Do you support Flock or similar surveillance tech?

[SP Cook]

It comes to a point where it's almost as bad as Beltway now, which is not a good statement.

.

What rock do you live under?

15 seconds on the internet finds 1000s of keyboard warriors who opposed the data center being built down the road from them because of the usual NIMBY BANANA rantings.  99% of those people who post this stuff have no idea of any distinction between what data centers do compared to another. 

Fun fact is you live next to an empty field, and don't want a data center, hog farm, Amazon warehouse, of waste water plant built on it, buy it.  Otherwise ...

Opposing internet infastructure on the internet is a special level of stupid.

[Road Hog]

It was a good idea in theory, but we'd have to live in a perfect world for it to actually work. I don't support the idea after hearing what has already happened with the cameras.

There is not a single mapped camera in Jackson County (yay!) but there are unfortunately many in Parkersburg. The state in general seems to be lower on the cameras, however, Lowe's stores make up a large part of that small sum.

haveibeenflocked.org is a great website to discover if your plate has been Flocked.

Link doesn't work.

[kphoger]

Link doesn't work.

should be .com

[kalvado]

Where's the poll option for "I have never heard of Flock"?

I support cameras on major highways to reliably punish speeding. Other than that no.

Traffic enforcement is one thing that I don't support cameras doing.  I believe that a human police officer should have to make a judgment call.  Camera's can't make judgment calls.

In general, camera images are purportedly reviewed by police officers before ticket gets issued. I believe reviews are pretty long, in some cases are as long as 1.5 second.

[kphoger]

In general, camera images are purportedly reviewed by police officers before ticket gets issued. I believe reviews are pretty long, in some cases are as long as 1.5 second.

I can see that your tongue is in your cheek.  But, unless the officer is at that location at that time, then it's not really a judgment call.  All he or she can see is what is shown on the camera—no context.

[kalvado]

In general, camera images are purportedly reviewed by police officers before ticket gets issued. I believe reviews are pretty long, in some cases are as long as 1.5 second.

I can see that your tongue is in your cheek.  But, unless the officer is at that location at that time, then it's not really a judgment call.  All he or she can see is what is shown on the camera—no context.

Context should be relatively easy to create if (and that is an IF) an honest enforcement and safety rather than fiscal considerations are the main driving force. 10-20 seconds of a clip should help quite a bit. 

[vdeane]

It comes to a point where it's almost as bad as Beltway now, which is not a good statement.

.

What rock do you live under?

15 seconds on the internet finds 1000s of keyboard warriors who opposed the data center being built down the road from them because of the usual NIMBY BANANA rantings.  99% of those people who post this stuff have no idea of any distinction between what data centers do compared to another. 

Fun fact is you live next to an empty field, and don't want a data center, hog farm, Amazon warehouse, of waste water plant built on it, buy it.  Otherwise ...

Opposing internet infastructure on the internet is a special level of stupid.

The internet is a LOT older than the push in the last couple of years to build lots and lots of new data centers to facilitate big tech's obsession with shoving AI in everything.  But if it only took you 15 seconds to "research" the issue, I'm guessing you just read an AI summary.  You know, the same ones that tell people how many rocks a day they should eat or that they need to glue the pepperoni onto their pizza.  Here's a hint: most of us don't consider that crap an essential or even desirable part of the internet and wish Google would just go back to the way it was 15 years ago.

[kphoger]

The internet is a LOT older than the push in the last couple of years to build lots and lots of new data centers to facilitate big tech's obsession with shoving AI in everything.  But if it only took you 15 seconds to "research" the issue, I'm guessing you just read an AI summary.  You know, the same ones that tell people how many rocks a day they should eat or that they need to glue the pepperoni onto their pizza.  Here's a hint: most of us don't consider that crap an essential or even desirable part of the internet and wish Google would just go back to the way it was 15 years ago.

But that doesn't mean every new data center is for A.I., nor does it mean people online voicing their opposition have determined that that particular one will be for A.I.  If you scrub through his nasty rhetoric, there's actually a valid point in there.

