If you have the energy you can do all 3 in parallel.
Here's my attempt at 2: https://rmnoflock.com/2026/07/29/rolling-meadows-flock-camer...
Does anyone have advice or experience with 2?
(To be clear: I think the current generation of ALPRs is a policy failure and that major changes need to happen inside state law enforcement systems before they can be deployed successfully. But I also think people on HN have a real problem in convincing themselves about the obvious righteousness of their anti-surveillance arguments.)
[†] I heard arguments like these because I was deeply involved in getting the cameras disabled in the inner-ring Chicago suburb in which I live, getting the first ACLU CCOPS ordinance in Illinois passed there, and helping draft what are probably the most detailed ALPR police General Orders in any municipality, or at least were at the time. Which is a long and pretentious way of saying I spent a lot of time talking to people who are not Very Online.
Gotta make a statement with the low level grunts so the citizenry think these systems have accountability.
The real teeth behind these disciplinary events, at least in suburban/metro areas, are that departments don't want to lose the cameras, and know that they will if abuses aren't answered.
I wonder if it does a disservice to readers to not make that same comparison against more similar countries instead (UK, Germany, Australia to name a few examples)?
this is easily solved with current technology, if they had an incentive to do so.
besides firing folks that get caught, flock themselves should be brought to court.
There's surely plenty of entities that need better controls around usage of technology / records / etc, but this is an example of somebody having an incentive and then following through.
If government entities get good PR for rolling out strong policies, practices, and tooling for the data they have, and that makes more of them very keen to do so... mission accomplished?
you should need a warrant to monitor the products of mass surveillance and it should be as narrowly targeted towards a suspect as possible. or just not have any of the mass CCTV placements everywhere in the first place
I'm in favor of pushing for police departments (and really any governmental body with access to any kind of data) to have regulations around access to that data, access controls to restrict illegitimate access, and monitoring to detect improper access by people who do have legitimate access but don't follow the proper regulations.
I think you're correct that we don't tend to see the instances where improper usage occurs, tautologically because those entities aren't doing their homework on the above.
The department in this article appears to be doing just that:
> Every search run through the Flock Safety platform is automatically logged — who ran it, when, and the reason they gave for doing it. SPD said they also have other safeguards in place, including mandatory training, role-based access controls and supervisory oversight.
Very much not okay with this surveillance state bullshit.
1. Protest via yard signs and awareness (what you're doing)
2. Impermanent vandalism. I like the idea of hanging copies of the fourth amendment over the lenses
3. Permanent vandalism. I think we need bounties on camera destruction and public legal funds to assist in defense, bail, etc.
The police as a class/caste are not interested in the fundamental principles that America was founded on. Individual officers may be interested in civil freedom and privacy but as an entity they only ever march in the direction of total surveillance and domination of the citizenry.
And, which country routinely sets a bunch of shit on fire when they need to?
That's right.
Good work!