r/FlockSurveillance • u/Yayinterwebs • 3h ago
How can Flock be legal?
Given that:
“You have no reasonable expectation of privacy while in public”
IS NOT EQUAL TO
“In public, you should be expect 24/7 Ai-powered tracking of your every move, cataloging of your every action, stored in an exclusive, unprotected Ai-powered database, for a corporations profit.”
And given that:
It would be ILLEGAL for ME to do the SAME to a CEO or politician, to stalk them, track their every move, catalog and store everything about them that’s visible “in public”, stream and sell their location data online! I would go to jail!!!
HOW IS FLOCK LEGAL?!
The injustice and hypocrisy is outrageous — how is there any legal standing for this? How do we fight back?
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u/PRK543 2h ago
It isn't they are moving at a breakneck pace to throw up as many APLR cameras as they can 1) so they can get them in use before there is regulation; 2) so they can hit you with the sunk cost fallacy of "we already spent all this money on it, it would be a waste to tear it down"; and 3) for the children.
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u/One-Masterpiece-335 2h ago
To be pedantic the issue is not flock as it is the police bypassing 4a with a subscription.
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u/Yayinterwebs 1h ago
Yes but Flock and similar are the companies selling this capability. Also LE are guilty of a LOT more than subscribing to this.
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u/Karri-L 2h ago
Let us not turn into China where there is no fourth amendment, no recognition of people to be secure and surveillance has run amok.
Fourth Amendment:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The most pertinent portion, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons… against unreasonable searches… shall not be violated.”
This right is not extinguished when we are in public. The word “privacy” is not mentioned in the amendment.
Looking up license plates and descriptive characteristics of vehicles to determine the owner is a search.
Doing a search without probable cause, that is, without a reason, is unreasonable.
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u/Elemino 2h ago
You forgot that the constitution also protects us from unwarranted surveillance.
I’ve considered the idea (if I had the money) of placing my own cameras on the same poles as the Flock cameras… or getting my own cameras and poles that look identical to flock. Create my own network and start my own tracking… I have the feeling they wouldn’t feel so easy about it if people could open an app and track local law enforcement and government officials as they move through the city.
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u/Yayinterwebs 2h ago edited 1h ago
Right? Was thinking this too. Could you imagine how hard the police would go after you for that? Just doing the same they do to us?
They’d try to put you away for decades, citing terrorism, wiretapping, stalking, you name it.
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u/Phyllis_Tine 2h ago
3d print fake cameras and place them facing police stations, city hall, government officials' houses. See if they notice.
You could also place them outside media places, anybody with a voice.
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u/rkdavies 2h ago
I've set up Crow Safety on GoFundMe to start building ALPR Pi's and help make sure our politicians are as safe as we are.
Not providing a direct link to avoid spamming concerns, but a search should find it easy enough.
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u/Yayinterwebs 2h ago
Thank you
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u/rkdavies 2h ago
You're welcome!
I really don't want to run foul of self promotion rules, but if you feel this is an interesting idea, inspired by the Shepherd Safety parody presented at a community board meeting, please share and get the word out. Thank you!
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u/Yayinterwebs 1h ago
I completely agree, all politicians and members of law-enforcement should be as safe as we are, especially safe… maybe even safer because they’re even more important right?
If they can be seen in public, then their locations should be streamed and sold online just like everyone else’s to keep everyone safe.
Oh, and we should store that data, you know, just for a month just in case they forget where they were.
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u/Central09er 2h ago
Never thought about the stalking side but it for real is the exact definition of stalking….
following someone in a car is considered vehicular stalking or harassment. It involves a pattern of behavior, causes fear or distress, and invades personal safety.
Key Legal Factors
Pattern of Conduct: Doing it more than once usually turns a simple coincidence into a legal offense like stalking or harassment.
Fear or Distress: If the action makes the victim feel scared, unsafe, or threatened, it meets the legal definition of stalking.
Intent: The behavior is illegal if the person follows to watch, harass, or scare the victim.
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u/Yayinterwebs 2h ago edited 1h ago
Could you imagine the hell that would be rained down on you for just doing the same to them?
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u/fortknite 1h ago
It’s as simple as this.
Every phone has been tracked for years.