[NWI_Irish96]

I support jurisdictions using such technology only if the following conditions are met 100%:

1) the jurisdiction owns and controls all footage and none of it is accessible by the company providing the technology

2) employees of the jurisdiction have their access to any footage logged and monitored to prevent abuse

3) the jurisdiction is not allowed to share any footage to any outside agency without a warrant/subpoena

My limited understanding of the technology is that some or all of these conditions are absent in almost every case where it currently exists.

[MikeTheActuary]

I think there's a helluva lot of potential good uses from technology like Flock...but some of that is a reaction to having a scanner running as background noise in my office.  Cops in my area are getting better identification of fleeing vehicles, they perceive less need to aggressively pursue vehicles (because they can sorta be tracked by Flock), etc.

The problem, as noted, is that there are a helluva lot of potential and actual abuses of the technology, and the adoption has outpaced folks actually thinking about those abuses and how they might be contained.

At the moment, the risks outweigh the benefits in my mind.

[MikeTheActuary]

Traffic enforcement is one thing that I don't support cameras doing.  I believe that a human police officer should have to make a judgment call.  Camera's can't make judgment calls.

Of course, part of the problem with human-only enforcement comes from how some humans apply their judgment.

DWB is a thing.

I hate speed cameras, especially when deployed in places where speed limits are set for political or financial reasons, and/or in lieu of failures in street design.   However, I also hate the complete disregard for traffic laws we seem to have developed as a society.  While some of the disregard could be addressed by certain laws being applied in ways that make sense, and/or education about why certain laws/policies make sense...humans being humans, part of the disregard probably needs to be addressed by consistent enforcement.

I wonder whether there's any objective stats on incidence in speeding on UK motorways (especially if data is available for those stretches enforced by average speed monitoring) versus equivalent US interstates.

[The_Ginger]

Link doesn't work.

should be .com

My mistake. O.P. fixed.

[Scott5114]

So no link then

I posted one.

[Bobby5280]

Oklahoma effectively banned the use of automated red light cameras in the state a few years ago. When the cameras were in use there were too many instances of wrong vehicles being ticketed or vehicles being ticketed that passed thru an intersection before the light turned red. The false positive hits created a lot of PITA admin work for city and state agencies.

Automated red light cameras are still proliferating in other states. I was a bit surprised how many new photo enforcement setups were installed at intersections in Colorado Springs when visiting that area last week. I like how my Garmin dash cam warns me that I'm approaching one of those intersections. The dash cam doesn't provide any warnings about Flock cameras though. I'm guessing that's because the Flock cameras are more passive devices; they're not shooting radar beams, IR beams or whatever at vehicles.

[Scott5114]

[kphoger]

I also hate the complete disregard for traffic laws we seem to have developed as a society.

I don't mind the disregard for speed limits, because I think almost all speed limits are too low.  I also don't mind people running a red light if there's nobody around for it to interfere with—say, at 2:30am.  You show me a way to do a camera-enforced crackdown on people who park their cars across the sidewalk, on the other hand...

[kalvado]

You show me a way to do a camera-enforced crackdown on people who park their cars across the sidewalk, on the other hand...

NYC busses now have cameras for bus lane parking enforcement. Adding features for other flavors of parking issues is a matter of political will...

[vdeane]

But that doesn't mean every new data center is for A.I., nor does it mean people online voicing their opposition have determined that that particular one will be for A.I.  If you scrub through his nasty rhetoric, there's actually a valid point in there.

Where did I say "every"?  I don't know anyone going after regular server farms hosting websites and stuff.  They're going after the large data centers that are being used to train and deploy these large AI models, use a metric fuckton of electricity, pollute water, and are causing price hikes and shortages in the consumer electronics market.  The idea that the explosion of data center construction is fueled by an explosion of website expansion is disingenuous.

Also note that you're defending the Beltway of passenger rail.

That said, I certainly wouldn't mind if things like "people search" sites and all the surveillance around the modern internet died in hellfire.

[Scott5114]

But that doesn't mean every new data center is for A.I., nor does it mean people online voicing their opposition have determined that that particular one will be for A.I.  If you scrub through his nasty rhetoric, there's actually a valid point in there.

I don't think it's a valid point at all, it's a cheap gotcha based on pedantry. It's more like if someone was spoke out against a proposed new-build eight-lane freeway and someone is like "And yet you live on a street!"

