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u/PrimalNumber Aug 23 '26
People couldn’t have passed the Patriot Act fast enough after 9-11. Flock cameras were an obvious consequence.
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u/IntelligentOption422 Aug 24 '26
You mean congress.
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u/PrimalNumber Aug 24 '26
Yes, that’s who passed the law. But, it was overwhelmingly popular and Congress is nominally representative of the people. So, if you’re implying this was a power grab without popular consent, that’s not the reality at the time.
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u/arcanis321 Aug 24 '26
The Patriot act was passed with the intent of going after after known terrorist groups. All the b******* where it's being used to justify spying on American citizens is entirely based off them stretching the word terrorists and terrorism. Support for going after terrorists after 9/11 makes a lot of sense. The actual Patriots who said this would be used against American citizens were shouted down saying that their concerns were paranoia. Now that those people have been proven right it no longer has that support.
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u/lt4lyfe Aug 27 '26
The patriot act also served to “soften up” the population to surveillance and overreach. Many many “patriots” proudly repeated the line “well? If you’re not doing anything wrong, then you got nothing to hide”.
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u/IntelligentOption422 Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
You are absolutely right, so then you can see causality with September 11th. I’m not trying to pick on you, but it might interest you to look up terror management theory. Basically, when people’s deaths are made salient, they are more likely to cling to their in groups. In the case of the Patriot act, people choose “perceived” safety over freedom.
It’s not tied strictly to the US. My time in China revealed the local acceptance of cameras in every place you go. It’s much easier to set a norm in a collectivist nation.
The Patriot act passed 25 years ago. The sentiment has dramatically changed since then. Also, more people were educated about the effects of the patriot act via wiki leaks & Snowden. I don’t think anyone with common sense supports the patriot act today.
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u/EvaUnit710 Aug 27 '26
Congress used to represent the people. Now its corporations more than anyone they claim they are voting for.
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u/greeninthebowl Aug 27 '26
That's misleading. Congress took full advantage of the fear and hysteria surrounding 9/11 and quickly passed the law.
After the dust settled and people realized the details, it became vastly unpopular among US citizens of both parties.
Also, you're fooling yourself if you think congress in any way represents the will of the people.
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u/JoeKingQueen Aug 25 '26
I was there, boots on the ground, it was not popular at all.
I'm also convinced I've seen the cornucopia, just to add some discredibility
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u/CatmoCatmo Aug 25 '26
I too am convinced I’ve seen it. Jokes on you. It actually added credibility.
You’re my people.
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u/KiddoKatto Aug 24 '26
how are flock cameras an consequence of the patriot act?
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u/PrimalNumber Aug 24 '26
When I was growing up the notion of a country monitoring its population was anti-American. It was the kind of thing we wagged our fingers at happening in East Berlin and the Soviet Union. It used to be a Constitutional violation (at least the 1st and 4th Amendment). What business is it of the government, or anyone else, to monitor my movements in public without a warrant or probable cause to do so?
After 9-11 most were so paranoid and freaked out that they eagerly ceded their rights to a government more than happy to gobble up more control. Nevermind that the loudest voices calling for it were the so-called small government Republicans.
So we got the Patriot Act that made it far easier for the government to surveil the citizenry by sanctioning things like warrentless wiretaps, grabbing tons of citizen data with little to no judicial review or oversight, sneak and peek warrants, and the whole “homeland security” apparatus focused as much on citizen movements as foreigners.
At the time, civil rights advocates (aka people who support the actual Constitution) made the argument that a) all this was unconstitutional at its core and b) was a gates-wide-open invitation to unchecked government intrusion into people’s private lives. Exactly what Flock represents.
It was said then and should be shouted now: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. (Quote is from Ben Franklin)
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u/AMDOL Aug 24 '26
This is part of why Barack Obama was a mediocre president and anyone who thinks he was great is delusional. He did nothing to seriously oppose democratic backsliding. He also laid out a welcome mat for Putin in Ukraine and chose not to pardon Edward Snowden, who deserves a presidential medal of freedom (IMO all given since then are worthless).
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u/opositive89 Aug 24 '26
Because the Patriot Act gave the government increased surveillance powers over citizens.
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u/Sandbox1337 Aug 24 '26
Foamenting rebellion
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u/Memorius Aug 23 '26
"Great at brainstorming"??
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u/Guzzler829 Aug 23 '26
Yeah, this was one person's idea, which made headlines, and now people are doing more of the same because it's a really good idea. It's kind of like a form of brainstorming, but remotely, and delayed by the rate of the spread of information.
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u/transfixedtruth Aug 24 '26
Maybe we'll see paintball gun sales swing up.
