'Flock Flocked up'
How a license plate camera misread unraveled one man's life.
Horrifying story of Flock misreading plates.
The driver was then mauled by a police dog while officers comment he is acting like a petulant child.
The license plates weren't stolen, and he was the registered owner
Tech companies and data brokers collect, analyze, store, and sell our most personal data to anyone, including the government.
We need a modern privacy law in MA to protect us all from harm!
TAKE ACTION: actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...
The whole "thing" about Anthropic not being willing to do "mass surveillance on Americans" is frankly a bid of a head-fake
restorethe4th.com/why-bother-q...
Friends, I am LIVE AND IN THE CHAMBERS for tonight's meeting of the Somerville City Council.
Also here are a few dozen people, carrying signs and singing.
As Vice President @wilfredmbah.bsky.social gavels the meeting into order, they file out.
Lotta police too.
1/?
@digital4th.bsky.social is our Hide & Speak Hero of the Week for their tireless efforts to get Flock Safety cameras removed from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
#DigitalFourth #CambridgeMA #FlockSafety #Surveillance
👇 Continued below 👇
Victory in Cambridge! With the help of @aclum.bsky.social, @masspirates.bsky.social , @cambridgedsa.bsky.social, @aaup.org and all the members of the public who testified against it, we have ended the use of Flock Safety cameras in Cambridge, MA!
www.cambridgeday.com/2025/12/10/c...
Thanks to @purplebandanna.bsky.social , @digital4th.bsky.social and others for coming out today. Looking forward to coming back to @boston-a-bookfair.bsky.social tomorrow. See you at noon!
Happy birthday Shava!
Podcast: ICE's 'Backdoor' Into a Nationwide AI Surveillance Network
🔗 www.404media.co/podcast-ices...
New: DHS tells police to brace for the anti-ICE movement to grow much bigger in threat bulletins last month that lists ordinary behavior, like riding a skateboard or livestreaming, as threatening to law enforcement.
By me w/ records by @propertyofthepeople.org:
Police who keep their identities secret are, quite literally, secret police. I don’t know why this is even controversial. You don’t get to yank people off the streets while hiding your face and identity and still retain the respectability of an accountable, democratic police force.
Tom the Dancing Bug says what has to be said.
substackcdn.com/image/fetch/...
Don't get excited, Flock is training law enforcement agencies on what to write in the search reason field. Functionally just telling them to stop using terms like "abortion," "ICE", & "immigration"
Surveillance can't provide safety because it isn't designed to. Surveillance is control, not safety
Deadline to submit comment to Seattle IT against SPD's proposed expansions of CCTV cameras & FUSUS is tomorrow 6/23. stopsurveillancecity.wordpress.com/take-action/
Nashville stopped pursuing FUSUS in April due to Trump & ICE's ability to access it nashvillebanner.com/2025/04/28/m...
So according to ICE, there was a pack of armed masked men *pretending* to be them at Dodger Stadium?
Uh ....
A screenshot of a Wired article by Dell Cameron and Dhruv Mehrotra, published May 14, 2025, with the headline: "CFPB Quietly Kills Rule to Shield Americans From Data Brokers."
A screenshot of a Wired article by Lily Hay Newman, published June 16, 2025, with the headline: "Minnesota Shooting Suspect Allegedly Used Data Broker Sites to Find Targets' Addresses."
One month apart.
In a time when Texas cops can run nationwide searches for women seeking reproductive care, automated traffic cameras aren't all they're cracked up to be:
warrantless.org/2025/06/the-...
Should Mass cities and towns have the power to ban masks?
warrantless.org/2025/06/dont...
Massachusetts can #ChoosePrivacy if it wants to.
And right now, it really should.
warrantless.org/2025/06/it-d...
“A deranged maniac impersonated a police officer and killed lawmakers but if you’re an immigrant be sure you immediately comply with plain clothes people who won’t identify themselves telling you to get in a van”, what a fuckin country
Last night, Cambridge City Council discussed what they could do about ICE raids, and agreed to have staff formulate appropriate language. Our notes on the discussion are here:
drive.proton.me/urls/BSRWDAD...
City Councils (and Towns) can do more than they think:
warrantless.org/2025/06/our-...
throwback to that time @dmehro.bsky.social found the location data of people who visited Epstein's island for no reason whatsoever www.wired.com/story/jeffre...
Today, we launch a new initiative, to help local elected officials in Massachusetts who are worried about the issue of masked or plain-clothes "ICE agents" conducting raids in our communities.
warrantless.org/2025/06/our-...
DM us if you're interested in ordinance text for your town or city!
Troopers in Central Florida appear to have been given direction not to wear their name tags during ICE operations.
Leaks and official disclosures have repeatedly shown that "gang databases" like this are only good at spending money and putting people in prison - not at keeping people safe or ""predicting"" anything
It's not a matter of the database's (bad) intel or Palantir's software - it's conceptually flawed
If attempted, this would constitute flagrant violations of the Privacy Act of 1974 www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/t...
New from 404 Media: a cop in Texas performed a nationwide search of license plate reading cameras for a woman who got an abortion, according to multiple sets of data we've reviewed. Included cameras where abortion is legal, like Washington and Illinois www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-...
We believe it would be lawful for any city or town, to pass an ordinance requiring their police department, in the event of purported ICE agents conducting a raid, to require those agents to identify themselves to police, and to treat the raid as being unlawful if they refuse.
Watch this space.
To read more about ShotSpotter's deployment in Cambridge, go here:
warrantless.org/wp-content/u...
