
Florida bans Flock cameras: ‘None of the government’s damn business:’ Gov DeSantis
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Political | America Out Loud News — Florida bans Flock cameras: ‘None of the government’s damn business:’ Gov DeSantis. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
You are listening to The Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio. I'm your host Jimmy Hinden. Well, happy, happy weekend to come up here, folks. And we have a super positive story on the hills of a little bit of a heavier story yesterday on the Lindsey Clancy trial. But today we're going to talk about something that Florida is leading the way in the nation on re-securing the freedom of Americans. That's right. You heard it here first, hopefully. That is that Ron DeSantis, Governor DeSantis, just signed into legislation, the removal of all flock cameras. I recently did a story on the chaos that's happening across the country, where police departments are pulling guns on innocent drivers because of mistakes with the artificial
intelligence flock cameras. Now these cameras have a whole lot of issues. It's not just their misreading plates and numbers and marking vehicles is stolen when they're not. The list goes on and on and on. But it's only a matter of time until somebody gets killed because we already know it's been well documented. There are a lot of cases where police officers are drawing their weapons. They're drawing their guns on people. Now, I'm not blaming the police departments, at least not completely. Yeah, they're doing what I guess is according to their policy. If you have a stolen vehicle, it's kind of like box them in, pull them out at gunpoint and then ask questions later kind of thing. Which I think might be a policy that needs looked at might need to revamp some of these
policies because there are a lot of innocent people now getting pulled over for stolen vehicles and they didn't steal the vehicles. It's actually their vehicle. Where's the case where a guy, this was a very recent case. This guy had bought his dream vehicle. He's in the military and he bought his dream truck. And the dealership had a mistake. There was a mistake somewhere in the paperwork. They got flagged at the dealership and instead of talking to the salesman who actually sold that vehicle. There was, I think it was like a general manager or something. He calls the police and reports that truck is stolen off of the line. Well the police tracked the vehicle down, pulled the guy over, impounded the vehicle and they wouldn't let him get inside.
He was, I forget what his position was in the military but he had like super high level clearances and he had a device in the vehicle with highly sensitive confidential material and they wouldn't allow him to retrieve it. And it was just a completely botched case. I hope that he sews the police department over that. You know, this is the kind of stuff. I can't, in my wildest dreams, imagine why police departments want to take on this kind of liability. And that's what it just, it blows my mind because I think we've become so accustomed to everything being convenient, right, we're addicted to convenience. And I think that's part of the problem. We've gotten lazy in a lot of respects. So people have eliminated the process. People are addicted to their phones, they're addicted to artificial intelligence.
Intelligent intelligence now is built into literally everything. You can't get away from it. You can go into your email, whatever email app that you use and you'll see the little logo in the corner. It's like, do you want AI to write your next email? I mean, it's just everything is driven by convenience. We get completely bent out of whack when anything happens where we have to like actually lift a finger. And I think a lot of police departments which are overwhelmed, I mean, they're understaffed and overwhelmed. I think for them, it probably was pretty enticing. The way that flock, the company advertised the cameras, it was like, hey, this is going to be a game changer for your police department. That artificial intelligence do all the heavy lifting and all you guys have to do is just refer to the footage and you can issue citations, you can recover stolen vehicles, you can find
lost and missing kids on and on and on. So I can imagine what that sales spiel sounded like. I have a pretty good idea. And turns out these things are like colossal failures. They're just, they're not doing what they intended to do. And it's creating mass havoc across the United States. So Ron DeStantis, he said, you know what? Enough is enough. And I want to read some of his statements because this is, this is really good. So here's a, this is a Fox News article. There's another, I think is a local Florida article and I'll read from that too a little bit. But Ron DeStantis says it's none of the government's gang business, none of their business.
Where you're driving when you're driving. And I talked about that in a recent show and I was talking about all these cases of police pulling people over at gunpoint. I said, you know, there was, there was a time when we used to get in the car and it wasn't that long ago. I mean, if you think even five years ago, you know, maybe, maybe we should go back a little bit further because GPS now, a lot of manufacturers have the ability to shut your car off. They can literally decommission your car. For example, if you miss car payments, they can just shut your car off. I mean, I, I think that's kind of crazy. But at any rate, there's a major issue of privacy. And this has been happening the more tech that they build into cars. Our privacy has been getting less and less. So there used to be a day when getting in a car is signified freedom.
