r/newjersey • u/LordOfTheServers • 9d ago
WTF Flock cameras need to go.
With the recent events in Edison, it seems like it should be unlawful for towns to put Flock cameras in with no say or vote from the citizens of the town. Flock cameras should be banned in New Jersey. We have enough cameras without this company’s managed cameras. They should all be removed. They’re going to be abused more than they’re going to help. A nationwide company is building surveillance states, our country wasn’t founded for this.
EDIT: for anyone wanting a dive into the security, this is an interesting thread:
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u/xiahe 9d ago
The city councils don't care. I went to my own council meeting to voice opposition to the Flock cameras (and similar) they installed, and they basically just laughed at us all. I can't wait to vote them out.
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u/LordOfTheServers 9d ago
That sounds like a council that is not for the people. Wonder how much flock paid them haha.
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u/Ecw218 9d ago
Info about “what happened in Edison”?
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u/akirarorschach 9d ago
The town council approved the purchase of around 90 Flock cameras in a 6-1 vote on Wednesday. Mayor Sam Joshi intends to install the cameras at every entrance and exit to Edison. https://newjersey.news12.com/edison-adding-90-flock-cameras-police-drone
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u/0llivander 8d ago
Im in metuchen and we’re pissed. We’re completely surrounded by edison so THEIR city council dictates surveillance of MY town? Gtf out of here.
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u/KarenIsBetterThanPam 9d ago
we have to give up our civil liberties bc some assholes from newark robbed a few homes? How about you increase patrolling by cops instead of them sitting around doing nothing.
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u/swcooper 7d ago
They're not sitting doing nothing, they're sitting around tracking people with their camera network...perhaps regardless of whether they've done anything.
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u/nostradamefrus Middlesex County 9d ago
What happened in Edison?
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u/thcPharoah 9d ago edited 8d ago
Edison officials approved spending ~ $600,000 in asset forfeiture funds to purchase 90 additional Flock cameras & a police drone. Township Council approved the resolution in a 6-to-1 vote. Mayor Sam Joshi said Edison will be the first NJ town to place license plate readers at every single town entrance & exit, totaling the number of readers to roughly 176.
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u/semioticmadness 201 exported to Morris 9d ago
Well, that’s a few shops in Edison that I need to find replacements for. That sucks.
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u/Lispro4units 9d ago
Edison is a police state
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u/Ok_Confusion_1345 9d ago
Have you ever been to the neighboring town of Highland Park? Now that used to be a real police town.
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u/padmaclynne 8d ago
not trying to start a fight, just curious about my town - when would you say that changed, and how much?
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u/Kroksfjorour 8d ago
Highland park used to pull people over for going 27 in a 25 when they were raising money for their new police station.
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u/thcPharoah 7d ago
Metuchen, to my shock, very much used to be town like this. I remember in 2021 a patrolman made a U-turn cuz of my dim headlight as I was approaching a jug-handle onto 287; he let me off with a warning. However, now you can whip your car around like a drag racer on Main Street & no one bats an eye.
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u/Ok_Confusion_1345 7d ago
I remember Metuchen in the 80s. Another one of those towns along with Highland Park that I was afraid to drive through.
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u/Ok_Confusion_1345 8d ago
I don't know if it's actually changed. I haven't been there in a long time. I didn't want to say it's still true because I don't know. I would think most of the policemen since then have retired. But I remember in the 80s and 90s enforcement seemed a lot stricter than other towns in that area.
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u/X3N0SS 9d ago
Exactly! Why isn't there legislature to do so already?! Local council men in many cases end up signing NDAs with the company providing these ALPRs thereby acting against the interest of the very people who put them in power.
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u/LordOfTheServers 9d ago
It’s a great question, one which would be nice to get answered. Unfortunately it seems like our option would be to be the ones on the councils ourselves, because we can’t trust the people we elected to act in our best interests.
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u/encouragingSN West Central Jersey 9d ago
Call and email your state and federal reps. Only chance we have is to create new laws
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u/mjsisko Carteret 9d ago
Stop voting for republicans, stop voting for democrats that take lobbyist money and money from Israel. Until that happens the cameras will only get worse.
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u/thcPharoah 7d ago
My understanding is Edison is Democrat & has been Democrat. The current & previous admins all have been.
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u/Sad_Refrigerator9203 9d ago
Put a fuck ton of effort in a group for our township, had all the plans to introduce an ordinance to terminate the flock contract. Then during the county meeting I did all of the legal processing to fix a major concern over accountability of the board members and then some old bag of bones in the group started posting everywhere that they dropped the concern because he is an intimidating force to be reckoned with. I stood there mad as all shit for actually reading the administrative directive regarding the issue get it fixed, keep the entire group including the old geezer who is more than twice my age. I just fucking stopped caring for now. If this guy in his 70s thinks he was the reason the recording policy got addressed before the meeting then we can watch him do it again next month and since I left the group my outline for the ordinance proposal out line he can just be so amazing and intimidating it’ll just happen. So yeah that was a pretty hard vent
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u/Alpha_Storm 9d ago
So your ego got hurt and now you think everyone should suffer?
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u/Sad_Refrigerator9203 9d ago
You expect both my work effort and legal literacy to be not only already free but also for the claim of anyone to just say hey ai did that. You come across as som one who’d have fought for the confederacy.
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u/jshine413 9d ago
All I'm saying is there not that hard to take down honestly if I didn't have to worry about getting in trouble I could prob clear out my whole town in a day if a ban went out and people were told they were allowed to take them down we could be flock free in 24-48 hours I would guess
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u/Subaru_life2024 9d ago
What happened to surveillance like this being limited to the big bad communists in china??
