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The wind is so unpredictable
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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2026
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privacy
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Most of these cameras are traffic cameras. Personally I’m finding it a little gross that people against traffic cameras are putting on an anti-surveillance state image to take them down when in reality curbing aggressive driving is a pretty important part of pedestrianizing and democratizing urban centres. I’ve always had the vague feeling that this Flock camera debate has been hijacked by people who don’t actually care for improving communities.
The correct way to fix aggressive driving is traffic calming. In other words, making physical changes to the infrastructure, like removing lanes, lane-narrowing, adding speed humps or chicanes, etc.
As (a) a traffic engineer, (b) a bicycle and pedestrian activist, and (c) a mod of !fuckcars@lemmy.world, I find it downright insulting to be accused of "[not] actually car[ing] for improving communities" just because I also care about not creating a motherfucking totalitarian panoption!
I drive a car and really appreciate your work. I hope to someday help get public transportation in my part of Texas to a point that I can say "fuck cars" and not feel embarrassed by my own existence.
Looks like we got Flock astroturfing on Lemmy, not the first time I've seen this kinda shit
Found the fed.
A network of "traffic cameras" might include other sensors than a camera.
The 24/7 monitoring of an intersection outside of an abortion clinic might be used to find women that had an abortion.
Police and others with access do abuse these systems for personal use with minimal oversight.
Again, I’m not debating the problems with surveillance for non traffic related issues. However these examples in your video are very clearly traffic cameras. It does not help the issue to carry water for aggressive car driver culture in the guise of being anti-surveillance.
These Flock cameras are ALPRs, but downplaying them as traffic cameras is disingenuous at best.
These cameras collect a myriad of descriptors aside from just plate numbers including bumperstickers, visible marks, vehicle add-ons, etc.
They allow sharing of data by not just government owned but also civilian owned cameras to create a much wider net than any standard traffic cam system. Police in Texas used a grid of 83,000 cameras to track a woman who got an abortion.
This is just the early stages of data harvest and tracking, as there's plans to integrate SignalTrace into the mix, allowing tracking BT, wifi, and RFID signals. . Pairing these together allows even more invasive monitoring.
Ignoring how Flock already helps ICE track people, there's also the abuse already happening as multiple reports have been filed related to officers stalking romantic interests
ALPRs arent their only product, just the first. They also sell pan/tilt cams for tracking people, high-sensitivity mics for "gunshot detection", and drones
You may be misinformed; The flock cameras in this video are not just traffic cameras but in fact are tracking everyone's location all the time in a national database in a way that violates the 4th amendment.
And the 1st, 14th, and 9th.
Have a council meeting to ~~blow up~~ explodiate in a few weeks. They put one of these things at the local playground of all places...
Uh, may want to reword that a bit...
Traffic cameras don't help stop dangerous drivers, the stats don't show that at all. Red light cameras decrease running red lights but increase rear end collasions by the same percentage and don't do anything to help pedestrian safety. It's been proven time and time again none of this is to help the public,it's to make massive profits.
They are very clearly flock cameras, which also are traffic cameras.
Every one in the video is a flock camera.
Not a single camera there is a speed or stoplight camera.
Every single one in that video is a network camera on a searchable system that us regularly searched without a warrant.
Which one is a traffic camera?
Honestly everything around here is about cherished narratives.
But you do create an interesting tension between two cherished narratives:
I think number 2 is just winning out.