It was like the open road and if you had a, a, a top that you could remove, it was the, the open air kind of cruising with the air through your, run through your hair and arm hanging out the window, getting suntanned on one side, not the other. And it just, it, it's signified freedom. And man, I remember driving for hours. Sometimes I just, I'd get lost and thought and I just hit a bunch of back roads. And we used to play a game when I was a teenager, we played a game called lefty righty. And it was the funnest thing. And you would just pick a random road and you would turn left. And then at the next intersection, you would turn right. And then you just alternate left right left right left right left right left right. And you would do that like for miles and miles. And we don't really have any rules. So I mean, if you wanted to do that for two hours straight, you could play lefty righty
for two hours. And the goal was to wind up somewhere that you've never been before. And then to try to get home without reversing it. Like just kind of using common sense and find in other roads like find in a shortcut to get back home. You couldn't just reverse it and do righty lefty. You had to try to find your way home by finding like some major highway or some landmark or something that you recognized. And it was a really cool way and it really taught you to have a sense of direction. You had to pay attention. You had to be very aware. And it was not on this GPS garbage where you have to put directions in to get to the end of your driveway. Because you're like, oh, I don't know how to get to the end of my driveway. Let me put it in the GPS. So you actually had to think and it just, it was a lot of fun. It was, it was so much freedom to be able to just jump in the car and go.
Just explore and have a good time and like young people don't know what that's like. They've not grown up in a generation where cars signify freedom. That's why I have a lot of young people that don't even want to get their license. That's a lot of young people they could care less. I don't care. I don't care. I don't want to get my license. They just rather ride with mom and dad or friends or whatever. I just want to pull up some of these quick stats here because this, this actually really surprised me. So there is a growing number of young people who are delaying or completely opting out of getting a driver's license. So this is data from the US Department of Transportation and it shows a very clear long term decline in licensing. Among 16 year olds, that's like kind of the magic age. A lot of states it's 16.
You can get your driver's license. The share with the license dropped from nearly 50% in 1983 to about 25%. Now I would have figured that number would be a lot higher back in the 80s because I know where I live, everybody got their license. And like the day you turned 16, we would line up at the DMV and like we were ready to roll. 18 year olds licensing rates fell from 80% down to 60% over the same period. So the overall teen group for Americans aged 15 to 19 only about 40% how to license compared to 48% in 2000. So why are they skipping it? Well as a bunch of different reasons but high costs.
The average American pays 10,729 annually in vehicle costs that includes fuel insurance, accessories, driving anxiety, 93% of Gen Z drivers find driving stressful. That blows my mind. That's actually tragic to me. 93% of Gen Z drivers find driving stressful. Man for us it was so relaxing. Like I mean always. Young drivers like man we all just absolutely loved it. Alright, so digital socializing, teens connect with friends online versus in person. Reducing car travel. And then alternative transit many rely on public transit. Walking biking ride share apps like Uber and Lyft instead of driving a car.
Again, not judging people because they probably save a pile of money by doing that. But it's just interesting to me. So we already have a problem. People don't they have a fear of driving. They don't have a trust. That's sort of thing. So run to Santa's enter run to Sanstice. He's like yeah, this whole nanny cam thing. That's not going to work. So here's part of the article. He says or the article here says Florida drivers may soon see fewer high tech eyes monitoring their highway commutes after state officials ordered local police to strip automated license plate readers from state roads dealing a blow to private surveillance vendors like flock safety while driving or drawing a hard boundary against what governor Ron to Sanstice warns is an expanding digital AI surveillance state.
Bingo. He's right. Here's what to Santa said on Monday. He said if you want to get in your car and you want to go down to a buckies in the st. Augustine, it's really none of the government's damn business if you're doing that right. What we don't want in the state of Florida is to have a digital AI surveillance state where everything we're doing is being tracked at all times. There's obvious obviously times when I think it's probably been useful. But where is this data going? Great question governor to Santa's where is the information going? Who's buying it? There's a race right now. I mean a vicious race to get people's data to purchase the data to use it. We are for sale in America. Every single one of us is for sale. I guarantee you that.