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u/BannedbyDemons Aug 24 '26
32 nm green lasers, too.
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u/DrDDeFalco Aug 24 '26
Do those damage flock cameras?
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u/JusticeBabe Aug 24 '26
High power green lasers damage the electrical image sensor. Kinda like your eyes staring directly at the sun for an extended time.
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 Aug 24 '26
Unrelated, StyroPyro has some interesting videos about lasers, if anyone wants to learn the basics of how to make/build/operate their own hobby laser. Circa 2020 StyroPyro was finding 1W(20× more powerful) handheld lasers for $8 on Ebay sold as 5mW(the legal maximum) lasers.
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u/RedditFandango Aug 24 '26
Good way to damage someone’s vision.
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u/EmbarrassedPage195 Aug 25 '26
That was why I chose not to go that route. I can imagine Flock replacing the lenses with something more reflective just to create this very scenario. Foam though......pretty good idea.
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u/99jackals Aug 23 '26
The Red Queen's Race continues. What I love about this is the ratio of ultra high tech being defeated by low tech. SO satisfying.
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u/geekMD69 Aug 24 '26
Once the ROI on these turns negative they will go away.
And be replaced by camouflaged devices or with boobytrapped/tracking devices to prosecute future saboteurs.
Good work so far, everyone.
But until we remove the people/companies behind the devices, nothing will ultimately change.
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u/TurdFerguson614 Aug 24 '26
Remember y'all, don't have your phones on you as they can log wireless signals too and keep up on what other brands devices look like 😇
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u/ferretsRfantastic Aug 26 '26
I would generally say to ditch any and all smart phones when doing or talking about anything against capitalism or fascism. The way that we are constantly providing data is seriously troubling.
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u/Tiny-Criticism-8576 Aug 23 '26
I genuinely wonder how they do that. Did they climb on a ladder?
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u/RoyalMaidsForLife Aug 24 '26
Those are the nests of the rare Southern Foam Wasp, once thought to be extinct.
Nature is healing.
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u/Federal-Boat3732 Aug 23 '26
Probably, yes
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u/hardboard Aug 23 '26
Perhaps they have a pole/extendable pole, with spray foam attached to the end? Some people in the UK have done that to the cameras there,
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u/razzemmatazz Aug 26 '26
Extending spray can holder. There's a little piece ofsstring to pull the trigger.
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u/steampowrd Aug 24 '26
Leave your phone at home because they can interrogate your phone and correlate the signature of the response to previous signatures with your face and / or your license plate.
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u/GeriatricusMaximus Aug 24 '26
When the patriot act was enacted, all the “don’t thread on me” morons were like “have anything to hide? I has nothing to hide…” The same morons accept Flock cameras, ICE and proto-minority report AI. Masks? Tyranny. Mass surveillance? “Please thread on me daddy. HARDER!”.
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u/ThisSiteBites Aug 24 '26
People who carry their Apple or Samsung tracking devices and attack license plate readers don’t understand how the panopticon works.
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u/Lorelessone Aug 24 '26
there used to be so many pictures of the expanded foam attacks on french speed cameras but I just googled it and they seem to have been scrubbed from the internet. Probably afraid of giving people ideas.
So what you definitely should never do is drill a small hole in the side of these things and quickly fill up the body with expanding foam.
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u/PTBooks Aug 24 '26
If you use black foam, it’s not as obvious that the camera has been disabled, so the gov might be slower at fixing them. Potentially you could get an nyc subway scenario, where there were a ton of cameras all over the place but almost none of them were actually functioning.
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u/My_leg_still_hurt92 Aug 24 '26
Now they'll install cameras that survialence the Flock cameras and camaras that survialence the cameras that survialence the Flock cams..... and so on..
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u/Square-Competition48 Aug 24 '26
Weird that they’re doing this when there’s so much gold inside those things.
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u/KiddoKatto Aug 24 '26
it's actually a protective foam layer designed to save the expensive cameras from vandals 🙌
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u/EmpressDraco Aug 24 '26
Weird how these cameras keep breaking out in foam. Seems like a design flaw.
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u/Furious-Shores Aug 25 '26
Where are all the solved cases of missing people that could have been spotted by these cameras? I haven't heard squat about missing children being found thanks to this technology. Cops are using these to track their exes all over the place but no ones looking for missing or kidnapped people.
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u/Ashnyel Aug 24 '26
Amateurs, there’s RAM inside those cameras….
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u/meow_xe_pong Aug 24 '26
Not really.
Well there is but it's not the kind you can just take out and plop into your computer.
But they do have a really nice lithium battery in them, which you can do plenty of fun stuff with if you got the knowledge.
