4 Flock Security cameras in a single Lengthy Island city have been vandalized in July as backlash in opposition to the software program grows nationwide — with one wild case together with claims a cop down south illegally used it to trace her lover.
The AI-powered cameras, positioned within the Lengthy Island East Finish city of Southold, have been focused amid a wave of anti-Flock backlash that includes comparable sorts of vandalism that’s sweeping the nation, Southold Police Chief Steve Grattan confirmed to The Submit.
“We had two cameras vandalized on July 4 weekend — each had paint splattered on them and one had the wires unplugged,” Grattan stated.
“This previous Monday night, one of many cameras was run over by a car and one other had the wires unplugged,” he added.
One other Flock digicam, positioned on Major Street in Peconic, was additionally flipped round so it not pointed towards the road, however police couldn’t say if it was an intentional act or a results of latest storms.
The controversial tech can monitor a automotive’s each transfer based mostly on its dents, bumper stickers and roof racks — elevating Fourth Modification and privateness issues, notably after headline-grabbing cases of authorities abusing the software program.
Lately, 18 cops in Georgia — together with a police supervisor who used the digicam system to trace her boyfriend — have been arrested for misusing Flock Security digicam knowledge, in response to reviews.
Vandals have been hitting Flock Security methods throughout the backlash with a number of cases in California, Connecticut and upstate New York within the final month alone, in response to officers and sources.
Flock, which has quietly develop into regulation enforcement’s go-to surveillance device across the nation, has already wired itself into greater than 5,000 police businesses nationwide with practically 90,000 cameras since 2018, in response to DeFlock, an activist group monitoring the corporate’s surveillance and enlargement.
Southold now has 11 Flock Security cameras all through the city. The tech, criticized as “Massive Brother”-style mass surveillance methods for the native authorities, have been put in all through Greenport, East Marion, Mattituck and Peconic, with the primary 4 Flock cameras deployed in late 2022 whereas seven extra have been added final yr.
Politicians on either side of the aisle have launched laws in an try to cap Flock’s attain and strengthen constitutional unreasonable “search and seizure” protections.
State lawmakers are contemplating a invoice that might limit how authorities businesses can use and share the license plate knowledge acquired by the cameras.
It might additionally require the information be deleted inside 48 hours of being captured, and mandate annual reviews detailing digicam places, searches, matches and any outdoors entry granted.
On the federal stage, a slew of payments have been launched to control the tech, together with new laws by Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, that might strip federal funding from any native governments or police departments that deploy the controversial safety cameras.