I was talking to my wife just last night and I'm not going to tell you what we were talking about because it's none of your darn business to quote governor to Sanstice. But my wife and I were having a conversation like a private conversation in all the sudden mid conversation. My wife looks down at her phone and she said, oh crap. My phone's listening to you because there are ads that are popping up. She never had these ads before. She's like there are ads that are popping up about the very thing that we're talking about right now. Nobody was typing on their phone. We were not looking up information about the subject at hand. We literally were having for the first time we were having this conversation together.
And all of a sudden ads start popping up. Yes our phones are listening. And yes you and I are for sale. Everywhere you go we're for sale. I had to explain to my 11 year old what cookies are because he's been developing. It's pretty cool. He's 11 years old and he's developing his own rocket on a CAD system. It's a CAD program and like super sophisticated and he's building his own rocket. So at any rate he had to, you know it's the pop up that says, will you enable cookies? And he asked what cookies are and I said, well basically it's a little bread crumbs like tracking devices and he goes, oh, like keep in mind this is my 11 year old. He goes, oh, so the companies can track what your interest are and buy your information.
I was like, actually yes. Like absolutely brilliant. He figured that out on his own. Like I've never talked to him about that. So even 11 year olds get that were for sale. So to to Santa says absolutely not like we have no idea there's zero transparency whatsoever with the with the flock cameras. All right we're coming up on a break and be sure to check out the America out loud store. Use the code out loud for 20% off. Visit America out loud.News and help share the out loud truth. We'll be right back. You're hard as the most crucial muscle in your body. Are you doing enough to keep it strong? Introducing the wellness companies break through healthy heart formula designed by Dr. Peter McCalla now upgraded with touring. This daily supplement supports cardiovascular health and works to protect cells against oxidative stress packed with D ribos to boost heart function. Toring to help maintain heart muscular health. Coenzyme Q10 and selenium citrate to help reduce risk of cardiac disease and a vitamin B
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them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. Those are the words of number 40 Ronald Reagan shine bright as America approaches 250 years. America out loud dot news is that place to awaken your heart soul and mind to the out loud truth. Florida is now my new superhero. I love Florida. Well, I wouldn't live there but I like their freedoms. I don't like their heat. There's too hot there too hot in Florida. But their freedoms are great and Florida just did something to lead the way to pave the path to open the door. However you want to put it and Ron to status governor Ron to status signed an act to get rid of all those stupid flock cameras and really all license plate readers on state roads
in the state of Florida. So he warned that there's this expanding digital AI surveillance. Any admits he's like you know I'm sure some of the stuff that these cameras were used for really helped police departments. I'm sure it was really good stuff and they you know helped them fight crime and find people and you know all the things but he's like there's there's just this open door and there's this big question mark. Like how how in the world is your information being used who's who's buying it? Who is flock selling it to? And nobody really knows. I talked about this in the last show that I did on the flock cameras. We have some in my town. Loads put them up but there's absolutely nothing and it says like I did a search on this and it said well if if your local lows has flock cameras it will tell you on the
website that it has flock cameras and how they're being used. That is a complete 100% falsehood that's a lie. That's not true whatsoever. There's zero indication. In fact on the cameras themselves I had to go look with my I was being nosy side drove up to lows and I looked and sure enough there are two cameras that are listed online but there are actually three. Now that's not on the lowest website that's on I forget what the website is but it's a deflock that's it the deflock website. So shows two cameras at lows they're actually three at least three that I saw. There's absolutely nothing whatsoever that draws attention to the cameras that there's no sign that says you're being filmed there like nothing. It doesn't say how your information is being used absolutely nothing.
And I didn't even know these cameras existed until I did a show on this a week ago. I had no idea. I don't know how long those cameras have been there at lows. Has it been a year two years three years I have no idea. I've been to that lows so many times and I had no idea. Until about a week ago that it has flock cameras. So the question is how's our data being used who is lows selling the information to. Do they give it to our local police department. Do they have access to the information. Can they tap into the camera's info? How long does it keep a log of my information when I pull in and out of lows? Nobody knows. So it runs in Sanchez is a thousand percent right here. And here he says there's obviously times when I think it's probably been useful.
