Flock Safety has been on the wrong side of the press cycle — if not the wrong side of history — for most of the last couple of years. Flock’s automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are more comprehensive than many of those previously deployed by law enforcement agencies. Not only do they capture plate/location data, they take photos of the entire vehicle, providing searchable info about distinguishing vehicle features as well as setting the stage for the almost-inevitable introduction of facial recognition tech.
Flock’s network of cameras is capable of capturing 20 billion plate/vehicle images a month. What the public is receiving in return for this remarkable gain in law enforcement “efficiency” is a lot of false positives, illegal second-hand access by federal officers, and the sickening — but wholly expected — news that cops are using this tech to stalk ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, and women seeking abortions.
Reacting poorly and belatedly, Flock has finally decided to institute a few more on-by-default options meant to deter abuse of its systems and databases, as well as lowering the default record retention period from 30 days to one week. While it is good to see Flock recognizing its contribution to the ACAB ecosphere, the new guidelines don’t appear to prevent cop shops from bypassing the presets and going right back to lengthy retention periods and stripping measures meant to give supervisors a head’s up on potential misuse of Flock plate records.
Given the disinterest of both Flock and its main customers to police themselves, US citizens are now behaving more like their European counterparts who have been deliberately destroying speed/license plate cameras for years.
Over the last few months, people have cut down surveillance cameras owned by the company Flock Safety with an electric saw in upstate New York, thrown paint on them in Oakland, California, and rammed a truck into them in Idaho. One man in Florida sits in a lawn chair holding up a piece of cardboard on a pole to block the camera’s view. City governments have joined in by deactivating the cameras or canceling contracts with Flock in Fort Collins, Colorado; Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Knoxville, Tennessee; Syracuse, New York; and Walla Walla, Washington.
Civil disobedience still works, folks. If cops want to keep their Flock cameras, they’re going to have to spend more time surveilling the surveillance devices. We’ll keep paying their overtime and they’ll keep failing to recognize the sublime irony of their actions.
It’s not just about persistent surveillance. It’s that this persistent surveillance directly contributes to law enforcement misconduct by generating a massive set of records that can be accessed by pretty much any officer for no reason at all. Hence, all the stalking. Also hence: feeding federal officers info on migrants even though the feds aren’t legally allowed to access Flock’s systems directly.
But the best indicator that the public tide has turned against Flock isn’t the protests, the abandonment of contracts by several US cities, or even the increasing acts of hostility towards the cameras themselves by pissed off citizens. Instead, it’s this: prosecutors waging a one-sided battle to secure an indictment can’t even get that done. Welcome to the resistance, Cody Morelock — and more importantly, the members of this grand jury.
A Clermont County man, who was facing felony vandalism charges for allegedly destroying a Flock camera in Union Township, had his case dismissed.
Cody Morelock was accused of damaging the camera on Mount Carmel-Tobasco Road near Glenrose Lane on June 13, according to Union Township police.
The government’s prosecutors even had visual evidence of Morelock’s actions:
Police said surveillance footage from other nearby cameras helped identify Morelock as the suspect.
But, at the end of the prosecutorial day, the people (of the grand jury) decided the government didn’t get to ring Morelock up for doing something they apparently didn’t feel was criminal enough to result in an indictment.
A Clermont County grand jury declined to indict Morelock on felony charges.
There’s your jury nullification, I guess. Prosecutors wanted a felony and assumed they had this on lock given the average value of a Flock camera. But they didn’t. Either the grand jury decided the prospective value of the property didn’t support a felony charge, or it simply decided the government wasn’t going to get to punish someone for damaging a Flock camera because… well… pick any of the reasons listed above.
We don’t know for sure what happened here. And there’s a good chance we’ll never find out, given that grand jury records are rarely, if ever, made public. But it does look like the government went hot and heavy with the vandalism charges only to be met with the indifference of regular people who don’t care whether or not Flock cameras are vandalized. And when the government can’t sell its stuff to a captive audience that only gets to hear one side of the story, the government should recognize its actions — ranging from the installation of the cameras to this failed prosecutions — no longer reflect the will of the people and adjust accordingly.