95 Comments
User's avatar
Jpeach's avatar

It’s nice to see the American Revolutionary Spirit is still alive. Destroying Flock cameras is today’s version of dumping tea in Boston’s harbor. I’m also all for taking down Somali flags in front of certain Blue City Halls, during the Independence Day holiday.

Joanie Higgs's avatar

ditto "Stay 6 feet apart" signs that popped up everywhere in March 2020.

Justin's avatar
33mEdited

Oh, is it Native American day? That's the disguise du-joir for a reenactment.

Or do we go medieval on their BUTTOCKS?

Gwyneth's avatar

"It's not that I have something to hide. I have nothing I want you to see."

- Amanda Seyfried's character in the movie Anon.

KatWarrior's avatar

Amen 🙏. My attitude is and always will be is, mind your own business, do not ever step foot on my property without my consent, and the government ( let alone anyone else) has zero right to interfere in my life. I do not require a “permit” to do anything on my land. Period. Full stop.

If I want to erect the Tower of Piza on my land, I will do so. It will not obscure anyone’s view because I have no neighbours! However, I cannot do a thing on my own damn property without first obtaining a “permit!” Yeah, that ain’t happening any time soon.

KC & the Sunshine's avatar

Powerful tools do indeed need powerful rules.

I’m irritated by all the delivery people taking pics of my

mailbox, then coming down our driveway which is very long. They then take 2-3 pics of the package that they usually leave TOUCHING the (mostly glass) front door. Anyone casing the joint for a robbery would take fewer pics. It feels pretty invasive.

I must admit, these pics, which they send to my email, have made me remember to water my porch plants a few times, so there’s that.

Invade people’s privacy and send those pics to Amazon/China/whoever. You never know. You may save a life— of a colossal fern.

Vee's avatar
2hEdited

The solution is to not allow the AI surveillance system to be built out to enslave us. The writing has been on the wall. There is no justification to allow this into a free and open society. Look at what Chinese society is like today and ask yourselves if this is what we want for ourselves and for our children.

If they want to monitor us, why don't we flip the script and monitor them? All politicians, executives of publicly traded companies, and anyone with any influence at all on a global scale should be tracked, traced, and recorded for accountabe purposes. You want to inject every American with an experimental clot shot? Then show us who exactly allowed this to happen and tell us who will be held accountability when people start to drop dead.

Peace's avatar

And require "those people" to be injected like they require of the normies. Not a good look when Congress is opted out of the very things that are mandated for non-congressional humans.

John Wright's avatar

While the Flock cameras have drawn attention. This is not a new problem, it's just getting worse.

Mass surveillance is growing. People just haven't paid much attention to the fact that our phone conversations are listened to and scanned (this has been going on for a half a century or longer!), our emails are read, our web searches are observed. We live in a fishbowl and the glass is becoming more and more transparent by the day.

Debby's avatar

It's so creepy when I have a private conversation in person, and something in that conversation ends up being in a bunch of ads on Facebook a short time later. You KNOW "they" are listening.

Doug's avatar

I was prompted to act quickly last week to download my Facebook history file prior to them deleting it (I'm sure Meta wants to recover server storage and NSA already downloaded that file). It was shocking to see that all of my conversations, likes, saves, etc., have been archived - and probably sold to online marketers as well. I'm sure I'm on some list somewhere too..

Doug's avatar

I sold a digital mixer on Facebag Marketplace to a nice young man who made the 50-mile trip from San Francisco to my place for the purchase (evidently I underpriced it).

We got talking about cures for insomnia - we discovered we'd both begun suffering from it during the Covid lockdowns. My cure is a little electric guitar leaning against my nightstand; when I can't get back to sleep, I grab it and start playing (unplugged) laying in bed until I become sleepy enough where I drop the pick - that's when I know I can get back to sleep. It's therapeutic, and makes me a better player, at least while I'm laying down..

ANYWAY, he told me he gave in and got the jab back in '21- the first one - so he could start playing out again, but almost immediately regretted it. He told me he's had side effects from the jab - for example, he's been in the emergency room with racing heart palpitations twice in the last month. I felt so bad for him - I don't play music for a living, so I understand people who depend on playing in clubs making a tough choice just to pursue their career. I faced the same choice, but my company allowed me a religious exemption before the 5th Circuit told Biden he couldn't use OSHA to force workers to jab up. It was heartbreaking to hear this talented ~40-year-old he doesn't expect to make it to my age. I hope he's wrong about that.

CStone's avatar

Best idea I have ever heard.

Marlene Swann's avatar

Also, isn’t it weird that I just read an article that mentioned drones carrying spray paint are being utilized more and more against the flock cameras.

Justin's avatar

That sounds like a solution when the advice against 3000nm green lasers is so prevalent. (cough)

Doug's avatar

A friend of mine has a blue laser that can ignite a match - I wonder if it can disable a CCD?

Meddling Kid's avatar

My actual concern about surveillance cameras is whether there is an easily-obtainable laser that will visibly make them snap, crackle, and pop to let the smoke out from at least from at least 1,000ft away while I drive around with my truck tailgate down and wearing a set of rubber glasses, nose, and mustache.

Oh yeah, and Elaine Chao is a commie spy, always has been, pass it on.

John Wright's avatar

Don't let America become China!

Dena's avatar
8mEdited

My neighborhood hoa put the question out on whether to install flocks in our neighborhood. We had some mailbox theft problems in an otherwise safe neighborhood. I was surprised at how many thought the cameras would make us ‘feel’ safer without any thought about privacy issues. I brought up the privacy thing & some neighbors wanted me to elaborate. Did my best, and so far no cameras. What we did do was pay up for locking mail boxes.