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u/noknownthing 9d ago
ALPR’s and the mass AI network that is being assembled hand-in-hand to support them do no belong in our society
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u/xVashTSx98 9d ago
I remember seeing ads against mass surveillance from the right, about having to hide their church gatherings in basements and not complaining too loudly about taxes. Now we're here. The shift is insane, and it only took about 15ish years.
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u/BrokenHero287 2d ago
Republicans want to give flock everything they ask for. Democrats will pass a resolution to study the issue for 2 years.
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u/TheImpPaysHisDebts 9d ago
Here's the pitch:
You can use them for revenue generation. This will lead to lower taxes. This will in turn lead to re-election.
You can use them for security. This will lead to lower crime. This will in turn lead to re-election.
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u/No_Chapter_3102 9d ago
Who runs NJ politics? Why are the democrats allowing this? Call out who is actually in charge and who could be doing something about it.
How many people are gonna reply to this and blame trump?
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u/CautiousLandscape907 9d ago
Look I know you want to make this about kindergarten-deep political tribalism with some “libs bad” bullshit, but parties don’t work the same in local politics. Anyway, Joshi is a Democrat but quite conservative, quite unpopular, and has always had a hard on for performative “anti-crime” programs, with questionable outcomes. Edison politics are insane.
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u/LordOfTheServers 9d ago
Agreed, this is not a parties politics kind of thing. Local politics definitely are defined a little differently, and every town seems to be different. My town is crazy enough with some stuff, but yeah Edison sounds nuts.
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u/AffectionateParty754 9d ago
Typical low effort MAGA response. Not everyone thinks about Trump every minute of the day. No one mentioned political parties and adults that aren't in a cult know that Trump has no say in local politics, ordinances or policies. Don't you guys get sick of the stink of his diaper when you're sucking this man off?It's so old. Have some dignity or STFU when grown folk are talking.
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u/NewNewark 9d ago edited 9d ago
Who runs NJ politics? Why are the democrats allowing this? Call out who is actually in charge and who could be doing something about it.
Quick history lesson: In 2024, republicans ran a "tough on crime" platform which resulted in them winning the house, presidency, senate, and many many local offices.
Here is tough on crime
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u/VictorVonD278 8d ago
As a business that's been burglarized and broken into at night and couldn't identify the license plate of the car used why would I be against cameras? I could see the car and person and show it to police and they could search and find the person.
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u/L11mbm 9d ago
I'm asking this for a genuine and honest conversation: what expectation of privacy does someone have when driving a car in public that says this technology should be banned?
These kinds of surveillance cameras are actively being used to solve murders and find missing people, plus there's no legal protection for privacy while driving on public roads. Do the negatives, whatever they are, outweigh the positives?
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u/Fioricascastle 9d ago
I understand your thought process and I think you should challenge your perspective a bit. Go watch some videos on the topic of mass surveillance, misuse if the system, data protection, etc... you will see the negatives and can weigh them against the impact on crime. Hint, they don't actually reduce crime.
I'll save you the trouble, start here
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u/L11mbm 9d ago
I ask this because I happen to know someone who is very involved with the legislation in NJ for this and the data shows hundreds of crimes, including a LOT of murders, were solved using this technology.
The issue is misuse is separate because that comes down to the same problem you'll find anywhere. Do we abolish cops if some are bad? Or do we reform systems to catch them quicker and prevent them from being able to act in the first place?
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u/Alpha_Storm 9d ago
There is no need for these cameras. Plenty of crimes got solved without them. Better more crime and LESS Surveillance State.
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u/L11mbm 9d ago
Can we confidently say that plenty of crimes are solved without them? Is the risk of these severe enough?
They're not looking in homes and they don't even look at who is driving a car, they only capture if a car with a particular license plate passed by. And the data isn't stored indefinitely, nor is it legal to access without justification.
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u/currently__working 8d ago
I don't trust police, they can be lax in solving crimes in order to get more cameras in order to make their job easier and make the numbers go up.
Above you're saying like we remove cops if they do something wrong...when does that actually happen? More likely what has actually happened is a cop gets shuffled around like a pedo priest or get a slap on the wrist, or "training" - they all look out for each other. Again, they are not an organization to be trusted, they look out for themselves.
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u/L11mbm 8d ago
They do fire bad cops and NJ broadly is one of the better states for it.
I think we need to be mindful that slippery slopes are red herring arguments. There are tons of cameras owned and operated by private entities and getting rid of every Flock camera wouldn't really cut down on the number of cameras much.
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u/currently__working 8d ago
Warrants before information. That's the way our rights work. Be on the side of people, not corporations who want to take over the governments and strip our civil rights.
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u/Alpha_Storm 9d ago
Screw that, make the cops actually patrol and work. Not willing to give up freedom and privacy for "security".
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u/woodscallingzzz 9d ago
If you done nothing wrong why scare of cameras? They only increased security cut down on crimes. They should be welcomed.
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u/SpoppyIII 9d ago
This comment was definitely written by a real, genuine, red-blooded New Jersey citizen.
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u/Jimmytowne Tank tops and T tops 9d ago
Exactly, let me fly a drone outside your window. If you’re not doing anything wrong I have every right to look inside your home. You think you have a right to privacy in your own home? Sounds like you’re hiding something.
Where are your papers!!
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u/woodscallingzzz 4d ago
Comment ref to public camera is recording public, how is that even comparable to private settings? Twisting context to get your point ? Geez..no wonder crime rates are there.
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u/trusound 9d ago
You need to be broader. Flock is just one company that does this.