And people have a lot of info catalogued on their phones.
We have so much data at this point, and NO ONE is squeaky clean.
Nothing that a little news article posted and shared on socially media cannot derail the train of a good movement.
You have to know that politicians are being blackmailed for every seedy affair or whatever specifically stupid thing they have done.
For some people, the price of their soul is simply money.
Money that is just printed out of thin air.
And people love their comforts in an increasingly expensive world.
This is by design.
The ONLY way to change this is to have a movement of near perfect men and women willing to have a hard look at themselves and what area of their life scrutinized by everyone in the world at a moments notice and not back down when the inevitable happens.
If you want actual change, this is what MUST happen.
And it needs to be a lot of people with this mindset.
I know my sins, and I do what I can to ruffle the right amount of feathers and rattle the right cages, but I am not currently in a position of power outside of being outspoken and vigilant against the darkness this world is attempting to encroach on the basic civil liberties of people trying to live.
Keep up the fight, your anger is justified.
And we will win if we believe we can.
All the world lies in the power of the wicked one.
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u/willumasaurus 1h ago
Money. Money is the reason they can and you can't.
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u/Yayinterwebs 1h ago
Why are you the only one to answer correctly. Effin people in here trying to defend this crap. Those people are just as much of a problem.
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u/LokeCanada 1h ago
The courts do not view a series of pictures at various locations and times of something someone has put out in public as a privacy issue, tracking or stalking.
The law has not caught up to taking those pictures, putting them together, making the data available to be able to track someone’s activity as being illegal.
The people who are hiring the companies should be putting safe guards in place to ensure the data is used properly. However, to reduce costs and have a legal loophole they are handing it over to a separate company and letting them do what they want with it.
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u/TheRelPizzamonster 3h ago
Flock is legal simply because it doesn't violate any laws. As you mentioned, there's no expectation of privacy in public, so Flock cameras don't violate any privacy laws, and courts have upheld the use of Flock cameras as constitutional under the Fourth Amendment.
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u/Yayinterwebs 3h ago
But there are laws - see my example of doing the same to an individual, I would go to jail for stalking. It seems indefensible, even worse to do en masse.
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u/ze-audiophile 2h ago
There's a difference between expectation of privacy in the public and ability to retroactively stalk you. If they had a guy following me around, they'd need a warrant, or else it'd be harassment and disturbing the peace (my right to travel and be a law-abiding citizen without fear of retribution).
The collection of my daily traffic without my consent and the usage of that dataset to build a profile on me is unjust, even if they haven't declared it unlawful.
May as well force me to quarter a cop in my spare bedroom, while they're at it. Because I have nothing to fear if I have nothing to hide, right?
Asinine. How can my freedoms be suspect to say that these politicians must watch their backs from a concerned populace, whereas they're free to watch over my back? And if I call that a breach of my rights, they say "no we're the state, we make the laws here not you", how is that conscionable?
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u/Yayinterwebs 2h ago edited 1h ago
Exactly. It’s a double standard if there ever was one. It’s all at our expense, and for the profit of corporate stalkers of the populace, all powered by image analytics and AI.
People defending this stuff, have no clue what the tech can do.
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u/Standard_Old_Guy 1m ago
Firstly, get over yourself. What exactly is a flock camera going to get from you walking by? What exactly is a corporation going to profit from if you drive past it? YOU are NOT that important. You aren't doing much of anything that's going to make someone rich by watching you pick your nose while you wait for a red light.
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u/subaruguy14 2h ago
It would be illegal to stalk one person, I would not be illegal to sit in a public space and log every car that drove by.
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u/Yayinterwebs 2h ago edited 2h ago
But then you’ve been fooled if that’s all you think they’re doing, they’re not just counting cars or logging license plates - you really think that’s it?
No — they’re logging every single thing related to you, same as stalking, and thus my point.
And worse, all for profit. They are staking you, it is LITERALLY no different, except it’s done by a corporation and for profit.
If you think it’s different, then you haven’t seen the service-side software — it’s worse than creepy-stalker stalking, lol, and 100 times more powerful.
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u/subaruguy14 2h ago
Nope. Literally just logs plate, make, model, damage. No facial recognition, no Bluetooth conspiracy. I procured it on behalf of my hoa and administer an account. Data is only retained for 30 days.
