alt Hacker NewsLawmakers Introduce Multiple Laws to Curb Flock After 404 Media Coverage
Comments
The Surveillance Accountability Act is better as it essentially restores the fourth amendment and would cover Flock but it's still amazing to see mainstream support for privacy laws.
>> "which would prohibit federal agencies from using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs)"
...yup makes sense, no reason for federal governments to have unfettered access to this data.
>> "and block federal funding from state and local governments that use the cameras."
Wait..what? Why put this silly Poison Pill in the bill? So a city can't enforce its own traffic laws without having to put an over-zealous police force in the loop? The same guy that is handling drug dealers is stopping you for traffic tickets and people think nothing should go wrong?
Without cities adopting some massive road diet (fat chance) a reduction in ALPR's will kill people. Traffic deaths are at the same level as gun deaths in the USA.
Honestly, this warms my heart a little bit. Maybe American democracy isn't dead. If the citizens make enough noise, lawmakers do listen.
The idea that a for-profit company is allowed to scan licence plates and make this data available and searchable without restrictions seems ludicrous to me.
In The Netherlands, we do have ANPR camera's but they are run by the police and there are strict rules about data retention (no hit on a licence plate means drop the data). ANPR cameras aren't used as dragnet surveillance. The NL situation is not perfect, but it's on a different playing field.
With the absolute unregulated situation in the USA, the outcome has been predictable: cops stalking people and innocent people jailed for weeks due to mistakes.
I love Benn Jordan's work, including the video where they went to a Flock office building, filming employees. They didn't like being filmed, but it did not teach them a lesson unfortunately.
If you (still) work for Flock, don't think of yourself as a moral, decent person.
Good luck! If this doesn't get an up/down vote, then there is always De-Flock America night this month. Many ways that the constituency can be heard.
[flagged]
It’s laughable to me that 404 Media is trying to take credit for this.
Hopefully they are broad enough to curb surveillance cameras in general, flock is just one of the many repugnant actors in this space.