs" are deterrence, maybe someone will behave better if they know cameras are watching. Also, it's cheap insurance dictate by the lawyers who think "Signs are 100 bucks total but someone filing privacy lawsuit is thousands, put up the signs."
No, you don’t have an expectation of privacy on a public roadway, public parking lot, etc.
This norm around privacy was kinda set before the concept of mass surveillance became a thing, though. Maybe we should revisit it and rethink what privacy means.<p>People shouldn't expect privacy in public, sure. They should expect they may be overheard or witnessed. But that's not really equivalent to mass surveillance and long-term recording<p>"You should not expect privacy in public" does not imply "you should expect no privacy and you should expect everything you do is recorded and stored forever"
I don’t see why you should expect any privacy in the middle of a public road. What are you doing there that is private?<p>I think everyone’s threat model is severely miscalibrated if they are threatened by being recorded driving somewhere via Flock, yet use a phone or social media account. There’s way more meaningful threats to actual private matters than Flock.
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> lock owns the cameras and the poles<p>Flock may own the camera and the physical pole, but I find it hard to believe that they own the ground the poles are installed in. Almost definitely owned by the Department of Transportation.
Do they have the resources to consistently clear camera obstructions, or are they relying on police to do that? The wind can be just devilish in its ability to coincidentally tangle opaque films up with cameras and solar panels.
>LAPD can just call them and access the data<p>Can they? Does anyone know the terms of these contracts? Does flock just look the other way if a licensee just gives away the data to some other entity without getting a fee for it? I can see arguments on both sides from flock's perspective, i.e., revenue vs lock-in.
If this is the case then people can pressure their representatives to make this against the law. The people have agency here.
City can eminent domain those pole locations to put up their own solution.
Does the city own the land the poles are on?
I didn’t know this but it’s the kind of stuff our tax dollars pay for and ultimately why I’m so disgruntled about the high taxes we pay - especially in the middle class<p>No problem paying taxes - my entire gripe is with what what the moneys spent on
The US has below average middle class tax rates. But luckily we can just choose what our tax dollars are spent on through democracy! The main problem is nobody agrees about anything and lots of people are really dumb and can't handle the responsibility of electing competent people into government.
This is naïve. The US government is less democratic than advertised, and there are many factors for that. Not going to write a tome, but if you're going to point a finger at one group, it shouldn't be private citizens.
This is a common coping mechanism, but the US is quite democratic and almost any objection you have about corporate control or whatnot can be easily overridden by getting like 100,000 more people to agree with you.
Im not sure I agree that a two party system for 400 million people allows us to choose what our taxes are spent on.
It would be a mistake to assume that people who don’t agree with you are really dumb.
No, no, almost everyone is really dumb, including the people who <i>do</i> agree with me.
True sometimes, but not always. It's unlikely dumb people are equally split between political parties.
Would love to see someone vibecode an explorer for seeing how their jurisdiction spent their taxes. Denver has a decent explorer here: <a href="https://www.denvergov.org/transparency/checkbook#/home?year=2026" rel="nofollow">https://www.denvergov.org/transparency/checkbook#/home?year=...</a>
Is that legal though? Usually the poles stand on public ground, so
there is no way, in my opinion, that the ground on which the poles
stand are owned by that company.
><i>The best part is that flock owns the cameras and the poles so even when the contract expires the cameras keep running and recording data that flock can sell</i><p>if the cameras continue recording, LA can subpoena those recordings on an as needed basis.
What prevents another group from installing a sign directly in front of a flock camera.