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| ▲ | smalltorch 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Id have to re-listen as well for all the details. But I think this is slightly different than the headline here. 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. 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. Still got charged with theft somehow... Moral of the story, that doesn't really sound like democracy to me. That sounds like kinda the opposite of democracy. 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. | | |
| ▲ | alhirzel 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Didn't know about sunshine request - the website[1] - until I searched for this term! [1]: https://www.sunshinerequest.com/ | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | alright2565 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The problem is following up. It's hard to understand the process, and what to do when the public body doesn't respond. If nothing else, the Sunshine Request site is a good place to get form emails for these requests from. |
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| ▲ | smalltorch 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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. https://www.muckrock.com | | |
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| ▲ | chasd00 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > 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. yeah that's basically theft then. The cameras are probably a lot of money and so the dollar number put it in felony territory. | | | |
| ▲ | moron4hire 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Moral of the story: never talk to the police. Even if you yourself are police. | |
| ▲ | cucumber3732842 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >Still got charged with theft somehow... More equal animal acting in his official capacity gets treated like less equal animal.... basically. | |
| ▲ | nicechianti 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | ryukoposting 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I'm curious how they could prevent taking them down if the local gov doesn't renew the contract? 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. If they somehow keep this nonsense running for very long, I'd anticipate a Meigs Field-esque incident at some point. | | |
| ▲ | chasd00 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | ryukoposting 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The cameras and poles are private equipment installed on public property. If the city terminates the contract and says "get rid of it" and the contractor says "no," well someone has to deal with it. Imagine if a power company got cleared to bury a bunch of power lines, but they left all the unused poles in the ground, on land they no longer have rights to. That's closer to the situation we're dealing with here. Wireless and solar make some of the more visceral approaches to this problem ineffective. In the past, the city could have strongarmed Flock by severing power or data service somewhere on the public side. I'd bet there are still tons of tricks LA can pull, though. These 1000 9-square foot patches of land have been rezoned as green space, we're clearing it for native plant life. Or, like I said, just pull a Daley and remove them. The city owns the land. Flock can complain, they can sue, and they might even win. But once the city removes the cameras, Flock can't put them back. The city owns the land, and Flock has no rights to it. |
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| ▲ | adolph 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > installed under some works dept land/pole/utility access permits 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. |
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| ▲ | smalltorch 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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 inaction. 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. Charging the commissioner with felony theft is clearly just bullying at that point. | | |
| ▲ | kevin_thibedeau 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > So what else are you suppose to do? File a civil suit and get a court order for their removal. | | |
| ▲ | smalltorch 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Silliness. Who enforces it then? The local law banning it was already equally as valid as a court order would have been. Would the county need to ask the judge to take it down? Someone has to physically take it down and I'm guessing flock didn't put that in the budget. | | |
| ▲ | dragonwriter 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Ultimately, as a member of a legislative body, if you don’t like the way the executive bodies charged with inplementing a law are doing so, your choices are: (1) Work with other members of the legislative body to hold the executive accountable for failures, via hearings, sanctions (often, if at the same level, including removal), etc., or (2) Work with the same body to file a lawsuit as a body to compel compliance, which has additional enforcement provisions (including contempt orders by the court for noncompliance) not available with the bare law and no court case, (3) Taking any avenue open to the public at large (including individual lawsuits, public advocacy including including electoral advocacy against any elected executive officers involved, etc.). What is not generally an option is unilaterally assuming the role legally assigned to the executive in inplementing the law, or simply assuming whatever other powers you imagine are best to realize the intent of the law even if they are outside of its letter. | |