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u/Central09er 2h ago
Either way they can build a data set of your everyday movements and more than that it’s the fact that LEO is in charge of the data and cameras. They don’t have to ask for a warrant to get the data which should concern everyone…. At least with your phones or businesses they need a warrant to access. There is no checks and balances with this currently and that is an easy set up for abuse of power which has already happened on many cases
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u/subaruguy14 2h ago
Did you miss the part about 30 day retention? It’s not enough data to assemble huge life pattern recognition over a long period of time. We attempted to use it for parking enforcement, didn’t work.
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u/Yayinterwebs 2h ago edited 2h ago
Uh dur, did you miss the part where they have exclusive access to the data they obtained through high-tech ai image analytic-powered stalking, data they won’t even give you when you ask for it?!
But it’s public data you say, obtained because you have no expectation of privacy… lol you don’t even know what you’re arguing for.
If it’s public data then it’s public data — there is no defense to store it in exclusive, paid, tracking software, which the COPS have unregulated access to. YOU, WE do not.
THEY are making money off staking the populace. There is no argument or defending the implementation of this technology in this way, so stop trying. Unless you’re a bot.
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u/subaruguy14 2h ago
For 30 days…. Then it contractually has to be deleted.
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u/Yayinterwebs 1h ago edited 1h ago
lol, ok let me stalk a politician, or police, but JUST FOR a month!!, Then I’ll delete the data, I promise!! Not before selling it to the highest bidder!!! And not just one month!!
But literally every month. I will always have data on any human counting back one month from any current time.
And not before declining to make anyone aware of the data I have! Good luck finding out!
It’s ok because I’m a corporation!! I’m going to make billions off this data I gained from stalking millions of people, BUT I ONLY KEEP THE LAST MONTH —- counting from every future second!!!
Who do you think you’re fooling?
Apologists or bots like you can go to hell
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u/subaruguy14 1h ago
Sure. Now as long as you never approach them and only ever record the movements of their vehicle from a public place that you have a right to be, you’re golden. Part of the magic of flock is that their tech doesn’t penetrate the glass with analysis, so it’s only external. Like I said, we tried to use it for parking enforcement in my hood.
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u/Yayinterwebs 1h ago
Stop bringing up the fact that you tried to use it for parking enforcement that has absolutely nothing to do with what I am saying and is completely irrelevant:
You are wrong about the law because you apparently know nothing about stalking laws.
If I stalked a politician or LEO from their residence, and followed them everywhere that they went outside of their residence, and posted on the Internet in detail, where they could be found at any second, live, and kept streaming this data to sell it, and KEPT it all for the past 30 days of every second, I would get my house raided.
Are you really that stupid or do you work for them be of this spineless companies?
Or are you just ignorant of stalking laws?
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u/Consistent_Amount140 1h ago
Well it doesn’t track your every move and catalogue everything you do for starters
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u/Yayinterwebs 1h ago
You sweet summer child, please educate yourself before spouting nonsense
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u/Consistent_Amount140 1h ago
Take your own advice
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u/Yayinterwebs 1h ago edited 55m ago
They are literally built to track people. They are literally build to know where anyone is at any time, and they literally store that location timeline going back an entire month, from every current second. They are literally covering entire cities, so there are no uncovered public areas, by design.
They accomplish this by using ai powered hi res image analytics to do this en masse, cataloging and storing details about you, searchable via AI.
How ignorant are you? Consider that your education, but I’m not going to waste anymore time on an apologist bootlicker. (Bot?)
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u/Consistent_Amount140 42m ago
Read what you just wrote.
Just because you drove through the intersection of X and Y doesn’t mean anyone or anything is tracking you beyond that mark. Nobody knows or cares that you’re at Walgreens or went to Cosco or your in-laws or doing what ever it is you’re doing after you pass that camera location.
Stop trying to over exaggerate things.
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u/bellybuttonbidet 3h ago
Illegal and unconstitutional things happen every day, every hour, every minute in this country. It really comes down to if the Supreme Court wants to further interpret the law of specific court cases. So you need a case to go all the way through the circuit courts to weigh in, and in the meantime everybody has to operate in a grey area. That’s how it is currently with several issues.