Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

Brian Merchant, writes Blood In The Machinereports that people in the United States are knocking down and destroying Flock surveillance cameras, as people are outraged that ID readers are helping US immigration officials and deportations.

Flock is Atlanta’s premier monitoring station valued at $7.5 billion a year ago is a license plate reader manufacturer. It has been criticized for allowing law enforcement officials to contact license plate readers across the country at a time when US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is ramping up. depend on the data targeting communities as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Traffic cameras allow law enforcement to track where people go and when they take their license plate photos on thousands of cameras across the United States. Flock says it does not share information with ICE directly, but reports indicate that local police have shared their access to Flock’s cameras and databases with federal authorities.

While other communities are calling their cities terminate their contracts with Flockothers are doing things for themselves.

Merchant reports on Flock cameras breaking and breaking in La Mesa, California, just weeks after the City Council approved the continued use of Flock cameras deployed in the city, despite the majority of attendees favoring their suspension. A local report He cited strong opposition to surveillance technology, with people complaining about privacy.

Other vandalism cases have ranged from California and Connecticut, to Illinois and Virginia. In Oregonsix license plate cameras were cut from trees and one spray painted. A note left at the base of the cut pillars said, “Hahaha the magic is ruined,” said Merchant.

According to DeFlockproject that aims to map the number of license plates, there are about 80,000 cameras across the United States. Many cities have refused to use Flock cameras, and some police departments have since banned federal officials to use their resources.

Flock did not respond to a request for comment.