| ▲ | kevin_thibedeau 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Who enforces it then? The executive can enforce judicial orders. This is civics 101. > The local law banning it was already equally as valid as a court order The ban is an ex post facto law. Rights holders to property have a legitimate reason to defend those rights across policy changes. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | An ordinance banning ALPRs that impacts previously-installed Flock cameras is not an ex post facto law. But a municipal ban on private Flock cameras poses constitutional problems --- and not because of post facto or takings. Generally, the ballgame here is over publicly-owned cameras, so none of this is really apposite. |
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| ▲ | tptacek 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The court enforces it. We're getting into movie plot politics here. The sheriff's department will not in fact ignore a district court ruling. These scenarios rapidly reach the point where the sheriff is removed from office and imprisoned for some amount of time. This is what happened to Joe Arpaio. This is much simpler in a municipality: the board simply fires the village manager and the chief. A sheriff is usually an elected though. Before you reach the point of suing, you cancel contracts, payments, IT infrastructure, and have public works remove the cameras from any county-owned infrastructure. I mean, all this is pretty silly, though, because what you really do is just turn the cameras off. | | |
| ▲ | beart 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Joe Arpaio was not removed from office. He was charged with contempt but was never incarcerated. He was pardoned and then lost his next election. | |
| ▲ | chasd00 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | or just start fining Flock per camera per day for a brazillion dollars. Sheriff compliance or not, that's still in their power. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | And then get a order to take the camera to satisfy the debt | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is all very silly. Flock is not a scheme to install forever-cameras. They get paid primarily by municipalities. If your muni votes to shut the cameras off, they will shut the cameras off. If it votes to take the cameras down, nobody is going to stop public works from doing that. The problem is that the First Law Of Message Board dictates that the most interesting narrative wins, and the narrative where Flock has deviously come up with a surveillance "forever chemical" to attach to every municipal road is much more interesting than "this is a service and if you stop paying for it it goes away". | | |
| ▲ | lokar 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I thought what was going on was they would keep them up after the local contract as they could still get value from them as part of the national network. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't doubt that they will, if all your muni cares about is "not paying anymore", they'll take advantage of the easement or whatever. Kind of the same way DirecTV was happy for you to leave the dish installed. |
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| ▲ | mistercheph 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > If your muni votes to shut the cameras off, they will shut the cameras off. That's simply not true: there are numerous instances of municipalities having to fight flock to get cameras removed or shut off, and instances where local governments pass ordinances that local law enforcement refuses to enforce because the cameras, which have been banned, are not off, as you allege is what happens, and law enforcement continues to use the data the cameras provide despite the contract being terminated. Just google e.g. "flock trash bag" to see how cities are having to deal with Flock. There are links elsewhere in this thread to a few of the many instances where this happens but I'll link to something that hasn't been mentioned yet, where flock cameras are turned back on and used by law enforcement in Springfield after contracts are cancelled, and cameras are left up that flock pinky swears are off that turn out to be on and accessible by law enforcement: https://www.kezi.com/news/local/stolen-car-found-in-springfi... And again, that is just talking about the instances where the municipality actually wants the flock cameras turned off or removed, there are many instances, like TFA, where the local government wants them on or doesn't care, and they remain on and used by other agencies, despite the termination of the contract with one of the client agencies. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | When a municipality passes an ordinance prohibiting ALPRs, and the municipal police force refuses to shut off the ALPRs, and the municipality does not then fire the chief (or the muni executive, if needed), then the muni was full of shit about being opposed to the ALPRs in the first place. I'm deeply involved in municipal politics and was for many years involved in national politics (and, more to the point, discussions of national politics online) and I see this all the time: people crossing the streams between the two, as if the levels of responsibility and accountability were comparable. A municipal sworn law enforcement official that ignores a duly passed ordinance that has gone into effect is breaking the law and their contract and can trivially be fired, not after a long drawn-out procedure but immediately. I watched us shut our cameras down. As I said: there was no drama, at least procedurally. If our chief had tried to prevent the cameras from coming down, she'd have been out on her ass the next day. I'm sure there are places where there was drama, but I'd need to see the full story before drawing the conclusion that you're drawing. What I see here is the more interesting narrative ("the cameras are impossible to take down, they're a virus!") asserting itself in its natural habitat, the online message board. I don't know what this story about a misconfigured camera (it strobed an "outage" alert after being deactivated) being reactivated by a technician is supposed to tell me. The theory here is that Flock is running a scam where they're rolling trucks to surreptitiously enable individual cameras? | | |
| ▲ | mistercheph 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Flock's value proposition is having a national surveillance network, local PD are not their only customers, here is yet another instance where oops, a camera that they promised was off, turned out to be on in Eugene: https://www.klcc.org/crime-law-justice/2025-12-09/eugene-pol... And here is flock getting caught installing cameras in Cambridge after contract termination: https://www.cambridgema.gov/news/2025/12/statementontheflock... Here is flock getting caught installing cameras in Evanston after contract termination: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/29/after-evanston-fir... And obviously these are only the cases where they were caught making convenient mistakes, there is very little incentive for the likeliest parties to know (Flock, law enforcement) to bring to light the fact that flock cameras are still on, being serviced, and the data is still accessible despite local ordinance. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't know what you think these links are accomplishing for you. I'm not talking about Flock in the abstract; I have firsthand experience with it. I'm part of a group of people who ultimately got the cameras taken down in my municipality, and before that, I spent years helping craft local rules and ordinances limiting them. There are tens of thousands of Flock cameras all over the country. It would be weird if there weren't misconfigurations. The Evanston story is a great example: the reinstallation of cameras happened the week the contract was expired, and Flock notified the city of Evanston (which, for what it's worth, is our twin sibling city in Chicagoland), at which point Evanston said "you've made a mistake" and Flock said "ok we'll take them down". | | |
| ▲ | mistercheph 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | You seem a bit distracted by the links instead of the content that can be accessed by clicking on them, they show that in tens of instances, your personal anecdote about how flock removal went don't hold. Flock drags their feet, makes legal threats to cities that cancel, forgets to turn cameras off, turns cameras back on, claims cameras are shut off when they are on, installs new cameras after cancellation, leaves cameras up after promising to take them down, etc. etc. And you are representing the situation in Evanston disingenuously here's the timeline AFAICT: - Aug 26, 2025 Evanston issues a termination notice to Flock, effective Sep. 26 2025 after it learns that Federal law enforcement and immigration enforcement are able to access license plate data from the Flock cameras in Evanston, something the city claims Flock lied about. (https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/08/26/evanston-shuts-dow...) - Notably at this point EPD believes the cameras are off: An EPD officer: "The last read on an Evanston Flock camera was logged shortly before 1:00 p.m. on August 26th, which is consistent with the City’s request for de-activation,",
- Aug 27, 2025 Flock writes a reply letter claiming that Evanston has no legal basis to terminate the contract. (https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/08/28/flock-challenges-c...)- Sep. 8, 2025 Flock has removed 15 of 18 cameras. - Sep. 18, 2025 Flock reinstalls the uninstalled cameras. Evanston sends Flock a letter asserting that they are in violation of the contract and Illinois law. (https://evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/25...) - Flock did not inform Evanston, a technician unintentionally informed the city: "[City spokesperson] Vargas said the city learned that Flock reinstalled new cameras after a Flock technician called the Evanston Police Department to ask questions on where to find a camera’s power source." (this is from the tribune article I linked above)
- Sep. 23, 2025 Flock says that they are willing to remove the cameras (https://evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Ha...)- Sep. 24, 2025 The city issues a cease-and-desist to flock. (https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/09/24/flock-safety-reins...) - Despite the city's belief that the cameras have been off since the termination letter on Aug. 26th, RoundTable journalists show that the cameras are still on and logging locations.
