boognish_bear said:

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Did Flock cameras collapse the crime rate?

There are now about 120,000 Flock cameras across the US.

In the last few years, we have reached record low violent crime rates, and automobile theft is down 50%.

This probably isn't a coincidence. Surveys of police departments…

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) August 10, 2026

Did Flock cameras collapse the crime rate?

There are now about 120,000 Flock cameras across the US.

In the last few years, we have reached record low violent crime rates, and automobile theft is down 50%.

This probably isn't a coincidence. Surveys of police departments indicate that Flock is helping to solve hundreds of thousands of crimes a year.

Some crimes, like automobile theft and kidnapping, should get to approximately zero if Flock cameras and other kinds of crime-fighting technology continue to proliferate. But every type of crime will get harder to pull off. Think about how much more difficult murder becomes without being able to use a getaway vehicle.

The abuses that have been found are regrettable but rare. We're talking dozens of cases. Even if it's a large underestimate, there is no reason to suspect that safeguards against abuse aren't working extremely well.

The public safety benefits of Flock are massive, and the costs are manageable.

This is one of the easiest public policy questions you're going to find.

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Flock's own 2023 self-funded study estimated its cameras help solve around 700,000 crimes each year, or roughly 10% of all reported crime in the US based on surveying just 123 law enforcement customers who volunteered data.

More recent Flock marketing cites 1,000,000 "cases supported" in a year, plus helping locate about 10,000 missing persons.

El Oso said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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OK, by each statement:

If the police sell your information...
El Oso: What does that matter? If I was doing nothing wrong, I have nothing to fear. That's what people tell me about the police all the time. I don't have to worry about them killing me if I just put my hands up and keep my mouth shut.

Me: It's simply wrong. My information belongs to me, and it's just plain wrong for someone else to use my information without my consent unless I have broken the law, and even then there are still limits on what they can do with my information.


Do inside your home...
El Oso: This seems to be a straw man. Flock cameras observe me out in public where there is no wide ranging right to privacy like there is in my home. I'm not inside my home, so this is a straw man.

Me: Flock cameras are a 4th Amendment violation just waiting for the courts to catch up. Your front door is a big bright red line; efforts to find out what's behind your door must require a warrant, no excuses.


Weaponized...
El Oso: These agencies you list are already weaponized. In fact, the police use those weapons to kill people all the time. But again, I'm told that only happens because these people resisted. So, if I don't resist the flock camera, the question still stands, what do I have to fear from the police if I am doing nothing wrong? Any weaponized law enforcement puts me in zero danger if I am following the law.

Me:I have many friends who worked Law Enforcement, and your characterization is complete bull***** You really need to get a better sense of what it's like for LEO to be in an officer-involved shooting.

Now with that said, the problem of police surveillance is that there is a long history of abuse, and subsequent restrictions on how such information may be collected or used. You don't ignore those restrictions, period.


Police access for personal use...
El Oso: If I have done nothing wrong, there wouldn't be anything the officer could actually use would there? And even if he/she did it, it couldn't possibly harm me because what I was doing was legal.

Me: Your answer is right out of the Stasi Public Relations booklet. You have it 180 degrees wrong. It's not that officials can do whatever they want unless they are worried about getting sued, it's that citizens have rights which may not trimmed, let alone ignored.

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We all have friends in law enforcement. Not all LEOs are bad people. I never said that. I simply said LEOs have been known to kill civilians, and when that happens, the posters on this board say it is because the citizen wasn't cooperating. There's even a thread on this board right now stating that Derek Chavin did nothing wrong. It definitely isn't reading like satire.

The courts have consistently held your interpretation of the fourth amendment is wrong. The camera observes the car not the person. In fact, the thing the camera is recording is a government ID issued to you and your car by the federal government. By law, at least in Texas, you must give LEOs your ID if they ask for it, so the camera isn't doing anything a LEO couldn't get from you. The cameras aren't tracking you either. They observe your car at a specific point in time, and because of this, the courts are saying your fourth amendment rights are not being violated. What happens after that may not be kosher because of rogue LEOs, but again, LEOs, generally speaking, are good people. Get rid of the rogue officers. I think we would all be on board with that.

