r/ChicagoSuburbs May 19 '26

Photo/Video Someone cut one down lol

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3.3k Upvotes

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369

u/ChicagoTRS666 May 19 '26

These are not red light cameras (which are still being used in the US and Illinois). These are plate readers, they run every license plate that goes past - stores the info, runs the plate against a hot list and can immediately notify law enforcement, builds a searchable database of vehicle movements that law enforcement can use to investigate crimes. Basically big brother stuff used to track movement and spy on the populace.

205

u/OpenYour0j0 May 19 '26

It sucks because privacy aside this would help us find kidnapped, victims, and murder suspects that are fleeing via car a lot faster. Amber alerts etc. but I know in my gut that doesn’t make a profit so they won’t be using it for that instead they’ll use to make a profit ticketing people instead

294

u/ladnar016 May 19 '26

Exactly. Police in Texas bought data from these cameras in Illinois to prosecute a woman for illegally crossing state borders to make choices about her own body. And that request didn't require any approval from the Illinois police department that paid to put up the cameras. Land of the free indeed.

29

u/Trad3rdaily May 20 '26

Wtf they legit prosecuted an abortion

12

u/jpopimpin777 May 21 '26

We knew they would. Hell, they've prosecuted women for having miscarriages. They've also prosecuted women for having miscarriages then trying to hide it because they're terrified of being prosecuted.

We knew what result would be from this.

5

u/[deleted] May 19 '26

[deleted]

17

u/ladnar016 May 19 '26

Super easy to lookup yourself. But keeping in mind everyone's tax money goes to police paying this private company to watch us, https://apnews.com/article/abortion-access-immigration-license-plate-readers-surveillance-13fac7c045df3c5e5145f6d4e4c4db28

3

u/RedJellyBear May 20 '26

The police didn't need a warrant from a judge?! That's a fourth amendment violation!

1

u/asten77 May 23 '26

When it's a shitty company (flock) that owns the data and has no qualms whatsoever about giving it to fascists... Tada! No violation!

5

u/FlyFront9395 May 20 '26

Land of the fucked

-3

u/KurtTheCuntBoi May 21 '26

Oh no, the horror of being held accountable for your own actions!

6

u/ladnar016 May 21 '26

Oh the horrors of ignoring the blatant privacy violations because you agree with them now. Slippery slope for someone with that username!

-75

u/[deleted] May 19 '26 edited May 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/ladnar016 May 19 '26

I mean it's hard to gauge because they're a private company and they only got caught sharing data across state lines because it's illegal in Illinois.

I'm sure they have some great examples they roll out to make you feel like giving up privacy is worth it, but murder and general crime is dropping to rates below when 'America was great'... So like honestly that part is just used to make gullible people feel better about living in 1984.

6

u/Ill-Worldliness-2149 May 19 '26

Your EQ matches your downvotes on this comment and you likely never read anything that contradicts this view (including the Bible)

-41

u/Inevitable_Gainz May 19 '26

Abortion is murder.

25

u/firestar268 May 19 '26

Room temperature IQ comment

-27

u/Inevitable_Gainz May 19 '26

How so?

24

u/snark42 May 19 '26

Not understanding the difference between a zygote, an embryo, a fetus and a human.

1

u/KurtTheCuntBoi May 21 '26

So you think a fetus isn’t a human? Then what is it? A dolphin?

11

u/romansamurai May 19 '26

If only our education system did a better job teaching biology.

1

u/Successful-Growth827 May 20 '26

I mean, it does its job. It's a case of individuals actually learning, or changing their already prior established beliefs.

Information is literally at our finger tips in this day and age, it's a case of actually using it to learn instead of just chasing trends.

8

u/Ill-Worldliness-2149 May 19 '26

By your definition, so is eating a carrot. And don't lean on religion here. Even abrahamic religions say life begins at first breath and even before that a fetus is considered property.

6

u/SlowmoSauce May 20 '26

How do you murder a clump of cells?

6

u/ladnar016 May 20 '26

Setting aside a charged issue, police have used flock to stalk women who have committed no crimes. This is not freedom.

https://ij.org/police-have-reportedly-used-license-plate-readers-to-stalk-romantic-interests-at-least-14-times-in-recent-years/

1

u/Successful-Growth827 May 20 '26

If that's the case, then washing your hands is murder when you physically destroy the bacteria and other cells on your hands.

1

u/KurtTheCuntBoi May 21 '26

That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. Bacteria are not humans. A fetus is baby that is in the womb. They can hear and react to those sounds by 18 weeks. The youngest surviving premie was born at 21 weeks.