But where's this data going? They claim that the companies aren't going to misuse it but no one's watching that. And I know you can make some money selling cameras but you really can make a lot of money if you can sell people's data. Bingo bingo bingo absolutely right that's where the big money is. And there is absolutely no law that I'm aware of. There's no law that bans police departments that bans lows home depot. There's some of the biggest users of flock cameras. There's nothing that bans them from selling your information. That's not okay. So F. Florida DOT, they said that the action was prompted by the rapid expansion of automated license plate readers along with reports of misuse, data privacy concerns and surveillance
schemes. And I mentioned some of those last time. It's things like police officers getting a crush on somebody who they pulled over or somebody they noticed at the coffee shop and they watched them. They stalked them. They watched these women get into their car, jot down their license plate number and then they tap into the flock cameras and they start watching their every move. Some of them even showing up at these women's homes, which is over the top creepy and inappropriate and unethical and immoral and illegal. But this has happened in across America. So DeSantis again says, no moss. Not going to happen. And I'm still thankful for this. I'm so glad. And I look, there's actually a map. The ACLU says that there are about 120,000 flock cameras that are currently in Staud
Nationwide. Now imagine how much that company is making. Stuff at the camera sales alone. And then the data that potentially is being sold absolutely can't imagine. So here we go. Here's DeSantis again. I guarantee you every share from Florida can point to example examples where it's been used appropriately and probably effectively. And I have no doubt that's the case. But you also have to say, okay, how could this be misused? You know, it's interesting. There was a case in Florida and this recently has gone viral. And since this young guy who got pulled over or didn't get pulled over, he got a ticket in the mail. It was a, I think it was a flock camera, but at any rate, it was definitely a license plate reader. He was in the state of Alabama.
Many as or seats, he can prove it. He was in the state of Alabama at the time that his car allegedly went through a red light. And he said, I thought, you know, being naive and silly me, I thought that I could just contact a court and dispute that case. Should have been pretty cut and dry. He said, but the burden of proof is on the person who got the ticket, not on the city, not on the police department. The burden of proof is on the person who has issued the ticket to prove their own innocence. And he said, okay, so there's step number one. He said, but then come to find out that the court doesn't want to hear it. And the police department won't take any calls because they're not the ones who produce the camera. So you have to talk to the company that produced the camera. So he mentioned the guy's name and I think he's from like Switzerland or something.
And he's like, so Carlos, who's living in Switzerland has my information. And I'm supposed to somehow get ahold of him and contact him and say, hey, can you release my own information? I want to see the picture that this supposedly took of my vehicle. And then he named all the hoops that he had to go through. So it was like this big long convoluted process. And he's like, it's literally impossible. It is impossible for me to do all these things and to get my information and to prove my innocence. And so I'm stuck with the ticket when I wasn't even in the state. And I have to prove beyond the reason of doubt or whatever. I have to prove that I wasn't in my vehicle and I can't do it. Like you guys have a system rigged so that I can't do it. And not to mention some guy Carlos in Switzerland has my information.
So it was really really telling, really, really telling, but this is happening all across the country. So here's what DeSantis goes on to say said we know there was an officer in Florida who was using the LPR data to track like an ex-girlfriend or something like that. I don't think we have really strong penalties for all that type of misuse. So I've called for legislation that will protect Floridians from allowing the state to turn it into some type of digital prison, digital surveillance state, where everybody knows everything about what you're doing every day of the week. Totally right, Governor DeSantis, good on you. He has so spot on with everything that he's saying here. It is a digital prison. I attended a speaking engagement that somebody else did.
I was actually a keynote speaker for Governor Kelly in Kansas for a, it was a workshop on child sexual abuse prevention. And there were a lot of really good speakers there, but there was one in particular who it just, it both intrigued me and broke my heart, but she was a stalking victim. I guess I never really put that much thought into it because it's never been personal to me. I don't know anybody who's personally, who's ever been stalked. And I always just thought it was like people who, they get infatuated with you and they might write you letters or show up every now and then to your house. Oh no. No, it is some dark, dark stuff. And it got to the point where she couldn't function literally like he wouldn't allow her
to function. And this guy legitimately thought that they were like lovers and they were, they were going to phone love and get married and like really bizarre stuff, but he would, he would find everything about her. And she's like, I have no idea how he got this information. He would show up at her work, I mean virtually every single day. He would write her love letters and send them to her home address. She's like, I don't know how he got that information. He would call and text her obsessently. She's like, I never gave my cell phone out to him. She blocked him, ended up getting another phone number. He found that number and started calling and texting her like literally everything she did, he was 10 steps ahead. And she was living out west.
