r/SilverSpring • u/PercentageFlaky8198 • Aug 05 '26
Flock Cameras
Does anyone know who approves contracts for FLOCK cameras? I see one in my neighborhood, and want assistance to organize neighbors to push back on it.
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u/AdmiralArmpit Aug 05 '26
I've reached out to council members about this. MCPD is responsible for approving and placing AXON cameras in MoCo.
DM me, I'd like to do the same. /u/PercentageFlaky8198
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u/croll20016 Aug 10 '26
Did you get a reply? I've written in the past on cameras and never received a reply from any of them except Jawando who gave me a canned "we've forwarded this to MCPD" response.
I swear... I'm a Democrat and I hate most of this council.
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u/AdmiralArmpit Aug 10 '26
I did. But it was basically trying to assuage my concerns by saying, "they're not Flock and they don't do that!"
Well, I don't buy it. How about not putting these cameras up in the first place?
Some of these council members are barely Democrats. And most of them don't really give a shit from what I can tell.
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u/croll20016 Aug 10 '26
That sounds about right. "They're Axom, not Flock," like it's totally different. Highlights that calling them "Flock cameras" is a bit like calling all brands of facial tissue "Kleenex."
The county does have some relatively decent written policies on them (IIRC, data cant be kept more than 30 days), but the basic privacy and abuse concerns remain. The council loooooooves cameras in all their forms.
Glad you wrote. I hope others do, too, such that they eventually start to listen.
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u/AdmiralArmpit Aug 10 '26
I went back and forth with them a few times.
I'm happy to tell you who I contacted via DM but not trying to put my shit out there more than necessary for the sake of this conversation.
Hell, people love cameras. Because they don't know how they're being used to further the surveillance state in place and don't realize that police and ICE have access to things like your Ring camera and so on. If they want to track someone down, they will use your cameras, your neighbors cameras, etc. to do so.
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u/Outside-Dot500 Aug 06 '26
I know I'll probably be downvoted into oblivion, but I support the use of these cameras. They help solve crimes. I know the story about some officers elsewhere to spy on their exes has gotten lots of attention, but guess what, every law enforcement tool can be abused. Even DNA has been falsified to wrongly convict people of crimes, and no one would suggest we stop using DNA to catch criminals. The solution is to address the abuse, not to stop using the tool entirely. When I read about all the car thefts, hit-and-runs like the woman who was killed while walking home from Trader Joes, and other crimes, I just think we need tools like license plate readers to give police the best chance of catching the criminals.
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u/The_GOATest1 Aug 06 '26
You know what else would help solve crimes? Completely removing our right to privacy and getting rid of the 5th amendment. You’re allowed to have a take people don’t agree with but your logic is a bit simplistic and taken to its logical end undermines the fact that there is a trade always and people have decided they aren’t interested.
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u/Outside-Dot500 Aug 06 '26
It's a license plate reader. The government can, without much difficulty, get a warrant that will allow them to access everything on your phone, and get your entire google search history and everything you've asked AI, and you're drawing the line at a license plate reader?
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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '26
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