I noticed this thing on my daily walks….
What it is it?
A search on line finds THIS…..
Below is a piece on people NOT HAPPY about these things ….
All over America, a rebellion is underway.
The target of the uprising: thousands of unobtrusive, brick-sized cameras mounted on standard poles, powered by solar panels, scanning passing traffic. They record your car’s make and model, your license plate number and your bumper stickers, and they snap a photo tagged with the precise time you passed by. The information goes to a national database.
Flock Safety’s automated license plate readers (ALPRs) have sparked worries about mass surveillance in the service of the Trump administration’s deportation strategy and the potential for abusing the technology.
The sales pitch is simple: What police department would not want this kind of force multiplier to battle car theft, hit-and-runs, trafficking or abductions? What about the power to cross-check license plates with active warrants?
The Unblinking Eye
The ALPRs may provide convenience for law enforcement. But civil liberties groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have pointed out that the database has been searched for purposes from tracking political protesters to monitoring individuals seeking out-of-state reproductive healthcare.
“Via public records requests, EFF obtained datasets representing more than 12 million searches logged by more than 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025. The data shows that agencies logged hundreds of searches related to the 50501 protests in February, the Hands Off protests in April, the No Kings protests in June and October and other protests in between,” EFF said.
In a separate case, the foundation found that Texas deputies queried Flock data in an abortion investigation that law enforcement initially (and misleadingly) claimed was a missing persons case.
There have been other high-profile instances of abuse: One Kansas police chief used Flock cameras 228 times over about four months to track his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.
That kind of misuse isn’t particular to Flock. One general rule is that if you give the authorities a surveillance tool, someone will misuse it. But the power of Flock and related AI technologies makes privacy and abuse concerns more relevant than ever….
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There have broadly been two categories of negative responses: one at the institutional level, with local governments terminating their contracts or letting them lapse; and one at what I will call the guerrilla level, with online groups plotting how to disrupt the ALPR system.
Around the country, at least 80 communities across 28 states have pared back their work with Flock, NBC News reports.
- The Los Angeles Police Department recently ended its three-year partnership with Flock over data, privacy, security and sharing concerns.
- Austin, Texas, ended its relationship with the company last year (but appears to be rethinkingthe policy after a series of shootings).
- Denver. Westland, Michigan. Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Oak Park, Illinois. Monroe County, Indiana.
- The list goes on….
image…The Virginia -Pilot
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