And we aren't talking about liberal justices being the problem here either. Both the ninth and eleventh circuit court of appeals are the ones affirming these findings. The 11th circuit might just be the most conservative appeals court in the country and they affirmed ALPRs. Trump has appointed 11 of the 28 justices on the ninth circuit, and while it still leans liberal by number, these 11 justices support judicial philosophies that favor law enforcement's use of ALPRs.

It's also ironic that the ACLU is the biggest agency trying to undo the decisions. Technically, the ACLU is nonpartisan, but the majority of posters on this board would tell you they align with liberal and progressive ideologies. Now you are getting in bed with the enemy.

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You can make all the convoluted legal arguments you want, but patriotic Americans are never going to be okay with airborne surveillance drones following people around and recording their every move without a warrant or probable cause. At least not until we equip them with weapons and start using them to gun down immigrants who may or may not be here legally...then it will be a whole different discussion.

Even then Americans don't want the government spying on them. We might be ok with drones spying on known illegals (but are they sure?) because illegals don't have the same rights as citizens. They have no right to be in the US at all.

historian said:

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Even then Americans don't want the government spying on them. We might be ok with drones spying on known illegals (but are they sure?) because illegals don't have the same rights as citizens. They have no right to be in the US at all.

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You MAGA folks are beyond satire. All I had to say was "immigrants," and you're already half sold on the idea.

Osodecentx said:

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boognish_bear said:

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Did Flock cameras collapse the crime rate?

There are now about 120,000 Flock cameras across the US.

In the last few years, we have reached record low violent crime rates, and automobile theft is down 50%.

This probably isn't a coincidence. Surveys of police departments…

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) August 10, 2026

Did Flock cameras collapse the crime rate?

There are now about 120,000 Flock cameras across the US.

In the last few years, we have reached record low violent crime rates, and automobile theft is down 50%.

This probably isn't a coincidence. Surveys of police departments indicate that Flock is helping to solve hundreds of thousands of crimes a year.

Some crimes, like automobile theft and kidnapping, should get to approximately zero if Flock cameras and other kinds of crime-fighting technology continue to proliferate. But every type of crime will get harder to pull off. Think about how much more difficult murder becomes without being able to use a getaway vehicle.

The abuses that have been found are regrettable but rare. We're talking dozens of cases. Even if it's a large underestimate, there is no reason to suspect that safeguards against abuse aren't working extremely well.

The public safety benefits of Flock are massive, and the costs are manageable.

This is one of the easiest public policy questions you're going to find.

---

Flock's own 2023 self-funded study estimated its cameras help solve around 700,000 crimes each year, or roughly 10% of all reported crime in the US based on surveying just 123 law enforcement customers who volunteered data.

More recent Flock marketing cites 1,000,000 "cases supported" in a year, plus helping locate about 10,000 missing persons.

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The Biden administration allowing so many unaccompanied children into the nation made it a target rich environment to find 10,000 missing kids.

Thanks to the target rich environment, I can look like a great wing shot if I'm hunting dove in Chili. Not so much in McLennan or Bosque counties.

JUST IN: Social media users are calling for Halloween to become “De-Flock America” night, targeting Flock surveillance cameras while people are out in masks.

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) August 17, 2026

#STATE: A North Texas county has shut down its network of Flock automated license plate reader cameras, saying the technology amounted to warrantless surveillance of residents going about their daily lives.

🔗 https://t.co/Voi7EQSmox pic.twitter.com/sjsbqG19is

— KWTX News 10 (@kwtx) August 17, 2026

JUST IN: Man dressed as Darth Vader appears before San Diego City Council to defend its 550+ Flock cameras — declaring, “This is what the emperor needs.” pic.twitter.com/VAu7geTq93

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) August 20, 2026

Flock has 120,000 cameras tracking cars across America, no warrant required. Over 5,000 police agencies have signed on. This isn't crime fighting. This is mass surveillance of every American, and a violation of our 4th Amendment rights. pic.twitter.com/LW67xSOAMN

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 20, 2026

boognish_bear said:

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Flock has 120,000 cameras tracking cars across America, no warrant required. Over 5,000 police agencies have signed on. This isn't crime fighting. This is mass surveillance of every American, and a violation of our 4th Amendment rights. pic.twitter.com/LW67xSOAMN

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 20, 2026

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Well, there's your signal that the cameras are here to stay. Once the Old Randstander is championing your cause, you know nothing will ever get done about it.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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This is a Democrat wet dream.Tin Walz is erect just knowing this is possible.