[elsmere241]

My city (Wilmington, Delaware) had four, but the last one was decommissioned July 27th.  It turns out that they'd been installed in 2023.  I didn't know about them at all until a city councilor issued a statement about them a few days ago.

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2026/08/06/wilmington-discontinues-use-of-flock-cameras/91187957007/


https://6abc.com/post/wilmington-delaware-decommissioning-flock-automated-license-plate-readers-amid-growing-debate-mass-surveillance-system/19640922/

And now they've been taken down:

https://6abc.com/post/wilmington-delaware-removes-flock-cameras-debate-license-plate-readers-grows/19658091/

[ZLoth]

I belong to a neighborhood association (which is not a HOA thank goodness) which holds an annual meeting that is coming up this fall. We usually have someone from the city who provides a presentation and then takes questions. So, I can submit this topic pre-meeting. The neighborhood is already raising a stink in regards to the Amazon delivery drones that are buzzing over our homes with a Amazon warehouse nearby.

[LilianaUwU]

But that doesn't mean every new data center is for A.I., nor does it mean people online voicing their opposition have determined that that particular one will be for A.I.  If you scrub through his nasty rhetoric, there's actually a valid point in there.

I don't think it's a valid point at all, it's a cheap gotcha based on pedantry. It's more like if someone was spoke out against a proposed new-build eight-lane freeway and someone is like "And yet you live on a street!"

This is probably an actual retort NUMTOTs have.

[MikeTheActuary]

I don't mind the disregard for speed limits, because I think almost all speed limits are too low.

That's why I caveated my support for automated speed enforcement.  Stupid speed limits are an issue independent of whether automated speed enforcement should be damned....although it should be noted that appropriate speed limits are less likely to be violated.

I also don't mind people running a red light if there's nobody around for it to interfere with—say, at 2:30am.

I'm going to strongly disagree with this one, because it's a horribly unsafe habit to develop.   Yes, there's no harm if there's no one around to interfere with....but at night especially, it's too easy to fail to register that vehicle or pedestrian whom you should be stopping for.   Get in the habit of rolling through red lights, and there's too great a risk that you will eventually injure or kill someone.

However, it would be appropriate to caveat tolerance of automated red-light enforcement on the traffic lights being smart and appropriate.  In this day and age, there's no reason someone should have to wait more than a few seconds (if that) at a red light when there's no other traffic.

[Max Rockatansky]

Who gave Flock cameras that 1 supporting vote?

[1995hoo]

I don't mind the disregard for speed limits, because I think almost all speed limits are too low.

That's why I caveated my support for automated speed enforcement.  Stupid speed limits are an issue independent of whether automated speed enforcement should be damned....although it should be noted that appropriate speed limits are less likely to be violated.

I also don't mind people running a red light if there's nobody around for it to interfere with—say, at 2:30am.

I'm going to strongly disagree with this one, because it's a horribly unsafe habit to develop.   Yes, there's no harm if there's no one around to interfere with....but at night especially, it's too easy to fail to register that vehicle or pedestrian whom you should be stopping for.   Get in the habit of rolling through red lights, and there's too great a risk that you will eventually injure or kill someone.

However, it would be appropriate to caveat tolerance of automated red-light enforcement on the traffic lights being smart and appropriate.  In this day and age, there's no reason someone should have to wait more than a few seconds (if that) at a red light when there's no other traffic.

Back when I was in high school or college, some of the traffic lights in our area went to a flashing cycle overnight. Not at major intersections, though. Most of the time it would be traffic lights that served businesses, like shopping centers that were closed at night and thus would generate little or no traffic. The light on the main road would flash yellow and the light serving the shopping center would flash red. It made eminent sense for that sort of situation, and I always thought there were some other lights (typically serving smaller neighborhoods) that could have done the same, but the practice was done away with sometime in the 1990s and the lights now operate as normal overnight.

One of my college roommates once got pulled over for going through a red light late at night. He said he stopped as required, looked around, saw nobody in any direction, and decided not to waste time sitting there. He didn't see the cop parked on the other street, who pursued and gave him a ticket.

I used to go through red lights (after stopping briefly to confirm the way was clear) late at night in some of the rougher sections of Durham, North Carolina, when I was in law school. I recognized the risk of a ticket but felt it was lower than the risk of being a crime victim.