She ended up getting to the point where she was so unhealthy, just mentally, physically and every other sense of the word. She moved clear across the country to the east coast to a tiny little town in a tiny little state in New England, in the middle of nowhere. And she enjoyed some peace and quiet until he showed up in person. He found her. It was like a needle in a haystack. She completely removed herself online. Like, I mean, made herself digitally invisible or so she thought. And the stalker found her clear across the country and followed her. I mean, it's so hard to wrap your mind around the depravity, first of all, but like the
violation of all of your privacy. That people can track you, that people have access to that information. That's terrifying. I mean, she had no social media. She, and it's not because that was her choice. And that's the thing, like she's the one who suffered because of the stalker. So Ron DeSantis is 100% right. It's not okay to allow the state to turn it into some type of digital prison, digital surveillance state, where somebody knows everything about what you're doing every day of the week. Exactly right. I want to hug Governor DeSantis. I want to hug him for recognizing this and for calling it out and for staying at and for doing something about it. There is nobody who deserves this kind of surveillance. And again, there's zero transparency.
Flock doesn't tell you how they're using your information. The police departments 100% are not telling you where they're storing your information, how they're logging it, how often it's logged, how long do they hold onto the logs. All you know is that your information is being tracked and there's literally nowhere you can go. It's like the video of the guy, the super trooper in Colorado. You know, this guy was all big and bad. And he's harassing this poor woman who's completely innocent, accusing her of shoplifting or not shoplifting, but lifting something off a neighbor's porch. And he said, you can't breathe without me knowing it in this town. That he should have been fired immediately. That's the creepiest thing I think I've ever heard.
And he was referring to the flock camera. He's like, it literally tracks to the second. He said, when you come into my city and you leave my city, I guarantee you that you're going to see you that I know it. That I hope she soothes him personally and the police department. She got accused of theft. She had to try to fight to restore her reputation in town. You know, because that gets published in the newspaper. It's on the local news. I mean, think about the implications of all this, not to mention all the people who are pulled over at gunpoint. And in this case, the cops showed up at her house and was harassing her. Like this is the kind of stuff that happens, but there are over 50 cities and counties that have cut ties with flock safety just in 2026 alone.
I'm looking at the map here. Of course Pennsylvania is not one of them, because why would they even New York? And Michigan was constant in Minnesota for crying out loud, not Pennsylvania. California has counties that have counties and cities that have cut ties with flock safety. So it gives me hope. And I think people need to be really vocal about this. People really, really need to stand up against this because it's not okay. It's not being used for good purposes. There are too many mistakes. It's been proven time and time again that these things misread license plates constantly. And it puts innocent people in very vulnerable positions, incredibly vulnerable positions. And as Ron disantis says, we don't want to put people in that position. It's not the government's business where and when we go places.
Now if we've committed a crime, different story, but that's not how these cameras are being used. So at any rate, we'll talk more about this after the break, but man, this is encouraging. All of our shows do go to podcasts the next day after the broadcast is heard on talk radio. You can hear them on your favorite podcast app. Check out the America Out Loud podcast app because it is super cool. Visit the store at americaoutloud.news. Use the code out loud for 20% off and sit tight. We'll be right back. You wouldn't go a day without brushing your teeth or washing your hands. What about washing your nose? I mean your nose does filter the air you breathe. Air loaded with bacteria, viruses and irritants. Make nasal hygiene part of your routine with clear. No messy bottles to fill. No drowning sensation. Clear is a natural drug-free saline with the added benefit of xylitol, which blocks bacterial and viral adhesion. Or you tired of struggling with low energy?
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offer. Grow food not fear. Florida bands, flock cameras. Bark cameras have been a source of contention here in the United States because it turns out that Americans wait like our freedom. We don't want to be watched every second. Folks, this is one of the problems. I think that at least one of the conversations that we need to have with artificial intelligence. I think it's definitely a valid question. How is artificial intelligence going to be used out in the public spaces? The argument is, well, if you're in public, the law says that you can film and be filmed and all that sort of stuff. Okay, great. I get it. People want to pull out their camera and take a picture of you or whatever. You don't really have a right to privacy if you're out in the public.
