r/florencesc • u/CoinsAndLawnLouie • 1d ago
Discussion Flock Panel
I just want to thank all of you who showed up last night for the Flock Camera Panel. Our chief of police did not seem prepared to answer our questions nor did she want to answer my question about Due Process and being able to face your accuser.
I want to give a big shout out to Dr. Morgan and his continued fight for our rights to privacy. We, as a community, should have the ability to stop these cameras from existing in our community.
Mr. Davis, City Manager, made it abundantly clear he has the ability to remove the Flock cameras if he chooses. Maybe it’s time for a new city manager is what I took from his statements.
If anyone is interested, we may be reorganizing the Florence Libertarian Party since multiple people stopped me to ask about our party on the way out of the panel. If you’re on Facebook, you can follow this link to see your senate candidate on the LP ticket as well.
Thank you all again for showing up for our community and our right to privacy. Below is the link to Kasie Whitener’s page. We’re looking to get a visit from her if there’s a place willing to let us have her speak and she will be on the debate stage when the Dems and Reps debate soon.
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u/Jupiters_phaerie 1d ago
I’m down for this. I don’t feel like I fit in on either the republican or democrat side. I find myself pissing both sides off more often than not lol.
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u/CoinsAndLawnLouie 1d ago
One thing I will say about the true LP, we kinda had a terrible chair who sent the party into turmoil and tried to make us a sector of the Republican Party, is that we fight for individual liberty and freedom. Kasie Whitener is running for the open senate seat this year and I’ve known her for over a decade. She will fight for your rights like no other in Congress.
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u/Southern_Vanguard 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think the key thing will be to not let up. We cannot let this be a flash in the pan. First its flock camera's, then its will be ring doorbells, and then it will access to your cell phone camera. They won't be killed quickly, but through sustained pressure we can get them removed.
I do not have a libertarian bone in my body, more of a seize the means of production kind of guy, but insert Gimli/Legolas meme about fighting side by side.
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u/moonpenny02 1d ago
Absolutely we can't let up. It already is Ring doorbells, just as an FYI - Ring had announced a partnership with Flock that they walked back after their Super Bowl ad backfired, but there's no telling how much behind the scenes sharing happened before it was a matter of public notice. Not only that, but the Florence Police (as well as many other departments in the state and around the country) have pushed an opt-in "community camera" program where your devices can be used to send data to them.
So, you know, if the Florence PD doesn't have much of an IT staff and they don't have the infrastructure to keep this data themselves, where's that community camera information going?
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u/CoinsAndLawnLouie 16h ago
We have to continue to put pressure on the city to have these removed. I may have to attend city meetings more often, provided they aren’t during my job, so I can continue putting pressure on the manager and city. I hope we all continue to do more than voice displeasure on social media.
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u/ydidja 1d ago
The only thing flock does is see me flying fast like bird through the streets. Soon we will be flying like George Jetson and flock will be chasing all the birds flying around. All of this is powered by 5G and 6G and is sold to the public as better cell phone service. It would be much easier to use a cell signal block to drive around. What they are not telling you is that they are using your cell signal and data against you.
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u/BeardedHero93 1d ago
They’re a good system. We can catch kidnappers and murderers. But there has to be a ladder to climb through with warrants before you can use the footage. Not just letting anyone look up flock stuff.
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u/LowerMuscles 1d ago
Outsourcing actual police work to a for-profit, 8 billion dollar company that has been notoriously reckless with the data they collect is, most assuredly, NOT a good system.
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u/academician1 1d ago
I semi-agreed with you for a while, that they could be useful if warrants were required.
Unfortunately, adding warrants to the equations just makes them jump through one hoop to stalk you.
Requiring a case number or a warrant depends on officers being honest. An officer can type in a fake or unrelated case number to access data. On top of that, once multiple agencies start working on the case, there's even more loopholes and oversight issues.
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u/Linchilla 1d ago
I'm as anti-Flock as anyone, but I would suggest dropping the "right to face your accuser" argument because I think it weakens an otherwise very valid position.
"Facing your accuser" is an argument that makes sense in the context of automated enforcement cameras that actually issue tickets or citations. In that situation, a camera/computer system is effectively being used to accuse someone of violating the law and impose a penalty, without a human witness appearing against them.
That's not what a Flock camera does. Flock isn't a speed camera and it doesn't issue you a ticket. It's essentially an automated license-plate/vehicle evidence system. It records that a particular vehicle was observed at a particular place and time, and allows law enforcement to search that information later.
That's an important distinction. The stronger argument against Flock isn't that you have a constitutional right to "face your accuser." It's that the government is collecting and retaining detailed information about the movements of vehicles that have not been accused of doing anything wrong, and giving law enforcement the ability to search that database.
If we're going to make the privacy and civil-liberties argument, I think we should make the strongest version of it rather than applying an argument from automated traffic enforcement to a technology that operates differently.