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I think you should look into which side is supporting these things. I live in NC, a state where the GOP has a supermajority in both the State House and Senate. The GOP comments coming out in favor of a mass surveillance state are terrifying.

https://www.wral.com/news/nccapitol/surveillance-drivers-camera-alpr-license-plate-reader-nc-budget-public-safety-privacy-july-2026/

Lo and behold, not two weeks later, an NC cop got charged with feeding information he obtained from the Flock database to his buddy, who is (allegedly) a drug dealer to help him evade charges.

https://www.qcnews.com/charlotte/questions-raised-over-flock-camera-oversight-after-cmpd-officer-charged/

El Oso said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Oso: " Technically, the ACLU is nonpartisan, but the majority of posters on this board would tell you they align with liberal and progressive ideologies. Now you are getting in bed with the enemy."

That's a dishonest statement. First, over the past 40 years the ACLU has shown itself a left-leaning group by the cases. The 'nonpartisan' claim is about as objective as Elon Musk's opinion on the virtues of AI.

But second, many of us have open minds, and will praise protections of our rights and oppose destruction of them, regardless of who is doing to attacks/protections.

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This is the ACLU mission statement. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization with the mission to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the United States, while expanding those protections to people historically denied them.

That's non partisan. And just as I said, posters on here (you specifically) would say it was left.

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Ha! OK, you just drove off the credibility cliff.

The funny thing is that I would have been a card-carrying member of the ACLU right up through the 1980s. But since then, they have just become DNC apparatchiks. Their whole attempt so criminalize opposition to abortion is incredibly shameful for any organization that says it gives fig for civil liberties.

Privacy for kidnappers, car thieves & wanted felons

Ohio grand jury refuses to indict man accused of cutting down Flock camera

https://notthebee.com/article/ohio-grand-jury-refuses-to-indict-man-accused-of-cutting-down-flock-camera-

Cognyte is an Israeli surveillance company.

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article316855927.html

Texas police are using a new tool to track down people they're looking for, and that tool can travel with them.

The Texas Department of Public Safety purchased four brand-new Chevrolet Tahoes in March as part of a $4.5 million deal, according to reporting from Forbes.

The SUVs have technology that can help police pinpoint someone's location through their cellphone. And police don't have to be looking for you for your phone to come into contact with the system.

So what exactly can these SUVs do, and how does the technology work?

Here's what to know.

What can Texas DPS' new surveillance SUVs do?

If police have a person's phone number and a general idea of where they are, officers can drive into that area and use the technology inside the Tahoes to help pinpoint the location of the person's phone.

That technology is called FalcoNet, made by Israeli surveillance company Cognyte. Police can also use it when they don't know which phone belongs to the person they're looking for.

According to Forbes, officers can scan an area and use information collected from nearby devices to identify which device may belong to a suspect.

That means your phone could be picked up by the system simply because you're nearby, even if police aren't looking for you or suspect you of a crime.

The system doesn't have to stay inside the Tahoes, either. FalcoNet can also be carried in a backpack or attached to a helicopter, allowing officers to use it while driving, on foot or from the air, according to the Forbes report.

How does FalcoNet connect to cellphones?

FalcoNet is a cell-site simulator, which essentially means it pretends to be a cellphone tower and causes nearby phones to automatically connect to it.

Once connected, FalcoNet can collect information that helps police tell the phones apart and use signals from a phone to help narrow down its location.

Cognyte says the system can handle thousands of devices per minute and can be set up in about three minutes.

Texas' nearly $4.5 million purchase was Cognyte's largest U.S. deal on record, according to Forbes.

Texas DPS requested emergency approval for the purchase in March, saying the equipment was needed for immediate law enforcement use.

In its request, the agency said the systems provide "real-time location tracking, which is critical in locating missing persons, organizing and conducting high-threat manhunts, tracing suspect movements, and coordinating emergency response efforts."

DPS also said waiting to buy the equipment could put officers and other state personnel at risk and make it harder for the agency to respond when it's needed.

According to Forbes, Cognyte's surveillance van technology can be used without a warrant in emergency situations, such as an active kidnapping or child abduction.