Can that be abused? And is that abused? 100% absolutely. Think about the creeps that have been caught over the years, taking their cameras out, taking pictures of little kids and trying to do the upskirt shots of women going up and girls for that matter, going up stairs. There are a lot of perverted people out there that they want to claim that, well, we have the freedom to film and it's nobody's business. Well, it really actually is. We need to be really vigilant. That's the problem. Everybody has a camera now. Everybody. Everybody walks around with a super high quality camera in their pocket. Everybody. And there's very little privacy to begin with. And it's only been getting worse over recent years. Now we have artificial intelligence in the nanny state where the police departments all
over the United States are adopting flock cameras and being grossly misused. There's evidence of that. Now, I'm not saying that most police departments abuse that information, but a lot of them do enough that it's definitely significant that we need to be paying attention. We need to be asking the right questions. Right? This isn't okay. It's not okay to store people's information. It's not okay to shop at people's houses and say, well, you can't even breathe without me knowing it. It's not okay for police to pull guns on innocent people in front of their little kids because the vehicle might be stolen according to the flock cameras. It's not okay for our information to be sold. So Ron DeSantis, 100% hit the nail on the head, 100%. Ron DeSantis was like, no, we're not doing this in Florida.
So he ordered every police department to take down the flock cameras and license capturing devices on all state roads in Florida. Now I don't know why it's just state roads. None of the articles that I see actually flesh out and explain why. But here's another article on this. This is a WBAL TV. I'll link to it in the show notes. It says Florida bans flock and other license plate readers on state roads. Florida has banned the use of all license plate readers, including flock cameras. Since state maintained roads, the Florida Department of Transportation said in a memo, the department has revoked general use permits for automated license plate readers. The devices must be removed within 30 days, F.Sed.
The department will remove all remaining devices subject to the memo. The shame in this is that the taxpayers have paid for this already. They paid for the cameras and now they're paying for the cameras to come down. But I guess it's a small price to pay for freedom. So I think Ron DeSantis was 100% right. Governor DeSantis was right to do this. It needed to be done. So the article goes on. It says the use of the license plate readers, particularly flock cameras, has been a topic of controversy across the United States, stemming from concerns regarding privacy, technology, and data sharing. Flock cameras are mounted along roads and take images of license plates and other vehicle characteristics for a database that is sold as a tool to help solve crimes. Okay.
All good, I guess. If people, if private businesses want to put up surveillance cameras and they want to they want to fight crime, they want to catch the bad guys. Great. But do it on your own cameras. Do it on your own camera system. Don't take AI cameras that capture people's license plate and personal data and all the sudden that goes to some company that we have no clue where that information is being logged, where it's being sold. Don't do it. I agree wholeheartedly. I agree with what Florida did, but it's not just Florida. Here's another article. This is Newsweek. Map shows 149 cities pushing back against flock cameras. This was published August 28th. A growing number of communities across the United States are turning away from flock,
safety, automated license plate reader cameras with temple, Arizona becoming the latest city to permanently shut down its system. Again, Bravo, Bravo. A Newsweek map shows the cities, counties and other local government entities that have canceled flock contracts, rejecting proposed deployments or deactivated existing cameras, reflecting a widening debate over privacy, police oversight and the collection of vehicle location data. I mean, this is great news. This is really, really great news. Get rid of these dumb things. Now I'm all for artificial intelligence as a help for police departments, but not like this. Not when there's this big of a gross misuse of data, personal data that's being sold,
your license plate gives them a lot of information. I mean, a lot of information. So temple, temple, Arizona announced on Wednesday of, I believe that was what week was that last week? Yeah, Wednesday of last week. It announced that it had permanently deactivated its flock, automated license plate reader system and would not seek a replacement provider. The city said the cameras had helped solve crimes and support investigations, but acknowledged growing concerns surrounding automated license plate reader technology and Arizona and nationwide. Officials said they found no evidence that temple's own system had been misused. The city added that previously collected data will generally be deleted after 30 days, unless it is tied to an active case or investigation.
What does that mean? It's generally going to be deleted. I mean, if we're reading between the lines here, my translation is some of that data is out there and we don't really have control over what happened to it. That's how I read it. That information's already been sold. It's out there. We no longer have control over that, but the, the, now I, I'm speculating here. So I just want to make that clear. But the data that we have control of, that's going to be deleted. Interesting. Temple's decision follows similar moves elsewhere in Stowe, Massachusetts. Police canceled their contract and removed flock cameras after a department officer was accused of improperly accessing flock data. While police chief Michael Salleys said the technology had helped solve crimes and
locate missing persons, he added the department needed to evaluate the safeguards, policies and oversight required for any future use. So cameras be gone. You know, and it is a shame. It's a shame because technology really can help solve crimes. I can tell you firsthand, it is incredibly difficult to find missing persons. Incredibly difficult. Very, very difficult. So this kind of technology really helps. This kind of technology is important actually. So it's a darn shame that it's been misused. There's been zero transparency and we have no idea where the data is going, who it's been sold to.