Steve's avatar

Very thought provoking. Ben Franklin is quoted "‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’ It would seem to me that the Flock cameras may indeed bring safety or justice on occasion, but it's totally undermining the freedom. It might make policing easier, but the citizens don't need it. Get the FLOCK OUT :-)

Ginny Moore's avatar

“Somewhere between “the government thinks you did it” and “good luck proving you didn’t” there has to be a better answer.” Hope to find that here in the comments, honestly. You have some super smart subscribers!

Bad ass as always! 😘🤬🍑❤️

David Nelson's avatar

On the flip side, if the surveilleurs have nothing to hide, why would they object to making the locations of each of their cameras "obvious": like mounting them with strobe lights and under brightly colored clown balloons?

I'm seeing more and more of those "tinted" license plate covers that you have almost to be standing in front of to make out the plate. My thought every time has been, "How can those be legal?" And yet. And yet...

My own idea was an industrial-strength, three-sided, license-plate "shoe box" that the plates mounts inside of, shading it from all-but-direct views. But then I thought, "When they come for me, I'll be the only one in a Crosley with a thing like 'that' on it."

🌱Nard🙏's avatar

I believe there’s paint you can buy that will keep your license plate from being scanned. I might need to invest. They have them in my town. They’ve just outlawed them in the neighboring town. I’ve been spending more time shopping in the neighboring town lol.

Jenna McCarthy's avatar

Really? If you find it, let us know!!!

John Wright's avatar

Hmm... is it legal to spray your license plate with glitter?

"But officer, I just wanted it to be pretty!"

MaryAnn's avatar

My grand has a ‘be-dazzler kit’. I may have to borrow it or enlist her help… 😁

Claudia's avatar

Brightly colored clown balloons is good!

Penny North's avatar

I wonder if it can read a license plate if it is upside down?

CraigN's avatar

None of this matters. The license plate is one small piece of the 'footprint' to identify your vehicle. They take make, model, year, color, wheels, bumper stickers and anything else they can to make a profile of your vehicle. I don't have any legal solutions, but I can think of other solutions....

Justin's avatar

Someone will start selling magnetic mount round dots in the 3-4 inch size and move them around from time to time. Or do the neighborly thing and put them on your neighbor's car and move them around. Little sign on them explaining the purpose.

But then again, I can see they see these being stolen by other people who value their privacy.

Hmmm... Remember the "heart attack" prank? (sticking lots of hearts on someone's door as a sign of affection or gratitude)

John Wright's avatar

This is the best and most important post of the month!

I definitely had to vote "all of the above"! Warrantless searches are a terrible thing, false accusations can be devastating, data breaches are *real* and invasion of privacy leads to all of the above.

Tyranny loves surveillance. Criminals love anonymity. It's rather horrible that I strongly stand on the side of the criminals. The system should have to work HARD to accuse and convict anyone.

Not to mention the ease of fake images, fake audio, fake video - you just can't trust anything anymore. This could easily spin into the inability to convict anyone because of probable doubt.

John Wright's avatar

Let me repeat a comment I made on another comment:

While the Flock cameras have drawn attention. This is not a new problem, it's just getting worse.

Mass surveillance is growing. People just haven't paid much attention to the fact that our phone conversations are listened to and scanned (this has been going on for a half a century or longer!), our emails are read, our web searches are observed. We live in a fishbowl and the glass is becoming more and more transparent by the day.

Justin's avatar

And there's a new company with cameras not as obvious as Flock that's out there. They're hidden. The name escapes me,

John Wright's avatar

Yes... every cell phone on the planet. {grin}

Russell Schierling's avatar

If you recall, it was Biden himself that told America to "Buy a Shotgun" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-mztxHgYQo&list=RDF-mztxHgYQo&start_radio=1 Just saying...

Jennifer L.'s avatar

Russell Schierling, One of the best video memes ever done. Had to click on your link just to see it again.🤣

Claudia's avatar

1984 reads like a how-to manual

Heather B's avatar

I love that people are silly string zapping them! It all reminds me of that series "Person of Interest" which aired for 5 seasons starting in 2011. Fantastic series (!) but it's all about using surveillance to stop crime, kind of a sales pitch for it actually. There's already an anti flock group in my little city and I doubt they will be installed here.

Jay Erwin's avatar

That was a great show. 'The Machine' was benevolent, calculating the risk to each person. But it got overtaken by 'Samaritan,' which had nefarious characters behind it.

Heather B's avatar

It might be my favorite TV series EVER. It's still available on Netflix and Amazon fire stick.

The Great Santini's avatar

First problem is that courts (yes lawyers and judges) are requiring video evidence. Another problem is police incompetence and misconduct. I think the Flock cameras may stand up to 4th Amendment scrutiny. But not as currently employed. Yes they should be required to get a warrant to search the database. Yes the database should be completely private and not searchable without said warrant. Police should be held accountable for jumping to conclusions. But they always do. (That’s one aspect of incompetence.) In the instant case, no one should have even accused the woman without more evidence. Questioned her at her residence maybe.

FREED0ML0VER's avatar

Why does "This is for your own good" always remind me of the foreplay of a rapist?

Marlene Swann's avatar

I think you DO have a solution, the GOPRO strapped to our heads! Lol (That was a very vivid picture in the swamp that identifies as Marlene’s mind) 🤣😭🤣

Dr. Molly Rutherford's avatar

Most cities already have taxpayer funded surveillance video cameras. Don’t y’all watch homicide shows?