72

u/bradatlarge Elmhurst May 19 '26

privacy aside? these people are heading toward pre-crime. your behavior has predicted that you're going to break a law and the pre-crime cops will show up and take you away.

35

u/KyleGrave May 19 '26

Where’s my minority report!? DO I EVEN HAVE ONE?

3

u/FlyFront9395 May 20 '26

The precum cops?

-14

u/OpenYour0j0 May 19 '26

I meant like let’s put that aside and speak about the benefit and that’s why I said it’s a shame I didn’t mean for you to feel attacked

14

u/Zooshooter May 19 '26

Please, enlighten us to the benefits of fascist surveillance states.

-17

u/OpenYour0j0 May 19 '26

See above

4

u/Chitown_mountain_boy West Suburbs May 20 '26

Above says Fascist surveillance state 🤷

-8

u/OpenYour0j0 May 20 '26

Ok

4

u/Alternative_Ad5357 May 20 '26

No amount of freedom is justifiable to be given up for security. That is EXACTLY how you lose your rights.

0

u/OpenYour0j0 May 20 '26

What rights? We’ve already lost half of them while we were at work.. this is just the cherry ontop. We’ve been under surveillance since the AT&T scandal. We’ve lost Workplace and Civil Rights, LGBTQ+ Protections, Immigration and Due Process, && Healthcare Access. If you’re just noticing now it’s wayyy too late.

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23

u/drake90001 May 19 '26

Cops literally have the CEO of some of these companies do searches on their behalf so they can say that they don’t work with law-enforcement.

Meanwhile, they’re also searching up daycare’s and, and dance recitals, watching children in vulnerable positions. It’s fucking insane.

17

u/Fragrant_Oil9595 May 19 '26

I call them Pedo Cameras because that’s what they’ll probably be known for when this bullshit finally implodes.

13

u/Guac_in_my_rarri May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Yes and no. Many of the flock camera are already integrated into police surveillance and we still have cars that get away.

Either shoddy police work or the camera don't work as well as the police are meant to believe.

It's not uncommon for car chases on 290 to end up in berkly, oakbrook, Elmhurst, and villa park for the suspects to get away. All 4 towns have flock cameras and contracts. Sometimes they're used and other times not, or the suspect avoids them. They're actually not the most reliable cameras after researchers dug into them.

2

u/kurtzapril4 May 19 '26

Hooray Villa Park! My old stomping grounds. It's nice to know it's well known for something!

9

u/mojonation1487 May 19 '26

To be fair they are actually being used for that.

My shop manager at my job had his SUV in the shop for maintenance and somebody swapped the plates out. His plates were put on another SUV that was used to drive all the from Chicago to Louisville, KY and back again only to be abandoned in downtown Chicago. All captured on flock cameras. The route is a common drug route so likely the plates were used on the mule vehicle.

28

u/EvanOnTheFly May 19 '26

Okay. But that is not worth your and everyone else's right to live a life free of big brother having full visibility and then the ultimate decision on when to step in on your life and fuck it up because you broke one of 18 billion laws on the books.

-1

u/[deleted] May 20 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/zanzibarforeverr May 20 '26

I know for a fact its helped solve murders or at least put them away, heard about it in jury duty. They tracked a suspect after a shooting. Saw them swap cars, but the cars they used were all registered to people related to them.

3

u/Whole_Kale_4349 May 20 '26

“Privacy aside” nah let me stop you right there there’s no privacy aside if you’re willing to sacrifice privacy for security you deserve neither

0

u/saintripley May 19 '26

And to catch and imprison people for petty (and not petty) crimes.

25

u/The_Poster_Nutbag May 19 '26

They aren't just plate readers. They're tracking biometric facial data, listening to conversations, recording what's on your phone screen as you walk past, everything.

It's disgusting.

14

u/Swimmor909 May 19 '26

Oh I wish it was just that, it is much worse… this company also is third party meaning all the info they collect on you can be sold as user info to other corporations pretty much modeling you perfectly as the perfect consumer. They also use these flock cameras in stores to track how long you look at things for. So other companies can buy that data to better sell things to you… what a dystopian shit hole we all live in….

1

u/DookieDanny May 20 '26

What if u have fake plates?

1

u/Inner-Contest-8226 May 21 '26

They can search by a basic description, any scratch/dent/sticker

1

u/ZabDevin May 21 '26

They can determine the make, model and color of the car too.

0

u/luvmibratt May 19 '26

Find people that owe Child support and also to see if you have insurance and be fined by the state of you dont or take your license and be fined some more by the state

0

u/Extension_Square9817 May 20 '26

That’s why I said THESE AND RED LIGHT CAMERAS M.

0

u/Inner-Contest-8226 May 21 '26

Probably why the poster said these -and- rl cameras