- Sep 25, 2025 Evanston covers the cameras with plastic bags (https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/09/25/city-covers-up-flo...)- Mar 3, 2026 Journalists notice that two of flock's cameras are still up in Evanston and contact Flock asking for comment, Flock does not reply but removes the cameras. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Again, not sure what you're trying to prove here. By your own timeline the cameras were inactive by the deadline in the termination notice. But even if they weren't, what do you think the plot was? That they were just going to keep the cameras up forever, come what may from Evanston? I take it you don't live in Evanston, so let me fill you in: that's not plausible. |
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| ▲ | cucumber3732842 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They'll never do it because Flock has the money and lawyers to fight it and friends in high places. Textbook "high risk of setting precedent you don't like" situation. They don't want to lose the ability to do the same to hundreds of dollars per violation per day routine (something that's constitutionally kind of sketchy to begin with) to normal people. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | They'll never do what? Flock has taken cameras down all over the place. They're a company we don't trust, but they're not Bond villains. |
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| ▲ | 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | dragonwriter 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > 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. 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. | |
| ▲ | tptacek 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Again: if it's one commissioner, he doesn't have any options. The only power a county commissioner has that you don't is voting on motions. |
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| ▲ | mistercheph 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | re: the commisioner: > 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[.]" > 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." 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. https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-droppe... Re: zero drama taking down cameras, there has been quite a bit of drama: https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flo... https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surv... https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-c... https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-... 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. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. (More precisely: there was drama, but it was all public drama from residents who didn't want the cameras taken down.) | | |
| ▲ | remarkEon 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Curious. Why didn’t they want them taken down? | | |
| ▲ | Spooky23 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They do have a legitimate purpose and help to solve crimes. The network effect, funded by federal grants to make a surveillance infrastructure nationally is the biggest issue. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is the part that upsets me. They really could help solve crimes without sacrificing privacy. | | |
| ▲ | krupan 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | How? Whatever the system is now is clearly not preserving privacy | | |
| ▲ | lokar 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Have an independent non-profit with strong oversight manage the data. Grant access with a warrant. The police should show that a crime has likely been committed, and get access to just the data that probably has evidence. | | |
| ▲ | krupan 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You still have people with very tempting access to a whole lot of data. I don't see how this is different from the current situation other than it's just different (corruptible) people with access. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think motivations matter. Putting a for-profit company hired by the police, and the police in charge is just the worst. There are many other contexts where we trust properly supervised people who lack an immediate and obvious incentive to abuse the system. Combined with good overall software design, auditing and transparency almost all of the harms could be mitigated. And the tech does have some pretty major benefits. |
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| ▲ | tptacek 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How do you do a warrant for a device that alerts when a car on a hotlist transits an intersection? | | |
| ▲ | lokar 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Record the plates. Don’t alert, search. And just for a specific crime. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The whole pitch for the cameras is alerting! The point is to interdict the cars right after they pass the camera. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | That may be what police like, but in my town it’s sold to residents on solving crimes. | | |
| ▲ | irishcoffee an hour ago | parent [-] | | A stolen car is a crime though. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 30 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Sure. So file a request with a judge including evidence that the car has been stolen, and a reasonable time window and location. |
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| ▲ | tptacek 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Everybody is filter-bubbled and people on HN are profoundly filter-bubbled. Wait'll you find what a huge number of ordinary people think about NSA surveillance. The cameras apprehend criminals. I can show with evidence that the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and in fact that the cameras had the effect of tasking our police force with doing municipal debt collection for Melrose Park and Maywood, at the cost of 5-7 hours of sworn officer time per "failure to appear warrant" arrest. But supporters of the cameras will point to multiple stolen car interdictions and recovered firearms. If you go into these kinds of things assuming that the median resident of a municipality is anti-policing, you're already way, way off. And I find when I talk to anti-Flock advocates (that is: people who have "anti-Flock" as part of their personal identity, not just a person chosen at random who would happen to answer "no" to "should we ALPR") that many of them are operating from anti-policing premises, and so these kinds of responses are very surprising to them. (Totally reasonable for your reaction to this to be "whoah, that was a lot more than I asked for", I just feel like I've been in these kinds of conversations a lot. It's not personal.) |
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| ▲ | alistairSH 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | My thing with this story is that no part of it has anything to do with him being a county commissioner; it's just added to the narrative because it makes it sound like he should have been authorized to do this. | | |
| ▲ | amlozano 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I share the same thing. In fact, being a commissioner he was probably explicitly warned against taking any action into his own hands. A commissioner can easily mess things up and get sued trying do work on their own. Say they try to “repair a playground” by replacing a missing bolt. Well, were they qualified to do that? Do they have insurance? Was the action approved by a properly filed motion? Etc etc etc I learned this is why it costs my town egregious sums to do simple maintenance work; the only companies willing to put up with all the red tape of working with the government have to charge a premium. The part about him being a commissioner smells like a simple publicity stunt. | | |
| ▲ | smalltorch 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the interview goes in good depth in all the details of the scenario it doesn't sound like you listened.. Publicity for what? The publicity comes from a elected government official getting charged with felonys for stealing when he didn't steal anything. The playground analogy doesn't really hold up here I don't see the connection between the two. |
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