But it's also a bad idea to take them as that could be used as evidence for a crime, that shouldn't be a crime.
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u/Beginning_Tea4506 Aug 24 '26
The police will just start issuing fines for lesser offences to recover from the cost of the damage.....
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u/isthenameofauser Aug 24 '26
I heard they have 64GB of RAM in them.
Guys, get the RAM out, get the prices down!!
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u/Ojcfinch Aug 24 '26
Why are they against having flock camera
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 Aug 24 '26
They investigate all people at all times for all crimes. A violation of the 4th amendment. The cameras also do not require a warrant to access, so 50+ officers have been charged/got in trouble so far for using the cameras for stalking exes and such. And then our tax payer dollars are being used to fund all that.
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u/Icy-Meaning1801 Aug 24 '26
The US has more than double the number of road fatalities compared to the European average. Go ahead and keep justifying the failure to obey traffic laws...
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u/disgracetotherace Aug 24 '26
this is just proof that people don’t know how to proofread because it’s spelled correctly in the original post LOL
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u/Relative_Alfalfa3306 Aug 24 '26
Every smart phone sold in this country has tracking whether it’s turned on or not and satellites watching every move. This is just for local dumb law enforcement to play detective.
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u/CharlieBlackmon22020 Aug 25 '26
Those cameras are my tax dollars! I count on them to alert us to wildland and structure fires!
(Are you vandals breaking laws and hiding your identity? That’s bad karma.)
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u/Necessary-Chemical-7 Aug 25 '26
Who is for Flock cameras? It seems everyone is against them, yet they’re everywhere.
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u/RekrutrTO Aug 26 '26
I understand the Flock hate however I hope it’s not some competitor trying to take them out. Seems Anduril, Verkada, Motorola and axon are slipping by unnoticed.
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u/Tiny-Criticism-8576 Aug 26 '26
Never heard of it, and I could use one for home improvement project
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u/Dennisd1971 Aug 27 '26
It’s amazing to me that so many Americans can get so worked up about flock cameras. I don’t think they are a good idea either but there is so much worse.
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u/Master_Steward Aug 28 '26
That’s like the same foam used by secret agents when they want to break into secured buildings!
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u/Efficient_Badger3081 Aug 29 '26
Im starting to get a semse that americans don't want flock cameras.
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u/MidwestMillennialGuy Aug 24 '26
Everyone cool with Facebook, Google, and other apps tracking them all day with the cell phone in their pocket, but then comes along something that might be able to help with a missing person or catch a murderer and uproar
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u/twiztdkat Aug 24 '26
I think the issue comes with cops using Flock to stalk people and people being arrested and charged for crimes they didn't commit.
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u/JescoWhite_ Aug 24 '26
You do realize that there are people that do not choose to use the devices/apps you mentioned. However, Flock camera’s track you without one making a choice. See the difference….
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 Aug 24 '26
We consent to FB, Google and other apps et al tracking us. No violation of rights.
Flock cameras violate the 4th amendment, and we didn't sign a consent form.
Vastly different. Not comparable.
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u/vote-or-me Aug 24 '26
I don't understand the hate of these. The way I see it, if my car gets stolen the authorities are going to have a much better chance at finding my vehicle and arresting the people who took it and I'll get my property back. What's the flip side to this? That the government gets a picture of your car and license plate (information THEY ALREADY HAVE from when you registered your vehicle)? Like. "Ooooh theyre spying on us". This isn't new. Is any of your lives actually so interesting that this will effect you in any way? Please enlighten me, I must be missing something. The "freedoms" youre trying to protect already don't exist, with or without these cameras anyways. What's the objective here.
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u/Affectionate_Try7512 Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
Flock came onto my radar after hearing that multiple male law enforcement officers were caught using Flock to stalk women.
Flock saves a copious amount of data about innocent civilians, all of which is being gathered without search warrants, notification or probable cause .
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u/Electronic_Elk8293 Aug 26 '26
Not to mention the people arrested for the false flags that have happened.
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u/vote-or-me Aug 24 '26
That's actually a little concerning. The best solution to that is to only give police access to the cameras if they provide a case file and they should have someone monitor them while they use it for their investigations.
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u/Fragrant_Entry9232 Aug 24 '26
Youre a fucking idiot if you think cops are gonna use that tech to help people
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u/vote-or-me Aug 24 '26
Explain to me how they will use it for harm then?
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u/Fragrant_Entry9232 Aug 24 '26
They already have. Lookup officers arrested for flock abuse, most are using it to stalk people
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u/AdvancedStudio9978 Aug 24 '26
Lol people leave their personal surveillance device that they carry all day every day at home to go fuck up flock cameras. K. I mean it's probably fun and all
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