And I think if people were just transparent, the public would be a little bit less likely to turn against it. And if they actually handled some of the mistakes that were made with common sense, like misreading license plates and flagging cars as stolen, that were never stolen, if police would exercise just a little bit of common sense instead of locking people up in jail for a month at a time. And some of the things that have been going on, I mean, this legitimately happened. If police would exercise just a touch of common sense, I think the public wouldn't be so outraged. I think the public would actually welcome something that helps fight crime, but this isn't it. This is not the way. So in the Newsweek article, it says, why are cities canceling their flock camera contracts?
Well, there's a lot of reasons. The areas include areas like major population centers like Los Angeles, Lansing, Michigan to smaller towns and counties and states, including Texas, Arizona, Wisconsin, Washington, Massachusetts, Colorado. They're doing it because there's public outreach. So they're rejecting contracts, deactivating cameras, canceling contracts and banning ALPRs altogether, the license plate readers. So really, really fascinating. I'm grateful that people are stepping up that these police departments are, and maybe it's that they don't have a choice. Because I don't think many of these people are voluntarily doing it.
I don't think the police departments are like, well, we humble ourselves and we're just going to voluntarily remove these. I think the reason they're doing it is because there's such a public outcry. People don't like these cameras. Newsweek article goes on. The backlash has intensified this year following a series of controversies, including flocks nationwide network. The local pushback against flocks is unfolding amid a broader national debate over automated license plate, automated license plate readers. Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky has introduced legislation that would deny certain federal funding to agencies using flock cameras. While lawmakers in several states have proposed limits on data retention and sharing, several celebrity groups, including the Institute for Justice and ACLU, argue recent misuse cases
expose wider concerns about police access to vehicle location databases, while flock CEO Garrett Langley has acknowledged calls for greater accountability and pointed to new auditing tools and safeguards introduced by the company. Well, I'm sorry, but the company has already broke the trust with the American people. You can't go back and be like, well, we're going to review some of our policies and we'll clean this up a little bit. We'll make it look a little bit better. You can't do that. You have to, you have to at some point say, we really screwed up and we're going to ensure that none of this will ever happen. And if any of the data has been breached, if anybody's data has been sold, we're going
to pay those people back. They're not going to do it. I mean, the only way to do that is through litigation and how do you prove it? I mean, do you understand the mountain that you have to climb? Like Mount Everest has to be climbed in order to prove any wrongdoing. And so people are taking it to the local level and they're suing local police departments. Well, the local police departments don't have millions of dollars in all of these lawsuits that should have been avoided in the first place. So that's why a lot of local municipalities are saying, you know, it's just not worth the liability. And believe me, it's not worth the liability. I just, I cannot imagine being a police department thinking this is a good idea right now. So it'll be really interesting to see where this goes, but Florida has certainly opened
the door. They kicked it wide open and they showed that this can be done. It's not that complicated. We're on the stand-test and dragged us out. He didn't turn it into a 12 month debate. He just simply wrote a legislation and they're like, they're gone. We're removing every single license plate capturing device. Bravo, Bravo to Florida. So of course, Flock is defending the technology. It's a valuable tool for public safety. Of course, they're going to say that. It announced a new series of safeguards intended to address privacy concerns. Again, too little too late. You've lost the public on this one. This should have been done before these cameras were ever sent into the market. You should have ensured that people's privacy and data is safe.
But see, we live in a world where that's not sacred anymore. Everybody wants your data. Whether it's selling it or buying it. Everybody wants a piece of that pie. So we've got to be really careful. Americans listen. We've got to be really, really careful. Be careful where you shop. How you shop? Just generally have an awareness that you are for sale. And if we realize that, maybe we'll start, man, it'd be cool to see shopping rolls make come back. Who knows? Maybe I'm just daydreaming here. But be aware. And if you're aware of flock cameras in your town, make a little bit of noise at least ask questions. How's your data being used? Is it being sold? Press the police departments and demand answers.
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